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Guidelines for Contributors to Sub Rosa and FICM’s Website

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Please help us to: Maintain Sub Rosa and the website consistent in modern English usage. Minimise time spent on editing contributions – we’re all volunteers! We ask you that you: Send a Word document, Times New Roman, 12 Number each page. Apply single spacing only between sentences. Keep within the word count. For Sub Rosa 500–750 for book reviews. Up to a thousand words for other articles unless otherwise advised. For the website there is no word count restriction. Supply a photograph(s) of high resolution with a caption and the name of the photographer and/or permission if applicable. Bear in…

Reflections of an I Corps Boy Soldier

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by René Dee, 2015 The beginning of this recollection appeared in Sub Rosa winter issue, p. 4. It is relatively rare to receive a recollection by someone who did boys’ service in the Corps. As you will read, the author had mixed experiences. Ed. It was May 1962 when this young teenager found himself at Tonfanau Halt in what was then called Merionethshire. Scores of boys of my age between 15 and 17 disgorged from the train onto a platform that was singularly bare and uninviting. At the end stood an equally uninviting sergeant major who looked at his motley…

WWI in the Air – Corps Origins

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RAF Museum London On Thursday 4th December 2014 the RAF Museum at Hendon opened its doors to World War I in the Air, commemorating those who fought the air battle in the Great War. From something over 2,000 at the war’s beginning there were over 300,000 serving personnel by 1918. Manufacturing and support activities are featured in the exhibition and offer a reminder of the still wider involvement particularly in this part of North London with its factories, pageants and displays from before the war’s start. Friends of the Intelligence Corps Museum member Lester Hillman, armed with camera and sharp…

Oshima in Berlin

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In 1934, Colonel Ōshima became Japanese military attaché in Berlin. He spoke almost perfect German, and was soon befriended by Joachim von Ribbentrop who was Hitler’s favorite foreign policy advisor at that time. Promoted to major general in March 1935, under Ribbentrop’s guidance, Ōshima met privately with Hitler on a number of occasions. With the support of the Nazi leadership, Ōshima progressed rapidly while in Berlin, attaining the rank of lieutenant-general and being appointed ambassador to Berlin in October 1938. In September 1939, Ōshima was recalled to Japan as relations between the German and Japanese governments were strained following the…

Fellers in Cairo – Die Gute Quelle

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For six months and 11 days the Germans enjoyed an even speedier, more across- the-board intelligence source than Britain’s Ultra in the Desert campaign. It was what Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, called ’die gute Quelle’ (the good source). It also was known as “the little fellows” or “the little fellers”, a play on the surname of its unwitting provider, Brevet Col. Bonner Frank Fellers, the U.S. military attaché in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. Together with what has become known as the Seebohm affair, it was a major contributor to Rommel becoming the legendary “Desert Fox”. General Cesare Amè, head…

German SIGINT in the Desert Campaign

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The story of Capt. Seebohm has reached almost mythical levels when it comes to reviewing the part he played in Rommel’s successes in the Desert campaign. Rommel had arrived in Tripoli on 12 February 1941 for ‘Operation Sunflower ‘ (Operation Sonnenblume) the deployment of German troops (the Afrika Korps) to North Africa in February 1941. These troops were to reinforce the remaining Italian forces in Libya after the Italian 10th Army had been virtually destroyed by British attacks during Operation Compass. Capt. Seebohm and his unit had docked at Tripoli on April 24th together with another radio intercept platoon, a…

Did Chicksands peak too early?

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Exploring the exfiltration of Thomas Becket through the Gilbertine Priory in October 1164 The Friends of the Intelligence Corps Museum recently supported a series of events commemorating the 850th anniversary of the escape of Archbishop Thomas Becket, an escape greatly assisted by the Gilbertine Order. It is not often that Chicksands can celebrate the visit of a future saint and the study day explored an early documented record of timely assistance and hospitality in the highly successful exfiltration of a VVIP. The dramatic events of October 1164, just a few decades after the establishment of the Gilbertine Priory, offered an…

SIGINT successes and failures

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a review by Paul Croxson THE ZIMMERMAN TELEGRAM In 1917 Room 40, the Admiralty equivalent of Bletchley Park in the first World War intercepted a telegram which despite the opposition of President Woodrow Wilson led to the abandonment of neutrality and entry of the USA into the war. This was possibly the greatest sigint coup of all time. THE BATTLE OF JUTLAND – 1916 This was the swansong of the mighty dreadnought battleship. Thirty five were engaged on the British side and twenty one on the German. It would have been a crushing victory if only the advantage of superior…

Green Beret – ‘Black’ Aircraft – Supporting the USAF at RAF Mildenhall, 1978–1980

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Between 1977 and 1980 I was stationed at the Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (JARIC) at RAF Brampton in Cambridgeshire. In Spring 1978 I called to the Operations Officers office to be told that I, together with a WO2 “Mick”, had been selected to be part of a joint army/RAF team to support operations by Detachment 4 (Det 4) of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing (9SRW), USAF at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk. Det 4 was equipped with the SR-71 Blackbird and U-2R ‘black’ aircraft and were permanently based at Mildenhall. The unit had an integral photographic processing and photographic interpretation…

An Aularian Double Agent

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An Aularian Double Agent 1 by Tony Cash John Bayliss and I were among the first alumni2 of the Joint Services Schools for Linguists to study at Teddy Hall. We came up in September 1954 at the age of 20 having just completed our compulsory two-year stint in the armed forces. The JSSLs had been set up three years earlier to train specially selected national servicemen in the Russian language. By the end of the decade some 4500 soldiers, airmen and sailors had passed through their portals. At the height of the Cold War the government had deemed it necessary…