by R. V. Jones
So we now had a German nightfighter, absolutely complete with its radar in working order. My first reaction was almost one of disappointment in that we should now have no technical problems left to be solved by normal Intelligence methods, but obviously the acquisition was a valuable one. One problem was to ensure that knowledge of its arrival did not get back to Germany. I had it hurriedly put into a hangar so that it could not be detected by German air reconnaissance, but already everyone on the station knew of its arrival, and it seemed almost impossible that the news should not get out. Fortunately, I found myself very much among friends, for it turned out that Dyce was the aerodrome from which the Operational Training Unit of the Photo Reconnaissance squadrons operated, and some of the instructors were actually officers who had flown sorties for me like ‘Wattie’ (Squadron Leader P. H. Watts, D.S.O., D.F.C., who had taken the original high-level photographs of Bruneval). They took me up in their Mosquitoes, and I can still remember the thrill of reading ‘This aircraft must not be dived at more than 360 m.p.h.’, a speed far above anything I had flown before. I was taken up by John Merifield, whom the other pilots described to me as the ‘best Mossie pilot in the Air Force’, and who for many years held the Transatlantic crossing record of, I think, five hours and forty minutes. When I discussed with Wattie the problem of security I asked him whether he thought everyone could be so trusted that if I were to give the whole station a talk on German radar and what we hoped to do to counter it, and what the exact value of the German nightfighter was, they could be relied upon not to discuss it outside the station. Wattie was enthusiastic that this was a risk worth taking, so I asked the Station Commander to assemble as many of his personnel as possible, and I gave them an impromptu lecture; it was a risk, but it worked.
I had begun to make arrangements for the trials of the Ju 88, and returned south on Friday 14th May, not by train this time, but with one of the photographic Mosquitoes to Benson. I stayed overnight in the P.R.U. Mess, and took the opportunity to brief the pilots on the reasons why I wanted photographs of Peenemünde, and the angles from which the suspected rocket establishment should be photographed.
I went on to London the following morning; and in the afternoon Charles Frank and I went out to Latimer, where Felkin’s headquarters now were, to talk to the crew of the Ju 88. They filled in various of the outstanding details about the German nightfighter system that we did not already know, and they offered their services at Farnborough to check over their aircraft before anyone flew it. This was helpful, because I could recall the first Ju 88 that Farnborough had intended to fly: it was built of parts recovered from crashed aircraft during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, but there seemed to be something wrong with it although no one could say what it was. Finally a co-operative prisoner offered to look over it to see that all was well; and as soon as he saw the aircraft he burst out laughing. What Farnborough had not realized was that there were already two Marks of Ju 88, one with longer wings than the other; their aeroplane had a port wing from one Mark and the starboard wing from the other. The Dyce Ju 88, incidentally, was one of the few wartime aircraft to survive, and has recently been restored at the R.A.F. station at St. Athan.
I was convinced that the German pilot could be trusted to fly the nightfighter for us, but we needed its radar to be tested by one of our own expert observers, and I was delighted to find that he was to be my old colleague Derek Jackson, now a Squadron Leader Radar Observer, with a D.F.C. to add to his Oxford D.Sc. and other achievements. He telephoned to say that he was going to undertake the trials, and he wanted to discuss the pilot with me. I told him that the German pilot was willing to fly the aircraft for us, but he replied that he did not want to go flying with any bloody German, and that he wanted his own pilot. ‘Is your pilot safe?’ I asked, and let myself in for a typical Jacksonian broadside, ‘Do you bloody well think that I would go up with him if I thought he wasn’t?’ And to that I had no answer.
So the trials were duly carried out, and we had two reports, one from Derek Jackson on the behaviour of the Lichtenstein radar and the other from the pilot, a Squadron Leader Hartley, on the handling of the aircraft as a nightfighter. One could take Derek’s report as a matter of course—he had great skill with instruments, and all his observations would be highly cogent. The pilot’s report, too, was very coherent and much to the point. My immediate reaction was, ‘This chap can write—who is he?’ I soon found out: he was Christopher Hartley, whose father was Sir Harold Hartley who had examined me for Scholarships at Oxford in 1928. We immediately became good friends. Incidentally, I had much the same reaction on reading a report by a young physicist who was primarily in the Operational Research Organization, but who at one time also looked after my interests in the Mediterranean. The clarity of his reports was admirable; he was J. C. Kendrew, now Sir John Kendrew, and a Nobel Prizewinner for his post-war work in molecular biology.
Another of our activities was advanced by my visit to Dyce. Ever since Tony Hill had told me how difficult it was to take low oblique photographs because of the sideways outlook of the camera fitted in the fuselage behind the pilot, I had been pressing for forward-facing cameras to be fitted on the wing-tips. This would have important advantages over the makeshift arrangement which had originally developed. In the first place, the pilot could simply dive at the target and fire his camera as he would his forward-facing guns. In the second, there would be no transverse blur superimposed on the photograph by the sideways motion of the aircraft; and in the third, with a camera on each wing-tip, a stereoscopic pair of photographs would be produced, which would add greatly to the information about the disposition of such items as the dipoles in a radar aerial.
The merits were so obvious that it is amazing that it took me more than two years to bring the change about, even though the pilots agreed with me and there was talk of making unofficial modifications. Technical matters such as this were not my responsibility: they had to be sanctioned by the Head of the Photographic Branch of the Air Staff, Group Captain D. D. (‘Daddy’) Laws, whose official position was D.D. (Deputy Director) Photos. For some reason or other he stubbornly refused to allow the modification to be made; but flying in Mosquitoes convinced me even further that with these aircraft wing-tip cameras would be a great advantage, and by this time I was beginning to get on personal terms with ‘Daddy ‘Laws. Finally, I found his weak point: of all the improbable hobbies for a Group Captain, his was the making of jam. If only I could convince him that I, too, was interested in jam-making, he might be more sympathetic to my ideas about cameras. My moment came when I asked him one day whether he had ever made quince jam. ‘No!’ he exclaimed—and then with a wistful look in his eye, ‘But by God, I’d like to!’ I offered to get him some quinces, and henceforward photographic Mosquitoes for low-level work were fitted with forward-facing wing-tip cameras, with the much improved result we had expected.
Many more photographs were now coming in, and there was a rapidly increasing flow of all other kinds of Intelligence, including Enigma and reports from the Occupied Territories.
With our expanding activity, it was a relief when our secretarial arrangements were at last regularized. Well into 1942 we had been still depending on Daisy Mowat, who took on all our work in addition to her duties as Head Secretary of Winterbotham’s Section. When she left for an overseas post we were helped out by ‘Ginger’ Parry whom we had recruited in 1941 to undertake the handling of the German radar plots; when it came to the emergency of having no-one to type our reports after Daisy Mowat left, it turned out that ‘Ginger’ could type, too.
When, much to our regret, she left us in 1943, Hugh Smith charmed M.I.6 into providing us with secretaries, the chief of whom was Joan Stenning. When she heard that she was to work for such a wild section as mine, and perhaps remembering some of my Oxford escapades, she burst into tears. But closer acquaintance must have shown her that we were not so bad, for when we broke up three years later, she was in tears again. In the meantime she had a
lways been the staunchest of helpers.
We used sometimes to laugh together about what her father, the late Warden of Wadham, would think if he knew that his daughter and one of his undergraduates had been thrown together in this way. Actually, it gave me a chance to test out a theory that Tizard had once expounded to me when he had detected that I was uneasy in discussing secrets in front of his secretary. After she had gone out he told me that I need not be embarrassed, because in his experience women were more secure than men, his argument being that a men often felt obliged to brag about his work, and disclose that he was ‘in the know’, whereas women did not. Joan had told me that her father had no idea of what her work was, and so I mischievously decided to try this out next time I was dining with him at the High Table at Wadham. When I asked him what she was doing he said confidentially ‘The same old thing—C.S., you know, C.S.!’ My immediate reaction was that he must know more than we thought, for Joan had been in the Goverment Code and Cypher School when I met her, which was generally known as G.C. and C.S. It seemed that her father was saying just enough to let me know what she did, without disclosing it to anyone around us. When I returned to London I told Joan that it seemed, despite her care, her father had a fair inkling of what she was up to; but when I told her my evidence she burst out laughing. What he meant by ‘C.S.’ was Christian Science, of which she and her mother were devotees.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Peenemünde
THE MESSAGE about a rocket that we received from the Danish chemical engineer in December 1942 resensitized us to a possibility which, although I had reported it in 1939, had no more than stayed in the background of our thoughts over the intervening hectic years with the beams and German radar. The Oslo Report had mentioned Peenemünde, where, it had said, radio-controlled rocket gliders were being developed for use against ships under the code name FZ21 (Ferngesteuerte Zielflugzeug). The report also said, although it did not mention Peenemünde in this connection, that rocket shells 80 centimetres in diameter were being developed for use against the Maginot Line; these were gyro-stabilized, but were prone to fly in uncontrollable curves, and so radio control was being considered.
The Danish engineer’s warning was timely: when he sent his message only three prototype V-2 rockets had in fact been fired at Peenemünde, the first successful firing having occurred on 3rd October 1942. This was as good a warning as we could hope to achieve in view of our lack of Scientific Intelligence before the war which had forced me to concentrate on detecting the development of new weapons at the trial stage i.e. later than the research stage but, hopefully, before the operational.
Over the next three months a few further reports appeared, but none substantially added to our knowledge. Indeed, they could have been no more than rumours, and the turning point, as far as I was concerned, occurred on 27th March 1943. It was a Saturday afternoon, and Hugh Smith was away for the weekend. Charles Frank was sitting at his desk opposite me when he looked up and said, ‘It looks as though we’ll have to take those rockets seriously!’ He had been reading the transcripts of conversation between two German generals who had been captured after el Alamein, and who were now at our Interrogation Centre. One was Cruewell, who had been Rommel’s Second-in-Command. The other was von Thoma whom I afterwards described as, ‘The intelligent pessimist and most technically informed of our galaxy of German Generals’.
His comments on Hitler, for example, had already impressed me. He had told us how he had had to show Hitler some captured Russian tanks and the Führer had immediately said they could be no good. When von Thoma asked his reason, he said that the standard of finish was terrible, and that no one who was doing a decent job would leave his work in that state. So here we had the typical German view, with which I still have sympathy, that a good job should be well finished; but, as von Thoma pointed out, this judgement was very superficial because if you looked closer you could see that the Russian tanks were well machined where they had to be, but that the Russians had not wasted effort in smoothing and polishing surfaces where roughness and crudeness did not matter. In other words, their tanks were economically matched to their purpose.
The item which caused Frank to react was a remark of von Thoma to Cruewell on 22nd March 1943. Translated, this ran:
—but no progress whatsoever can have been made in this rocket business. I saw it once with Feldmarschall Brauchitsch, there is a special ground near Kunersdorf (?).… They’ve got these huge things which they’ve brought up here.… They’ve always said they would go 15 kms. into the stratosphere and then.… You only aim at an area.… If one was to… every few days… frightful.… The major there was full of hope—he said ‘Wait until next year and the fun will start!’.… There’s no limit (to the range).
Von Thoma also said that he knew their prison was somewhere near London and since they had heard no large explosions, there must have been a hold-up in the rocket programme.
His remarks transformed the situation. An Intelligence organization bears many resemblances to the human head, with its various senses. These will generally be on the alert, each searching its own domain and then as soon as the ears, for example, hear a noise and the signals are received in the brain, the latter will direct the eyes in the appropriate direction to supplement the information from the ears by what the eyes can see. So, if one kind of Intelligence source produces an indication, the Intelligence organization should then direct other kinds of source to focus on the same target. This was obviously what we had to do, and I started to take the appropriate steps.
It was a classic situation: we had now become aware of something without knowing enough to give the Operational Staffs something to act on and so take countermeasures. It was a point that I had discussed in my paper to Inglis of 20th November 1942, only a few months before.
We are sometimes criticized for withholding information, but while no instance has ever been proved, we reserve our right to do so because (1) to spread half-truth is often to precipitate erroneous action by the Air Staff, and (2) the steady and immediate broadcasting of each insignificant and uncollated fact automatically and insidiously acclimatizes the recipients to knowledge of enemy developments, so that they feel no stimulation to action. The presentation of the complete picture of an enemy development is the best way of stimulating the appropriate authority to action. The production of such pictures involves much effort, but it has been justified by results.
Although we think that the above policy is the best, it obviously has some defects, which we try to remedy by frequent oral communications to the appropriate bodies.
In summary, I regarded myself as a watchdog. If the dog barks too late it is fatal. But if he barks too early, he will bark so often at threats which do not subsequently materialize that his master will get tired of responding to false alarms. My duty over the rocket was clear: to pursue the Intelligence chase as energetically as possible, and to let men in key positions know that we were on to something. In this case, and at such an early stage, it would have sufficed to let Lindemann know, which I did.
The pursuit from then on would have been a perfectly normal, if exhilarating, one. But the whole situation was completely upset by the action of Military Intelligence in the War Office. All the information that had come to me had also gone to the War Office, and a very able Intelligence officer there had come to the same conclusion that Frank and I had, about the reality of rocket development. Where he differed was in his subsequent action. He warned the Director of Military Intelligence, who in turn warned the Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff, who became so concerned that he took the matter to the Vice Chiefs of Staff Committee on I2th April. They decided that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Home Security, Mr. Herbert Morrison should be warned of a possible rocket attack and that scientific investigations should be put in hand. On 15th April, General Ismay, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence, minuted the Prime Minister, ‘The Chiefs of Staff feel that you should be made aware of reports of German e
xperiments with long-range rockets. The fact that five reports have been received since the end of 1942 indicates a foundation of fact even if details are inaccurate.’ The Chiefs recommended that a single investigator should be appointed to call on such Scientific and Intelligence Advisers as appropriate, and suggested the name of Mr. Duncan Sandys.
It did not seem to occur to the Chiefs of Staff that they already had a Scientific Intelligence component inside their organization, and the first I heard of Duncan Sandys’ appointment was from Lindemann a week or two later. He sent for me and asked me whether I thought that there was anything in the rocket story. I reminded him that I had already told him that I thought that there was, and he in turn said that he thought that there was not. His view may have been coloured to some extent by the fact that he did not like Sandys, but perhaps even more by the fact that he did not want to accept any evidence that might throw us back on to the defensive.
After I left him I discussed with Charles Frank the news that Sandys had been appointed to do a job that we already had in hand, and for which our qualifications were much better. How had the Chiefs of Staff overlooked us, when we had already proved ourselves in the beams, the Bruneval Raid, the Gibraltar barrage, radar, Window, heavy water, and the German nightfighters? But, I added, this was no fault of Sandys, who had been called in out of the blue, and I supposed that I must regard myself as having been very lucky to have had the beams all to myself. It was no use being jealous of someone else having the luck this time. We would therefore stay in the background and see that he got all the information; but just in case he or his organization were not up to it we would continue to keep an eye on everything so as to be able to step in if there were signs of a breakdown.
