RSS/SCU Newsletter no.23 for April 2006



By courtesy of the Bletchley Park Trust and the kind offices of Alan Cowap we are able to meet for our SCU/RSS reunion on Sunday 23rd April, St George’s Day.


As usual I hope to start by 1100 as we have a full programme for you and I am pleased to say that we can use the Music Room as we did last year.


Being the English national day I was thinking of suggesting appropriate dress and flag waving, but as this may offend certain of our northerly friends, and one in particular on the Widnes peninsular, and as that particular one declines to wear his kilt, we will forego the national expression provided he promises not to bring his bagpipes.


As before I will be producing a summary of the talks for those, in fact the majority on my mailing list, who are unable to attend for well understood reasons.


The programme, which may not be in this order, is as follows:


There may not be time for all the above before the break for lunch in which case I will postpone my talk until after lunch. It has been suggested that we should all meet again after lunch as a matter of course for discussions and renewal of friendships but some members wish to take the opportunity to explore the museum. This is quite understandable, but the Music Room is available all day and I shall remain there throughout the day. Please join us in the afternoon if you can.


As time passes even more information comes to light on SIS activities during the war, and in the main we were kept in ignorance until now. The National Archive in Kew is gradually releasing documents and a series of particular interest are the diaries of Guy Liddell.


Liddell was in charge of section B of Signals Intelligence (SIS) and kept a very detailed diary running to 12 volumes. Each one takes many hours to digest. From these I have a list of agents who visited us by air and sea including the place of arrival and their fate. Another interesting document lists those who were somebody in SIS, but omitting those on my mailing list! Documents written in the 1940s are more valuable than any other record or publication. Myths and incorrect statements are repeated in books on sale today. Two come to mind: Simkin and Hinsley state, in volume 4 of British Intelligence in WWII, that Tate and Summer arrived here in 1939. In fact the original records show that Summer parachuted down Near Denton in Northamptonshire on September 9th 1940 and Tate followed, to land near Willingham in Cambridgeshire on 19th September 1940. These dates are important in understanding the structure of the agent activities and our control of them.


The other example of misinformation occurs in Nigel West’s book GCHQ where he describes Lord Sandhurst as a radio amateur known as Jimmy. My researches show this to be incorrect. GCHQ contains other errors concerning RSS and I wonder where they came from. Hence I am always delighted when I see reports using wartime typewriters and written on the flimsy ancient foolscap paper, which incidentally makes modern scanning very difficult. Among these originals we have the RSS complete servicing instructions for the HRO and Lt Luscomb’s report on his setting up an intercept station in Ireland and his adventures (if that is the correct term) in the Middle East for which he was decorated.


I was interested to see, from the released papers, that the agent Jacob landed only a few miles from my home but because of publicity he was not used by MI5 and was executed. There may well be someone in the town of Ramsey who remembers the event. The two most notable double agents were cover-named Garbo and Tricycle. Both these served for many years and played a significant part in the D-Day deception plans. Both were decorated for their “unvaluable” service to the Axis powers with the Iron Cross.


So often when we are chasing up information we say, “If only we had started earlier”. But of course in most cases we couldn’t because no one would talk about SIS until long after the 70’s for fear of the authorities, although it is very unlikely that anyone would have noticed. In any case 30 or 40 years after the event some verbal accounts are unreliable and it is only when several independent sources agree or contemporary documents are discovered that one can be reasonably sure of accuracy.


Gerry (Openshaw) and I are continuing with our talks to the public about SCU activities. Most folk now have heard of and/or visited Bletchley Park but appear to miss the point that BP was a total waste of money and resources without the vast organisations which fed it and disposed of its output. I usually open my talk by explaining that with all the skill at the disposal of BP there was one message that they could not crack and never would. And that was the one they didn’t receive. Between us Gerry and I must have spread the word to well over a thousand people so we have fewer than 59.999 million to go.


Recently I have been trying to clean up (with the computer help) a Direction Finding form supplied by Gerry. It became very shaded over the years and is hardly readable but restoration is going well and I hope to reproduce it in a later Newsletter. This form was filled in at Arkley to indicate the bearing taken by each particular station: Hanslope, Thurso, Bridgewater, Gilnahirk St Erth, Forfar and Wymondham. The restoration is a painstaking, tedious task, which is why it is taking so long. However just distinguishable at the bottom of the form, written in longhand, it says “Occasional brgs taken from Gateshead”. Strangely we have no record of a D/F station at Gateshead and Archie Brown, who worked there, made no mention of it in his detailed description of the site. Perhaps this mystery will be solved one day as to how a D/F station existed but was not fully used. One wonders if it was a makeshift set-up above ground. Incidentally I used to telephone Archie each morning (on the green scrambler telephone) from Arkley to take details of intercepts from him and to pass instructions back to Gateshead.


Please do not forget that those who can listen on 3720 KHz on Monday and Friday at 0845 and possibly up to 0900 and beyond will find items of interest and the latest news. Better still if you can join in either on SSB or CW or indeed on AM as Gerry does. Calls to look for are G3VA, G3ZPA, G2BTO, G5HF, 2E0DFW and of course mine. Others call in from time to time just to keep in touch. This net, with many different call signs (some now sadly silent key), goes back some 20 years. Before that I kept a regular weekly (at least) sked with G3NL from de-mob days right up to his death in 2001. Is this 55 years of continuous sked keeping a record?


I hope to see as many of you as possible in April; we have a good programme.

And it is wonderful to see old and new faces there.

73 Bob G3ASE and secretary Jean 01480 463129

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