by Henry Landau
By 1916 over 2,000 coded messages were coming into ‘40 OB’ daily, and not one failed to be decoded. Relying upon the secrecy of their codes, the Germans were amazingly loquacious. They filled the air with the most secret information concerning their army, navy, and diplomatic service, and all this ‘40 OB’ grasped out of the ether. In addition most of the German messages sent over neutral cables were also intercepted. The result was that the British had as accurate information about German affairs as the Germans themselves. To cite a few instances: the movements of German warships were known in the cases of each of the principal naval engagements; and in the case of the Battle of the Dogger Bank, the British knew twenty-four hours ahead of time which German warships had left port and the times of their departures; track was kept of all German submarines, and a map was kept on the wall in ‘40 OB’ showing the position of each one as revealed by its wireless messages; the admiralty was warned well in advance about each Zeppelin raid; the activities of Sir Roger Casement in Germany were flashed freely back and forth between Berlin and von Bernstorffi in Washington, and the British knew the exact day he embarked by submarine for the west coast of Ireland, and thus were able to lie in wait for him. The German confidence in their codes also cost their intelligence services dear: the names and activities of dozens of their spies were revealed in their messages, and this was the cause of many a sensational arrest.
Not until after the war did the Germans realise that all their coded messages had been an open book to the British and consequently to all the Allies. They continued to use most of their larger codes throughout the war, and even when changes were made, these were transmitted by wireless in the old code; consequently ‘40 OB’ was able to listen in and make note of these changes. Even the precautionary measures they adopted were exploited by ‘40 OB’. For example, whenever a Zeppelin started out on a raid over England, it left the regular naval code behind, and instead took along with it a special code, prefixed ‘HVB’ This was in case it was shot down. Preliminary to a raid, each Zeppelin taking part in it radioed ‘HVB alone on board’; this was sufficient indication to ‘40 OB’ that a raid was about to take place.
But it would be unfair to Sir Reginald Hall if we blamed the Germans entirely for their blind confidence in their codes. Great credit is due him for the tricks he invented to keep the Germans in the dark. Again and again during the war he was puzzled how to make use of his information without betraying the existence of ‘40 OB’. His ingenuity in this was almost as great as the skill of his organisation in intercepting and decoding the messages. Even in communicating information to British staff officers of the army and navy, the source was always carefully camouflaged.
Many ingenious ruses were employed by Sir Reginald to mislead the Germans. From action taken by the British on information contained in the German coded messages, it eventually became obvious to the Germans that there was a serious leak somewhere. At all costs Hall had to dispel any suspicion among the Germans that their codes were compromised, or could be deciphered by an organisation such as ‘40 OB’. Two of his agents, both of French nationality, played an important role in this work of deception. One of them was an attaché at the French embassy in a neutral country, the other was a member of the French secret service. Both of them posed as traitors and succeeded in winning the confidence of the Germans. Apart from giving the Germans information which the Allies could afford to let them know, they would occasionally startle the Germans by giving them information about the most secret German plans gleaned by Hall either through ‘40 OB’ or from one of his spies in Germany. On one occasion the bogus traitors informed the Germans that Sir Roger Casement had embarked on a German submarine and was on his way to the west coast of Ireland. (Hall knew that the submarine was at sea and could not be stopped.) In reply to the frantic demands of the Germans as to the source of the information, all the two informants could offer was that it was a most jealously guarded secret, but that they had been able to discover that the information came from a high official in Germany who was in the pay of one of the Allies. Since Hall’s two agents were located in two different neutral countries and played their parts with infinite astuteness, the Germans considered the information supplied by the one as a corroboration of that of the other. Desperately the German counter-espionage service attempted to locate the arch-traitor, and as time went on offered a fabulous reward for information which would lead to his arrest. In the meantime, Hall and ‘40 OB’ calmly continued to extract Germany’s most intimate and vital secrets from her coded messages which flowed back and forth between Berlin and the outside world.
CHAPTER 19
SPY FROM THE SKY
IT WAS JUST before the big March offensive of the Germans, in 1918. The Allied High Command had every indication that the Germans were about to make their last and supreme effort, but until the offensive actually broke loose, they could never be sure where the main attack was to be.
The Germans were masters in the art of concealing their plans, and with the network of railways behind their front, they could quickly displace troops from one sector to another.
The back areas were of great interest to the Allied Command, and we were urged to obtain the fullest possible information about them. Our agents in the Hirson and Valenciennes areas of France, and those around Arlon, Maubeuge, Givet, and the rest of Belgium, did their part nobly, but in spite of all our efforts, we were unable to penetrate into the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The inhabitants of the Grand Duchy, although they had very strong Belgian and French sympathies, are Teutonic in origin, and so there was a sufficiently large barrier between the Grand Duchy and Belgium to prevent our expanding our Belgian organisation into it. As it happened, our agents round Fourmies, Hirson, Avesnes, and Aulnoye reported brilliantly the real concentration of the enemy’s troops, for it was opposite this area that the big German offensive was launched; still, an uncontrolled area such as the Grand Duchy was always a source of alarm, since anything might be happening there. It can, therefore, be readily understood why British GHQ decided upon direct action.
A plan was accordingly hit upon to drop a man armed with a basket of carrier pigeons into the area by parachute from a plane, at night. The dropping of the man presented no special difficulty; planes often crossed the enemy lines at night on bombing raids. But to find the right man was a problem. First of all, he had to be a Luxemburger, for only a Luxemburger could speak the Low German dialect of the people in the Grand Duchy; and secondly, he had to know the country well, and have friends who could hide him if necessary. It had also to be a man who would volunteer to undertake the mission. The man was found, however, by the British intelligence service in France, and the mission was successfully carried out.
After the Armistice, in Brussels, I met S, the hero of this story. In fact, we saw quite a lot of each other; frequently we dined together at the Savoy. He had a stock of interesting stories about the Belgian Congo, where he had spent many years, but he would not tell me at first what piqued my interest the most: how it had come about that he, a subject of the Grand Duchy, was wearing the uniform of a major in the British Army, and how he had won the much coveted Distinguished Service Order, which, during the war, was only given for bravery or special service in the field. From a fellow British officer I got the bare details of his story, which eventually over a few drinks S told me in full.
For several years before the war, S had occupied a post as engineer of one of the mines in the Congo. As the war went on, he saw most of his Belgian colleagues leave, one by one, to join the Belgian Army, until he finally felt the urge himself. Having been so long in the Congo, and coming as he did from the Grand Duchy with its strong Belgian sympathies, he never gave a thought to the possibility that the Belgian authorities in Folkestone would refuse to enrol him in the Belgian Army. But so they did. Determined to get to France, he applied to the British authorities, who, realising how useful he would be in their intelligence service, immediately gave him a commission as Lieutenant in
the army. It was here that they found him in their search for a Luxemburger. He had been disappointed at not getting into the actual fighting line, and here was action at last. He joyfully accepted.
He fully realised the danger of the undertaking. The aeroplane flight across the enemy front, and the actual drop by parachute, was nothing compared to the risk he ran of discovery, which would have meant his instant execution by the Germans. He had no idea where he would land in the dark; it might be on the top of a house, or in an enemy camp. Even after successful landing, the parachute had to be destroyed, a hiding place for the pigeons had to be found, and he had to scout around over a large area to get the information so urgently needed by GHQ.
During the months he had already been in the intelligence service, his time had been spent chiefly in interrogating captured prisoners of war; so he was already sufficiently well grounded in intelligence work, in the organisation of the German Army, and in the distinguishing marks of the different units which comprised a German division, to be able to undertake the mission without further training. His job was explained to him in a few minutes: he had to cover as much of the Grand Duchy as he could in as short a time as possible, and report on the number of troops, and, if possible, the identity of the division and regiments which he found in the area.
A pilot was chosen who had participated in several aeroplane raids on objectives in the Grand Duchy, and who knew the country comparatively well. S was instructed in the use of a parachute, and also in the method of attaching messages to the pigeons, but by far the most important task was to indicate to the pilot on a large scale map exactly where he wished to be dropped. If he could reach his father’s house on the outskirts of Ettelbrück before daylight, he knew he would be safe, for there he could deposit his pigeons, and using his father’s house as a base, he could scour the country.
As soon as it was dark, on a night when there was no moon, the adventure was begun. Taking off from an aerodrome near Albert, S and the pilot had to cover about 150 miles, and in the darkness of the night, all that the pilot had to guide him was his compass and his instruments. Flying at a great altitude, no interference was met with from German planes, and after a flight of about two hours, the pilot touched his passenger; it was time to get going. With his basket containing twenty of the best army pigeons strapped to him, S went over the side.
Luck was with him; he landed in a field, severely shaken up but unhurt. Some 50 yards away he discovered a hedge, and in this he hid both the parachute and the pigeons. He now cursed the darkness of the night, for although in possession of a flashlight, he dared not make use of it. Setting out at right angles to the hedge in search of a road, he crossed another hedge, and suddenly found himself on a good macadam road. After following it for about half a mile, he came to crossroads and a signpost. To his joy, he discovered that he was about 20 miles from Ettelbrück. He now knew exactly where he was, for this was his home district every inch of which was known to him. Back once again he retraced his steps to get the birds, and then he struck out on the hazardous journey to his father’s house.
It was 10.30 p.m. by his wrist watch; he had ample time to cover the distance before daylight. At least a dozen times he left the road suddenly to hide from an approaching cart or people on foot; he was glad by this time of the friendly darkness. The 20-mile tramp was the most terrifying part of the whole undertaking, he told me. The parachute jump he had accepted stoically; once he had undertaken the mission, he knew he had to go through with it, just as a soldier feels, when he goes over the top in an attack, that there is no alternative. But walking along the road with the incriminating pigeons was different; every sound alarmed him, and he knew, contrary to what he had felt while he was in the air, that he was now sole master of his own destiny: getting to his father’s house depended on his ingenuity alone.
Eventually, with worn-out nerves, he reached his father’s home at about three o’clock in the morning. As he stood before the house, he suddenly felt alarmed; he hadn’t heard from his father for several months; perhaps he had moved, and there were German troops quartered there. Hastily he hid his pigeons, and grasping his revolver, he knocked on the window of what used to be his father’s bedroom. After a while, to his relief, the familiar grey head appeared through the window. With a cry of astonishment, the father recognised his son, and within a few seconds he was in the house.
The father, like the son, was pro-Allies, and though there were some remonstrances from the mother, a hiding place was soon found in the attic for the pigeons, and two were immediately sent off to announce his safe arrival.
S realised that the greatest danger he ran was in his own home district, where everyone either thought he was still in the Congo, or had heard that he had joined the Allied forces. He, therefore, persuaded his father to cover his own district, while he, after remaining in the house all day, got out of the area as fast as he could, under cover of darkness.
Within a week, amply supplied with funds, he was able to cover the area comprising the Grand Duchy. Three divisions were discovered at rest, one at Wiltz, and the other two at Bettingen and Petange. As this was the normal number to be found in these areas, he was able to report to GHQ that there was no concentration of troops in the Grand Duchy, and this was all they wanted to know. A hazardous and desperate experience for a single negative statement – but the value of the statement was as great as the agent’s daring. To ensure his reports reaching GHQ, three pigeons were sent off with the same messages, two of which, he subsequently discovered, arrived safely. After sending these messages off, S went into hiding in the town of Luxembourg, and there he stayed the few remaining months until the Armistice.
He rejoined the British Army after the Armistice. He was congratulated by the chief of staff, promoted to the rank of major, and decorated with the much-coveted Distinguished Service Order. This was the story of the small, sandy-haired, tropic-dried Luxemburger, weighing scarcely more than 9 stone. I wouldn’t have believed it of this mild-mannered reticent man, if I had not had corroborative evidence from a fellow officer, and if I had not seen with my own eyes his major’s crown and the ribbon of the DSO.
CHAPTER 20
AN ASTOUNDING PROPOSITION FROM THE HAMBURG SOLDIERS’ COUNCIL — AND EXIT THE KAISER
EVENTS WERE CROWDING fast on each other. The Hindenburg line had broken, and the whole Allied Front was sweeping rapidly forward into Belgium; Prince Max of Baden had formed a coalition ministry, and had been forced to include two socialist deputies, Scheidemann and Bauer. It was evident that the war was drawing to a close, and that the people of Germany were about to kick over the traces; rumours of revolt and discontent were becoming more insistent each day.
Such was the situation when suddenly we heard of the mutiny of the German sailors at Kiel, on some of the ships of the German High Seas Fleet which had been ordered to put out to sea. This was followed by reports that Liebknecht and other independent socialists were openly inciting revolution, and that local government had been overthrown in Kiel, Hamburg, and Bremen, with soldiers’ councils taking its place.
Imagine my excitement when I walked into one of the cubicles at the office, and found myself facing a released pre-war British spy, and in his company an official delegate from the Hamburg soldiers’ council.
‘I am Johnson’ – a fictitious name – said the Englishman. ‘Don’t you remember me? I was caught by the Germans six years ago, just as I was boarding a vessel at Hamburg, and thought I had got clear with the plans which C commissioned me to get. I have been in prison in Hamburg all these years, and was freed by the Hamburg Soldatenrat a week ago. This is Schultze, a delegate from them,’ he continued as he presented his companion to me. ‘He has been sent out with me on a mission to the British government.’ I listened in amazement to their story, as each took it up in turn.
The prisoners of yesterday were the masters of Hamburg today. The governor of the prison was at present locked up in one of his own cells, and while Johnson and his f
riends were being entertained at a banquet in the Hamburg Senate House, their former keeper was being given prison fare, his own special recipe for ‘socialist swine’.
How Johnson came by his new-found friend, he explained briefly. During his early days in prison, Johnson’s only companions were criminals, but as the war progressed, and the Kaiser’s government viewed with alarm the steady growth of socialism, members of the Minority Socialist Party began to swell the ranks of the inmates of the prison at Altona, near Hamburg. With these leaders Johnson rapidly made friends; they ate the same vile prison food; they, too, were victims of the Kaiser; they were intelligent men, a relief from the dregs he had been forced to associate with.
When they were freed by their friends, these leaders immediately rushed back to their home centres, but those from Hamburg gladly took Johnson along with them as one of their companions. He was admitted to all their councils, and found himself enrolled as a member of the Hamburg Soldatenrat.
Plans of government were suggested, and it was difficult to keep the sailors in check, but on one point everyone from Hamburg was agreed: they had had enough of Prussian domination, and wanted to be freed entirely from it. Why not revive the old Hanseatic League, a federation of the Hanseatic towns of Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and Danzig? They remembered how prosperous these towns had been during the era of their independence, and how friendly they had been with England.
