Churchill's Spy Files

by Nigel West

  (4) ZIGZAG

  Most Secret Sources show that the German Secret Service in Madrid is expecting the arrival there of a spy who is likely to be identical with our double cross agent ZIGZAG. Reference has been to a German wireless set with which ZIGZAG is to be equipped, but no indication has been given as to where he is going.

  (5) GIBRALTAR

  As a result of information received from a double cross agent working in Gibraltar, it has been possible to arrest the following individuals:-

  Edouardo Buetto, British.

  Luis Lope Cordon Cuenca, Spaniard.

  Manuel Serna Botana, Spaniard.

  No exact details have been received, but sabotage material has been discovered and it is believed that these people are members of a sabotage organisation of the German Secret Service working against Gibraltar. There is also evidence showing complicity of serving Spanish officers which it may be possible to use as a basis for further protests to the Spanish Government.

  D DIPLOMATIC.

  Reference was made last month to the reports on air-raid damage which have been supplied by Spanish diplomats and consuls since 1940. There is good reason to believe that this information has been collected at the request of the Germans, who obtain them through their links in the Spanish Foreign Office. The latest report written by the Spanish Consul in Cardiff has come into our hands and has been studied by Home Forces, Home Security and the Air Ministry. All three agree that the information given would be of considerable value to the enemy. We are discussing with the Foreign Office whether the time has not come for a demarche to the Spaniards. We may be able to obtain an account of these activities in a form which could be used by the Foreign Office. Our aim would be, not only to obtain the recall of the extremely anti-British and objectionable Spanish Consul in Cardiff, but also to embarrass the Spanish Embassy here to an extent which might cause them to curtail their reports on subjects of operational importance during the coming critical months.

  Previous mention has been made of the arrest of the spy Menezes and his subsequent reprieve at the instance of the Portuguese Government. As a result of evidence obtained through this and other cases which was given to the Portuguese authorities, a number of arrests were made by the Portuguese in Lisbon, and considerable damage was done to some sections of the German Secret Service there. After the first wave of arrests, however, the Germans brought pressure to bear on the Portuguese authorities, who have not only failed to continue their attacks on the Axis organisations, but have actually released some of the more important spies. The Foreign Office has been consulted and is considering whether more energetic protests ought to be made by HM representatives in Portugal. It seems quite clear that the Portuguese authorities have not yet throttled down German Secret Service activities in Lisbon to the extent we were entitled to expect in return for the clemency shown to Menezes at their very special request.

  E

  It is known from Most Secret Sources that the German Secret Service are most interested in the arrival in Spain from England of Don Antonio Pastor, Professor of Spanish at London University. Pastor has lived here for twenty years and has many interesting contacts in this country. Anticipating before he left for Spain that the Germans would show interest in him we have given considerable information to Pastor which it is hoped he will be indiscreet enough to talk about during his visit.

  F COMMUNIST ESPIONAGE

  D.F. Springhall, National Organiser of the Communist Party and a member of the Central Committee since 1932, was arrested on June 17th, and has been charged with obtaining information for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State. The information in question related to a Most Secret device which is in process of development by the Air Ministry. Olive Mary Sheehan, a Civil Servant employed at the Air Ministry, is charged with communicating this information to Springhall. Springhall is alleged to have told Sheehan that any particulars she could give him would be passed to the Russians, from whom the British Government were withholding information vital to the successful prosecution of the war. This is by no means the first instance known to the Security Service of espionage on the part of the Communist Party, but it is the first case in which we have been able to obtain evidence which can be produced in Court. It is hoped that an exemplary sentence upon Springhall will shock these activities of the Communist Party and of its teachers, particularly those in the Armed Forces who we know to have been guilty of the same kind of offence.

  2nd July 1943

  * * *

  This report was the first to highlight the challenge represented by the Abwehr to the safety and security of Gibraltar, Britain’s vitally important strategic naval and air base at the entrance to the Mediterranean. Of the three enemy saboteurs mentioned in the report, Luis Cordon Cuenca was tried in Gibraltar and executed in January 1944.

  A Spaniard born in La Linea in August 1920, Cordon had been arrested in Gibraltar in June 1943 at the fruit shop in Main Street where he worked, and where he stored a cache of explosives and detonators for a group of German-sponsored saboteurs who had been recruited by Spanish army officers. Cordon’s intention was to blow up the armaments tunnel in the naval dockyard but his plan was compromised at an early state by Angel Gauceda, a Basque lorry driver living in La Linea, who had been placed under some duress to smuggle a bomb into a munitions store. Gauceda had reported the approach to the Deputy DSO, Philip Kirby Green, a former Metropolitan Police chief inspector, who assigned him the code name NAG, and was full of praise for his conduct:

  The wholehearted action on the part of NAG in coming forward as he has done from the very outset, with information about enemy activities against us, is no less praise-worthy than the actions of [XXX] in a recent case and it should be remembered that he did it in admiration for the British and without perhaps the duty which Spanish nationality imposed upon him. NAG did not do it for personal gain, and my total payments to him over four months have been £11, to cover expenses which he actually incurred and which I had some difficulty in persuading him to accept. He has undoubtedly placed himself in considerable danger, both from German reprisals and from the accusation that he was reporting in foreign territory upon matters which were taking place in his own country. If it is possible for some official recognition to be made, say in the form of a testimonial from the British authorities, I feel confident that NAG is really deserving of it.

  The actions of [XXX] and [XXX] have been well known to me for some time from secret sources and I have been given reason to suppose that the sabotage of the trawler Erin in January 1942 was through their agency. As their activity has now come to our knowledge through the interrogation of a person actually accused of sabotage, this knowledge can without prejudice to any secret sources, be used if necessary for the purpose of any protest which it may be desired to make to the Spanish Government, in respect of the use by Germans of the Spanish nationals.

  NAG approached the DSO’s office in April 1943 to denounce a pair of saboteurs who planned to bomb the dockyard, and Kirby Green stated that ‘as a result of further information received from NAG I caused continuous observation from 4 July to be kept at the frontier with a view to the arrest of José Martin Muñoz if he should enter Gibraltar’.

  Muñoz was arrested as he tried to enter Gibraltar on 29 July, almost a month after he had detonated a bomb in the fuel store at Coaling Island. NAG had identified Muñoz as the saboteur, but he supplied much more information that had enabled MI5 to grasp the scale of the German threat:

  Both of these men have in fact been actively working for an enemy sabotage organisation which operated from La Linea and which has been engaged in trying to commit sabotage in Gibraltar for over three years. It was this ring which caused the destruction of HMT Erin and the explosion of a ‘basket of eggs’ at Algeciras on 5th April 1942 (intended to explode aboard the water-tanker Blossom in Gibraltar Harbour.) Many other attempts were foiled owing to the vigilance of the Security Service here and in 1941, 1942 and 1943 deposits of explo
sives for use in Gibraltar have been discovered in the Fortress and Dockyard and rendered safe through information received about this gang.

  On 10 June 1943 NAG reported that his contact had confided to him that he had recruited MANOLO, who worked in the dockyard, as a saboteur:

  This MANOLO has been identified as Manuel Portalba Carrasco, born 8th January 1920, living at Calle Sagunto 11, La Linea, and employed as a labourer by NAAFI. Recruited by [XXX] as intended saboteur at Coaling Island, was then working NAAFI canteen, HMS Cormorant, but later transferred to Trawler Base Canteen as a result of which [XXX] had to find another agent, viz, José Martin Muñoz. Pontalba interrogated 29th July 1941 and has since been excluded from the garrison.

  MI5’s investigation of Pontalia, completed by Kirby Green in August 1943, noted that:

  During 1942 and 1943 he has been very active as an organiser of sabotage, first under the direction of [XXX] and [XXX]. In the summer of 1942 [XXX] underwent a course under German direction for underwater sabotage to ships. During the past six months he has made many attempts to recruit Spanish workmen as saboteurs. He too is paid a monthly allowance by the Germans. The Spanish police arrested and detained him in San Roque at the beginning of August 1943.

  With NAG’s assistance the DSO quickly identified Muñoz as the person responsible for the Coaling Island bomb, and he was arrested the moment he tried to cross the frontier. When questioned, Muñoz named his co-conspirators as Carlos Calvo Choas, Fermin Mateos Tapia, Andrés Santos and Paciano Gonzales Perez, who had been promised 40,000 pesetas for the mission.

  * * *

  Petrie’s report also provided an opportunity for MI5 to explain about GARBO, referred to previously as the recipient of Plan DREAM, an ingenious method of passing him funds in England. The scheme was based on the proposition that Garcia Armas, a fruit merchant trading in London, wanted to transfer money to Madrid, so GARBO had suggested that the Abwehr pay the nominee in Spain, whereupon the merchant would hand over the identical sum to him in London.

  In practice, DREAM worked well, and in May 1943 Garcia Armas deposited £2,375 with Richard Butler for the account of ‘Douglas Wills’, which was released when 225,000 pesetas were received by his brother in Madrid, and there was a further transaction in March 1944 with a further £3,027 changing hands. Between May 1942 and April 1945 the Germans paid their star agent £31,000, either by delivering it to an SIS cut-out in Lisbon or via DREAM. Under the terms of his contract with MI5, GARBO received £17,554, or slightly more than half the total paid by the Abwehr.

  * * *

  MI5’s version of the Springhall case was necessarily brief, and there would be plenty more in future reports, but the implications were immensely serious as the information passed to him by Olive Sheehan was a new radar countermeasure code-named WINDOW. As Springhall had been under MI5 and Special Branch scrutiny for years, as a CPGB activist and then commissar of the International Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, his loyalties were considered very dubious. His political extremism dated back to November 1920 when, as Stoker Springhall on HMS King George V, he had been dismissed from the Royal Navy as an agitator.

  Like her husband Bernard, formerly a Customs & Excise official now serving in the RAF, Sheehan was a CPGB member, and she headed a secret Communist cadre consisting of about a dozen Air Ministry employees. She shared a flat in Prince of Wales Drive, Battersea, with a colleague, Norah Bond, who alerted a friend, Squadron Leader Blackie, to her suspicions. In June 1943 Bond passed him a letter she was supposed to hand to Springhall, and it was found to contain details of WINDOW and a list of six CPGB members in the Air Ministry, together with an assessment of their political reliability. At this point Blackie had contacted MI5 and Sheehan had been arrested the following day, together with Springhall. She promptly confessed, and MI5 made good use of her confession, and of Springhall’s diary, as F2(b) described in August 1943:

  Springhall has now been expelled from the Party. It is doubtful whether all the Party leaders were quite so ignorant as they profess to be. The significant fact about Springhall’s case is that he was using ordinary Party members to obtain information. When police officers questioned Mrs. Sheehan at the time of her arrest about the secret device, she told them quite seriously that it was far too secret to communicate to them. At the same time she saw nothing wrong in giving this information to another Party member. This illustrates well the fact that convinced Party members have a divided loyalty which makes it important to keep them away from highly secret information. They regard their loyalty to the Party as over-riding their obligations under the Official Secrets Act. Springhall’s diary has given useful information about other contacts.

  Among Mrs. Sheehan’s possessions were found a number of papers relating to the Air Ministry Group of which she was a member. The average membership of the group was about twelve and it covered the London offices of the Air Ministry. The group used false names for Party purposes and all communications were by hand or over the internal telephone. We found 21 false names and knew at the start only seven of the real names. Others have since been identified and investigations are proceeding. There are similar groups in other Government Departments. From the intimate knowledge which we now have of the machinery of the Air Ministry Group it is clear that these groups can be investigated thoroughly only by the use of agents. The Group never operated openly as such but its members held prominent positions in the branches of such organisations as Anglo-Soviet Committees, the National Council for Civil Liberties and the India League.

  Petrie’s mention of other instances of CPGB espionage on behalf of the Soviets that had proved impossible to prosecute was a reference to Oliver Green, a printer living above his premises at 293a Edgware Road who had been imprisoned for the crime of counterfeiting petrol coupons. A 36-year-old veteran of the International Brigade who had been wounded in the Spanish Civil War, Green was found by the police in January 1942 to be in possession of classified War Office intelligence bulletins, but he had refused to identify his network of sources. Nevertheless, MI5 surveillance on the CPGB headquarters in King Street revealed that he had sent a message through an intermediary, an ATS girl, to a senior Party functionary, Robbie Robson, who had pretended not to know Green. In reality, according to a report by F2(a)’s David Clarke, dated August 1943:

  … he knew that Green was a Soviet agent. Robson also knew of two others. One was a tailor in Stepney named Joe Garber who obtained military information.1 Garber like Green was connected with the International Brigade. Working for Garber was another, Ted Elly, who has not been identified and had previously been an active member of the Communist Party.

  An analysis of Springhall’s contacts produced several other suspects, some of whom he had tried to send a warning:

  George Rudé

  He is a well-known party member in London and a member of the NFS. His telephone number in Springhall’s diary. He formerly lived at Flat 4, 6 Gledhoe Gardens, SW. This address appears in the diary and it is probably the flat near Brompton Road which Pollitt said should be closed down after Springhall’s arrest. It may have been a meeting-place for service groups.

  Richard Kisch

  He is a journalist and Party member now employed by Australian Consolidated Press. He has been closely connected with the IBA and was editor for the Volunteer for Liberty. In August 1942 he told Springhall that he was bringing him some ‘stuff’.

  Diana Pym

  She is secretary of the North Pancras Branch of the Communist Party, a Borough Councillor and very active in Anglo-Soviet work. Springhall has been in close touch with her on various activities in St Pancras. She told Danny Gibbons that she had not been in touch with Springhall for some months, but Gibbons thought she might have been working for him.

  Angela Duckett

  She is a solicitor now employed by the Daily Worker. She was formerly legal adviser to the NCCL. Springhall is known to have been in touch with her from time to time under the name of Mr Hall and also with Nancy Bell
, another member of the NCCL staff.

  Ann Pavis

  She is a leading member of Unity Theatre and actively interested in the cultural activities of the Communist Party. It was reported at one time that a number of British soldiers visited her house. She has been in touch with Springhall on several occasions. Once he asked her to go to King Street to do some ‘plain spying’. She visited Springhall when he was on remand, much to Pollitt’s annoyance. Pollitt warned Janet Watson against staying with her.

  Mary Wren

  She is another leader of Unity Theatre who visited Springhall when on remand. Pollitt made some enquiries about her but was told that she was something of a good-time girl of Springhall’s usual type.

  Helen Gresson

  She is the Scottish organiser of Russia Today. Springhall sent a special message that she should be warned. It is known from the diary that she had put Ray Milne in touch with Springhall.

  Harry Berger

  He was formerly a clerk at the HQ of the 76th Division and at our instigation was court-martialled for improperly retaining possession of Secret documents. He was reprimanded and later turned up at HQ 2nd Army. He is known to have been in touch with the Forces organisation of the Party and to have supplied Gibbons with secret documents. He once gave Springhall some pay-books. Springhall hastily unloaded them on to Robson. Berger had Geraldine Swingler’s telephone number in his diary.

  Sidney Dell

  He is serving in the Fleet Air Arm and is a friend of Geraldine Swingler. When Springhall was away in Glasgow, Dell brought in some plans of a secret anti-submarine device which he left with Burns but which were intended for Springhall.

  Peter Astbury

  He is a Captain in the GHQ Liaison Regiment. He admitted to Robson that he had been getting information for Springhall which he thought went to the Soviet embassy through a student. At one time Springhall had put Astbury in direct touch with a ‘Red Army fellow’. Robson assumed that this was the Military Attaché.