by John Bryden
(e) Both halves of the right-hand page of the card have been known to be written in the same hand, whereas in a genuine card they are in different hands.
(2) Ration books are usually forged and there is a preference for Travellers’ Ration Books.
(3) In one case a passport was not only falsely filled in, but lacked a visa for this country and the Immigration Officer’s stamp.
(4) The numbers of English bank notes frequently run consecutively and consecutive numbers have been found in the possession of different agents.12
These are all primitive mistakes that would not have been made by an organization like the Abwehr’s documents division, which maintained a library of identity papers from every country in Europe, and which had the capacity to imitate every ink, every type of paper, and every stamp and seal.13 Moreover, Ritter had lived in the United States for years, and his deputy, Karl Kramer, in Britain. They would have been aware of the differences between English and European writing styles, and never would have allowed a Continental flourish on the numeral 1 of a supposedly British document. They also would have appreciated that if one wanted to get the average policeman in rural Britain to spot a forged document, the errors had to be obvious.14
Caroli and Schmidt began sending their messages in mid-September and mid-October 1940 respectively. By then it was obvious to all that the anticipated cross-Channel invasion was not going to happen, at least not that year. The need for them to report on troop movements and ground defences evaporated, although this was never their intended espionage mission anyway. Despite claiming to their British captors that they were the vanguard of invasion, both had been trained, not by the air or army sections of Ast Hamburg, but by Abw I Wi, the section that specialized in economic intelligence.15
One can see the reasoning. Canaris did not want Hitler to defeat Britain,16 so he needed to be able to gauge the state of British civilian morale in the face of the bombings and the ongoing submarine blockade in the North Atlantic. To measure that, the Abwehr required current data on consumer prices, on food and fuel shortages, and on public reaction to the lives lost to the bombings and sinkings. This was how to determine Britain’s continued willingness to fight. SNOW, at Hamburg’s request, began sending such information in mid-August; this, and the weather observations, became the principal themes of TATE’s messages from mid-1941 on,17 all approved and composed by MI5.
Naturally, Ast Hamburg’s agent controllers asked repeatedly for military information, for it fed the illusion that they believed that Owens, Caroli, and Schmidt were at liberty. They also knew that anything provided by these agents would be concocted by the British. What they might not have expected, however, was that they, along with the routine reports on prices and morale, would often be given tactical information that was accurate and valuable. Robertson, backed by Liddell, had got it into his head that his double agents had to send as much high-quality intelligence as possible in order to retain German confidence. The better the information, the reasoning went, the more certain the Germans would be fooled.
First, there were the bomb-damage reports. The long lists of factories destroyed and communications damaged that were wirelessed to Hamburg must have been tremendously encouraging to Göring. The devastation caused by the big raids on London, Liverpool, Coventry, Birmingham, and Manchester were covered in detail.
Second, SNOW and TATE volunteered target identification that seems to have cut very close. The following two messages were received by Abw I Luft/E in Berlin.
LENA 3725 reports on 17.11.40 at 00.44 hours Number 14
[Translations]
The Nash and Thompson factory of Tolworth (Surrey) is situated near the Kingston Bypass inside where Hook Road, Ewell Road and the bypass intersect. The factory is closely guarded and camouflaged. No chance of finding out what is made there because people refuse to talk about it.
3504 reports on 23.11.40
The Nash and Thompson factory is 100 yards south of the Kingston Bypass exactly between where Hook Road and Ewell Road cross the Bypass. Gun turrets are made there.18
The SNOW message was right. Again, though, Owens was not the author of this message; MI5 was. The company was the principal manufacturer of the multiple-gun, hydraulically operated turrets for British bombers, and for making revolving platforms for radar.
The Luftwaffe followed up with aerial photographs and air attacks, mostly missing the factory but doing a lot of damage to the surrounding town of Surbiton.
It is true that Nash and Thompson was well-known as a manufacturer of aircraft components before the war, and could have been assumed to be a listed target anyway. Perhaps the factory had shifted its production elsewhere. Nevertheless, if MI5 — Robertson, presumably with permission from higher authority — did indeed authorize the transmission of this information, it is hard to understand why they would want to draw the bombers onto this particular target, especially as it was located in a built-up area.
Another SNOW message, delivered just at this time, is even more difficult to explain:
To: Abw Luft Luft/E
Message from 3504 on 23.11.40
[Translation]
In Egypt no Spitfires; however, some Blenheims. Some machines should be on the way to Egypt. Details difficult to obtain.
This was valuable intelligence. At the time, Hitler was making arrangements to send help to North Africa, where the Italian air force and their obsolete aircraft were being badly shot up by the RAF flying out of Egypt. The German Bf-109 was recognized as outclassing every British fighter except the Spitfire, and planes arrived in Libya in time for the German counterattack that April. About 1,400 British fighters were shot down by Bf-109s before Spitfires were released to the Middle East in mid-1942.19
The documents in the MI5 files that would have described how these messages were prepared, and whether Commodore Boyle cleared them, have not been found. Only the German versions of the messages survive, in the records of Nest Bremen that were captured by the British and shared briefly with the U.S. Navy at the end of the war.20
What is known, however, is that the questionnaire Caroli had on him when he landed sparked a dispute between MI5 and the director of military intelligence. The Germans wanted Caroli to report on certain land defences in the New Romney area (Kent), which was not information that could be obtained without applying to the intelligence section of the commander-in-chief, Home Forces. This triggered the DMI’s attention and his immediate reaction was refusal. He wanted Caroli used to pass over false information, not true.
Again, no contemporary documents that reflect this controversy have been located, so one must rely for details on an unsigned, undated internal MI5 description, obviously written many years later by a participant in the events. Apparently, there was disagreement as to both aim and method: “[T]hese officers were inclined to view the problem from the angle of what they wanted to tell the enemy, rather than from that of what the agent could actually see or learn.…” Or, further: “… what additional things he would clearly have to see if he were to purport to see something they wanted to put over….”21
Arguing that the threat of invasion made England a “theatre of operations,” the DMI tried to talk his fellow directors of intelligence into setting up a special joint committee called the Wireless Section to manage the deceptive information the double agents were to transmit. The unknown author of the MI5 paper commented:
[I]t is not unamusing that the function of the W-Section was defined as the “collecting, handling and disseminating of F.I. (False Information)”: DMI had not yet appreciated that that body would spend far more time “collecting, handling and disseminating” true information in order to build the agents to enable them to put over the false information.
In this regard, MI5 had its champion in Commodore Boyle, the director of Air Intelligence, who “courageously chanced his arm” by approving disclosures pertaining to the other services.22 He put forward the counter-proposal that the service directors of intelligenc
e themselves form an informal committee — the Wireless Board — which would give authority and a modicum of direction to an operations committee of staff intelligence officers who would actually oversee what information to give the enemy. This became the XX Committee, the Roman numerals for 20 being two Xs.
To keep the purpose and discussions of the Wireless Board “super-secret,” it was decided that the directors of intelligence would inform their individual chiefs of staff of what was discussed or decided only verbally, if at all. Minutes would be taken, but only the chairman, General Davidson, would get a copy. There would be no document distribution except under exceptional circumstances.
Air Commodore Boyle was very insistent that it was essential that the W-Board should not get tied up with formal directives, et cetera; it was obvious to him that it would be necessary to pass items of true information to the enemy, either as buildup of the agents or to maintain their plausibility, and if such matters had to be referred to others, such as the chiefs of staff (who could not expect to familiarize themselves with this art), either permission would be refused or there would be such delay as to have dire results; also, the Twenty Committee and the W-Board would have to do some “odd things” of the kind that it is the job of the directors of intelligence to authorize on their own responsibility.
Masterman, in The Double-Cross System, was even more succinct:
D of I (Air) took the line that knowledge of the double-cross system should be confined to MI5, MI6, and the three Directors of Intelligence, and that risks should be taken to maintain what he felt to be potentially a weapon of great value and that the system should not be allowed to become a plaything of higher authorities who would not use it adequately, and who would also, perhaps, boggle at the responsibilities involved.23
It would seem Masterman did not have much faith in Britain’s military leaders.
The rules for the XX Committee were about the same: it would meet, discuss, and decide, but written records were to be retained only by MI5 and MI6. The service members of the committee were not to share anything with their superior officers, and any papers they did receive were to be kept to themselves. The committee could give suggestions on what to send the Germans, but the final decision and content of messages would be left to the experts in MI5/MI6, which meant mainly those of MI5. The double-agent case officers would oversee the composing and sending of messages.24
The aims of the double-cross program would be as before:
to limit the expansion of enemy espionage activity by persuading the enemy that it had successful agents in place;
to derive the enemy’s intentions from his questionnaires;
to use the ciphers given his agents to break into the enemy’s general wireless traffic.25
As a sop to the DMI, it was proposed that the new committee would also try to stage deceptions whereby German raiders would be lured onto sites where a “hot reception” would await them.
Boyle’s proposal was backed up by Liddell, and it prevailed. The Wireless Board came into being without the knowledge of the chiefs of staff and outside any chain of command. It had no authority, no budget, and no presence on paper. It initially comprised the three directors of intelligence, plus Liddell for MI5 and Menzies for MI6. It was to meet only when a member requested a meeting, and was to receive reports from the XX Committee only when the board felt in need of the committee’s advice. It was not supposed to give orders, only guidance. It sought to achieve “super-secrecy” by officially not existing.
Liddell and Commodore Boyle were the principal architects of this Mad Hatter’s committee of senior intelligence officers who answered to no one, but they had crucial support. MI6 chief Stewart Menzies was included in the discussions at every stage. He was then in the process of overhauling his counter-espionage section — Section V — so that it could directly handle MI5’s double agents on their trips abroad. Menzies reported directly to Churchill.
The Wireless Board held its first meeting on January 8, 1941,and it was decided that civilian representation was warranted, with the result being that Sir Findlater Stewart of the Home Defence Executive was secretly approached to join. He was willing to play along, he told the others at the next meeting in February, but he did not see how he could make recommendations or make decisions affecting various government agencies without sometimes having to inform the responsible minister. It was proposed that he share his misgivings with Sir John Anderson, the wartime head of Britain’s public service.
Sir John conferred with Churchill. Word came back as follows:
They both appreciated all the considerations and told Sir Findlater that neither of them could, constitutionally, authorize him to deal with matters which appertained to other Ministries, but obviously there was a job to do and he should get on with it. If there was ever a row about this work Sir Findlater could not claim to have been “authorized” to do what he was about to do, but both Sir John Anderson and the Prime Minister “unofficially approved.…”26
In other words: the message was, “What you propose to do is breaking the law, but do it anyway.”
Sir Findlater Stewart accepted these conditions. The War Office, the Home Office, and the Foreign Office joined the chiefs of staff in the dark.
Caroli, a.k.a. SUMMER, a.k.a. A-3719, did not last long as a double agent. He was used by MI5 as a kind of roving spy, seeing what he could see in the Midlands and making on-the-spot weather observations. Early November found him reporting the weather alternately from Birmingham and from east of Coventry, always in the evenings and always with barometric pressure. His observations complemented those from SNOW (Owens) in London, whose readings were taken in the mornings and, after November 9, also included barometric pressure.
The report Caroli would have made for November 14, the day of the massive Coventry raid, is missing A-3719’s Nest Bremen file, which was among the records the British seized from in 1945. The one from Owens on that date is still in his file, but the bottom three-quarters of it has been snipped off, leaving only the date and the Luftwaffe Weather Service address.27
According to other messages in his file, Caroli was in London on November 16 and 17, but again “near Birmingham” the evening of the 19th, just before the big raid on that city started. Owens reported that morning that the weather was clear, visibility two miles, cloud cover 90 percent at six thousand feet. Caroli sent at 7:30 p.m. that it was now overcast, visibility was poor, but it was likely to clear.
The raid on Birmingham lasted the night, the bombers coming in waves — about four hundred of them. The effect was devastating. Buildings were destroyed, streets cratered, fires burned everywhere. Worst was the direct hit on the British Small Arms Factory. The night shift had taken to the cellars rather than go to the air raid shelter, and the building came down upon them. Fifty-two out of fifty-three of the buried died before they could be reached. Others were killed, but in ones and twos, here and there. The targets were the factories, but the bombs and incendiaries hit homes as well. Birmingham that night was a second Coventry.
Caroli watched, probably in a field somewhere outside the city where he and his guard had stretched out his aerial. It would have been like looking at a fireworks show from afar: patches of light playing on the cloud bottoms, a mumble of thunder, flashes like lightning, and an orange swath growing on the horizon. It rained the next day, but when it stopped the city was attacked again.
It was MI5’s practice at this time to have its double agents actually view what was going to be in their messages, and as Caroli was slated to send in a bomb-damage report, he would have been taken into the city. He would have seen the streets blocked with rubble, the dead being collected, and he certainly would have passed the flattened BSA building where weary rescuers were still digging in the heap of broken concrete and bricks. Caroli subsequently transmitted a very long report that covered the damage, but not the tears. He never sent another weather report.
Caroli was a parson’s son, likely attracted to the N
azis by Hitler’s promises of a fairer world. He was big and he was resolute. One day in early January, out in the countryside somewhere, he clubbed his guard unconscious, rifled his pockets for £5, tied him up, and took off on a stolen motorcycle towing a “canoe” that he had spotted in a nearby barn. He was headed for the coast. There was a hue and cry and he was caught. He was returned to detention at Latchmere House. His brief career as the double agent SUMMER was definitely over.28
Caroli turned out to be lucky. Churchill had decreed that captured spies that were not otherwise useful should be executed. That would have been Caroli’s death warrant, except that his daring and passion for escape — he tried to cut his way through the barbed wire that enclosed Latchmere House — had won him sympathizers among his captors. A legal loophole was found that circumvented the prime minister’s order. Caroli survived the war.29
A man named Josef Jakobs was not so fortunate. A little more than a week after Caroli had signed off for the final time, Jakobs came down by parachute near Ramsey, Huntingdonshire. He broke his ankle while landing, and the forty-one-year-old German had no choice but to fire his pistol in the air to summon help. During interrogation, he admitted his assignment had been to send weather observations. He also claimed that he had been forced into espionage by the Gestapo after being arrested for helping Jews. In his pocket, he had the address of a Jewish woman he intended to make contact with.
As he was “manifestly unemployable,” and because “there was no good reason for him to live,” Colonel Stephens, the bitter chief inquisitor at Latchmere House, had the satisfaction of seeing him shot by firing squad at the Tower of London. He was a brave man, Stephens conceded. “His last words directed the ‘Tommies’ to shoot straight.”30
