The great tragedy of my life during the war was that on the one occasion, the only occasion, when the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, visited my unit, by sheer bad luck I was on leave. I thus lost my only opportunity to meet Winston Churchill. But we were in contact in various other ways. A lot of stories about Churchill circulated within the organization. Some have appeared in print; some have not. Here are two of my favorites.
When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, we suddenly became allies with the Soviets, and Churchill sent a military mission to Moscow commanded by a dour Scottish general. In true Soviet style the Russians told him nothing, and showed him nothing. Our general, being a dour Scot, decided that since he had nothing to report, he would send no reports. Churchill got rather annoyed; he had a military mission in Moscow and he was hearing nothing from them. In typical Churchillian style he sent a rather sharp telegram to Moscow: “Prime Minister London to Head of British Military Mission Moscow. All that we know is that it’s raining in Moscow. Would welcome further information.” To which came the reply, from Moscow: “Officer commanding British military mission in Moscow, to Prime Minister London. Interested to learn from your message that it’s raining in Moscow. We are not allowed to look out of the window.”
Another Churchill story. During the war years we had a number of governments in exile in London from the various countries conquered and occupied by the Axis. One of them was a Greek government which rotated rather uneasily between London and Cairo and which consisted of a coalition of different parties which, not surprisingly with a coalition, kept on breaking up and reforming and breaking up and reforming. Then at a certain point a military strong man appeared, General Plastiras (pronounced PlassTEERaahss), and he formed a government. The hope was that he would be a sort of Greek de Gaulle. Churchill went to inform the cabinet of this, and the way he did it was such that within hours it was all round the establishment and even reached my level. Churchill went in and said to the cabinet, “Well, gentlemen, we have a new Greek Prime Minister, General Plaster ass. Let’s hope he hasn’t got feet of clay too.”
I never met Churchill but on one occasion I was received by the legendary “C,” Sir Stewart Menzies, the head of the secret service. I was suitably impressed walking into the office of the head of the secret service and still more impressed by meeting him. He was gracious, welcoming, complimentary and he made me feel extraordinarily good. I can no longer remember what we talked about, but even if I could, I wouldn’t be allowed to repeat it.
Being Jewish in the Service
It was more than sixty years ago, but I still remember the occasion and the conversation. It was in the middle of the night, and apart from the routine rumble of shells and bombs, things were relatively quiet. I was on night watch. In the branch of His Majesty’s service in which I served, we took it in turns to stay awake, two at a time, all night long, to deal with any emergency that might arise. It so happened that during this night we whiled away the time chatting about nothing in particular. My colleague was from another department, so even our shoptalk was limited by the “need-to-know” restriction and therefore not very interesting. Suddenly my colleague George started a new and very different conversation. “Forgive me,” he said, “I don’t want to intrude, but am I right in thinking that you are Jewish?”
“You are right. I am Jewish, and there is nothing to forgive.”
“Forgive me,” he said again, “but I have the impression that you are not a devout and observant Jew.”
“You are right again.”
“Then, I don’t understand,” he said. “Why do you bother?”
“Now I don’t understand.” I said. “What do you mean by that?”
“Let me try to explain,” said George. “You must agree that being Jewish is often difficult and sometimes dangerous.”
“Yes, indeed,” I said—one could hardly deny this statement in a branch of the intelligence service in 1942.
“Then, I don’t understand,” said George yet again. “I can see that you may be ready to face persecution or death for your religious beliefs. But if you don’t hold or live by those beliefs, then, why bother?”
This time I began to understand George’s question, even his incomprehension. George obviously thought of Judaism as a kind of sect or cult, like so many others. Membership in such a group was meaningful if one were a devout and practicing member, meaningless if one were not. In such a case there would be no good reason to remain a member, particularly if membership involved inconvenience or worse.
I set to work to try to explain to George, and to myself, why being Jewish meant more than belonging to a community defined by religion, though that was obviously a primary part of it. There were other elements besides belief and worship that mattered, and could somehow survive even the loss of these. Jewishness (I prefer this word to Judaism, which sounds rather theological) is a shared memory and experience of life. It is a many-faceted culture—distinctive, yet compatible and combinable with other cultures. It is an identity, not a whole or exclusive identity, but an important part of the multiple identities that all civilized people bear. Finally, it is a heritage, preserved through millennia by courage, achievement and loyalty, and for all these reasons, a source of legitimate pride to be cherished and passed on to those who come after us.
There have always been some who indeed did “not bother,” finding the retention dangerous, difficult, or merely burdensome. For many centuries, hostility against Jews was theologically defined. This gave a Jew freedom of choice. By a simple act of conversion he could escape persecution and even, if he wished, join the persecutors. The racially defined hostility of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries removed this option, and forced even the most vestigial of Jews to remain what he was, if only in name. In our own day, events in the Middle East have provided, for those who need it, a new rationale for Jew-baiting; this in turn has restored, for Jews who want it, the lost option of changing sides.
But for most, even for those whose religious faith is at best tenuous and whose Jewish identity is overshadowed by other, larger identities, denying that Jewish identity would be an act of falsehood, if not to others, then to oneself.
In England there is no legal separation of church and state. The monarch is head of the church, the bishops are members of the upper house of Parliament, and in schools, the army, and other institutions, prayer is an important part of the program. Prayer sessions are primarily Anglican, that is, Church of England, but parallel prayers are organized for other groups that are large enough. During World War II a cousin of mine was serving in the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. One day he was summoned by his colonel who barked that he hadn’t see him at church parade and he wanted to know why. My cousin explained that he was Jewish and it would therefore not be appropriate for him to attend the Anglican church parade. The colonel said that that was not a reason as there were separate church parades for different groups. He should go to the Jewish church parade. My cousin explained that it so happened that he was the only Jew in that battalion and he couldn’t very well have a church parade on his own. The colonel harrumphed, and finally said, “Yes. I see your point. Dismissed.” My cousin thought that that was the end of the matter but he was quite wrong. A week later he was once again summoned by the colonel who told him that there was a London regiment thirty miles down the road which had lots of Jews and regular Jewish services. The colonel had arranged for a car and driver to take my cousin there to participate in the Jewish church parade. And so, for as long as my cousin was stationed there, he was taken every week to participate in Jewish worship, something he never did either before or after that interval in his life.
To the Middle East
Late in the war I was ordered to go to the Middle East and was directed to a naval base somewhere on the English south coast. There I boarded a seaplane which we flew first to Malta, paused for a little while, and then continued to Egypt. It was certainly not a comfortable or pleasant journey and it was long
. The planes were quite small and carried few people. There must have been only half a dozen others at any one time.
After a short time in Egypt I was told to go to Baghdad. It was the height of summer and the temperature was terribly hot. Stepping out of the plane at the airport was like stepping into a blast furnace. I was taken by car to my hotel, and the first thing I had to do was report to the British Embassy. I asked the hotel concierge how to get to the embassy. He said it was quite near, about a quarter of a mile down the road on the same street as the hotel and he would call a taxi for me. I told him I didn’t need a taxi for only a quarter of a mile and that I would walk. He gave me a funny look and said, “Please yourself.” I stepped out, walked about five yards, came back and said, “You’re right, call a taxi.” The temperature was 125 degrees in the shade and it was just physically impossible for me to walk. Iraqis managed it but only with great difficulty and to a minimal extent.
During the war there was a serious shortage of food in North Africa. The Americans with true generosity sent in a large supply of various canned foods, of which a large part included ham and bacon. North Africa is overwhelmingly Muslim and pork is forbidden. Our American allies were startled and even a little offended when they found their generous gifts of canned food were being rejected indignantly by the local population. We explained but in those days not much was known about Islam.
When the American forces landed in North Africa, they discovered that no ice cream was available locally. This was a serious problem for an army that was accustomed to having ice cream regularly, particularly in hot weather, and of hot weather there is no shortage in North Africa. With true American ingenuity, they soon found a solution. When planes went on expeditions over enemy territory, reconnaissance or bombing or whatever it was, there was a man sitting at the back with a tub churning for ice cream. One couldn’t do that on the ground in North Africa; it was too hot and there was no refrigeration available. But in a plane high in the air it was possible, and that was how American troops were ensured of at least an emergency supply.
One of my colleagues in intelligence, an officer in a Scottish regiment, was a fluent Arabic speaker. He was serving in Iraq and was sent on what we called “detached duty” to the north. On his way back to rejoin his regiment he was captured by people whom we called “bandits” and who called themselves “patriots.” They were very polite but they seized him, handcuffed him and said they were going to kill him but would keep him alive until their chief returned that evening. The chief would want to question him. The Scot acknowledged he was their prisoner and that they would do what they chose, but he asked, as a matter of interest, why they wanted to kill him. They replied that it was obvious. “You are English!” He said, indignantly, that if they had to kill him they should do so but they should not do it for the wrong reason—he was not English. “What do you mean?” they queried. “You are an English officer, you are wearing an English uniform, you are serving in the English army.” As the story goes, he said, “No, you’ve got it wrong. I am a British officer, I am wearing a British uniform, I am serving in the British Army, but I am not English.” “Well, what are you?” And he replied, with great pride, “I am a Scot.” They had never heard of that and asked what that meant. He fumbled a bit and then had an idea and said, “Look, here in Iraq there is one country called Iraq. You have an Iraqi government and an Iraqi army and you are all Iraqis. But in the north there are Kurds and in the south there are Arabs. You are all Iraqis but a Kurd is not an Arab and an Arab is not a Kurd. This is how it is with us. Scots in the north, English in the south; we are all British, but a Scot is not an Englishman.” There was a moment of silence and then one of the “patriots” came up to him with a drawn knife and said, “Don’t be alarmed,” and cut his bonds. “We wouldn’t dream of harming a fellow Kurd. We would however like to invite you to stay for dinner so that our leader may have the pleasure of meeting you when he returns. Would you be willing?” Of course he stayed for dinner, and indeed overnight, and they parted on the friendliest terms.
Some years later I was discussing the Kurdish question in Turkey with a Turkish friend, and told him this story. I asked why the Turks and Kurds couldn’t live together in Turkey like the Scots and the English in the United Kingdom. He replied immediately, “The Kurds aren’t Scotch; they’re Irish.”
It was a witty remark but not an accurate one. The Turks and the Kurds are both Muslims; the English and the Scotch are both predominately Protestant. The real Irish problem was the domination of that country, with its huge Catholic majority, by the small Protestant Irish minority. Protestants of Irish background had no difficulty in reaching the highest levels in the British establishment—to cite just two examples, the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal Montgomery. But all over Ireland, as long as the Union survived, Catholics were excluded from positions of power and the whole country was subject to what is known in Irish history as “the Protestant Ascendancy.” One might use the Anglo-Irish issue to help explain the Sunni-Shi‘a problem in the Middle East, but not the Turkish-Kurdish or the Arab-Kurdish issues.
Spies and Intercepts
At some point my employers had come into possession of some documents in a language they believed to be Turkish. The documents were accordingly passed to me for translation and analysis. I looked at them and reported that the documents were not Turkish. They said, If it’s not Turkish, what is it? I said I didn’t know, but I thought it was Albanian. You may ask, why did I think it was Albanian? I knew it wasn’t Turkish or Persian or Arabic. It wasn’t Greek and it wasn’t Slavic. And Albanian was about the only other language left in that general area. Also, it mentioned Tirana, the Albanian capital. My employers reasoned that since Albania was close to Turkey if I knew Turkish, I could learn Albanian quickly. I didn’t entirely agree with this logic, but I was willing to make a try and thought it would make an interesting diversion. I said I was willing to try, and in the words of our great leader, give me the tools and I will finish the job. The tools I needed were an Albanian grammar and an Albanian dictionary. They hunted around and they found me both. The grammar was in German, published in 1913, and was a grammar of the south Gheg dialect of Albanian. I had ascertained in the meantime that Albanian came in three main dialects: Gheg, Tosk and Lyap. This was Gheg and not just Gheg but south Gheg, presumably as opposed to north, east or west Gheg. The dictionary was volume one, A–M, of an Albanian/Serbo-Croat dictionary. I had no Serbo-Croat, but I had a colleague who was a Balkan specialist.
The first thing I did was go through my grammar very rapidly to confirm that the texts were indeed in Albanian. Then I went through the texts. Words beginning with letters M through Z I simply abandoned; words beginning with letters A through M I looked up in the Albanian/Serbo-Croat dictionary and telephoned the Balkan expert to ask what does ______ mean? He asked if there was a chevron on the third “z.” I said, what is a chevron? He explained, and I confirmed there was. Then he said that according to the context it could mean yesterday afternoon, bellyache or horse. So I went through the document and came to the conclusion that what one of His Majesty’s less official representatives had, shall we say, obtained was the business correspondence of an Albanian carpet merchant. What made this discovery relatively easy was that the Albanian word for carpet is the same as the Turkish word, and various carpets were referred to by name, Shiraz, Bokhara and so on. I reported accordingly. My employers were obviously disappointed, and one of them asked if this couldn’t be a disguise, a sort of code for something else. At that point I felt I had to protest. Anything less likely than that the German high command was carrying on its operations disguised as carpet talk in south Gheg would be difficult to imagine. By common consent we dropped the matter.
Many years later I had my first encounter with an Albanian when I was introduced to the Albanian ambassador at a reception. I couldn’t resist asking him whether he was Gheg, Tosk, or Lyap and without batting an eyelid he replied that he was Gheg. I couldn’t help myse
lf and asked, “South Gheg?” To which he responded with a gesture which I was not able to interpret. Some things just don’t translate!
During the war our German enemies, though very effective on the battlefield and in the air, proved remarkably incompetent in the field of intelligence. They had a large and important spy network in Britain, all of whom we knew and were able to follow in detail. We were intercepting and deciphering all their communications, so we knew every one of them from the moment they left their base in Germany until they arrived in England, usually via neutral Spain and Ireland. Normally when one identifies enemy agents one does not arrest them but rather lets them continue their work, taking care to supply them with false information to transmit to their masters. This serves the double purpose of misleading the enemy and saving the trouble of finding the new spies. However at some point, for some reason (I never found out why) our masters decided to arrest the German spies in England. Since we were following all their communications, we were able to measure their reactions to this. Understandably, they were furious. How did the stupid incompetent British manage to find and arrest our superb network of highly competent spies?
They batted this back and forth for a while and finally decided that they had found the answer. The Italians were at fault! The reason we had caught these superbly efficient German spies was the incompetence and negligence of their Italian allies. The Italians must mend their ways and—said one message—they must be forced to adopt German methods. But truth be told the Italians were so good at their job that not only had we not found them; we didn’t even know they existed. Now, under pressure from Berlin, the Italian espionage network adopted German methods, so we were able to catch them too.
Notes on a Century: Reflections of A Middle East Historian Page 7