Category: Article

Did Chicksands peak too early?

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

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

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

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…

Sennelager SA Site Inspection – April or May 1965

In 1965 I joined 14 Det of 5 (CI) Coy as part of the trial organisation of Int & Sy Gp (BAOR). We were accommodated in Elles Barracks in Detmold together with 20 OFP. The det offices were on the second floor of the main accommodation block behind a security grille. We  were next to the courts martial centre and whilst we were waiting for our office furniture to arrive we ‘borrowed’ furniture from the centre. This worked well until the day when there was a court martial in progress, and we had a surprise visit from the Gp CO.…

With a little help from our friends

In the summer of 1983, 45 Security Section at Rheindahlen had an interest in a building that was part of part of an old railway station. It had become a centre for CND and other similar- type activities in the area. Besides several British installations in the area, such as the POL depot, there was also a German Pershing SSM battalion which was nuclear capable; and RAF Wildenrath which was an air defence station had previously had a nuclear capability. Both of these could become targets of CND demonstrations, especially if there records were not up to date – not…

The Birth of Signals Intelligence

The History of MI1(b) John Ferris points out in the bibliography to his invaluable work The British Army and Signals Intelligence1 “no historian has assessed the work of MI1(b) or MI1(e)” and that “while ample evidence survives on the latter organisation, the former may well remain forever in the shadows”. I found this very reassuring since I had found virtually nothing and must confess that the following article is, to a great extent based on the History of MI1(b) which can be found under reference HW7/35 C480318 in the National Archives. What I found particularly interesting is that I have…

Korea is often seen as a Sigint failure – but was it?

“The Korean war although limited in geographical scope to a small Asian country and beginning as a struggle between armies of Koreans, the conflict eventually included combatants representing 20 different governments from six continents. Of the estimated casualties to military personnel more than half were non-Korean. The war rendered terrible destruction to the indigenous peoples yet still failed to resolve the political division of the country which remains a source of tension and danger to the present day. In its timing, its course and its outcome the Korean war served in many ways as a substitute for World War III”1…

The Forgotten War

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE BATTLE FOR CYPRUS, 1974 ARTICLE FOR RUSI JOURNAL John Hughes-Wilson© According to the UN there are still two long standing unfinished wars, both halted only temporarily by a ceasefire or armistice. One is Korea; the other is Cyprus. The Greek-Turkish war on Cyprus of July and August 1974 still remains a legally unresolved international conflict. In fact, in Cyprus it was only a UN sponsored ceasefire that officially ended the fighting. This has been the situation for the past 37 years.1 A well armed corps of around 30,0002 Turks still garrisons the North, where its…

Humouring Lunatics – The Northern Ireland Ferries Saga

By Peter Jefferies Between October 1974 and March 1975 I was the liaison officer for the Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (Northern Ireland) or RICLO for short. The RICLO’s main duty was to liaise with armed forces and police units in the Province to advise them on the most suitable product(s) to meet their air photographic requirements. This entailed being on the road for some 4,000 miles a month and took up the majority of the RICLO’s time. The other part of the job was to deal with complex and unusual tasks and to assemble the best resources to meet the requirement.…