Fighting to Lose (53 page)

31. B3, Note to File, 30 Oct. 1939, PRO, KV2/447, Doc. 382a. Major Sinclair, apparently still in charge of double agents, and Colonel Simpson were also present for this report from Owens. This is the first reference to Colonel Simpson in the documents after 6 Sep. Presumably he was away during the interval.

32. Nicolai,
German Secret Service
, 214.

33. Eschborn confession, 4–6 Sep. 1939, PRO, KV2/454, Doc. 6a. An example of one of his mini-photographs is Doc. 73a. Other documents in the SNOW files refer to these as “microphotos,” but they were nothing like the actual microdots then in use by the Abwehr, which were pencil-point images on camera film, not paper positives. Notice that persuading the British to get CHARLIE to produce mini-photographs gave him the excuse to possess the equipment to make actual microdots. His brother, Erwin, on his way to Canada for internment there, was among those who perished on the
Andora Star
. Charles Eschborn was A-3503 on Major Ritter’s agent list.

34. The time when these code names were introduced is determined for Owens by letter-counting the whiteouts on documents in his file overwritten with SNOW.

35. PRO, KV2/447: 16 Nov. 1939, Doc. 438a; 14 Jan. 1940, Doc. 563a; 24 Jan. 1940, Doc. 576a; 27 Feb. 1940, Doc. 642a.

36. PRO, KV2/447, Docs. 548b, 584a.

37. Roberts, Note to File, 3 Apr. 1940, PRO, KV2/477, Doc. 718a.

1. Bryden,
Best-Kept Secret
, 14–17 citing documents from the file, LAC, RG24, 12,324, s,4/cipher/4D. See also, Dick White, In-house MI5 Symposium, ca. 1943, PRO, KV4/170.

2. Hugh Trevor-Roper, “Sideways into S.I.S.,” in
The Name of Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Walter Pforzheimer
, eds. Hayden Peake and Samuel Halpern (Washington, D.C.: NIBC Press, 1994), 251–257; and E.W.B. Gill, “Interception Work of R.S.S.,” 19 Nov. 1940, PRO, WO208/5097.

3. Sometime in 1940, Lt.-Col. Simpson issued a report that noted that an illicit W/T transmitter operating in Britain might not be picked up by MI8(c)’s fixed receiving centres, and, by implication, by any of its volunteer HAM interceptors who were also listening from fixed locations: Curry,
Security Service
, 287–8. The obvious answer was to move the receivers around as the Germans did with their spy ships.

4. NARA, RG242, T-77, 1541, 1569 and Liddell Diary, 21 Sep. 1941. See also, Farago,
Game of Foxes,
141–46. Farago describes Kaulen’s activities in England at some length, taking his information from a report by his Nest Bremen boss, Pheiffer. Kaulen left Britain on 2 Sep., the day before war was declared, joining
Theseus
in Eire. which had a “special Afu transmitter” waiting for him. The ship went directly to Norway .

5. Liddell Diary, 14 Mar. 1940; and Gill, “Interception Work of R.S.S.” PRO, WO208/5097.

6. Hinsley and Simkins,
BISWW
, IV, 44; and White, MI5 Symposium, ca. 1943, PRO, KV4/170. See also Chapter 5, Note 9.

7. By 19 May 1940, he was only up to ISOS No. 11: Canaris wireless traffic compilation, PRO, KV3/3.

8. “The Room 40 Compromise,” undated, NSA, DOCID 3978516. Apparently an in-house historical examination of the incident.

9. PRO, WO 201/2864.

10. Liddell Diary, 22 Apr. 1940, PRO. See also, Ewen Montagu,
Beyond Top Secret U
(London: Peter Davies, 1977), 34; and Curry,
Security Service
, 178–9.

11. Curwain, “Almost Top Secret,” 48–58, 97. The transmitter was a “three-valve” crystal set — “valve” being the British equivalent of “radio tube” in America — comprising two 6L6 tubes in parallel and one 807 for output.

12. Ibid.

13. Indirect evidence of this can be found in the fact that MI6(VIII) was doing traffic analysis — “Y” — for the navy at this time: Jeffery,
MI6
, 340.

14. B3, Note to File, 8 Apr. 1940, PRO. KV2/448. Hinsley & Simkens,
BISWW
, IV, 44, mention that it was thought at the time that SNOW’s transmitter could only be picked up “at very close or very long range.” This is correct, but it does not mean that the transmitters could not be located. The British Post Office was already using mobile direction-finding (DF) units to pick up local transmissions, and the Germans in Holland and France were to develop the technique to a fine art. For examples of Hamburg’s actual instructions to an agent regarding the need to change frequencies to avoid DF, see U.S. Coast Guard decrypts: NARA, CG2-329, 351, 357. The spy could change frequency by changing the crystals in his set.

15. General des Nachrichtentruppe Albert Praun, “German Radio Intelligence,” (U.S. trans., 1950), 200–04, NARA, Foreign Militart Studies, P-038. See also, DHH, SCR II, 324. The wholesale capture of SOE agents is well documented in a number of published accounts.

16. Curry,
Security Service
, 180, 287–88.

17. Denniston (GC&CS) to Gill (RSS), 19 Apr. 1940; Robertson to Cowgill, 20 Apr. 1940: PRO, KV2/448. Gill’s reaction to the French information is unknown. See also, Liddell Diary, 21 Apr. 1940.

18. Gill was copied on the French report but Robertson was under no obligation to consult him. The RSS was responsible only for interception; action on the results was exclusively up to MI5.

19. B3, Report to File, 8 Apr. 1940, PRO. KV2/448. B3 was Major Robertson.

20. For the foregoing: Ritter,
Deckname
, 150–51.

21. “ROBERTSON, Lt.-Col Thomas Argyll (1909–1994),” Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London. Robertson’s connection with section B3 is established by a reference to him in Liddell Diary, 6 Sep. 1939. For B3’s responsibilities, see Curry,
Security Service
, 161, 177, 287. He mentions that B3 was “under Lt.-Colonel Simpson,” but also that he was attached to MI5 in an advisory capacity.

22. Farrago,
Game of Foxes
, 40–48 (He interviewed Ritter); and Benjamin Fischer, “A.k.a. ‘Dr. Rantzau: The Enigma of Major Nikolaus Ritter,”
Centre for the Study of Intelligence Bulletin
11 (Summer 2000).

23. “Little is known of SNOW’s early career but it is understood that he served in the Royal Flying Corps during the last war. At some date about 1920 SNOW emigrated to Canada where he set up business as an electrical engineer. In 1933 he returned to this country and found employment as an engineer for the Expanded Metal Co.”: Gwyer to B1, 10 Aug. 1943, PRO, KV2/454.

24. Robertson, Note to File, 29 Jan. 1940, PRO, KV2/447 Doc. 590a.

25. Liddell Diary, 23 Feb. 1940. PRO. Also mentioned by Curry,
Security Service
, 247. Buss, who had been D of I (Air) from December 1938, was demoted to deputy director of repair and servicing and then retired. He was reinstated as director of intelligence (security) in 1943.

26. PRO, KV2/454, Docs. 66a-b.

27. Robertson, Note re meetings with SNOW, 15 Nov. 1939 and 24 Jan. 1940, PRO, KV2/447, Docs. 438a, 576a.

28. Espionage memoirs of the First World War published in the 1930s make many mentions of the need to keep the identities of spies secret from each other. See: Landau,
All’s Fair
, 142; and Richard Rowan,
The Story of the Secret Service
(New York: Doubleday, 1937), 560, 567. It has been a well-established principle for centuries and was the reason each Abwehr office — Ast Hamburg, Ast Kiel, Ast Wilhelmshaven, et cetera — recruited and dispatched its own spies, coordination being effected at Abwehr headquarters in Berlin.

29. Robertson, Note to File, 16 Nov. 1939, PRO, KV2/447, Doc. 438a.

30. Robertson, Note to file, 24 Jan. 1940; PRO, KV2/447, Doc. 576a.

31. A 3504 meldet 4.4.40 bei einen Treff in Antwerpen: “Hauptquartier der 10 und 51 Bomber Squadron in Dishforth. 51 erst seit kurzer Zeit dort. Ausrustung Whitney und Vickers Wellington.” NARA, RG242, T77, 1540. This was exactly correct. So he did learn something on his visit to Dishforth. For a cover address for secret letters the British were unaware of: Ritter,
Deckname
, 150. B3 to file, 4 April, 1940; PRO, KV2/477, 722a. Also, Gwyer 10.8.43; KV/451, Doc. 1624(a).

1. Richard Basset,
Hitler’s Spy Chief: The Wilhelm Canaris Mystery
(London: Cassell, 2005), 174–5; and Anthony Masters,
The Man Who Was M: The Life of Maxwell Knight
(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984), 76–106.

2. Farago,
Game of Foxes
, 513; and CSDIC interrogation of Major Sandel, 16 Sep. 1945, NARA, RG65, IWG Box 130. For Kuhlenthal as a protegé of Canaris, see HARLEQUIN interrogation, PRO, KV2/275.

3. Traugott Andreas Richard Protze, PRO, KV2/1740-1; Colvin,
Chief of Intelligence
, passim; and Interrogation Report, Oberst Alexander Waag, 22 Aug. 1945, NARA, RG319, Box 242, 68006380. After the fall of France and declaration of war by Italy, Switzerland diminished in importance, for it was landlocked by the Axis and spies could no longer easily come and go.

4. For Busch, the “Nazi” at Eins Luft E, see Lahousen, PRO, KV2/173, Doc. 5a. Busch said he took over as Eins Luft E in Jun. 1940 and remained responsible for receiving espionage reports from England and America until Mar. 1943: Report to Director on Friedrich Busch, 10 Aug. 1945, NARA, RG65, IWG Box 130, 65-37193-307.

5. Ritter,
Deckname
, 19–20; and Farago,
Game of Foxes
, 40–41.

6. Order of Battle, GIS Hamburg, 1946, NARA, RG65, IWG Box 133, 65-37193-EBF352.

7. Interrogation of Georges Delfanne, 8 Mar. 1947, U.S. Army G-2, NARA, RG65, IWG Box 189, 65-57115-5.

8. Bryden,
Best-Kept Secret
, 26, 46, citing documents released by Canada’s Communications Security Establishment and in LAC.

9. The Group X (Sebold) messages are found in PRO, HW19/1-6. The files show Strachey began decrypting them in May. See also, Liddell Diary, 13 Sep. 1940 and 9. Jan. 1941. Group 10 in the text is Group X.

10. For the Oslo report, see Hinsley,
BISWW
, I, 99–100, 508–12; and R.V. Jones,
Reflections on Intelligence
(London: Mandarin Paperbacks, 1989), 265–77, 324–77. Both books reproduce the text of the report, so readers can judge for themselves whether Sebold’s information was more revealing.

11. Ducase (Sebold, Stein, et cetera), NARA, RG65, WWII, FBI HQ Files, Box 11, “Espionage in World War II,” 224.

12. R.V. Jones,
Most Secret War
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978), 126, 135–37, 145–50.

13. Bryden,
Deadly Allies
, passim; British chemical and biological research was mainly done in Canada. For the Tizard mission and proximity fuse: ibid., 51.

14. A 3504 meldet 5.4.40 bei einen Treff in Antwerpen, NARA, T-77, 1540. Robertson describes asking Boyle to answer a German request for the “exact location and contents” of RAF maintenance facilities, including those of St Athan’s: B3, Note to File, 2 Feb. 1940 and 4 Apr. 1940, PRO, KV2/447, Docs. 643a, 644a, 722a.

15. NARA, T-77, 1540. Nr. 1252/39 is a reference to A-3504’s first report on radar.

16. Liddell Diary, 19 May 1940.

1. General Alfred Jodl, Nuremberg testimony, 5 Jun. 1946.

2. Reynolds,
Treason
, 187–90. Beck was undoubtedly getting much of this from Canaris, who was responsible to the army for gathering intelligence on the United States, and who had come to this same conclusion.