Secret Alliances

by Tony Insall

  XU

  The network developed by SIS and FO.II to provide intelligence reporting from Norway was not the only intelligence organisation functioning there during the occupation. There were more than a dozen others which were home-grown and operated quite independently. Two groups, known as RMO and SB, provided naval intelligence. Another, 830S, specialised in telephone interception and eavesdropping on Gestapo communications, which was of great value to Milorg. There were a number of smaller regional groups, too, such as the CX group which operated in Bergen until June 1942 when it was penetrated and broken up by the Germans. Most of them found means of sending the information they collected to the Norwegian legation in Sweden, where MI.II was responsible for receiving intelligence and collating then sending it back to London. However, the largest organisation was XU, with approximately 1,500 agents in southern Norway, which had achieved countrywide coverage by 1943, providing a wealth of political and military intelligence. It was formed in the summer of 1940, but its first steps were uncertain, and several of its early leaders were either shot (Arvid Storsveen), arrested or, like John Hagle, forced to escape to Sweden. Quite a number of XU members were also involved in supporting or working with SIS stations, not necessarily wise from a security point of view, but sometimes an unavoidable necessity when one or the other had been disrupted by the Germans. Thus the SIS wireless operator Kristian Fougner briefly used the flat of an XU leader, Bjørn Eriksen, as a transmitting base in Trondheim early in 1943.57 Eriksen was arrested shortly afterwards and committed suicide by jumping out of a fourth-floor window. Hans Clifton, a very experienced radio operator who manned Njord and Lillemor in Vestfold, also sent many messages on behalf of XU.

  We do not know a great deal about the work of XU. All of its members signed a non-disclosure agreement at the end of the war, which was only annulled in 1988. Only a handful have written or spoken publicly about their activities.58 A few books have been written about its work, notably by Ulstein and Sæter, but archival material, particularly about its work in Germany on behalf of SIS, is relatively scarce. However, it is clear that SIS began to become closely involved in the work of XU in the spring of 1943. In January, General Hansteen suggested that XU should be extended and developed in close collaboration with SIS, who began to work on a plan for a network which would consist of fifteen stations throughout Norway. Soon afterwards, Roscher Lund produced a draft proposal for cooperation between SIS and the Norwegian services. This foresaw that the Norwegian office in Stockholm, MI.II, would have responsibility for all intelligence work originating in Sweden (which would include XU), while SIS would continue to be responsible for operations launched from Britain. There would be a planning council in London consisting of Welsh from SIS, together with representatives from FO.II and XU.59 Cordeaux initially suggested that ‘we should consider our present agents in Norway and the XU organisation as one service, and we should not consider this service separately insofar as it is providing information either by W/T or by courier service’.60 However, Roscher Lund preferred to keep a closer degree of Norwegian control over XU activities. Cordeaux therefore suggested that the Norwegians should bear the cost for this work: ‘As you know we are generally speaking anxious to share and share alike in the question of expenses but … it seems that the XU … will remain very much your responsibility and it will hardly be possible for us to have a detailed knowledge of it.’61 SIS did provide assistance with training though. Matters did not remain so completely one-sided after SIS appreciated and started to exploit the potential of Norwegians studying in Germany either as sources of intelligence in their own right, or as channels of communication to pass on information from German agents who were working there. It is not surprising that such intelligence would have been of considerable interest to SIS, who found it difficult to run sources in Germany. In such cases, they paid all the costs which were involved.62 The growth of this work, and the scale of XU reporting from Norway, led to a great increase in the activities of MI.II in Stockholm.

  Cramped conditions in the MI.II Norwegian military intelligence office in Stockholm. © NHM

  SIS therefore arranged to second a Norwegian-speaking British officer, John Turner, to work in MI.II with Colonel Dahl and facilitate liaison. He used the alias John Pettersen and represented himself as a Norwegian. This arrangement worked well, one might say profitably, until it came to light that Turner was being paid both by SIS and also by XU. An irritated Cordeaux told him to stop taking a salary from XU forthwith.63

  SIS officer Captain John Turner, seconded to the Norwegian military intelligence office MI.II in Sweden, wearing a mixture of Swedish and Norwegian uniform. © NHM

  In November 1943, Cordeaux wrote to Roscher Lund to discuss the establishment of further SIS stations in the interior of Norway to provide reporting on military and air intelligence. He expressed concern that SIS might hitherto have been concentrating on naval matters to the detriment of other important areas. He intended to ask the War Office and Air Ministry whether they thought such intelligence could already be important enough to justify this investment, or whether it might become so in the near future – and if so, where? Cordeaux also asked whether Roscher Lund would want additional stations in Norway to facilitate communication with XU, as long as such an increase did not lead to the country being saturated with transmitting stations. As an interim step, he wanted to increase to twenty the number of agents in training. The service departments saw no immediate necessity for SIS to extend its reporting service, but anticipated that this might change quite quickly in the near future. They therefore welcomed the idea of SIS being in a position to respond without delay. So Cordeaux decided that it would be worth going ahead with additional stations. He asked Roscher Lund to coordinate this so as to fit in with XU requirements. He was very keen to expand the number of stations being worked by XU, which would enable them to provide a better reporting service. Scottish Command, which would be responsible for operations linked to the liberation of Norway, also wanted SIS to consider the formation of a special unit to obtain tactical and strategic intelligence for the Commander in Chief in the period immediately before and after liberation. They doubted whether this would require a large-scale investment. In the event, it proved possible to achieve all that was required through an increase in XU stations and XU reporting.64

  The most well-known achievements of an XU agent in Germany appear to have been those of Sverre Bergh, a young Norwegian who was studying at the Technical High School in Dresden. He has described how he was recruited in Gothenburg in September 1941 and instructed to make contact with Paul Rosbaud, a German scientist who was already working for SIS.65 Bergh was not the only Norwegian XU agent who acted as a link to Rosbaud. There were several. After the war, Rosbaud wrote to an American academic colleague that ‘all my messages I sent to England and were received there by old Eric Welsh through my contact with the Norwegian agents who came to see me regularly in Berlin’.66 Through his wide range of contacts with German scientists, Rosbaud was in a position to provide intelligence on all significant German scientific work, including the progress of research in their atomic weapons programme. He also passed on information about the work being carried out at the experimental research station at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast in northern Germany, into the missiles which were developed as V-1s and the even larger V-2s. Rosbaud gave information on Peenemünde to Bergh during their first meeting in Berlin in September 1941. SIS apparently initially found this difficult to credit, and sent Bergh up to the Baltic coast to make his own inspection. The site was eventually bombed by the RAF in August 1943, and several times thereafter by the USAAF. Bergh’s book described how he devised a range of methods to send his reporting back to Stockholm – via a friendly Swedish diplomat based in Berlin or in the handle of a hollowed-out tennis racket. He occasionally carried reports himself when travelling back via Sweden to Norway on holiday.

  There are also examples of reports from other XU sources in Germany, exchanged between
Welsh and Roscher Lund, on a variety of defence-related subjects. For example, a collated series of reports in February 1944, covering the location of factories for production of synthetic petrol; damage reports of the RAF attack on Peenemünde (not very successful); a detailed description of the V-2 missile, its payload, range and the launch site at Peenemünde; camouflage arrangements to disguise the large chemical works at Leuna near Leipzig, which was hidden by a village made from rushes being built on the roof; anti-aircraft defences on strategic factories near Dresden; dummy landing lights near Wiener Neustadt intended for deception purposes and new equipment for German night fighters enabling them to fly at over 30,000 feet, though not for more than fifteen minutes.67 This was a remarkably wide range of subjects. Another report, from Roscher Lund to Welsh in December 1944, was also comprehensive, describing V-2s, and providing a specimen of an explosive used in the latest type of German bomb. Welsh commented that he found the report ‘extremely interesting’. He wanted to know more about the source.68 However, such archival references are limited, and there are even fewer details about other Norwegian students in Germany working for XU. The geographical range of subjects covered in the available reporting suggests that there must have been quite a few more.69

  Bonuses

  We saw in Chapter 2 and Chapter 7 how SOE personnel had problems over the amount of the bonuses which they were paid. This led to Wallin and Aksdal being imprisoned in Brixton, and was a contributory cause to the Shetlands crews being conscripted into the Norwegian Navy after they had complained about the loss of their bonus. All Norwegian agents were members of the Norwegian armed forces and seconded to SIS, who were sometimes more generous than SOE. When Rørholt came to Britain in December 1941 after the collapse of Skylark B in Trondheim, he submitted claims for money which he had spent on behalf of the station. Welsh told Nagell that he thought that the group deserved to be rewarded and suggested paying them altogether £700 (worth more than £35,000 today). He reminded Nagell that according to the original agreement drawn up between Frank Foley and Halvdan Koht, costs should be divided equally between the two services. Similarly, when Harald Johannessen returned in March 1942 after working on Beta in Oslo, Welsh suggested a bonus of £100 (worth more than £5,000 today). He also recommended paying bonuses of £200 (worth more than £10,000) to Sverre Midtskau (Skylark A) and of £100 to Erik Welle-Strand (Skylark B).70 SIS continued to pay similarly generous bonuses throughout the war. Oluf Reed Olsen was paid £150 (worth over £7,500) for his work on Makir.71 For most of the war, all Norwegian agents, whatever their rank, were paid £10 a week (worth more than £500), though after 1944 the most experienced agents were paid £12 a week.72

  Transmitting from SIS station Beta in the summer of 1942. © NHM

  Results, setbacks and losses

  Just over a hundred SIS stations in Norway were able to establish contact with London during the occupation. Another forty stations never managed to function effectively or communicate with SIS. Although it has not been possible to establish precisely the numbers involved, for they can be calculated in different ways, well over a hundred agents were sent to Norway by various routes. Another a hundred who were recruited and trained locally, also worked for SIS. More than thirty stations were captured by the Germans or so disrupted that they had to close. Nearly thirty agents lost their lives, a slightly higher percentage than that of Norwegians working for SOE. Most were either shot by the Germans when resisting arrest, were executed or died in camps in Germany. Some committed suicide after arrest, or were killed in crashes or sinkings on their way to Norway. Some of these deaths were the result of unfortunate and unpredictable accidents. Thus in August 1942, Ewald Knudsen and Peter Andreas Ravik were delivered to Norway by Catalina to establish Boreas on Skogsøy in northern Norway. However, as the result of a navigational error they were landed at Vornes, not far away from their intended landing site, but on the same beach where Hugo Munthe-Kaas had been landed from another Catalina only five weeks before to set up Libra. As a result of that, the Germans were alert to this site, and ambushed them. Ravik was killed before he could leave the beach, though Knudsen managed to escape.73

  Ewald Knudsen (left) and Peter Andreas Ravik return to base after an unsuccessful attempt to land in Norway. On their next trip, they were ambushed by the Germans, and Ravik was killed. © NHM

  Setbacks sometimes occurred because of other human errors. Ulva was landed from Hitra on 4 November 1944, with a large consignment of stores, to establish a station at Os, south of Bergen. The agent supervised the transfer of stores from Hitra, but forgot to go down to his bunk in the wardroom to collect two suitcases containing all the documents he needed, including his codes, passes, wireless crystals and money. (When informed about this error, Wilson commented: ‘Words fail me!’74) SOE sailed another mission with Hitra to restore them to him on 8 November. The station sent its first – and only – transmission on 14 November, and was captured by the Germans three days later.75

  Notes

  1 TNA, KV 3/77.

  2 NHM, SIS progress report.

  3 Rørholt, Usynlige soldater, pp. 337–338, and Ulstein, Vol. 3, p. 196.

  4 Nøkleby, Pass godt på Tirpitz, pp. 148–150.

  5 TNA. The Gullfax and Johanna messages are on HW 40/76. This file contains material about German exploitation of SIS and SOE codes and cyphers. Rørholt pp. 477–478 contains an account of the end of Corona.

  6 F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War (four volumes, London, 1979–1988).

  7 Edward Thomas in Salmon, Britain and Norway in the Second World War, pp. 121–128.

  8 Jeffery, MI6, p. 375.

  9 Herrington, SOE in Norway, footnote, p. 197.

  10 TNA, ADM 223/851. See also Hinsley, Vol. 2, p. 200.

  11 Ulstein, Vol. 2, p. 57.

  12 Hinsley, Vol. 2, p. 203.

  13 TNA, ADM 223/464.

  14 Nøkleby, pp. 40–41.

  15 Jeffery, p. 519.

  16 RA, Nagell, box 15.

  17 Account by Ole Snefjellå of his involvement in SIS operations in occupied Norway. Eric Welsh papers in private possession of the family.

  18 Nøkleby, p. 46.

  19 TNA, ADM 223/851.

  20 Nøkleby, p. 45.

  21 NHM, FO.II 8.2.F3.

  22 NHM, SIS progress report.

  23 Nøkleby, p. 162.

  24 RA, Nagell, box 15.

  25 See Bjørn Rørholt, Amatørspionen ‘Lerken’ (Oslo: Hjemmenes, 1985).

  26 Hinsley, Vol. 2, p. 530.

  27 NHM, SIS progress reports February and May 1943.

  28 Hinsley, Vol. 2, p. 536.

  29 MTB 631 ran aground during the attack. It was later salvaged and used by the Germans as S631. https://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/17167.html The action itself is described (though without reference to Erica’s intelligence) by Jon Rustung Hegland, Angrep i skjærgården (Oslo: Dreyer, 1989), pp. 55–59.

  30 NHM, FO.II 8.5 Daeb 0004.

  31 Dag Christensen, En spion går i land: brødrene Snefjellås utrolige innsats på norskekysten under krigen (Oslo: Damm, 1988), p. 136.

  32 Ulstein, Vol. 3, p. 137.

  33 Nøkleby, p. 120.

  34 TNA, ADM 1/30535.

  35 Ibid.

  36 NHM, SIS progress report. See also Reed Olsen, Two Eggs on my Plate, pp. 159–185.

  37 Rørholt, p. 142. Ulstein, Vol. 2, p. 137.

  38 NHM, SIS progress report.

  39 TNA, ADM 1/27180.

  40 RA, Nagell box 3, letter to Graur, 4 June 1943.

  41 NHM, SIS progress report.

  42 TNA, ADM 1/30535.

  43 NHM, SIS progress report.

  44 Nøkleby, pp. 144–145.

  45 NHM, SIS progress reports March–December 1943.

  46 NHM, SIS progress report.

  47 Christina J. M. Goulter, A Forgotten Offensive: Royal Air Force Coastal Command’s Anti-shipping Campaign, 1940–1945 (London: Cass, 1995), p. 353.

  48 Thomas,
in Salmon, p. 126.

  49 Christensen, p. 229.

  50 NHM, SIS progress report.

  51 Ulstein, Vol. 2, pp. 98–101.

  52 Goulter, pp. 150–151.

  53 Ibid., p. 193.

  54 NHM. SIS progress reports, May and November 1943.

  55 Goulter, pp. 204–205.

  56 Hinsley, Vol. 3, part 1, p. 256.

  57 Ulstein, Vol. 2, p. 127.

  58 NHM, FO.II 7.4 –HMP 201.0 contains an example of this agreement.

  59 NHM, FO.II 8.2 E5.

  60 NHM, FO.II.2 S.2. Cordeaux letter of 28 February 1943.

  61 Ibid. Cordeaux letter of 20 March 1943.

  62 NHM, Roscher Lund report on intelligence work during the war, p. 92.

  63 NHM, FO.II.2 S.2. Cordeaux letter of 19 January 1944.

  64 Ibid.