Between Silk and Cyanide (15 page)

On 3 August they informed Parsnip that his friend Cabbage was ready to link up with him. Could they safely make contact via Potato? They also asked him several operational questions which required urgent answers.

No reply was received to these questions during Boni's next four skeds though he transmitted three messages from Parsnip in the course of them. The Dutch section then pressed for replies and were informed Boni that
Parsnip had been unable to decipher London's message 3 August.
Boni suggested that Parsnip's future traffic should be ciphered in his (Boni's) code. Boni then transmitted five messages from Parsnip,
none of which we could decipher despite a blanket attack of 5,000 attempts.

On 9 September the Dutch section's message of 3 August was repeated to Parsnip in Boni's code. In a separate message to Boni the Dutch section informed him that five of Parsnip's messages could not deciphered and that a sixth was missing and asked Boni to retransmit of them in his own code (an appalling breach of cipher security but 0zanne was not prepared to intervene).

On 12 September Boni transmitted a message in Parsnip's code which did not answer one of London's questions of 3 August. The Dutch section acknowledged this message the next day and reminded Parsnip that five of his previous messages could not be deciphered and that a sixth was missing. They repeated their urgent enquiries of 3 August.

On 15 September Boni informed the Dutch section that
Parsnip had been unable to decipher London's message of the 13th,
Boni again suggested that all Parsnip's traffic should be encoded in his (Boni's) code. At the end of this dangerously long transmission he retransmitted Parsnip's five indecipherables in his own code. I noticed that they dealt exclusively with Intelligence matters.

On 19 September the Dutch section alerted Potato that his operation had to be postponed until the night of 7/8 October and urgently instructed him to re-check the details and confirm that there was no change. Potato made no reply at all to this message and on 2 October the Dutch section reminded Boni that they still hadn't heard from Potato.

On 3 October Boni transmitted two messages in Parsnip's code which we were unable to decipher despite a blanket attack of 5,000 attempts. From this point onwards approximately 70 per cent of Parsnip's traffic was passed in Boni's code, the remainder in his own. On 7 October Boni retransmitted the sixth and seventh of Parsnip's indecipherables as well as Parsnip's two indecipherables of 3 October. He had re-enciphered them accurately in his own code. They all dealt with Intelligence matters.

On 12 October Boni informed the Dutch section that
Potato had been unable to decipher London's message of 19 September and asked them to repeat it. On the same day—after Heffer had personally intervened with Ozanne—the Dutch section paraphrased their message of the 19th and it was transmitted to Potato in Boni's code.

On 13 October Potato confirmed that conditions had not changed and that everything was ready for the operation.

On 24 October Boni sent two messages in his own code from Parsnip. Both dealt exclusively with Intelligence matters.

On 31 October the Dutch section informed Parsnip that the time had come for him to contact Carrot. The message was enciphered in Parsnip's code.

On 7 November Boni informed the Dutch section that
Parsnip had been unable to decipher London's message of the 31st and asked for it to be re-enciphered in his own code.

On 12 November a paraphrased version of this message was transmitted to Parsnip in Boni's code.

From 12 November onwards traffic proceeded to flow smoothly in both directions and the dropping operation took place on the nights of 28 /29 November to the complete satisfaction of the Dutch section.

The snarl-up had caused the following casualties:

Nine indecipherables from Holland to London
Four indecipherables from London to Holland
Nine repeated messages from Holland to London
Four repeated messages from London to Holland.

These repeated messages had totally compromised the security of Boni's and Parsnip's codes, such as it was in the first place.

The Dutch section attributed the entire snarl-up to the natural hazzards of clandestine communication.
The unnatural hazards were themselves and Ozanne.

I found the Dutch more difficult to approach than any other country section. The head of the Directorate was Major Blizzard; his deputy was Captain Bingham, and they were assisted by Captain Killick, whose real name was Kypers. They had a stock answer to every inquiry I made about the security of their agents: 'They're perfectly all right; we have our own ways of checking on them,' and I wasn't in a position to ask what they were.

Killick was the most open-minded and co-operative, though he was Foreign Office trained, but I discovered from reading the back traffic he'd committed the worst breach of security I'd come across I joining SOE.

I taxed him with it on the telephone. 'Captain Killick, is it true that in April this year you authorized Trumpet to recruit and train a local wireless operator?'

'Yes.'

'And is it also true that you instructed him to make this operator transmit a test message?'

'Yes.'

'And when that message arrived, the operator hadn't used any security checks?'

'No, he hadn't.'

'Did you then instruct Trumpet to teach the operator how to use security checks?—and in the same message, did you tell him exactly what those checks were to be?'

'I did.'

'Do you consider that was good security, Captain Killick?'

'You weren't here in April,' he said, buying a little time.

'I've been reading your back traffic. Was it good security, Captain Killick?'

'Of course it wasn't. And I'll see nothing like it happens again.'

At least I'd achieved something but I still couldn't pinpoint that elusive worry. All I could say to anyone—with my hand on a WOK or any other Bible—was that there was something wrong with the Dutch traffic.

It was a relief to turn from the mysteries of Holland to the wonders of Denmark.

The Danish directorate was the least troublesome (though often the most troubled) in the whole of Baker Street. Ever since 1940, when King Christian had ordered his people to accept the German occupation with dignified demeanour—'And God help you all, and God help Denmark!'—Churchill and the Chiefs of Staff had discounted the Danes as a fighting force. But this hadn't deterred the head of the Danish section (Commander Hollingsworth) and his deputy (Reginald Spink) from proceeding with dignified demeanour to prove that the tiny country had a contribution to make which was out of all proportion to its size.

The first Danish agents were dropped blind in December '41—Dr Carl Bruhn to recruit partisans, and Mogens Hammer to set up wireless links with London. Bruhn's parachute didn't open and Hammer, who'd landed safely, couldn't find his body. Nor could he find the transmitter which Bruhn was carrying. The Germans found both.

They also found Hammer's parachute and issued a warning that the first British agents had arrived in Denmark and that one of them was still at large. It was extremely dangerous for Hammer to move around Copenhagen but he dressed himself as a Protestant parson and became so at home in the part that he frequently preached at German military services.

His greatest problem was not divine communication but how to find a new transmitter and to solve it he contacted Ebbe Muncke, head of the Danish patriotic group in Sweden, who ran a weekly courier service to London. Muncke provided Hammer with the equipment he needed and in April '42 Hammer transmitted his first message to London. The signal was so weak that it was barely decipherable and Hammer persuaded a brilliant Danish engineer, Duus Hansen, to build a new one for him in his Copenhagen laboratory. Duus Hansen's set worked even better than SOE's own and Hammer made one of the most far-sighted decisions ever taken on SOE's behalf. He recruited Duus Hansen into SOE.

Something equally significant had taken place in neglected little Denmark in June '41 which neither Hammer nor SOE knew about at the time. Three young men, anxious to join what they believed to an active Danish Resistance in London, had acquired the frame a two-seater sports plane and, using the best of Danish inspiration and a motor-car engine, had built an aeroplane which they assembled in a barn outside Copenhagen. The three would-be aviators were Sneum, Petersen and Rottbøll. Since their plane would hold only two (if as many), Rottbøll decided to go by sea. In June '41 Sneum and Petersen flew to Britain in their contraption, bringing with them films the latest German radar systems.

Astonished British scientists confirmed that the films contained the most valuable information yet received from any source about German radar—and C asked the two young men to return home and up a wireless link with England. In September '41 Sneum and a wireless operator were dropped back into Denmark. They were friendly with a Danish police officer and with his help sent C a series of messages about the daily activities of the German security police. C did not inform SOE of this vital wireless link. Nor did C disclose to SOE the information about the movements of the German police. Even in a country the size of Denmark the sister organizations would not collaborate.

The third young man, Rottbell, reached London with the help of Ebbe Muncke and so impressed Commander Hollingsworth that he was invited to take command of all SOE agents in Denmark. The young man accepted and in April parachuted with two wireless operators on to a dropping ground in Denmark prepared by Mogens Hammer.

In May 1942 there were only seven SOE agents in Denmark and Rottbøll's first priority was to recruit new ones and to find a distinguished Danish citizen to come to London to head up a Free Danish Council. He contacted Christmas Moller, a prominent politician, who arrived in London in May to form the Danish government-in-exile.

With little help from SOE (though Hollingsworth provided all he could) Rottbøll co-ordinated the various Resistance groups in Denmark and persuaded them to pool their resources under SOE. His chief wireless operator, Johannesen, was in regular contact with London, Stockholm and Gothenburg. Early in September German direction-finding units located the house from which he was operating and burst into it. Johannesen held them off with a pistol just long enough to swallow his L-tablet.

On 25 September the German police located the house where Rottbøll was living and surrounded it. They called on the young man to surrender. He died with twelve bullets in him.

On both these raids the Germans had insisted that Danish police should accompany them.

The raids continued, and by the end of September London was completely out of wireless contact with the Danish Resistance, though many messages were smuggled into our embassy in Sweden and relayed to London.

In the middle of October Hollingsworth asked to see me 'as soon as convenient'.

I was with him ten minutes later. His entire directorate was squeezed into three small offices in Chiltern Court, and he shared ie with his deputy, Spink, an expert on Denmark's economy.

Hollingsworth was the only country section head I'd met who was prepared to discuss his problems with me as if I were a member of his directorate. He confided that Mogens Hammer had arrived in London, and was prepared to return to Denmark within the next ten days despite the dangers. It was essential that he took new codes with him. He must also have a stock in reserve to hand to new agents. He as waiting next door to be briefed.

I asked if he and Spink would write some original poems in Danish, and they at once agreed. I then suggested that, to make the reserve poems easier for Hammer to conceal, and if necessary to dispose of, they should be microfilmed on soluble paper. Hollingsworth liked the principle but asked if they could be produced on waterproof paper. It was an unusual request and I asked the reason for it.

Hammer was to be dropped into the sea.

It would be the first time this form of parachuting had been attempted by an SOE agent. After a great deal of research a special waterproof suit had been produced for Hammer which fitted over his ordinary clothing. It was still in the experimental stage and there was a great danger that, if the fabric were torn, water would saturate hig suit and its sheer weight would cause the wearer to drown.

Hammer's reaction had been typical: 'If it doesn't work for me you ill learn from it and it will work for the next man.'

I went next door to brief the sea-going parson.

It was likely to be a difficult session. I knew from his traffic that he was an excellent coder and WT operator, but instructing agents in the use of the poem-code would be a new experience for him, and was a hard enough task in the safety of training schools, let alone in occupied Denmark.

He greeted me as if I were a member of his congregation who hadn't put enough in the plate, and was clearly in no mood to be taught how to teach. Like all agents who'd formed coding habits, he some difficulty absorbing new security rules and showed flashes temper which were mainly directed against himself. But at the end an hour he'd made his peace with his coding and smiled from the pupit when I wished him good luck.

On 20 October he dropped into the sea and arrived in Copenhagen a day or two later to resume his sermons to his German flock. SOE had a massive success in November and an even more massive disaster.

The success was our contribution to the invasion of North Africa which had helped to secure Algiers for the Allies.

SOE's base had been set up at Guyotville and given the code-name Massingham. It was to be our communications centre in North Africa for main-line and agents' traffic. London was to provide most of the coders and Dansey told me to pick some of the best from Station 53. The girls were delighted but it meant breaking up a team. Dispersing them was like tearing out pages from an illuminated manuscript and selling them separately, one of 84's less desirable habits.