Great Escapes

by Barbara Bond

  Detail from the southern section of Sheet A in the Bartholomew series, showing southern Germany and the surrounding countries. It was used as the source for the manuscript escape map reproduced over the page.

  The remarkable chance survival of both these manuscript maps, albeit unsupported by surviving written testimony regarding the escape attempts concerned, demonstrates a critically important aspect of MI9’s escape programme, namely the copying of maps that were smuggled into the prisoner of war camps. Serving as unique testimony to the efforts of both the prisoners of war and MI9, they provide the final example in this book to demonstrate the extent to which the maps could, and did, provide a veritable passport to freedom for some prisoners of war.

  Manuscript escape map and a digitally enhanced image of the same, identifying features in the area near the Swiss border and thus proving that it was originally copied from Sheet A in the Bartholomew series.

  9

  MI9 AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO MILITARY MAPPING

  ‘It was too little, too late.’

  (Fight Another Day, by J. M. Langley)

  The work of MI9 has been afforded little recognition in the study of the history of British intelligence organizations of World War II. Hitherto, the MI9 mapping programme has been given even less attention and yet, as this study has shown, it amounts to a very significant chapter in the evolution of British military mapping and a notable episode in the history of twentieth century cartography. While there has been a long history of military mapping on silk and other fabrics, it transpires that MI9, for all sorts of reasons, was never in a position to benefit from that history and experience. Nonetheless, it was able to mount a very significant programme of escape and evasion mapping despite the role played by Christopher Clayton Hutton, arguably a self-possessed, eccentric and narrowly focused individual who was allowed to operate with little or no restriction. The context in which the branch was operating also took its toll. As a newly spawned intelligence branch, it lacked supporters from the beginning and was, too often, regarded as a threat by its sister organizations in the intelligence arena. To what extent, therefore, was MI9 able to fulfil its role as the organization responsible for escape and evasion despite the challenges which it undoubtedly faced: in essence, was it really ‘too little, too late’ as Langley wrote?

  THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MI9’S MAPPING PROGRAMME

  W. G. V. Balchin was commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in 1985 to record the role played by geographers in World War II. He considered the maxim that ‘geography had always been vital to the prosecution of war’ and the extent to which it was ‘the intelligent use of geographical knowledge that outwits the enemy and wins wars’. The value of training in geography had been realized during World War I. Geography was deemed vital to the successful prosecution of war in three ways, namely in intelligence, logistics and action. This awareness had resulted in the rapid development of the subject in universities and schools during the inter-war period.

  It is an interesting aspect of Balchin’s findings that at no point did he mention MI9 or its escape and evasion mapping programme in his report to the RGS. And yet, he must have been aware of it since Foot and Langley’s definitive account of the organization is included in the list of references accompanying his report. He certainly considered the role of maps and even mentioned the value of terrain analysis (an indication of the extent to which the area offered opportunities for concealment and obstacles to movement). The evolution of European topographic mapping services was mentioned, as were the responsibilities of the Geographical Section General Staff (GSGS) in the War Office: even the role of geographers in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) is covered in detail. Of MI9 and its mapping programme, however, there is absolutely no mention. Since Balchin relied heavily on interviewing those geographers who were still alive and ready to recount their experiences, the single reason for that omission can only be the exclusion of any geographers from direct involvement in MI9’s mapping programme until the war was well progressed. The reason for that, in turn, was arguably attributable to Hutton’s single-mindedness in the way in which he drove his section’s programme and simply never communicated with those in the War Office who could have offered detailed technical and, not least, cartographic production support.

  Peter Collier, in describing the development of air survey techniques and their use in producing and updating mapping in World War II, wrote that ‘Ultimately, it was the Allied capacity for the mass production of maps, together with the weapons of war, that was to prove decisive.’ What he wrote, however, was arguably as applicable to MI9 escape and evasion maps as it was to the operational coverage produced by D.Survey and it is this lacuna in the historiography of cartography in World War II which this study has sought to bridge.

  It was envisaged from the beginning of this study that a key outcome of the research would be the creation of as full an inventory as possible of all the escape and evasion maps that were produced between 1939 and 1945. Discovering the sheer size and scope of the MI9 mapping programme was, however, never anticipated. MI9’s escape and evasion maps were produced as practical, problem-solving items and they represented a marked change in military attitudes to capture and captivity in enemy hands. Access to a map that depicted the area through which they must travel to reach a safe haven after escaping incarceration was quite literally the prisoner’s ‘get out of jail’ card: as revealed earlier, many of the maps were despatched inside Monopoly boards or in playing cards. While Hutton cannot be regarded, at least initially, as cartographically literate, those officers who received the maps, copied them and used them successfully as the prime escape aid, most certainly were. Unlike Hutton, they belonged to a new generation which had been educated between the wars and had apparently benefited from the upsurge in the teaching of geography, a direct result of the hard-won experience of World War I. For many of them, reading maps and navigating routes with the aid of maps was second nature.

  HUTTON’S ROLE

  The mapping programme was an essential aspect of MI9’s entire endeavours and Hutton was the key personality involved directly and was the initiator of the mapping programme. Hutton proved to be a very enigmatic personality. He was variously described by those who knew and worked with him as both an eccentric and a genius. In reviewing the various members of Norman Crockatt’s team, Foot and Langley described Hutton as ‘the joker in the pack’, wayward yet original, with an apparently limitless supply of both enthusiasm and ingenuity, possessing no regard for either rules or officialdom, and was apparently left by Crockatt very much to his own devices.

  Hutton appeared to have had little awareness of the extent to which MI4/GSGS/D.Survey could help in his mapping endeavours and there is little doubt that MI4’s absence from London at a critical time may be part of the explanation. The fact that the department responsible for the cartographic revision of operational mapping using aerial reconnaissance was distant from the centrality of military awareness and operations between 1939 and 1942 undoubtedly took its toll: quite how much is open to discussion and interpretation.

  The role of Christopher Clayton Hutton was instrumental in MI9’s mapping programme. Here he is surrounded by some of his special creations, in a photograph taken from the back cover of Official Secret, published in 1960.

  Hutton, apparently oblivious of the importance of that absence from the equation, overcame the cartographic challenges presented, without any real awareness of the true nature of those challenges. Evidently, without ever realizing that organizations existed within Government (indeed, in the same Ministry) which could have rendered his job very much easier, Hutton nevertheless managed to identify individuals and companies who could progress his strategy. Even so, by excluding the operational mapping organization from the start and by being unaware of commercial companies with considerable expertise in map production and printing, Hutton certainly created challenges for himself and his organization that need never have existed. Time-consuming act
ivities and significant costs were undoubtedly incurred which could have been avoided or, at least, contained. It can, therefore, be argued that Hutton succeeded with the mapping programme despite his own lack of awareness of those organizations which might have helped him more promptly, more immediately and, arguably, at less cost.

  Hutton after MI9

  Taken ill during the war, it seems that Hutton left MI9 on health grounds and there is some later indication that he suffered a mental breakdown. A letter he wrote from his hospital bed in February 1943 to Victor Watson, the managing director of Waddington, contained a rather strange request. He asked that he be sent a list of all the ‘pretty pictures’ (his coded phraseology for maps) and the amounts which had been paid to Waddington for the work. The letter ended:

  . . . with my kindest regards and many thanks for the troubles you all took to help us over a very high stile . . . I am a broken spirit at being here and doubt if I shall ever be back but cannot tell and don’t much care.

  Watson realized the inappropriateness of Hutton’s request and responded that he could not meet the request, but was happy to send a Waddington game. In a further letter, Hutton acknowledged his misguided behaviour and apologized. Hutton had left MI9 but appeared to recover sufficiently from his illness by February 1944 to apply to SOE for possible employment. The vetting form in the file noted his previous employment with MI9, but was stamped ‘NOT TO BE EMPLOYED’ owing to ‘traces’. The precise nature of the concerns was not recorded, possibly his health and state of mind, but his attempt to return to the intelligence world, unsurprisingly, met with failure.

  After the war, Hutton ran into further difficulty with the authorities when he tried to publish his own story about MI9 and also embark on a lecture tour of the United States of America. He was keen to highlight the role he had played in MI9’s escape and evasion programme and earn some money at the same time. He described how he approached the War Office in 1950 for permission to lecture and write a book about his experiences, at the same time providing proof that there was already information about the escape aids in the public domain. Indeed, some of the surplus maps had been sold off soon after the war, an undertaking which had been openly described and discussed in the press at the time. He completed a first draft of the book under the title A Journey Has Been Arranged and invited Air Marshall Sir Basil Embry to read and comment on it. Sir Basil offered to write the preface and in it he indicated not just his personal indebtedness to Hutton, but he also commented, ‘Some people may think he is eccentric; I think he is a genius.’ That completed draft was sent to his publisher, before being sent to the War Office for permission to publish, which was not forthcoming.

  There was a strange twist to the story in the mid-1950s with the publication of Charles Connell’s book The Hidden Catch. It was submitted by the publisher, Elek Books, to the Air Ministry for clearance to publish on 11 August 1955. It is clear from the files that this was the same book in essence as that which had been stopped in 1951. It is very obviously Hutton’s story, although he is described throughout the book as Mr X. Permission to publish was initially refused and Hutton was warned that to ignore the decision would make him liable to prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. However, the publisher agreed to make changes to the text requested by the Air Ministry, and this resulted in permission to publish being given. The book was published in 1955. For unexplained reasons, Hutton did not realize until after publication that one of the textual changes was, in his opinion, defamatory of himself and he pursued a claim for libel against his own publisher. In May 1957, the Treasury Solicitor was informed that the action had been settled out of court and a discontinuance notice had been served.

  The fractious relationship between the faceless men in the War Office, Hutton and publishers both in the UK and the USA appeared to continue and the situation was not apparently resolved to Hutton’s satisfaction until the eventual publication of Official Secret in 1960, which appears to be a condensed form of the original draft which Hutton had written some ten years previously. It is not clear just how much of Hutton’s reticence to include much detail about the mapping programme in his book resulted from the security vetting process or from an understandable reluctance, in the light of his previous experience, to continue battling with the War Office Committee responsible for vetting publications. Some four years later in 1964, however, he did author a short article for the American journal Popular Science which served to highlight some of the detail of the escape gadgetry, compasses, clothing and currency, and included a section on the maps. It added nothing to the minimal detail about the maps which he had already included in his own book.

  The final chapter of Official Secret described the various personal and professional challenges that he encountered. He appeared to have an almost obsessive personality which led him to pursue his objective with single-minded focus and total self-belief, and it may well have been the complexities of his personality that caused his eventual illness and hospitalization, and the end of his career with MI9. He certainly caused considerably more difficulties and costs than would have been encountered had he sought to involve the military map-makers from the start. It is, however, the case that all who knew Hutton, and those who wrote about him, appeared to agree that he was the right man for the job. For all his undoubted weaknesses, it appears to be the case that Hutton, virtually single-handedly, managed to mount and sustain the detailed map production programme, and the fact that he managed to do so without the help of those best placed to make his life easier, makes his feat the more impressive.

  A NEW AND INEXPERIENCED INTELLIGENCE ORGANIZATION

  Before considering just how successful MI9 can be judged to have been, the organization needs to be set in the context of the wartime crisis and against the backdrop of individual and departmental rivalries. Petty rivalries and jealousies apparently persisted despite the popular assumption that they were held in abeyance during the war. The newly formed organization took time to find its feet. In its early days, this was due largely to a lack of staff. It took time to recruit and staff the various sections, especially as the country was already at war and was soon sustaining heavy losses and defeats. As Head of the fledgling service, Crockatt was also aware from the beginning that, as Foot and Langley described it:

  . . . secret and semi-secret services like to work in a dense fog of security, in which the germs of inter-secret-service jealousy breed fast.

  In 1939 the Foreign Office had wanted MI9 to be established under its direct control. The reason for that is not stated in the records of the time but is very likely to have been so that the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) could exert direct control and influence on its work from the beginning. As it was, the Foreign Office’s opposition was overruled and, throughout its existence, MI9 was an integral part of the War Office, where it met the needs of all three Services. It became clear from the post-war published works of those who were directly involved with MI9 at the time, especially Neave and Langley, that SIS sought to undermine Crockatt at every opportunity, and to control much of his Branch’s work.

  MI9 and SIS

  Sir Stewart Menzies had been appointed Chief of SIS, a post generally referred to as C (the Chief’s code name, after Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the first director of what would later become SIS, who always initialled papers he read, C). Menzies’ appointment followed the death of Admiral Quex Sinclair in November 1939 and occurred barely a month prior to the creation of MI9 and Crockatt’s appointment. Menzies’ Assistant Chief was Colonel (later Sir) Claude Dansey. Dansey was older (sixty-three years old at the outbreak of war) and it was sometimes felt that Menzies deferred to him. Dansey was regarded as, and apparently preferred to be, something of an eminence grise, rather than the man in charge. As Foot and Langley put it ‘He could have broken Crockatt, or anyone else in MI9 . . . and Crockatt knew it’. Certainly Crockatt kept his organization relatively small and tight, and appeared to avoid any direct confrontation with SIS, even when
he was aware of the absence of its support from his section’s work. Crockatt was, however, very clear about SIS’s role and thinking, and the extent to which they were motivated by their history and experience during World War I. At the end of the war, he wrote:

  The oft repeated statement that Nurse Edith Cavell, who apparently worked for SIS during the last war, had been discovered through assisting a prisoner of war seemed to dictate the whole attitude of SIS towards the Section. They were determined to prevent escapers and evaders from involving them in any way. This attitude may have been correct from their own security aspect, but it was a terrific handicap to those trying to build up an organisation.

  Crockatt sought at every stage not to cross SIS’s path. He encouraged his staff to ‘take it quietly and remember we are playing very much a lone hand’. SIS had clearly not forgotten that in October 1915 Edith Cavell had been shot by the Germans for hiding British soldiers in her clinic in Brussels and helping them to escape to neutral territory. Whilst Crockatt understood their approach, he clearly regarded it as detrimental to the work of MI9. He was supported in that view by both Langley (who worked for SIS but within MI9) and by Neave (who worked alongside Langley in MI9). SIS never realized that an increase in support for MI9 was needed rather than the negative approach which Crockatt described:

  Their rather negative form of support continued to the last and had the inevitable effect of restricting the scope of the Section’s work in every country with which it was concerned.