Hitler's Lost Spy (14 page)

The Support Team

A further consideration – who were the men at the airport? The
huddling
and
nattering
do not suppose a normal social meeting, so why were they there? The conclusion is, again by elimination of other possibilities, that these were German agents, or others attached to them, one of whom had control of the photographic assignment. It is conceivable that Annette flew to Newcastle with a limited knowledge of her task, and the details were advised on her arrival.

The men she met at the airport briefed her on the mission, and she then accomplished what any of those men would have had greater difficulty in undertaking. A camera-friendly lady with the necessary knowledge, plus a likeable friend and agreeable pilot, was a far better prospect at avoiding suspicion than a male with an unknown pilot hired for the day. The choice of Annette for the assignment was ideal.

Also, the meeting with Annette at Newcastle was a safer option than meeting anywhere in Sydney. A group of several people clustering around in a suspect manner may attract the wrong attention in Sydney, particularly should any one in the group believe he was under surveillance. But in regional Newcastle, meeting outside the airport terminal, with normal precautions observed, would be considerably less risky.

The meeting in that specific location, however, contained one vital flaw – it was within full view of the pilot, who would later pass the details of the scene he had witnessed to the very people Annette and her team planned to avoid.

Clearly, Annette's meeting with her support team demonstrated her overconfidence in the pilot. Had Jack raised any sticky questions about her mission (and he may have) her self-assurance would curb any adverse implications as she would have had the appropriate answers. But this in turn offers an insight into the lady – 
that of dominance and composure under pressure – 
supporting the observation that
she does not make requests,
she orders.

During World War II, aerial intelligence would provide huge volumes of vital enemy information – for both sides. Without being aware of its future importance, it is possible that Annette Wagner may have been a pioneer of this practice.

Undoubtedly, on that day, many residents of Newcastle had peered into the sky to view the small plane circling the harbour. They would have reeled in shock had they known the purpose of the flight and who had arranged it. Learning that the camera-savvy passenger had lived within that same community, and hosted broadcasts on 2NC, a local radio station, may have tilted the shock into something quite different.

FOOTNOTES

12
 The Times Universal Atlas of the World lists Mont Blanc as the fifth highest mountain in Europe. The four higher mountains are 
in the Russian Federation. In 1939 the popular notion of ‘Europe' excluded the then Soviet Union.

13
 For readers with an interest in aviation history, the Aeronca 100 
was a version of the American Aeronca C.3 and built under licence in the UK. The length was 6.1 metres, the wingspan 11.0 metres, it had a top speed of 152 kph, a range of 320 km and weighed only 258 kg. It was powered by an Aeronca 36 hp JAP J-99 engine. The registration of the Clancy Aeronca was VH-UXV.

Two days after Hitler's invasion of Poland, Australia was at war with Germany. This immediately changed the status of many foreign residents. It was a normal wartime practice, and a security priority applied to foreign citizens employed by radio stations. Any unnaturalised resident who had access to a radio station's microphone was therefore removed from that position and relocated to back-office responsibilities. The potential for feeding espionage details by radio was apparent, and given the opportunity, all combatants in World War II used public radio for this purpose, or for propaganda. During the war, the BBC in London, for example, was used to transmit coded messages of pre-arranged texts and poems at specific times to the French underground.

Annette was therefore immediately separated from her direct access to audiences and her radio work was confined to script writing or production. It is clear from her subsequent security interview that Annette was not pleased with this arrangement. She immediately argued (incorrectly) that her French citizenship and Swiss birth should exclude her from this mandatory security requisite. Had Harold and Gertrude Ridgley formally adopted Annette, her radio broadcasting would possibly have continued uninterrupted. However, irrespective of Annette's residential status, the declaration of war would have forced the hand of Security as she could not be allowed to continue. The accumulated evidence of her being an enemy spy – whether Allied citizen or not – 
ensured that her radio broadcasting, at least while hostilities continued, was over.

The blanket removal of all foreign passport holders from radio broadcasting now placed onto Annette the onus of demonstrating the standing of her loyalties. This would be done in an environment that suited Security, not her.

As her radio managers were unable to assist her – she said they were sympathetic to her case – Annette obtained legal guidance from a lawyer in Newcastle as to her available options. This advice suggested that the only viable prospect available for a return to front-line broadcasting was to make contact with the appropriate government department in Sydney and request an interview with the objective of obtaining a security clearance. Armed with this clearance, Annette would then return to her normal broadcasting work, subject to any restrictions or program controls as a consequence of the state of war.

Annette was directed to the Sydney office of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch (CIB), the 1930s predecessor of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). On the outbreak of war, the CIB 
had been linked with the police divisions of the navy and army to form the Military Police Intelligence Section, with the objective of ensuring that vital security information obtained was dispatched correctly and acted upon efficiently. The state police were also attached to the unit as only they had the power of arrest.

On Friday, 20 October 1939, Annette Wagner walked into the Commonwealth Bank building on the corner of Pitt Street and Martin Place, Sydney. She entered an elevator and walked out at the fourth floor. A few minutes later she was seated in a meeting room in the offices of the CIB with three investigators. With her were Inspector D. Mitchell, the head of CIB operations in New South Wales, and Inspectors Keefe and Watkins, both high-ranking officers with an expertise in the membership and undertakings of the Nazi Party and Japanese spy networks in Australia.