Fighting to Lose (52 page)

14. “Lahousen,” III, 18.

15. See, for example, the following microfilm reels: NARA, RG242, 1360, 1444, 1519, 1529, 1549, et cetera.

16. Ladislad Farago,
The Game of Foxes
(New York: David Mackay, 1972), 161; and David Kahn,
Hitler’s Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II
(New York: Macmillan, 1978), passim.

17. PRO, KV2/266.

18. Interrogation of Erich Pheiffer, NARA, RG319, 27018417/5, IRR Personal, Box 174A — Pheiffer.

19. Order of Battle, GIS Hamburg, 20 Jan. 1946, NARA, RG65, FBI HQ file, IWG Box 133, 65-37193-EBF352, 15; “Names of approx. 400 agents of all nationalities are to hand. Of this figure, roughly 25 per cent have been accounted for,” (document of unknown provenance [likely US Navy, ONI]). For a list of the agents themselves, see the card index of agents obtained by ONI and preserved on microfilm at NARA, RG242, T77, Reels 1568–69.

20. Dr. Wilhelm Hoettl, Interrogation Report No. 15, 9 Jul. 1945, 3rd Army Intelligence Center (3 AIC), copy to FBI, NARA, RG65, IWG Box 61, 65-47821-232. This is a sixty-three-page description of Nazi security services by an Austrian insider.

21. Hoettl, 22. Here he is describing the Gestapo chief, SS Obergruppenführer Heinrich Mueller.

22. Abshagan,
Canaris
, 102–04.

23. Curry,
Security Service
, 76, 245–46, and passim.

24. Henry Landau,
Secrets of the White Lady
(New York: Putnam, 1935).

25. For MI6 pre-war cipher usage, see John Whitwell,
British Agent
(London: William Kimber, 1966), 131–32. John Whitwell was the pseudonym for Kenneth Benton, the MI6(V) officer in Madrid from 1941 on. See also, Kenneth Benton, “The ISOS Years: Madrid 1941–3,”
Journal of Contemporary History
30 (1995): n.p. For MI5: Curry,
Security Service
, 369, 375.

26. For details of this transition, see Keith Jeffery,
The Secret History of MI6
(New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 209–11. Notice that Winston Churchill, then the minister for War and Air, had a say in this development.

27. John Bryden,
Best-Kept Secret: Canadian Secret Intelligence in the Second World War
(Toronto: Lester, 1993), 17–18 and passim.

28. Bryden,
Best-Kept Secret
, 18.

29. For the foregoing, see Curry,
Security Service
, 86–113. For an excellent contemporary dramatization of this “mentality,” see the Alfred Hitchcock film
Sabotage
(1936).

30. Curry,
Security Service
, 140.

31. Ibid. 99, 124, 142, 375–79. Curry states that there were thirty officers and 103 secretarial and Registry staff to the end of 1938. If this is so, the figure of two “dozen or so” officers engaged in security tasks should be about right.

32. For Colonel Simpson’s identity and background, see PRO, WO 201/2864; and Curry,
Security Service
, 177.

33. Curry,
Security Service
, 143–44, 177–78. See also, Dick White on MI5, Jan. 1943, PRO, KV4/170. For twenty-seven operators “twiddling knobs,” see Liddell Diary, 2 Oct. 1939.

34. Eric Curwain, “Almost Top Secret,” (unpublished monograph, pre-1982) 4–10, 62, 65. Curwain (probably a pseudonym) was recruited by MI6 in 1938 and served throughout the war. This may be the only surviving memoir of someone who worked under Gambier-Parry from the beginning. It is a well-written account. See also, Jeffery,
MI6
, 318–19.

1. PRO, KV2/452.

2. Report, Metropolitan Police, 18 Aug. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 295a.

3. Major Vivian, Note to File, 9 Oct. 1936, PRO, KV2/444.

4. Probably Major Otto Pieper of Abt I/Heer, Order of Battle Ast Hamburg, HQ 8 Corp Dist., 20 Jan. 1946, NARA, RG65, IWG Box 133, 65-37193-352.

5. Capt. J. Gwyer, “SNOW” case summary, 10 Aug. 1943, PRO, KV2/451, Doc. 1624a. See also, Gwyer interrogation of SNOW, 10 Apr. 1942, PRO, KV2/451, Doc. 1474c; and Mastermann,
Double-Cross
, 38. For examples of intercepted letters circa 1937 between DR. RANTZAU and JOHNNY, Owen’s German code name at the time, see PRO, KV2/445. Their content certainly seems innocuous.

6. Masterman,
Double-Cross
, 39, which is the same as PRO, KV2/451, Doc. 1803a. See also, Gwyer, 10 Aug. 1943, PRO, KV2/451, Doc. 1624a; and Curry,
Security Service
, 124. The suggestion by some writers that MI6 somehow could not get the set to work is nonsense. Radio technology was very well known and Scotland Yard had wireless operators and technicians of its own.

7. For SNOW having another secret address in 1939, see comment on SNOW Junior’s disclosures, ca. late 1941, PRO, KV2/451, Doc. 1624(b).

8. Report, Metropolitan Police, 18 Aug 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 295.

9. Inspector to Superintendent, Scotland Yard, 6 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 302a. Colonel Simpson does not appear in the file again until Oct. 30. He may have been away, for he appears to have been an advisor to MI5 rather than a member of staff. His name also may be among the many documents that have been removed from this file. For Robertson as head of B3, see Liddell Diary, 6 Sep. 1939.

10. For early messages from Owens, see Va 1002 in England durch afu sender, 28.8.39, NARA, RG242, T-77, Reel 1540. A 29 Aug. message in this file notes the agent number change from “Va 1002” to “3504 I Luft.” These documents back up the postwar statements of Major Nikolaus Ritter that Owens transmitted his first messages in August, just before war was declared: Nikolaus Ritter,
Deckname Dr. Rantzau: Die Aufzeichnungen Des Nikolaus Ritter, Offizier Im Geheimen Nachrichtendienst
(Hamburg: Hoffmann and Campe, 1972), 150–51. This is also confirmed by Hinsley and Simkins,
BISWW
, IV, 41.

11. Unattributed (but probably Robertson), Memo to File (title whited out and overwritten as “SNOW”), 1–4, with subsequent page(s) missing, probably 12 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 303a, but also marked Doc. 14A. This indicates it came from another file that had been started at the time. Owens probably just broke a soldered contact.

12. PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 303a. The handwritten “SNOW keying” replaces whited-out text, which actually must have been, “Owens’s key,” based on a remnant apostrophe, letter counting, and the fact that Owens had not yet been given the SNOW code name. The relevant sentence then becomes: “On Saturday September 9th MEAKIN and I again went to Wandsworth and succeeded in transmitting at 6 o’clock and 7.45 with Owens’s key.” For the assertion that a prison warder made this first contact, see “Notes written by a former MI5 officer from his personal experience,” Hinsley & Simkins,
BISWW
, IV, Appendix 3, 311. The writer is apparently speaking from hearsay. Meakin probably took on the cover “of a warder who knew the Morse code” to hide that he was from the War Office when he and Robertson operated the transmitter, which required an aerial some forty feet long. Contact with Germany from Wandsworth on 11 Sep. is conclusively established by the entry in Liddell Diary, “Sep. 12, a.m.” The Nigel West published copy of the diary omits the a.m. and p.m. references for this day — a crucial oversight.

13. Robertson, Note to File, 14 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 304a. The deduction that it was Mr. Meakin again transmitting comes from the use of “had explained” at line 17. If Owens had been present, the simple past tense would have been used. Furthermore, Mr. Meakin is referred to as looking after “the operating side” of the set on 22 Sep. 1939 — Doc. 311a — and a wireless “operator” is mentioned during a transmission session on 26 Sep. 1939 — Doc. 320a. Later case summaries in the available files are missing the paragraphs that would have described Owens’s first transmissions, and the “wireless folder” from which extracts from this document were taken, cannot be located.

14. In 1939–40, Ast Hamburg had its own wireless intelligence division, Abt Ii, known as WOHLDORF, and headed by Werner Trautmann. Richard Wein was the W/T instructor and it was he who taught Owens: NARA, RG65, IWG Box 133, 65-37193; and Ritter,
Deckname
, 148–51. Both men were experienced army signals officers and would have certainly noticed any changes in sending “fist.” Farago,
Game of Foxes
, 149–50, mentions the German radio operators recognizing Owens’s unique Morse sending “fingerprint” when they received his first pre-war messages. Note that no matter whether it was Mr. Meakin or a prison warder sending for Owens, the Germans would have known immediately it was not him.

15. Ritter,
Deckname
, 151.

16. Robertson, Note to File, 14 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 304a. The mission was cleared by Harker and Hinchley-Cook. See also, Dick White on MI5, Jan. 1943, PRO, KV4/170. Maxwell Knight of M section was also consulted. Colonel Simpson does not show up in any of the discussions at this time.

17. PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 304a, 305b. The division of responsibilities between MI5 and MI6 would have required asking MI6 to track Owens’s movements on the Continent. For the initiative being Robertson’s, see Curry,
Security Service
, 246.

18. “Report on interview with “SNOW,” 21 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 309a. (“Owens” has been whited out and “SNOW” overwritten in longhand.) The report mentions that Owen claims he “[a]rrived Friday night.…” This, along with Docs. 304a and 305b, is proof that Owens left on 15 Sep. and returned by 20–21 Sep. This puts out of date the Liddell Diary entry of 22 Sep. 1939, which says, “SNOW has been let out of jail and is proceeding to Holland where he is contacting a German agent.” He had already returned. (The Nigel West version has 22 Sep. entry under 19 Sep.) The Hamburg–Berlin reports from Owens are dated 18 Sep.: MARA, RG242, T-77, 1540.

19. Curry,
Security Service
, 128.

20. The “/E” stands for England, so the message went directly to the Air Espionage desk for England in Berlin, with a copy to Abw. Ii, the Science and Technology desk: NARA, RG242, T-77, 1540, frame 019.

21. “Er meldete Deutschland die ersten Geheiminformationen über radarstationen, zunächst über deren Existenz überhaupt und dann über die genaue Lage der vier grössten Radarstationen in England”: Ritter,
Deckname
167.

22. Curry,
Security Service
, 143. As an electrical engineer, Owens had regular occasion to visit Philips in Holland (Ritter,
Deckname
, 19), so it is plausible he picked up the information himself.

23. Interview with “SNOW,” 21 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 309a; and TAR to Colonel. Vivian (MI6), 23 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 312a. The “600,000 a day” is evidently a response to Owens’s mention during his first meeting with DR. RANTZAU that the British had some two hundred thousand troops on the Belgium border ready to strike at Germany by going through Belgium and Holland.

24. PRO, KV2/446, Docs. 311a, 313a, 314a, 316a. See also, “Die erste Wettermeldung ist irrtumlich …” Wettermeldung von 3504 aus London/Kingston vom 25.9.39, Ast X, B.Nr. 1285/39: NARA, RG242, T-77, 1540.

25. Owens debriefing, 21 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 309a.

26. PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 492. “Cipher work” was then the responsibility of the female support staff at MI5: Curry,
Security Service
, 375. Liddell tried to get Col. Worledge and Col. Butler to approach the DMI regarding setting up a section for “codes,” at the same time making reference to a Miss Dew having an enormous number of obviously encoded intercepts “relative to a man called Schultz”: Liddell Diary, 22 Jan. 1940. (Not in Nigel West version.) MI5 used the word code for both codes and ciphers at this time.

27. The “congratulations” cipher is reproduced from PRO, KV2/453 in Michael Smith and Ralph Erskine, eds.,
Action This Day
(London; and New York: Bantam Press, 2001), Appendix I, 441–43. For contemporary comment on this type of cipher, see Helen Fouche Gaines,
Elementary Cryptanalysis,
1939 (Boston: American Photographic Publishing, 1943), 10–11. For examples of SNOW’s enciphered messages, see Transmission log, 7 Oct. 1939, PRO, KV2/446. A transposition cipher using a fixed key is about as simple a cipher as one can find. His actual instructions from the Germans involved taking a daily key from a popular novel, a much stronger method: Ritter,
Deckname
, 151–52.

28. Robertson, Note to File, 26 Sep. 1939, PRO KV2/446. He does not indicate whether this permission was conveyed by Boyle, or whether the request did go to the War Cabinet as Boyle said it needed to. It would be helpful to find a document in the Air Ministry files that would corroborate Robertson’s statement. Note that Neville Chamberlain was still prime minister at this time, with Churchill in his cabinet as head of the navy.

29. Williams was furnished by “M” — Maxwell Knight — so he was probably an informer that MI5/B2 had been running inside the Welsh nationalist movement. See the “M” reference in Unnamed to B3, 9 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/446, Doc. 311a. This document has large deletions.

30. A-3504 reports, 22 Oct. 1939, NARA, T77, Reel 1540. The barrage balloon question is among others on an unnumbered document in longhand: PRO, KV2/446.