Most Secret War

by R. V. Jones

  Even when all possible information was available to our commanders, they often had insufficient resources to stop the Germans doing as they wished. In fact, Charles Frank and I were one day lamenting to an officer from Bletchley that reading the Enigma signals was just like reading tomorrow’s paper today. He agreed with us but said that it was now going to be different—for example, we had just deciphered the complete German invasion plans for Crete at least three weeks in advance of their intended date of operations. Yet even all this notice did not stop the Germans from taking Crete, partly because our Commander, Lord Freyberg, could make only the most limited use of the foreknowledge for fear of giving the Enigma secret away. But the German parachute forces received such a mauling that they never took part in a major operation again.

  Besides this, Crete is to be remembered for the decision of the Naval Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Cunningham, when it was clear that Crete was no longer tenable, and he was faced either with leaving the Army there and saving his ships, or playing the traditional part of getting the Army out. He declared, ‘It takes the Navy three years to build a new ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition. The evacuation will continue.’

  Before Crete drew to a conclusion, there were already signs of major German moves which only made sense if Hitler intended to attack Russia. When I read the report from Bletchley that drew this conclusion I could not help exclaiming, ‘Those whom the Gods wish to destroy…!’ It seemed incredible that Hitler could be so mad as to attack Russia, where Napoleon had failed, before he had knocked us out—and yet what a relief it was. The Joint Intelligence Committee was much slower in arriving at this vital conclusion than Bletchley had been, or indeed Churchill himself. They appeared only on 12th June to have come to the conclusion that Hitler would attack Russia, earning the comment from Churchill, ‘I had not been content with this form of collective wisdom and preferred to see the originals (messages) myself… thus forming my own opinion sometimes at much earlier dates.’

  Among a miscellany of technical matters, we had been following up the Oslo story that the German Air Force was encouraging the development of radio-controlled rocket-driven gliders for use against ships at sea. We also had evidence that a television head was being developed for a ballistic bomb which would be steered from the launching aircraft on the receipt of the televised picture sent back by the bomb: The rocket-driven glider bomb appeared two years later as the HS293, which was used successfully against our warships in the Mediterranean. The ballistic bomb with a television homing head was too much in advance of the technology of the time, but it has since appeared in various forms.

  In the background of our minds there was of course the possibility of the devastatingly powerful atomic bomb. As soon as I had joined Intelligence I had briefed agents and other sources to look for traces that might indicate German developments, including the production of heavy water at the Rjukan plant in Norway, where surplus hydroelectric power was used on a routine basis to electrolyse natural water and so leave a concentration of heavy water in the residue. I therefore jumped one afternoon of 1941 when I received a telegram from Norway saying that the Germans were stepping up the production of heavy water at Rjukan and that the sender of the signal would be ready to supply further information if we would say what we required. I contacted the Head of the Norwegian Section, Eric Welsh, who was a chemist and Manager of the International Paint Company’s factory in Norway before the war, and whose wife was a niece of the composer Grieg.

  When I told Welsh that I was interested in the telegram he said something like, ‘Bloody silly telegram! Whoever heard of heavy water?’ I told him that it meant something very serious, and that it must be followed up. He accordingly sent a signal on my instructions, and we awaited results. These were not quite what I expected for, instead of providing information as he had promised, the sender of the signal now demanded a reassurance. Yes, he would answer our questions if we could guarantee that our interest was genuine, and that it had not been inspired by Imperial Chemical Industries for, he went on—and I loved him for this—‘remember, blood is thicker even than heavy water!’

  I met him subsequently, and he turned out to be Leif Tronstad, Professor of Physics at Trondheim, who had worked at Cambridge before the war, and we knew of one another’s work. He proved a most loyal colleague, and we looked forward to meeting in different circumstances after the war. Unfortunately, he was far too gallant a man to remain inactive in England, and he was killed in a Commando raid in Norway. But his signal played its part in the atomic bomb story, for one of the factors that led to the American decision to make the bomb, which was then in the balance, was the knowledge that the Germans seemed to be taking it seriously as evidenced by their demands for heavy water from Norway. Another, and more important factor, of course, was that the British Committee under Sir George Thomson, having been convinced particularly by Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, had decided that a bomb was feasible.

  Scientists were being increasingly drawn into operational problems, and there were now several of us scattered through the Air Ministry and the various Air Force Commands. Watson-Watt conceived the idea that we should all be formed into one organization with himself as head. Portal very wisely referred the proposal to Tizard, who was by now much in the background, but who might be expected to see whether the proposal amounted to more than self-interest on Watson-Watt’s part. Tizard proposed to inspect all the scientific activities connected with the Air Force, and I was asked to let him see our work in detail so that he could assess whether or not we would be better as part of Watson-Watt’s empire. I of course knew Tizard well, but I thought that we ought at least to give him evidence of our competence to run our show for ourselves by appearing to be as efficient as possible. We were therefore on our best behaviour for the afternoon of his visit, and I first showed him the maps on our wall. I thought that these would appeal to him, partly because he could see the way in which we had worked out the targets for the German beams and partly how our knowledge of the deployment of German radar was progressing. Moreover he himself had advised me at the beginning of the war to put a map up on my wall, when he told me that although I might having nothing to put on it for a start and might feel that it was a bit ostentatious, sooner or later I should have plenty.

  I then took him over to my desk, to let him have a chair while drinking tea. There he happened to spot one of the volumes of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. ‘Hello,’ he said, ‘who’s reading this?’ ‘I am,’ I explained, ‘I read it in the train between here and Richmond.’ He then remarked, ‘You know, there is some very good stuff in this,’ and went on, ‘I wonder whether this is the right volume. Let me have a look.’ A few moments later he said, ‘Yes, here it is. Listen to this!’ He then proceeded to read part of what Gibbon had said about the younger of the two Gordians: ‘Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation.’ After this promising start, we settled down to a serious exposition of what we did, and I showed him how we spotted radar stations on stereo-aerial photographs. For this I sat him at Charles Frank’s desk and let him look through the stereoscope. He was very interested, and we thought that we were doing rather well and certainly giving the impression that we were so efficient that we required no co-ordinating direction from above.

  Our impression of efficiency was shattered in a manner that we could never have foreseen. The door of our room was pushed open and a girl’s head appeared. It belonged to Margaret Blyth, whose husband, Harold, had been my first assistant. A cryptographer herself, she had the run of our office on her visits to London from Bletchley, and she asked, ‘Hello Doc, have you seen Harold?’ Harold was evidently somewhere in the building, having come up from Kim Philby’s Unit (to which he was now posted) but we had not seen him and I told her so. In tha
t case she decided to come in, and was evidently feeling even more lighthearted than usual because she skipped up to Charles Frank’s desk and said, ‘Hello, Charles!’ As she was covering the few yards between the door and the desk I realized the situation. She was a pretty girl but short-sighted, and refused to wear glasses which would have spoiled her looks. So she could not see that the figure seated at Charles Frank’s desk, which had thinning hair and spectacles as Charles had, was not in fact Charles. She actually got within a yard of Tizard when she stopped and said, ‘Good God, it’s H.T.!’

  I could only conclude that she was drunk, and I had visions of Tizard reporting that we were such an irresponsible Unit that no form of coordination could be too rigorous for us. Our façade of efficiency had been shattered and I was absolutely nonplussed: how could I possibly account for such wildly disrespectful behaviour? I was then equally astonished to hear Tizard say, ‘Hello, Maggie, whatever are you doing here?’ It turned out that Maggie’s home in Wimbledon had been next door to the Tizards’, and that their families were very close acquaintances over many years. Tizard evidently knew that she was a very bright girl, in more senses than one, and hewas delighted to see her, especially in the present context. So we were ‘home’ in a manner entirely unexpected, and all threat of co-ordination vanished.

  At the same time, there was a case for bringing those engaged in the various scientific activities together periodically, especially as regards what was now known as Operational Research. Watson-Watt himself had initiated the first Operational Research Section to study the use of radar by Fighter Command; the idea was now being extended to the other Commands and, indeed, to the other Services. The heads of the various Sections were therefore formed into the Operational Research Committee, with an Operational Research Centre as part of the Air Staff.

  These developments are generally taken to signal the beginning of Operational Research, but its origins are really much older. Viscount Tiverton carried out a substantial amount of operational research for the Royal Naval Air Service and the Air Department in the 1914–18 War. And although Benjamin Franklin’s attempt in 1775 was perhaps lighthearted, it anticipated his country’s problems in quantifying American experience against the Viet Cong, when he wrote to Joseph Priestley: ‘Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed 150 Yankees this campaign which is £20,000 a head. And at Bunkers Hill she gained a mile of ground, half of which she lost by our taking post on Ploughed Hill. During the same time 60,000 children have been born in America. From these data any mathematical head will easily calculate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, and conquer our whole territory.’

  I was asked to join the Operational Research Committee, so as to provide sidelights on what the Germans were doing, and how they were reacting to our various developments. After the first meeting of the Committee I met its Secretary, Wing Commander A. C. G. (‘Sandy’) Menzies. He was indeed a pilot, but that had been in World War I; then, as a physics lecturer at Leicester he had C. P. Snow as his first research student, and since 1932 had been Professor of Physics at Southampton. Not long before he died in 1974, he told me that he had been briefed by other members of the Air Staff to get to know me and find out how I worked. But he was far too straight to engage in anything that was not entirely above board and instead of spying on me became one of my strongest allies and warmest friends.

  We formed a special Sub-Committee to determine the best tactical countermeasures for Bomber Command to use against the German night defences, both fighters and flak. The Chairman of the Sub-Committee was the Deputy Director of Air Tactics, Group Captain G. H. (‘Tiny’) Vasse. ‘Tiny’ was one of the largest of men both in body and in heart, and he and Sandy made a marvellous pair as Chairman and Secretary.

  Tiny patiently let every member of the large Committee have his say, which literally took all day, starting at 10.30 a.m. Somewhere from 4 o’clock onwards he would decide that the meeting ought to pass a resolution, despite the conflict of views, for example, between Fighter and Bomber Commands. He would say something like, ‘Well, gentlemen, I think that we need a resolution, and so I shall move from the Chair that we recommend…’ And then would follow a long ramble about which nobody would be clear but with some part of which each member would have his own disagreement. There would be an awkward silence, and then Sandy would whisper something to Tiny which resulted in puzzled dismay coming over Tiny’s face and he would say, ‘Oh, can’t you? In that case I withdraw that resolution, gentlemen!’ After one such meeting I asked Sandy what it was that produced this magical effect and so relieved the meeting of the uncongenial task of disagreeing with our very good-natured Chairman. ‘It’s simple,’ replied Sandy, ‘Tiny knows that I am a professor, and he has a great respect for professors. So all I say to him is, “You can’t say that, it isn’t English!” ’

  Sandy collected a lively staff around him, and they had many tasks which demanded great tact. Not only were existing organizations suspicious of any enquiry into their modes of operation, as Operational Research was bound to demand, but also the scientists associated with Operational Research had themselves sometimes to be tactfully handled. This latter task Sandy could safely leave to his Deputy, a man well versed in civil life in dealing with prima donnas, the impresario Leslie Macdonnell.

  I had already encountered the kind of difficulty that Operational Research was up against when early in 1941 I had drawn Lindemann’s attention to reports that indicated that we were not hitting our targets in the way that was being claimed. I remember particularly a raid on the Skoda Works at Pilsen, duly announced by the B.B.C. A friendly Czech indignantly told us that everyone in Pilsen knew that there had been no raid, and that the nearest bomb that had fallen was fifty miles away. Such incidents stimulated Lindemann to institute an investigation; this involved installing cameras in our bombers, so that photographs could be taken at the time of bomb release in the hope of subsequently establishing exactly where the bomber was. This aroused much resentment among the aircrew, who thought that the Air Staff must doubt whether they had actually gone in to attack their targets. Ultimately, they were convinced that no one doubted their courage, and enough photographs were collected by the summer of 1941 for Lindemann’s secretary, D. M. B. Butt, to show that over the Ruhr, only one tenth of our bombers were within five miles of their target. It was this that finally convinced the Air Marshals that astronavigation, dead reckoning, and ordinary radio beacons were thoroughly inadequate; and the drive at last started for us to emulate the Germans in their radio navigational techniques.

  Up to this time it had been difficult to persuade Bomber Command to take science seriously. The contrast with Fighter Command had been remarkable. If, as a scientist, you visited Bentley Priory, Fighter Command’s Headquarters, you were likely to be bombarded with questions from officers at all levels up to the Commander-in-Chief. The Command realized that it was up against desperate odds and was therefore keen to try new ideas. Bomber Command was still nearly as complacent as it had been when Tizard had tried to help it with the Committee for the Scientific Survey of Air Offensive. To one technical problem, however, it thought that it had discovered a solution for itself. Bombers were frequently being caught in German searchlights, and the idea had grown up that the searchlight control could be upset if a bomber switched on its I.F.F. (Identification Friend or Foe) radar recognition set, and so the bomber could then escape. The proffered explanation was that the searchlights were directed by radar which was somehow jammed by British I.F.F.

  I did not believe the story, especially since I had seen rather similar stories propagated inside the Luftwaffe about our own defences, which I knew to be untrue. Moreover, it was possible to show that switching on one’s own identification device was the most dangerous thing that one could do. Either it had an effect on the German radar control, or it had not: if the latter, you were relying on a useless countermeasure and might therefore fail to develop another countermeasure which would be effective; if the for
mer, a radiation was coming out of the bomber that positively identified it as British, and it would be a very simple step for the Germans to develop a special equipment to challenge the I.F.F. set properly, and obtain both its identification and its exact position. So this alleged countermeasure was either of no use or it was a very positive danger.

  I argued that the practice should be most emphatically discouraged, ultimately to such effect that it was decided to hold a special meeting at Bomber Command. I thought this would do the trick because if first-line pilots were present at the conference, my argument must at least shake their confidence in the practice, and general distrust would gradually ensue. I well remember Lywood’s comment on the problem of suggesting a Chairman. He himself ultimately suggested the name of a suitable officer on the basis, ‘He should make a good Chairman—he doesn’t know anything about it!’ Since Lywood now effectively disappears from my story, in which he has inevitably figured in an unfavourable light, let me record that some of his contributions were substantial. He was, for example, one of the originators of the British ‘Typex’ encoding machine, which had points of similarity to, but was more advanced than, Enigma. It was widely used by our Services and as far as we know was never broken.

  The conference was held on 26th September 1941 at Bomber Command, not only with members of the Bomber Command Staff but also with pilots such as Leonard Cheshire. To my amazement, Cheshire and his fellow pilots stated their belief in the efficacy of using I.F.F. to jam searchlights, and my rational argument failed to prevail. The only concession I could gain was that there would be an objective assessment over the next few months by the Bomber Command Operational Research Section to ascertain whether I.F.F. had any beneficial effect or not.