MI5 in the Great War

by Nigel West

  On 1 June, however, Maddick confessed his intention to the dockyard authorities and was arrested. His statement showed that he knew what he was about; he had deliberately offered information to the German Admiralty and this not for the first time he had received communications from an Information Agency which he said was undoubtedly German, although this, the agency denied; he intended to raise money for going abroad by selling worthless information.

  The search of Maddick’s house brought to light Ransom’s letters and also the fact that the man had visited Paris in March 1914 and Brussels probably at a later date. Also a letter was found written from Paris under the date 11 September 1915.

  Maddick was charged with attempting to communicate information to a person other than a person to whom he was authorised to communicate it. He was brought up on 2 June and remanded till the 9th. His confession was reported to MO5 who had been watching the case since 20 April, when instructions had come through to Rodriguez to make enquiry about Maddick on behalf of the Germans. MO5 too had caused discreet enquiries to be made and the dockyard had supplied information which showed that Maddick was seeking for better opportunities of spying and had been visited by Rodriguez.

  In May it had been decided to arrest Maddick on his journey abroad and then two technical difficulties arose. The magistrate refused to grant a warrant for arrest because MO5 would not include Maddick’s intercepted correspondence in the evidence and the police at Portsmouth objected to searching Maddick’s premises without a warrant as that would preclude their right of forcible entry. Luckily, the Official Secrets Act covered both these difficulties as it allowed for arrest on suspicion and search, in a case of extreme urgency, on a written authorisation of the Police Superintendent. MO5 decided upon these measures and to make the search dependent upon the finding of incriminating documents upon the person of Maddick.

  In the event, neither of these measures was required, but watch was maintained all through May, and measures for the arrest were again taken towards the end of the month. In mid-May, on account of injuries to his head, Maddick had been removed for a month to Forton Oil Works, where he could work out off doors without being a danger. This time he was taking a certain amount of leave and was seen to go frequently to Victoria Park and the railway station. Then came his fear and defection.

  MO5 took charge of the conduct of the case against him and a good deal of evidence was collected to show his intention and opportunities of treachery. After the remand however, it became known that he was not of sound mind. He was discharged and ended up in an asylum. During the war he escaped but was re-captured and, as the doctor thought that although not insane, he yet required watching, he was interned under DRR 14B. He offered his services to the government, but was refused, and eventually MI5 recommended his immediate release under the conditions imposed upon alien enemies. On these terms he was released on 27 January 1919, and went to work on a farm at Bromley, Kent.

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  Born at Bischheim, near Strasburg in Alsace in 1886, Karl Franz Joseph trained as a high-class mechanical engineer and was employed by the Allgemeine Elektricitatsgeaellrachaft in Berlin from 13 April 1909 to 30 September 1910. Then, from October 1911 to October 1912, he was manager of the Birmingham branch of the AEG in the Welding Department. He left Birmingham to go to the Madrid branch and was employed chiefly at Barcelona before he returned to Germany. He had been discharged from the German Army as medically unfit and remitted to non-combatant service with the 1st Landwehr in February 1912. In October 1913, he obtained employment with Messrs. Marks & Clarke, patent agents, at 57 Lincoln’s Inn Fields and in March 1914, he went to the Electrical Company, 122 Charing Cross Road, and while there he had the opportunity to see good plans of aeroplanes.

  He wrote to an officer in Strasburg asking to be admitted to the German Secret Service, and in the last week of March met a Colonel Kolbe at Brussels, and arranged to organise an espionage service for the whole of the south coast of England, with special reference to dockyards and aeroplane stations. He was to receive no salary but his expenses were to be paid.

  In mid-May, relying on the warrant for Schneider, MO5 intercepted a letter to Francis Bubenheim acknowledging letters of 12 and 14 May and, in answer to his request, offered him an appointment for a year at 420 marks per month; a code was also encolsed, together with strict instructions that it was not to be issues to any subordinates. The code covered the information required in time of strained relations or war, and stated that in peacetime only occasional reports on the sailing of warships, and merchantmen intended to be used as armoured cruisers, would suffice. With this code came a set of questions on aeroplanes. In connection with the requiring of information on the sailing of merchantmen it is to be noted that on 28 February 1914, the Army and Navy Gazette had reported an abatement made by Winston Churchill to the effect that twelve vessels of the White Star Line had been armed at the expense of the company with material drawn from Admiralty stores; the process of arming merchantmen had been confined to food-carrying ships with the intention of providing for their self-defence in time of war.

  Further correspondence showed that Bubenheim was on the point of obtaining a situation with the firm of Victor Tischler, patents agent, in Vienna, and that he was expected to go there early in June. Moreover, Jean Delpiano, who wrote illiterate French, was undertaking enquiries for Bubenheim in Brussels, the object being apparently a certain lady.

  Concerning Victor Tischler’s firm, MO5 made enquiries through the Foreign Office which ascertained through the British embassy in Vienna, that the firm was genuine and enjoyed a good reputation. In June Bubenheim received £5 from Kolbe, and his requests for more pay for himself and his subordinates was refused.

  As Bubenheim’s letters were passing through unseen, William Melville was instructed to keep the man under observation with a view to obtaining a clue to the correspondence. Observation was impossible owing to the nature of the building and to the fact that Bubenheim was not the only lodger and his appearance was unknown to Melville who ascertained that Bubenheim had been absent since the 29th and that he was frequently away on business for a week or more at a time. Bubenheim had in fact gone to Germany via Brussels. On his way back he stopped at Rotterdam on 2 July and on the 4th offered to give information about the German spy organisation to the British consul there. He was referred to Inspector Frost, the representative of the Metropolitan Police stationed at Rotterdam, who, on his reporting the matter, was instructed to have nothing to do with Bubenheim. At the hotel, Bubenheim used the alias Charles Wilson. Meanwhile MO5 despatched Melville to Rotterdam to interview Bubenheim and caused the man’s rooms at 67 Adelaide Road, Shepherd’s Bush, to he searched. Nothing incriminating was found but certain documents seized corroborated Bubenheim’s statements to Melville and to Frost. Bubenheim gave to the police the name and address which he used in London – his real name, Karl Franz Joseph which was found on his papers, he suppressed. He lied about the source of a remittance which he was hoping for from Berlin.

  Of his work for the Germans, Bubenheim gave the following account which has been summarised from his interviews with Sergeant Frost and Melville. He was deputed to organise an espionage service for the whole of the south coast of England, and he was to pay special attention to dockyards and aeroplane stations. In support of this statement he showed Frost a plan of the Military Flying Station at Farnborough. This had white sectional drawings on a bright blue background. In May he had obtained a salaried post in the Service. He had taken several sketches of aeroplanes to Brussels and sometimes Kolbe Junior had to come to London for them. There were three Kolbes in the business: Colonel Kolbe (Senior) aged about forty-five, Captain Kolbe (Junior) aged thirty-seven to forty, Kolbe III aged thirty-five.

  Bubenheim was disgusted with their treatment of him; they paid badly, depreciated his work and Kolbe III had bullied him on the subject of supplying the names of impecunious English officers. Bubenheim had in his employ E. J. Knight, 4 Marathon Paddock, Napi
er Road, Gillingham, a labourer in Chatham Dockyard, who was expected to give merely information about the pressure of work in the yard. With much difficulty Bubenheim was induced to give the name of James Gray, 119 Queens Road, Farnborough, a clerk in the Inspection Department of the Royal Aircraft Factory, Farnborough, who had supplied several important sketches of aeroplanes.

  The Germans were anxious to obtain plans of Short’s hydroplane, of White’s biplane and Wright’s stabiliser, and Bubenheim proposed to decoy the Kolbes over to London by proffering sketches and false information. He asserted that Kolbe held an agent, a naval man, at Sheerness and this man had gone to Ostend on 29 June. (It is possible that this agent was E. J. Knight.)

  Letters to Germany were to be sent to Mrs Anne Mayland, 158 Gustav Adolfstrasse, Berlin, and letters to Amsterdam to Mynheer A. B. J. Hemker, 46 Jan van der Heydenstraat.

  Melville gave Bubenheim £6 for his information, but discouraged him from hoping for employment by the British Secret Service. Bubenheim however, came to London and engaged in correspondence with W. S. Morgan, 54 Shaftesbury Avenue, an address to which persons seeking to enter into communication with MO5 were referred.

  Bubenheim tried to procure through Melville a drawing of Short’s hydroplane saying that an old one would do, provided it were marked ‘1914, Confidential’ and he asked for money. He also asked for the name of a smart young officer who could play the part of being willing to receive a bribe. Kolbe, whom Bubenheim had invited to come over to receive the drawing, however wrote that the journey was impossible, and the drawing must he sent by post. A few days later Kolbe remitted 450 francs to Bubenheim. Melville answered Bubenheim to the effect that no drawings could be supplied, but a suitable reward would be given for the name of the British traitor at Sheerness. On this point Bubenheim had nothing to say. On 16 July he once more asked for money and then the correspondence with Morgan stopped, but on the 14th Bubenheim had also written to Kolbe and in reply was bidden to go to Cologne. MO5 decided not to watch him off, as it was undesirable he should be made aware that his intentions were known. Bubenheim, however, did not go to the meeting. Home Office Warrants had been taken out for the two foreign addresses mentioned by Bubenheim but they yielded nothing.

  Bubenheim was placed on the SWL heading ‘Arrest’, and the telegram concerning him was sent but he seems to have disappeared. When MI5 enquired of Scotland Yard in November 1915 they had no papers dealing with Bubenheim. An effort was made to trace him at 67a, Adelaide Road, but Mrs Grandjean, his landlady, had left in July 1915 and nothing was known about the man. The enquiry was not altogether fruitless, for the case of James Gray was then gone into, as it would seem, for the first time.

  Immediately after hearing of this man’s connection with Bubenheim a Home Office Warrant had been taken out for Gray’s correspondence without apparent result.

  On 28 December 1915, Captain Carter gave instructions to obtain all particulars about Gray through MI-1(a). Owing to sickness there was some delay. Then Major O’German wrote that Gray had been employed at the Factory since December 1913, that he bore a good character and occupied a position of some trust. MI5 then ascertained that James Gray was occupying one of the Royal Aircraft Factory cottages, 28 Finehurst Cottages, Farnborough.

  A HOW was taken out and a check put on for foreign correspondence. The Censor submitted a letter from E.L.S.G., Park Hotel Mooser, Vevey, to J. E. B. Gray Esq., 42 Cambridge Road, Aldershot, Hampshire, dated 16 June 1916, with the remark that the addressee might be identical with the person on check. The letter seemed harmless and was forwarded to its destination and no attempt was made to verify the identity of the addressee. In July 1916, the Home Office Warrant and check were cancelled as unproductive. On the other hand Hemker’s address in Amsterdam was blacklisted for six months, but without any results. Meanwhile direct enquiry came from the Royal Aircraft Factory as to James Gray’s character as he was then acting as Secretary to the War Distress Relief Fund.

  MI5 took action through Major Gunn, the intelligence officer at Aldershot, and for the first time Gray was interrogated as to his knowledge of and dealings with Bubenheim. Gray stated that he and Bubenheim had served at the Napier Motor Works from about July to September 1913. Bubenheim’s pay of 25 shillings a week was supplemented by remittances from Germany which he said came from his mother. He used to say that in Birmingham he had been in receipt of £300 a year. In September 1913, he took up a situation with Messrs. Marks & Clarke and moved his lodgings to 58 Birkbeck Road, Acton, the residence of Mr Burman, another clerk employed by the Napier Works. Gray went to Farnborough in December 1913. At the first interrogation Gray denied having written to Bubenheim after taking up the post at Farnborough and accounted by a lie for the fact that Bubenheim had given him a private address. When this was proved, Gray admitted having corresponded with Bubenheim up till June 1914, and stated that his letters were sent to 58 Birkbeck Road, Acton, where Bubenheim lived.

  Major Gunn stated that Gray was thought at the factory to be unreliable and expressed the opinion that, although Gray might not go the length of acting treacherously in time of war, he was shifty and might very probably have given Bubenheim sketches of aeroplanes and, if so, with full knowledge that he was giving them to an aggressive pro-German. The enquiry was taken up at Acton.

  Mr Burman of 57 Shakespeare Road, stated that Bubenheim had lodged with him at that address from about September 1913 to March 1914 and had not ‘since been seen or heard of’ Enquiries in the neighbourhood brought evidence that Bubenheim and Gray had been intimate friends. Thereupon MI5G wrote to AOIC giving an account of the facts about Gray and Bubenheim and suggesting that Gray should be quietly transferred from a position where he could obtain information of value, but must not be allowed to suspect that the transfer was due to his connection with Bubenheim. There is no record of what was done at the factory.

  A circumstance seems to have escaped notice here or stronger measures might have been taken. Gray gave a wrong address for Bubenheim’s letters. It is of course possible that 58 Birkbeck Road, and 57 Shakespeare Road cover the same house. But from March 1914 onwards, Bubenheim was not living there, and that letters were not forwarded to him from there is obvious by the terms of Mr Burman’s statement. Another point, that of the letter from Switzerland, will be dealt with in the summing up of the case of Bubenheim and Knight.

  In 1914 MO5’s action probably stopped further mischief and, after his confession, Bubenheim no longer dared to employ Gray. But it is exceedingly likely that he gave Gray some hint of danger and that to some extent Gray was forearmed against the interrogatory. Why nothing was done about Gray earlier does not appear. Probably other considerations interfered; there had been already a good deal of correspondence with the factory about W. F. Brown and George Beatty. Also, MO5 was obviously over-weighted. Some arrangement seems to have been lacking to ensure the police sending in reports of action taken by the direction of MO5 on the outbreak of war.

  Knight had been in the Royal Navy as a writer. He bore the character of being good at his work, intelligent, industrious and willing. For reasons unknown he had been discharged to shore. When he came to the notice of MO5 he was employed on ordinary labouring duties, e.g. non-confidential work on HMS Leviathan in Chatham Dockyard. Enquiry showed that he had come down in the world through drink. Early in May, 1914, E. J. Knight was found to be in direct communication with Herpers, an editor in Berlin.

  He had, he afterwards stated, answered an advertisement requiring the services of a naval correspondent for an important Continental paper. In reply he received questions referring to the construction, armament, searchlights and wireless of HMS Lowestoft and also to submarines of the E class then under construction at Chatham.

  Correspondence showed that Knight was to go to Brussels on 11 May. Regan was sent to get in touch with the Chatham Dockyard police, to verify Knight’s activities, and to follow him to Dover, where he was to be pointed out to Sergeant Andrews for future identification. Knig
ht evaded the observers and he was absent from work without leave from 11 to 18 May and then returned saying he had been to Manchester. On 21 May he offered to give to the Admiralty information about German espionage. The Director of Naval Intelligence suggested that Knight should be told to give his information to the dockyard authorities. But Knight came up to the Admiralty on 22 May, and appeared there drunk. On 29 May he sent in a claim for expenses and on the 30th wrote that he had a letter from Wallkenraedt asking for naval information.

  On the suggestion of MO5 Knight was discharged from the dockyard without reason given; his claim against the Admiralty was disallowed whereupon he complained of being victimised.

  Meanwhile, he continued his correspondence with Herpers asking for and receiving £3 for travelling expenses; this was followed by a remittance of £5, and appointments for a meeting in Brussels were first made for 14 June and then for 21 June.

  An exchange of wires between himself and Herpers, c/o Hubert Cam, Neutralstrasse, Welkenraedt, took place with reference to the remittance of the £5, and for this address a HOW was taken out.

  Through the police at Chatham MO5 had tried to procure from Knight the letters he had received from abroad, but Knight declined to say much and garbled the facts. He stated that at his own request the German was coming to an interview at Dover. MO5 proposed to arrest Knight if he attempted to go abroad. Shadowing being difficult, he was to be identified at the port of departure and arrested as he went on board. For this purpose Regan was sent to Chatham to become acquainted with, the man’s appearance, and he watched him for an hour. Thence Regan proceeded at once to Dover in order to point Knight out to Sergeant Andrews there. The police at Chatham kept watch till about the time that Knight would be leaving for Dover. Knight, however, did not move. On 12 June he had a confidential talk with Inspector Gray; he proclaimed his loyalty, stating that if he were taken on again at the dockyard he would show the letters from the foreigner. He asked Gray’s advice with regard to levying £3 from the German for travelling expenses to Brussels. (This money he had already received.) Gray declined to advise him.