Most Secret War

by R. V. Jones

  At the same time, complacency on our part could have been dangerous. I commented: ‘Looking now at the principles underlying our success, the classical method of conserving our bombers has been essentially one of evasion: by various countermeasures we have deceived or blinded the enemy as to the real position of our forces. It is the application of this method which has been mainly responsible for our recent low losses. If, however, we attack the remoter targets, the German problem will become easier both in identification and interception. Moreover, a relatively small change in the technical balance of the struggle, such as occurred following the German development of new A.I. could swing the loss rate on to the high side again, so long as we depend on evasion. The 100 Group nightfighters, however, represent an additional principle which reduces our bomber losses by direct attack on the enemy nightfighters, and is therefore still able to reduce bomber losses should the evasion policy temporarily fail.’

  After some of my earlier reports, which had shown deficiencies in Bomber Command’s tactics or countermeasures, the Chief of Air Staff-so his Staff Officer told me—would telephone the Commander-in-Chief to ask whether he had read my report and what he was doing about it. This time the Commander-in-Chief telephoned first.

  One final triumph for Bomber Command was the sinking of the Tirpitz in Alten Fiord by the Lancasters of 9 and 617 Squadrons dropping ‘Tallboys’ on I2th November 1944. With their ship capsized, the doomed men inside were heard singing ‘Deutschland über Alles’ as the waters rose. What a tragedy it was that men like that had to serve the Nazi cause.

  The German defences were in great difficulty: the geographical situation was now as much against them as it had been against us in 1940. As for the possible technical factor that might have swung the situation in their favour, this did not materialize; and between 1st October and 31st December we lost only 136 bombers out of 14,254 sorties. Among our losses there were inevitably some 100 Group aircraft, whose activities were saving so many of their comrades. My second cousin, Robert Jones, was among the 100 Group crews who did not come back.

  There was a tactical possibility that had worried us all the time, which was that the German nightfighters might operate a large-scale intrusion over England and attack our bombers as they were landing. In December 1944, I was able to warn that such an operation had been planned; and Bomber Command and Fighter Command were ready should it occur. But, fortunately for us, the Germans had not enough strength left to do it, and they spent themselves instead in their last great attack of 1st January 1945 on the allied airfields in France and Belgium; although they destroyed about 400 allied aircraft, mainly on the ground they themselves lost nearly 300 fighter pilots.

  The German defences were now so weak, particularly as a result of the American day fighter attacks, that Bomber Command itself was able also to attack by day. Had the war gone on much longer, the Messerschmidt 262 (as Adolf Galland and his select band of pilots in Jagd-Verband 44 showed in the closing stages of the war) might well have swung the balance against the Americans and ourselves; and guided missiles, both from the air and from the ground, would have come into service, for in this respect—pressed by the need for new forms of defence—the Germans were well ahead of us all.

  Fortunately, the war ended before these threats could materialize. It had been a ‘long haul’ in which we had identified 48 different types of ground radar, leaving only three rare types unidentified before capture. We had located 740 radar stations in Western Europe; and not more than six were unknown to us when our ground forces overran them. Our work in support of Bomber Command had been more difficult and less spectacular than any other that we did; it had extended over a wider field, and it had lasted longer than any other. When officers from Bomber Command and Fighter Command examined the German nightfighter system in Schleswig Holstein at the end of hostilities, they stated in their Report of 14th June 1945 on the German Air Force Nightfighter System, ‘We heard of no equipment in operational use of whose existence indications had not been given by our Intelligence. Our Intelligence had clearly fulfilled its role admirably.’ Bomber Command’s main report, ‘The War in the Ether’ of October 1945, commented generously:

  It is, indeed, of the greatest interest to study the mass of information provided by the examination of documents and key personnel on the German side. The outstanding impression which such a study leaves is of the extraordinary range and accuracy of the technical Intelligence with which Bomber Command was provided for the conduct of the R.C.M. offensive. No praise can be too high for those responsible for producing this Intelligence, without which no worthwhile R.C.M. effort could have been possible. Nor is there any need to ask indulgence for labouring this point, since the critical reader cannot have failed to have been impressed by the importance which attached to the possession of accurate information regarding the enemy’s methods and equipment.

  We had certainly done our utmost; but, thinking of those hundreds of dreadful hours flown through the German defences by 200,000 airmen of whom 50,000 British and a comparable number of American did not come back, how could we have done less? And was it enough?

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Nuclear Energy

  ALTHOUGH V-1, V-2, the Invasion and our Bomber Offensive had been our main preoccupations during 1943 and 1944, we had always to regard the possibility that the Germans were working towards an atomic bomb. Indeed, their interest in the Norwegian heavy water pointed in this direction, and we had therefore to go on watching. With my very small staff and our urgent commitments I had been glad to find in M.I.6 an officer with enough interest to help us: Eric Welsh, the Head of the Norwegian Section. And, as explained in Chapter 35 I arranged for him to meet Michael Perrin of the British Tube Alloys project periodically, originally along with Charles Frank but—as a result of a message from Perrin—later by himself.

  Welsh’s dragooning of James Chadwick into writing a letter to Niels Bohr seemed to have had little result for some months, since Bohr decided to stay in Copenhagen. Some of the other lines that Welsh stimulated, though, showed more positive results: we heard that the German nuclear physicists, headed by Werner Heisenberg, had left their laboratories in the large cities such as Berlin and Hamburg, where the bombing was intensifying, and were now working in or around Hechingen, a small town near Stuttgart. It seemed that their level of activity was not as high as we should have expected had they been as near to making a bomb as were the Americans and ourselves. We had the impression that they had originally been thinking of a bomb, but had decided that it would not be practicable inside the time span of the war, since in 1942 they allowed a number of relevant papers to be published on nuclear work done in the previous two years, which seemed to have been kept secret while they decided whether to go for the bomb or not.

  In October 1941, as Niels Bohr was later to tell us, Heisenberg visited him in Copenhagen. There are still conflicting accounts of Heisenberg’s purpose, one explanation being that he wished to discuss the moral issue of working on an atomic explosive; but Bohr was positive, as he told me, that Heisenberg at least implied that the Germans were already working on the atomic bomb.1 After the war Heisenberg said that an investigation of the critical size was not undertaken (Nature, 160, pp. 211-215, 1947) but Irving says that in answer to a question from Milch at a meeting in June 1942, Heisenberg indicated that an amount of uranium as small as a pineapple would be enough to destroy a large city (Irving, The Virus House, p. 109).

  All this was unknown to us. With all our other problems of Scientific Intelligence, we had had to rely on catching a weapon in the development and production stages, rather than in the research laboratory; and it was in the production stage, with heavy water, that we had caught the German nuclear work. We knew, of course, from pre-war scientific exchanges, who were the German scientists most likely to be involved, but in general we could only speculate on the state and direction of their work. One slightly false trail led to Pcenemünde, when we found from a scientific publication tha
t the theoretical physicist Pascal Jordan was now at ‘Heeres Anstalt Peenemünde’—the first explanation, incidentally, for us of the letters ‘H.A.P.’ which Peenemünde personnel were known to wear on their uniforms.

  A further result of Welsh’s enterprise was that we were able to keep ourselves informed of the progress of Anglo-American relations, since he had persuaded our own authorities to send their signals to America over our office link, which was especially secure. In one of the messages we read the terms of the agreement drawn up between Churchill and Roosevelt on 19th August 1943 in Quebec regarding the future concentration of atomic bomb work in America. I for one was shocked to read, ‘The British Government recognize that any post-war advantages of an industrial or commercial character shall be dealt with as between the United States and Great Britain on terms to be specified by the President of the United States to the Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Prime Minister expressly disclaims any interest in these industrial and commercial aspects beyond what may be considered by the President of the United States to be fair and just and in harmony with the economic welfare of the world.’

  It seemed to me that we had signed away our birthright in the postwar development of nuclear energy, and I immediately called on Cherwell to upbraid him for giving the Prime Minister such bad advice that the latter had signed our rights away because he did not realize how important nuclear energy was going to be. Difficulties had been increasing rapidly in the way of Anglo-American co-operation, due in part to American suspicions of our interest being more commercial than military, and I imagine that Churchill swept all these away with a magnificent gesture that could put us in a very awkward position after the war. I could to some extent sympathize with American suspicions, for in the Tube Alloys outer office the first thing that greeted a visitor was a large wall map of Britain divided up into the I.C.I, sales divisions, its presence in fact signifying nothing more sinister than that Akers and Perrin were I.C.I, employees seconded to the Government.

  Shortly after this, on 6th October 1943, Niels Bohr came to England, after escaping to Sweden from Copenhagen when he had received a warning that he was about to be arrested. We flew him from Stockholm in the bomb bay of a Mosquito, and we very nearly lost him en route. He told me that his head was so large that he could not wear the headphone set which should have kept him in contact with the pilot, and he therefore failed to switch on his oxygen when instructed to do so, with the result that he lost consciousness. There was nothing that the pilot could do, except to travel as fast and as low as possible; but even when Bohr regained consciousness he still could not inform the pilot, who on landing rushed to the bomb bay and found to his relief that his important passenger was still alive. On his arrival in London, which was kept secret, Bohr was entertained to dinner in the Savoy by Stewart Menzies, the other guests including Cherwell, Akers, Perrin, Welsh, Frank and myself. Aage, his son, who had escaped with his father and mother to Sweden, followed him to Britain a week or so later, and after a relatively short stay in London they went to see the work in America.

  They returned in April 1944. Bohr, who in his original message to Chadwick had said that the prospect for the release of nuclear energy was remote, was at first astonished by the state of development that he had now seen, and it was interesting to see how far his attitude had changed. He was very worried about the prospect of nuclear explosives, especially on the stability of the post-war world. He and Aage were accommodated in a flat in St. James’s Court in Buckingham Gate, and were allowed contact with no one outside a very small circle and it was suggested that Charles Frank and I should spend what time we could with Niels Bohr to give him the chance to talk about physics.

  It was the most tantalizing situation that I have ever been in. Here was the chance to talk to one of the world’s greatest physicists for as long as we liked, and he was only too glad to have someone to talk to. At the same time, it was less than a month away to the Invasion, and I was having to direct the attacks on the German radar stations, and also watch for the imminent flying bombs. So the time for discussing physics was very limited, but Charles and I did manage to receive a number of marvellous tutorials, in which Bohr showed us how, with his delightfully simple picture of the atomic nucleus as a charged liquid drop, it was possible to predict which nuclei could be split. Apart from finding the time to escape from our more pressing duties, our main problem was to keep him supplied in matches, because he would no sooner light his pipe than he would think of some new point to explain to us, and extinguish the tobacco with his finger. Every tutorial therefore ended with a pyramid of burnt matches and the pipe still unsmoked.

  Bohr also told us of his concern about the post-war prospects, and of his wish that he could speak to Churchill. He had had an indirect contact with Roosevelt and he believed himself to be the bearer of a message from the President. He asked me whether I could arrange an interview with Churchill, and I was very ready to try, because I could see in it a chance to make Churchill realize just how vital the issue was. I thought that he had been inadequately briefed by Cherwell, because the latter did not really believe that nuclear energy would ever be released. In fact, he had said as much to me, as also had Tizard. It seeemd that each of them had become so alarmed at the destruction that atomic bombs could cause that they clung to the hope that God had not so constructed the Universe that he had put such power in the hands of men.

  I therefore hoped that, even if Cherwell himself was doubtful about the prospect of the release of nuclear energy, the fact that so great an authority as Bohr was extremely worried about it would convince Churchill that he should take it more seriously. The one difficulty might be to persuade Cherwell, but in fact he fairly readily agreed. Apparently, as Margaret Gowing has related in Britain and Atomic Energy 1939-45, approaches to the same end were made to Cherwell by Field Marshal Smuts, Sir John Anderson, and Sir Henry Dale, the President of the Royal Society. But I believe that it was my persuasion that was decisive: at any rate, the message that Churchill would see Bohr came through Cherwell to me, with the request that I should tell Bohr. Immediately that I did so, Bohr himself asked for my help. He told me that he knew what he wanted to say, but that his English was not very good, and that he would therefore write out his statement and get me to put it into better English, which he would then learn by heart.

  In parenthesis at this point, he told me that he used to think that he spoke very good English, and that he was a master of English idiom. He became so confident that at a dinner in London he thought that he would tell a funny story just to show off. It concerned a Frenchman whose pronunciation of English was faulty and who said that the speaking of English ‘was not so much a matter of the voccabewlery as of the assent’. Bohr said that he told the story, but nobody laughed. ‘Then’, he said, ‘I knew how badly I spoke English!’

  I was far from happy about his suggested procedure, but I did my best, and after two or three re-drafts Bohr said that he was satisfied. The theme of his remarks was that sooner or later the Russians were bound to be able to make nuclear bombs for themselves, and that a very dangerous situation would result. He therefore believed that the world’s best hope lay in making a gesture towards the Russians at the present stage, when the Americans and ourselves were almost certainly well ahead, by telling them the secrets of releasing nuclear energy. This, he argued, would show the Russians that they had nothing to fear from the West, and that their subsequent attitude would be both grateful and friendly. I was not sure how Churchill would receive this advice, but I hoped that he would at least see that if such a great physicist as Bohr was so concerned, then every step in nuclear energy development should be most seriously considered, including any further signing away of British rights.

  The meeting with Churchill was to take place after lunch on 16th May 1944. I took Bohr along to Cherwell’s office, and they went on to Downing Street while I went back to invasion preparations. About five o’clock the same afternoon I was returning from the Air Ministry b
uilding in King Charles Street to my office in 54 Broadway, by way of Old Queen Street where the Tube Alloys office was housed. To my surprise I saw Niels Bohr coming along the street in the opposite direction, with his eyes cast Heavenwards. He seemed to be in a daze, and he walked right past me. Fearing that something was wrong I went back and stopped him, to ask him how he got on. All he could say was, ‘It was terrible! He scolded us like two schoolboys!’

  Afterwards he told me the story, as far as he could reconstruct it. Expecting that Churchill would invite him to speak, he had been ready with his set speech. Instead, Churchill—who seemed in a bad mood—immediately started to upbraid Cherwell telling him that he knew why Cherwell had fixed the interview, which was to reproach him for having signed the Quebec Agreement. It therefore seemed that either I had misjudged Cherwell who had certainly defended the signing of the Agreement to me, or it is possible that, influenced by my earlier criticism, Cherwell had later expressed doubts about the wisdom of the Agreement. Anyway, Churchill went for Cherwell, and Bohr’s set speech was completely lost.

  When he did have a chance to speak, he no doubt suffered from his usual anxiety to be precise, for he used to say that accuracy and clarity of statement are mutually exclusive. If you want to be accurate you must put in so many provisos and qualifications that clarity will necessarily suffer; Churchill gained the impression that he was a muddled thinker, whose one anxiety was that we should give away our secrets to the Russians. Indeed, Churchill did wonder whether he was a Russian agent. As for the situation in the post-war world, Churchill told them that no difference in principle was involved, since the atomic bomb was simply a bigger one, and that there were no problems that could not be settled directly between him and his friend, President Roosevelt. So the only result of my good intentions was that Niels Bohr himself became suspect. Fortunately, the idea was so ridiculous that it had no lasting effect; what did last was the friendship that Bohr extended to me right up to his death.