Author: P9-J

By Paul Croxson It  was  a  simple  enough  request,  ‘What  did  I  know  about  the  Intelligence  schools and  their  numbering?’ ‘Not a lot,’ was the answer. The title ‘schools’ seemed designed to confuse the enemy.  Their primary function was to direct the search for specific German signals. Not much more than this  was recorded.  To be honest, I hadn’t looked at this subject for a number of years during my Sigint searches and so  just  sent  off  some  scrambled  notes that I  happened  to  have following  some  research  for the  late  Alan Edwards. When I later read them, I realised…

National Service On 7 May 1963, 23819209 Private Fred Turner cooked his last breakfast at  the home of  the 13/18  Hussars. A few days earlier on 4 May 1963, Lieutenant Richard Vaughan, Royal Army Pay Corps had  left his unit in Germany and  travelled back  to England  to be officially discharged on 13 May. What  was  so special  about  these  two  soldiers? They  were  candidates  for  being  thought  to  be  the  last  serving National Servicemen. If you base the choice of who was the last then it was Lt Vaughan but  Pte Turner  had  the  dubious  honour  of  having  the …

By Harry Fecitt MBE TD . . . however many of the latest spies’ wonder-toys they had in their cupboards,  however many magic codes they broke, and hot signals chatter they listened to, and  brilliant deductions they pulled out of the aether regarding the enemy’s  organisational structures, or lack of them, and internecine fights they had, and  however many tame journalists were vying to trade their questionable gems of  knowledge for slanted tip-offs and something for the back pocket, in the end it was  the spurned imam, the love-crossed secret courier, the venal Pakistani defence  scientist, the middle-ranking Iranian military…

Introduction By early 1917 the First World War was a stalemate. Germany had known, perhaps from as early as 1915 that it could not achieve an advantageous peace through its efforts on the Western Front. The German High Seas Fleet had remained in port ever since Jutland. There were growing food shortages at home. The position was not much better for the Allies. Both England and France were on the verge of running out of money, and faced the prospect of asking for financial help from the US, which would come at the price of forcing them to start negotiating…

Major Arthur Birse Watching the World at War the other evening, the ‘war’ was finally drawing to an end and the leaders of the three great powers were meeting. My wife was somewhat surprised when I pointed at a soldier sitting at the table next to Stalin and said ‘I knew him, we worked together.’ Coincidentally, it was only a couple of days earlier that I had been looking at some papers, and had come across an article which showed a picture of Churchill hosting a dinner to mark his 69th birthday. It was attended by Stalin and the article…

Or, the Battle for Little Bletchley During my researches into the history of the Corps, particularly relating to the world of signals intelligence and the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), I have been amazed how often personal and service ambitions have played what might have been decisive roles in decision-making. Following the Venlo Incident in which Captain Payne Best played an unfortunately vital role the SIS found itself with virtually no agents and no sources of intelligence apart from that garnered from SIGINT. As a result, control of this intelligence would be a source of controversy between the services…

‘ICA members and Friends take evasive action’ Agatha Christie, the American Civil War, George Crosses, V-1 ski ramps, WWI German military intelligence officers, Communist agents and secret tunnels all had walk-on parts in a recent ICA (SLAM) stroll through North London’s Belsize Park. The colourful walk, decidedly at the red end of the spectrum, finished at the Hampstead Training Centre where collective memories added further dimensions. Lester Hillman devised the walk attended (amongst others) by fellow-Friends Tony Hetherington, Chris Yates, David Elvy and Dave Farrell who masterminded the administration. Agatha Christie From the bright sun at Belsize Park tube station,…

For some time I have been exercised by statements made about Enigma and have wondered ‘what was their source?’. Every schoolboy knows (to quote Macaulay) that Churchill described the workers at Bletchley Park (B.P.) as his ‘geese’ and the Enigma product as his ‘golden eggs’. He also supposedly made what were, by any standards, derogatory remarks about the appearance of what could be found under stones; presumably hinting at frogs or toads. (He wasn’t actually good-looking himself!) Do we know he actually made these remarks; if so, how do we know? Since these remarks were never recorded in any official…

Memories of National Service Paul Croxson I was approaching 18 and National Service loomed as it did for all of us males. Since I was studying for my entrance exams to the Library Association I asked for deferment in order to take them and it was granted – surprisingly easily. In the meantime I received my call-up papers and attended the medical, confident that I would fail since I still suffered the after effects of polio. At school ‘Excused Games’ was one of the more kindly meant nicknames; I had lousy eyesight (‘Four Eyes’) and not a muscle in sight…

DRAMATIS PERSONAE TICOM TEAM 1 PERSONNEL *Oeser, O. Wing Commander RAFVR. (Chief TRO) A Cambridge psychologist and friend of Winterbotham, he had joined Hut 3 in the summer of 1940. In 1941 he was Hut 3 Dep. Air Advisor. By June 1942 was Head of Hut 3(Air) and by late 1942 he was head of the newly formed Hut 3(L) where he made Enigma and Fish priority decisions. He became professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne. By the age of 27 he had graduated from four universities in three countries and had gained doctorates in two disciplines. *Campaigne,…