Dedication
Sharing the Secret is dedicated to the past and present members of the entire Intelligence Corps. It is also dedicated to the families who have supported the Corps under difficult situations with understanding and encouragement.
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Also by Nick van der Bijl
Pen & Sword Military Books
Nine Battles to Stanley
5th Infantry Brigade in the Falklands
Victory in the Falklands
Confrontation; the War with Indonesia 1962-1966
Commandos in Exile; The Story of 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando 1942-45
Operation Banner; The British Army in Northern Ireland 1969-2007
The Cyprus Emergency; The Divided Island 1955-1974
The Brunei Revolt 1962-1963
Osprey
Argentine Forces in the Falklands
Royal Marines 1939-1993
No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando 1942-1945
Hawk Editions
Brean Down Fort and the Defence of the Bristol Channel
first published in Great Britain in 2013
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Copyright © Nick van der Bijl, 2013
ISBN 978 1 84884 413 1
eISBN 9781473831766
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Contents
Foreword
Maps
Chapter 1 – The Formation of the BEF Intelligence Corps
Chapter 2 – The BEF Intelligence Corps: September 1939 to July 1940
Chapter 3 – The Formation of the Intelligence Corps
Chapter 4 – The Middle East: 1940–1943
Chapter 5 – Iraq, Syria, Persia, Malta, Gibralter and West Africa: 1940–1943
Chapter 6 – The Central Mediterranean: 1943–1945
Chapter 7 – The Far East: 1942–1945
Chapter 8 – The Special Operations Executive
Chapter 9 – Great Britain: 1940–1945
Chapter 10 – North-West Europe: 1944–1945
Chapter 11 – Occupied Trieste, Germany and Austria
Chapter 12 – Victory in the Far East
Chapter 13 – The National Service Years
Chapter 14 – The National Service Years: The 1950s
Chapter 15 – The Regular Years: The 1960s
Chapter 16 – The Regular Years: The 1970s
Chapter 17 – The Regular Years: The 1980s
Chapter 18 – The Coalition Years: The 1990s
Chapter 19 – Coalition Operations: 2000–2010
Chapter 20 – Conclusion
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Glossary
Bibliography
Foreword
This book is not a regimental history in the traditional sense or an academic study. It is another glimpse of an organization that has convinced the military establishment of its belief that going to war without intelligence and not protecting the Army with security measures is unwise. The eminent military historian Anthony Beevor described the Intelligence Corps in his Inside the British Army (1990) thus:
…the Intelligence Corps is spread around in small detachments working closely with the field army so the risk is reduced. And although it is different from the rest of the Army in many ways, the Intelligence Corps is not as eccentric or unmilitary as outsiders might imagine. The Intelligence Corps Territorials represent, in the words of one of their Regular Army colonels, an amazing range of qualifications and professions. The Int Corps is one area where the one-Army concept is a reality.
While the title Sharing the Secret is taken from the Military Intelligence Museum, as with any book relating to intelligence and security, it has been written under the restrictions of the era and thus I have had to be economical with detail. I am afraid that some readers will be disappointed that some activities or incidents have either not been described or mentioned.
Any organization involved in intelligence and security takes a risk when it lifts the blanket on its activities and thus when the proposal was placed before HQ Intelligence Corps by the Military Intelligence Museum Trustees to write an updated account of the Intelligence Corps, it was a significant step forward. I have drawn heavily on several prime sources of information, all unclassified. While the late Colonel Felix Robson drafted the first history during his tenure as Corps Secretary, this book is the third published history of the Intelligence Corps and is designed to complement British Military Intelligence (1973) by Jock Haswell and Forearmed (1993) by Dr Anthony Clayton. The Rose and The Laurel, the Corps Journal, as one would expect, is a goldmine of information, however it is no longer generally available. The late Captain Hamish Eaton’s Soldiers with Stereo (1978), copyrighted to the Military Intelligence Museum, is a fascinating account of Photographic Interpretation. The privately published Field Security Section (1996) by Bob Steer in his FSS is an account of Field Security during and after the Second World War. Fred Judge’s detailed research of Field Security and the Intelligence Corps in West Germany is worthy of a book in its own right, as is the examination by Paul Croxson of strategic and tactical Signals Intelligence. Research by the late Lieutenant Colonel Tony Williams into the relationship between the Intelligence Corps and the Special Operations Executive and other governmental intelligence and security organizations during the Second World War is enlightening.
Thanking those who contributed is always a pleasure. I am most grateful to Brigadiers Tony Crawford, Brian Parritt and Philip Springfield for their views; to Lieutenant Colonel Dickie Richard for his help; to Dr Anthony Clayton for his early guidance; to Joyce Hutton, the Corps Archivist, and Major Alan Edwards, the Corps Historian, who were quick in tracking down information. Captain Dennis Magennis of the Museum of Australian Military Intelligence was most helpful on the mentions about the Australian Intelligence Corps. There are several others who must remain anonymous. They know who they are and acknowledge sensitivities surrounding the Corps. On the editorial side, I must thank Brigadier Henry Wilson, the Commissioning Editor, Lynne Maxwell, the Editor, and the staff at Pen & Sword (Military Books). My thanks also to John Noble for indexing; to Peter Woods for the maps; and the Ministry of Defence Army Public Relations (Army) for i
ts informative vetting.
I am grateful to those who have supported this book with photographs. While every effort has been made to trace owners of copyright material, this has not always been possible, nevertheless I am happy to make amends where appropriate, including giving acknowledgements in future editions.
And most importantly, I must also thank Penny, my wife, for her patience and encouragement over the two years that it has taken to complete the work.
Nick van der Bijl
November 2012.
Maps
MAP 1 - EUROPE
MAP 2 - SOUTHERN EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
MAP 3 - ASIA MINOR AND FAR EAST
CHAPTER ONE
The Formation of the BEF Intelligence Corps
Information is the soul of business
Speaker Harley, 1704
As the guns fell silent on 11 November 1918, the Allies left their muddy trenches and occupied a Germany shattered by the Armistice and political faction-fighting. Part of the occupying British Army of the Rhine was the Intelligence Corps. Hurriedly formed in August 1914 to support the British Expeditionary Force sent to France, the Corps of thirty-two carefully selected officers and 136 other ranks now providing intelligence support to General Headquarters and other occupation elements; counter-intelligence from the Intelligence Police and propaganda, in other words psychological operations, and censorship drove into Cologne, but as demobilization and the global impact of an influenza epidemic bit, some difficulty was experienced in finding soldiers with suitable languages and aptitude to undertake routine Intelligence and security tasks.
But, first – what is military intelligence? Using a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation definition as a basis:
…intelligence is the product resulting from the collection, processing, integration, analysis, evaluation and interpretation of information concerning foreign nations, hostile or potentially hostile forces or elements, or areas of actual or potential operations’
Intelligence generally falls into two divisions. Basic or strategic intelligence relates to economic, political, sociological, industrial and military information of foreign countries and regions. While all information is accessible, the ease of its availability depends on the measures to defend it. Targets may be friend or foe. Current or tactical intelligence is the interpretation of recent activities, trends and patterns to predict a risk or threat. Fundamental to the development of the intelligence product is the Intelligence Cycle, a circular sequence of four mutually supporting processes:
Direction. Deciding the Essential Elements of Intelligence and maintaining a continuous check on productivity.
Collection. The exploitation of agencies and sources to deliver information. Agencies can be largely described as formed bodies, such as security and intelligence services and allied forces. Sources include prisoners of war, refugees and border crossers, photography and informers.
Processing. The fusion of information into evaluated intelligence through exploitation, evaluation, analysis, integration and interpretation and graded according to the reliability of the source and co-lateral to other information.
Dissemination. The timely distribution of intelligence, in an appropriate form, without bias and not tailored to please the decision-maker. Methods include verbal briefings and Intelligence Summaries and Intelligence Reports. Intelligence is usually advisory.
Human Intelligence is the oldest source of information. Defined in the World English Dictionary as ‘military intelligence gained from human sources with knowledge of the target area’, it is susceptible to deliberate degradation by counter measures and misinterpretation through the syntax of language and regional and cultural knowledge. Document Exploitation is the collection of information from usually written formats, some of which may be classified and protected, such as newspapers, periodicals, books and the Internet. Battlefields are littered with documents – orders, sketches, maps, notepads, personal letters, documents found on prisoners of war and in the pockets and equipment of the dead. The sheer volume can overwhelm the capability to extract meaningful information in a timely manner. Luck and chance plays a major part in finding valuable information. Communication intercepts, such from signal flags, heliographs, radio communications, electronics and telemetry, now known as Signals Intelligence is also centuries old. It requires the main components of intercept equipment, analysts to interpret the traffic and the ability to interpret codes. But, its exploitation has one major problem that some sources are considered so precious that the intelligence gained is not always shared, in order to protect the source. Not infrequently, this has cost lives. Imagery and Photographic Intelligence is relatively new. Once confined to ground views imagery, as balloons and aircraft appeared, air and satellite photographic interpretation as an important intelligence platform can be revealing.
Protective Security and counter-intelligence set out to create a series of mutually supporting defensive systems to deter and defeat espionage, sabotage and subversion by hostile intelligence services and, more recently, terrorism. As an island nation, the British have been successful in deploying counter-measures against internal and external threats – Spanish subversion during the Elizabethan era, the French Revolution, Irish republicanism, Nazism and Communism. One advantage is a most effective trench, the English Channel, and its guardians, the Royal Navy. The most dangerous threats usually originated via the back door – Ireland. For centuries, the geopolitics of European politics meant the Army never really knew when it was going to mobilize but when it was, it did so as an expeditionary force reliant upon its allies for current intelligence. While continental nations had plenty of opportunities to collect strategic intelligence, the British ran the risks associated with espionage.
Once on operations, an efficient intelligence machine was usually built but at the cost of defeats and long casualty lists. Between the Fourteenth and Seventeenth centuries, the Chief Scoutmaster, essentially the director of military intelligence reporting to the Quartermaster General, had the same status as the Chief Engineer and Master of Ordnance. During the Napoleonic Wars, in 1803, the Quartermaster General formed the Depot of Military Knowledge to collect information, prepare mobilization and contingency plans, make maps and start a library of past operations so that lessons could be learnt for the future. It established the close relationship between the sapper and intelligencer. But after victory in 1815 at Waterloo and the British withdrew from Europe, the Depot withered until only the Topographical Branch remained. For the next forty years, Britain concentrated on the Empire but serious intelligence failures during the Crimean War (1854-1856) saw recriminations. It also saw the birth pangs of the modern Intelligence Corps, although it would take 100 years to achieve total fruition. In an age of new technology also driving military strategy and tactics, the Royal United Services Institution (RUSI) was instrumental in publishing articles on the development of warfare. One young officer predicting in the 1860s that trench warfare would replace the ‘thin red line’ was criticized by senior officers. Reorganization in the War Office in 1871 saw the Topographical and Statistical Branch formed during Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell’s reforms of the Army with the Statistical Departmental collecting strategic information on foreign forces from foreign newspapers, collating reports from military attachés and gathering covert intelligence of foreign fortresses and ports.
Two years later, Cardwell formed the Intelligence Branch. The Army remained focused on the Empire, in particular the ‘Great Game’ confrontation in Afghanistan as Russia set out to protect its borders in, arguably, the first Cold War. The Indian Intelligence Branch collected information on the threat. With the Duke of Cambridge, as Commander in Chief, resisting change, the Intelligence Branch faced an uphill struggle until Lieutenant General Sir Henry Brackenbury sowed the seeds of modern military intelligence as the first Director of Military Intelligence (1886-1891). With the new Intelligence Division part of the Adjutant General’s Branch, he replicated it with
Field Intelligence Detachments reporting to campaign Directors of Intelligence, although their effectiveness depended on the attitude of commanders in chief. During the Second South African War, Major General Sir John Ardagh (1896-1901) was heavily criticized for failing to predict Boer preparations until it emerged after the war that his threat assessments, all accurate, had not been shown to the Cabinet by the War Office. After several defeats, Colonels George Henderson, Charles Hume and David Henderson, successively Directors of Military Intelligence (South Africa), deployed Field Intelligence Detachments in columns pursuing Boer commandos during the pacification phase. The first mention of an Intelligence Corps appears to have been when a Boer burgher named Theroux formed the Intelligence Corps in 1899. By the end of the war, the twelve original intelligence officers had grown to 132 intelligence officers, 2,321 other ranks and thousands of Africans, a feature of intelligence that is still evident today. Several outstanding officers reached very senior ranks, notably William Robertson who enlisted as a Private and retired as Field Marshal.
The decade after the Boer War saw the General Staff and the Intelligence functions absorbed into the new Directorate of Military Operations. In 1907, David Henderson suggested that an Intelligence Corps should be formed. One dominion that took note was Australia which formed the Australian Intelligence Corps in December. During that year, the Security Service Bureau was formed as Military Operations 5 to address the growing internal threats to national security. Military Operations 6 dealt with medical intelligence. Two years later the Bureau split, to form the Security Service from Military Operations 5 and the Security Intelligence Service from medical intelligence to address foreign intelligence. Henderson, now a Major General, had transferred to military flying to exploit intelligence from the third flank – the air.
When war with Germany broke out in August 1914, a hastily assembled Intelligence Corps of fourteen Regular, Territorial or Reserve officers and forty-one Temporary Commissioned second lieutenants formed up to accompany the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). In addition, twenty-four Metropolitan Police Special Branch linguists were recruited into the Intelligence Police as counter-intelligence non commissioned officers (NCO). For administrative expediency, all ranks in the Intelligence Corps were enrolled into the 10th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, Intelligence (B), later 10th (B) Royal Fusiliers. ‘B’ denoted counter-intelligence. The regiment formed at least forty-six battalions. The Corps Adjutant, Captain Dunnington-Jefferson, was a Royal Fusilier. As the war moved from fluidity to the positional strategy of trench warfare, the historically favoured intelligence arm, the cavalry, was rendered impotent and aerial reconnaissance flying over enemy lines contributed to shaping strategy. But British military thinking gained from Imperial campaigns against poorly-armed enemies was ill-equipped to fight a well-organized enemy in a technological age soon foundered with catastrophic casualties, several major defeats again proving that intelligence is more reliable than elan. Brigadier-General John Charteris, General Douglas Haig’s Director of Intelligence, committed the cardinal sin of manipulating information he thought Haig wanted, as opposed to painting an accurate intelligence picture, and was dismissed from his post in 1917. Other Intelligence Corps were formed for the fronts at Gallipoli and Greece. The East African Intelligence Department recruited agents from among big game hunters and Africans in the war against the Germans. The Middle East Intelligence Branch proved successful in fighting that was rarely positional. Deception became important. Human Intelligence remained important, including information supplied by Imperial prisoners of war using codes to report intelligence from inside Germany. Train spotting was a valuable activity. Intelligence Corps agents were among the first to be dropped by parachute. Refugees and travellers were screened at British ports. In Ireland, a system of district military officers was created, countering the ambitions of the IRA. By 1918, the Intelligence Corps in France had expanded to 3,000 of all ranks with, in general terms, officers engaged in intelligence while other ranks conducted protective security and counter-intelligence activities. Great Britain conducted counter-insurgency in Ireland between 1919 and 1921, but, as had happened before and would happen again, intelligence systems and processes quickly had fallen into disuse. HQ 5th Division in Ireland later reported:
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