A note on sources:
References are to the National Archives at Kew unless otherwise specified. The full set of Columba messages has not been preserved in a single place. The first ninety-one messages are in WO 208/3560, with more in WO 208/3561 and WO 208/3555. A photostat copy of message 37 is in CAB 208/3564, the central Columba file. A further set of messages which were of use to the Admiralty are preserved in ADM 199/2475.
The R. V. Jones papers are held at Churchill College, Cambridge.
The Belgian Security Service files are at the CEGESOMA archive in Brussels.
Admiral Keyes’s papers are at the British Library.
L. H. F. Sanderson’s papers are at the Liddell Hart Archive, King’s College London.
US National Archives are at College Park, Maryland.
BBC documents are held in the BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham.
Documents on Joseph Raskin and Scheut are in the KADOC archive in Louvain, Belgium.
Introduction
sent to distant towns: The general historical background is drawn from Andrew D. Belchman, Pigeons (New York: Grove Press, 2006); Wendell Levi, The Pigeon (1969); Courtney Humphries, Superdove (New York: HarperCollins, 2008); Jean Hansell, The Pigeon in the Wider World (Bath: Millstream Books 2010).
‘one in nine families had a pigeon’: Belchman, Pigeons, p. 199.
‘the humble pigeon’s flight’: Steven Johnston, ‘Animals in War: Commemoration, Patriotism, Death’, Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 2 (June 2012), pp. 359–71.
Chapter One: Birth
handed over by its owner: The most likely bird is listed as coming from Margetts/Routh on Lattice Avenue, judging by the Meritorious Performance List in William Osman’s Pigeons in World War II (1950). According to a 1935 telephone directory, William Henry James Routh lived at number 60 and at number 58 was Albert James Margetts, so this may have been a loft shared by the two families.
behind enemy lines: Details of flights are drawn from a combination of sources including Freddie Clark, Agents by Moonlight (Stroud: Tempus, 1999); the website http://beforetempsford.org.uk; Ron Hockey’s papers and flight logs, which are held at the Imperial War Museum; Gibb McCall, Flight Most Secret (William Kimber, 1981); Hugh Verity, We Landed by Moonlight (Manchester: Crecy, 1998); and files at the National Archives.
parachuting two agents into Belgium: Ron Hockey’s papers, Imperial War Museum; http://www.cegesoma.be/docs/Invent/AA_1098_AA_1100.pdf; http://beforetempsford.org.uk/7-july-1941. There is some confusion between different logs and files as to which operations were flown on this and surrounding nights. One was Operation Marble – parachuting an agent called Paul Jacquemin into Belgium to work with MI6’s sole network, codenamed Clarence. Another was Moonshine/Opinion. Nicolas Livingstone, who produced the Before Tempsford site, believes the most likely flight on which our pigeon was dropped was the Moonshine/Opinion mission.
‘We tried … good drop’: See Frank Cromwell Griffiths’ testimony at the Imperial War Museum, Reel 2, http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80012005
the next night: http://beforetempsford.org.uk/2016/07/
publication the Racing Pigeon in 1898: Lt Col. A. H. Osman, Pigeons in the Great War (1929); Garry McCafferty, They Had No Choice (Stroud: Tempus, 2002), ch. 20.
expanded among all the services: Osman, Pigeons in the Great War.
‘When the battle rages … for succour’: Quoted in Levi, The Pigeon, p. 7.
trapped behind enemy lines: Osman, Pigeons in the Great War.
not long after the war: A small loft was kept in Egypt with the plan to use it for internal security. But by 1928, that loft was closed, leaving only a small facility in Singapore.
the newspaper he edited: AIR 2/2211.
concentrated in working-class areas: WO 32/10681; Osman’s estimate. There were two unions, the larger being the National Homing Union, and two journals – the bigger being the Racing Pigeon, owned and edited by Osman in London, the second British Homing World, edited by F. W. Marriott and published in Birmingham.
‘There was a terrible slaughter’: H. C. Woodman, ‘War of Little Wings’, Racing Pigeon Pictorial, 1975–6. All references to Woodman are taken from these articles.
hard-up dance band manager: Osman, Pigeons in the Great War; WO 208/3565.
Z’s man in Zurich: Anthony Read and David Fisher, Colonel Z (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1984), p. 231.
an adverse impact on his work: Keith Jeffery, MI6 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), p. 379 refers to the drink problem without naming Pearson, but the identity is clear when cross-referenced with the account in Read and Fisher, Colonel Z, p. 231.
taken across the front lines: Read and Fisher, Colonel Z, p. 139.
Animals were another option: One intelligence officer persuaded a farmer’s wife to bribe a German to deliver a hen to her sister on the other side of the wire. The hen would then have a message tied to its leg and be released at night to waddle home. Sigismund Payne-Best, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive interview 4520.
carrying important military information: WO 208/3561.
by the end of the First World War: WO 208/3564.
refused to cooperate: HS 8/854.
a source of abiding tension: The first demand for pigeons for intelligence work was made in October 1940, when a mission was successfully carried out by two birds selected from a civilian loft by the Air Ministry.
‘they may be picked up … pigeon pie’: AIR 2/4969.
‘In our jaundiced opinion … dining table’: McCall, Flight Most Secret, pp. 46–7.
Chapter Two: The Special Pigeon Service
more talented younger men: Noel Annan, Changing Enemies (London: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 3.
passing on their secrets … Anthony Blunt: Guy Liddell, diary entry, 11 May 1945.
just landed in Britain: Biographical details of Brian Melland are from his son, David Melland.
New Year’s Day 1941: Annan, Changing Enemies, p. 2.
an invasion was considered imminent: Leo McKinstry, Operation Sealion (London: John Murray, 2014), p. 87.
if nothing had been heard: Sanderson papers, Liddell Hart Archives.
The German navy … close to a year: German Plans for the Invasion of England, US National Archives NR 910.
coastal defences between Dover and Brighton: German Plans for the Invasion of England, US National Archives NR 910.
many were likely to be rubbish: Annan, Changing Enemies, p. 26.
‘can only be classed … body of sources’: WO 190/893. Keith Jeffery in MI6 makes clear that it was only by the end of 1941 that the Cleveland (then Clarence) network under Walthere Dewe was establishing contacts. Dewe had been involved in the Dame Blanche network in the First World War and had continued working between the wars. His team had been given one-way radio transmitters so his sub-agents could send back reports, but it was proving hard to train people to use the sets and get the networks up and running in the early days of occupation.
it had failed to deliver: WO 198/893.
nearly a third of a year: Jeffery, MI6, p. 520.
floodlight the whole of southern England: R. V. Jones, Most Secret War (London: Coronet, 1978), p. 65.
When the ears … find out more: Jones, Most Secret War, p. 426.
the intensive manufacture of gas: WO 198/893.
Columba message number one … 10.30 a.m.: http://beforetempsford.org.uk
‘From now onwards … anyone who betrays’: Columba message 51.
eat them before they were ripe: Columba message 62.
taken off with his aeroplane and fled: Columba message 62, August 1941.
replace all his own pigeons … also been killed: Columba message 75.
Chapter Three: Leopold Vindictive
what being a patriot really meant: Many biographical details of the Raskin, Joye and Debaillie families have been provided by the families themselves; others are from Brigitte Raskin, De eeuw van de ekster. Een Belgisch levensverhaal (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1994).
Belgium’s war quickly became Britain’s: John Horne and Alan Kramer, German Atrocities 1914 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 26–30.
Columba birds were dropped: WO 208/3562.
‘Rear a couple … kill all mine’: Columba message 506, 28 August 1943.
details of what they observed: The Belgian Security Service Archive file on Leopold Vindictive contains details of some of those who provided information, although the precise dates and contacts remain confusing.
Chapter Four: Arrival
‘I well remember the fascination … which they contained’: CAB 146/431.
distribute the information round other departments: Later in the war, these functions would be taken over by Captain Kleyn’s team at Wing House.
its attempts to send in a radio operator … had failed: HS 6/217.
a day he would never forget: The account of Keyes’s visit to Belgium is drawn from the official record, PREM 4/24/4, his own papers, which are held at the British Library, and the account of his son, Roger Keyes, Outrageous Fortune (London: Martin Secker and Warburg, 1984).
a long-barrelled Luger pistol: Keyes papers; Philip Johns, Within Two Cloaks (London: William Kimber, 1979).
‘Confirmation of the value … the sender’s bona fides’: WO 208/3556.
shown to Churchill himself: The sending of the message personally to Churchill is recorded in the Columba file, CAB 208/3564, in a draft of Kenneth Strong’s memoir.
Chapter Five: Listening
‘Don’t you see … English radio’: BBC E2/192/1 File 1a, April–July 1941, p. 24 has detailed reports of Belgian responses to the BBC.
permitting her pupils to listen to the BBC: BBC E2/186/4, November 1940–January 1941.
‘My wife would like … so patriotic’: Columba message 85.
speaking from London … wanted him to know: Columba message 46.
‘You have announced … said nothing’: Columba message 240. See also Lynne Olson, Last Hope Island (London: Scribe, 2017), p. 118.
The messages … had arrived in London: The specific codenames are mentioned in a memo of 30 April 1942, BBC E2/90.
crossed the Channel with their treasure: The archives are confusing about this message. BBC E2/90 shows that a message may have been broadcast on 14 July after a request on 13 July to Leopold Vindictive 300 in response to requests from the intelligence services. On 15 July the archives show an acknowledgement being broadcast to Leopold Vindictive 200. There is no sign from the Belgian side that the 300 message was heard.
as stated in the original message: Notes from the papers of Brigitte Raskin.
supplied intelligence to the priest: They included the two sisters Yvonne and Louisa Deloge, and also Elise Ausseloos.
lodging, food, clothes and money: Letter of Mme Roberts, Belgian Security Service Archives.
‘Père Raskin and his group’: Joseph Raskin file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
The message was relayed … again: WO 208/3556 includes the message and the timing of broadcasts.
At 3.35 a.m. the following day … Operation Periwig: Also http://beforetempsford.org.uk/1941/08/page/2/
Chapter Six: Battle of the Skies
‘The Germans are fully pigeon-minded … make them more so’: WO 206/3556 Annex, note by Captain Kleyn.
‘Our defence against the carrier pigeons was vast’: Quoted in War of the Birds, 2005 TV documentary.
issue a warning: The Channel Islands poster can be seen in the Bletchley Park museum.
‘In future, the Courts-Martial … all cases of this nature’: Philips Adhemar, Ardoye, Columba message 30.
‘An Italian … The coward!’: Columba message 545, 1 September 1943.
booby trap underneath: Columba message 376, May 1943.
‘I do not sign … have been arrested’: Columba message 634, 7 November 1943.
RAF flight passing overhead: Columba message 547, Loudun (Vienne), 16 August 1943.
‘marksmen on the coast … from time to time’: Columba message 376, May 1943.
work of training one: ‘How Trained Hawks Were Used in the War’, The Falconer, Vol. II No. 1 (July 1948).
not worth an exhaustive investigation: WO 32/10681.
‘We find it difficult … fit de-icing apparatus to pigeons’: WO 32/10681.
killed during their work: There are official accounts in the MI5 files of the Falcon Destruction Unit, but the best details can be found in Woodman, ‘War of Little Wings’.
assumed he had liberated it: Basil Thomson in Hugh and Grahame Greene, The Spy’s Bedside Book (London: Hutchinson, 2008), p. 185.
released from London: KV 4/10.
destroy all non-NPS birds now: WO32/10331; Liddell diary, 17 August 1942, KV 4/190.
600 to 800 men looking after them: The whole enterprise was controlled by SS Waffen General Ernst Sachs, who was in charge of long-range communications, and beneath him a fancier called Heinrich Voss. Soldiers would strap on large backpacks which acted as two-storey pigeon carriers and which could carry as many as twelve birds. Organization of Military Pigeons in Germany, report in US National Archives, NR 6111; KV 4/10.
on the eastern front: Pigeons were used where radio conditions were difficult (for instance in mountainous regions), and where there was a lack of radio sets and trained operators. In wilder areas like the Balkans, outlying agents could send pigeons with messages to central radio stations.
taking twelve or thirteen hours: War of the Birds, 2005 TV documentary.
Germans in the First World War: A pigeon has fifty-two main feathers in the wing and tail, and a prearranged system of spots on feathers could make an almost unbreakable code (KV 4/10).
such a bird: Study by Flt Lt Walker of MI5, in WO 208/3556.
heighten pigeon-spy fears: KV 4/193. It was feared by MI5 that Germans might land baskets of pigeons by boat or submarine at caves on the British coast where agents might pick them up. Or they might be smuggled in via neutral boats or trawlers (especially through Ireland) or dropped by parachute to remote farms. Perhaps, once taken to Ireland, they might be placed in an overcoat pocket and then put on a trading vessel heading for South Wales, MI5 fretted.
given an English loft as home: KV 4/10.
‘The ones in the Scilly Isles … found to be our own’: KV 4/191.
Chapter Seven: Reaching Out
still in their containers: RAF operations record book of 138 Squadron indicates a flight on 3 September 1941 which took off from Newmarket at 20.15 on a mission codenamed Conugal. At Courtrai the weather was clear and fine and the agent was dropped, but then it is recorded that bad weather prevailed and the pigeons were brought back.
drop pigeons near Lichtervelde: See https://beforetempsford.org.uk/1941/10/page/2/
‘he will organize … kill individual Germans’: HS 6/104.
to the west of their target: http://beforetempsford.org.uk/2016/10/page/2/
target for enemy action: M. R. D. Foot, SOE in the Low Countries (London: St Ermin’s Press, 2009), p. 229.
newly created ‘Commandos’: McKinstry, Operation Sealion, p. 151.
their intended audience in London: A doctor named Husquin who also worked with the resistance provided plans of German emplacements and a map of Ostend on which he had worked during a recent visit.
resistance work in 1940: Testimony and interviews of Clément Macq, Belgian Security Service Archives.
originally from Hamburg: Belgian Security Service Archives on Abwehr IIIF.
spoke English and French: HS 6/750.
MI5 in London reckoned: MI5 manual on the Abwehr, July 1944; https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/GERMAN%20INTELLIGENCE%20SERVICE%20(WWII),%20%20VOL.%201_0003.pdf
use his contacts to work against them: In Brussels, Dehennin began working with Marcel van Caester, a member of the gendarmerie who had access to sensitive information. Hélène Dufour, a nurse, would carry sealed envelopes for them.
through the Iberian peninsula: One telegram was handed over to a contact of the Cleveland network, who had a transmitter.
a message would get through: Dehennin was primarily linked to French rather than British intelligence. Raskin himself was not keen to work with the French. He wanted to deal directly with the British rather than go through middlemen whom he did not always entirely trust. But he was desperate enough to use the Dehennin contact to try to reconnect with Britain.
courier for the messages: Fernand Strubbe, Geheime Oorlog (Tielt: Lannoo, 1992), p. 118.
did not know his name: Notes from the papers of Brigitte Raskin; Bodicker: report number 35. Also German Secret Police Report of 4 June 1942.
Chapter Eight: Resistance
just another regular Columba drop: Devos testimony, Belgian Security Service Archives.
The message was given … between two lectures: Papers of Brigitte Raskin.
‘One hears … “before they come”’: Columba message 81.
‘We Frenchmen … out of this misery’: Columba message 91.
Columba would halt its operations: Pearson also seems to have been involved in a difficult but unspecified argument with military intelligence in December 1941, according to a note in a file dated 20 December 1941 (BBC E2/78).
‘You are up there … spotted by the night-fighters’: Leonard Ratcliff in Sean Rayment, Tales from the Special Forces Club (London: William Collins, 2013), p. 172.
80 per cent … due to night fighters: AIR 40/3054.
discerned from aerial reconnaissance: Columba message 79.
‘Help our Jews’: Columba message 236, ADM 199/2475.
‘As with every other kind … answer them’: R. V. Jones papers B85, ‘Pigeons’.
boring, old-fashioned and upright: Details drawn from Strubbe, Geheime Oorlog.
boss inside the organization: J. M. Langley, Fight Another Day (London: Collins, 1974), p. 133.
Belgian aviator … called Jean Vandael: Vandael was linked to MI6. His network was codenamed Alex.
make their way to England: Although Vandael was convinced that his messages were reaching England, this was not always the case; perhaps the French were unable or unwilling to get them through. Vandael was now trying to use the ‘The Three Musketeers’ network, which also had links with Zero.
taught to see his partner agency: Jones, Within Two Cloaks, p. 11.
had been a double agent: Verity, We Landed by Moonlight, pp. 12–13, 43–4; Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 267.
pick people up or drop them off: Hugh Verity, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive 32162.
reconstruct its contents: It is not clear how London knew a message had gone missing. Possibly Vandael himself told them he had delivered a message, and this was what led London to investigate its disappearence. There is only one note in the Belgian Security Service Archives and the MI6 files remain closed.
attempt to reach out failed: Letter of February 1942, Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
act as a radio operator: Letter from Commander Vandermies, 23 January 1942, Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
Chapter Nine: Secret Agents
taking to Europe: The account of Jef Van Hooff’s time as an agent is, unless otherwise indicated, drawn from his memoir, Je Suis Espion (Mechelen: Imprimerie H. Dessain, undated). Additional details of the dropping of agents from AIR 27/956.
Among those groups … would be Leopold Vindictive: Note from Page of 27 February 1942 in the Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
‘he made … his interrogation’: HS 9/1506/4; Strubbe, Geheime Oorlog, pp. 297–8; Van Hooff memoir.
could be ruthless: HS 9/29/2.
shot or beaten to death: HS 6/272.
‘None of the officers … described as bitter’: HS 7/100.
shot as a result: Christopher Murphy, Security and Special Operations (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 8.
‘We were very much the poor child … then it is delayed’: Hardy Amies interview, Imperial War Museum Sound Archives 8687.
run both organizations: Gill Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), p. 267.
the agent was actually from MI6: Jones, Most Secret War, p. 336.
sent out on the BBC: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 37.
to MI6 and not to him: Amies of SOE and Arontstein and Nicodeme of the Belgian security service, the Sûreté, had a thunderous argument on 16 March 1942.
against their competition: Initially the Sûreté was based at 27 Eaton Place and then round the corner at 38 Belgrave Square, a stone’s throw from the Deuxième Bureau at 34 and then 40 Eaton Place (Emmanuel Debruyne, ‘Un Service secret en exil, L’administration de la Sûreté de L’Etat a Londres’, 2005, http://www.cegesoma.be/docs/media/chtp_beg/chtp_15/chtp15_025_Debruyne.pdf
Belgians and other foreign services: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 225; see also Olson, Last Hope Island, p. 152.
the basis of close cooperation: Read and Fisher, Colonel Z, p. 278.
‘crypto-fascist regime around the monarch’: Jeffery, MI6, pp. 387–9.
nothing to do with the Sûreté: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 231.
‘bloody liar’: HS 6/300.
details about his own background: HS 6/232.
England rather than Belgium: Lepage grumbled to MI5 about MI6 not letting him communicate directly with agents in Belgium (KV 4/188). On 28 July 1941 he had lunch with Guy Liddell of MI5. ‘I gather that he does not much like SIS presumably because they will not allow him to communicate direct with his agents in Belgium. SIS quite rightly feel that they must maintain control of these matters,’ Liddell notes in his diary.
any investigation by MI5: HS 6/300, 6 February 1942.
‘so that he could redeem himself’: Nicodeme’s 1945 letter at the end of the war is in Thonus’s file in the Belgian Security Service Archives.
undertaken by the Belgian government: Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
parachute to the ground: Osman, Pigeons in the Great War, p. 48.
a fancier vetted by MI5: RAF birds offered more security, it was thought, but were less well trained than civilian birds at long distances. But by 1942 RAF lofts did most of the agent work.
find they were in Scotland: AIR 2/5036 and AIR 2/4129, which correlates closely as to timing with the story in We Landed by Moonlight, pp. 34–6 and that of Freddie Dyke, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/57/a2083457.shtml. The same owner, R. W. Beard, had been supplying pigeons via Rayner for a month for previous attempted secret missions.
those of the Air Ministry: HS 8/854.
look after their pigeons: WO 208/3561.
HQ at Baker Street: HS 8/854. In 1942, SOE was parachuting an agent into Belgium to work with pigeon loft owners to create a news service sending in propaganda films and sending out Belgian newspapers. The idea was that twenty-five pigeons would arrive each month with food to a base near Waterloo, although the results proved mixed (HS 6/92).
‘For days … saucers of water!’: Jones, Most Secret War, pp. 404–5.
‘spasmodic … agents in the Field’: In September 1942, a special exemption certificate was issued for S. J. Bryant, MI6’s pigeon expert, whose birds had been working for Columba, to hold pigeons at Broadway where he would work with Wing Commander Sofiano, the man in charge of the logistics of dropping agents (AIR 2/4129; other files list him as Briant). Bryant trained birds which made three flights from France for Special Section, and homed on 11 July, 9 September and 29 November 1941.
Chapter Ten: Undercover
why he was there: Burr (alias Thonus) testimony, Belgian Security Service Archives.
‘constantly drunk’: Thonus file, Belgian Security Service Archives. See particularly note from Marius of 10 December 1942.
parachutist had brought for him: Devos’s post-war testimony is not altogether accurate and reliable.
‘He did not establish … what happened to him’: Letter from Page, 26 January 1945, in the Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
buying and selling paintings: Notes on Bodicker, Belgian Security Service Archives.
‘King Albert … done that’: BBC E2/78, 11 May 1942.
after arriving in Belgium: http://beforetempsford.org.uk/2016/05/page/2/
sent to London: Jean Starck, quoted in a post-war letter from Justin Raskin, brother of Joseph. Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
‘I felt burnt’: Thonus’s brief testimony, Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
most important traitor in Europe: Herman Bodson, Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005), ch. 8.
women who were captured: Bodson, Downed Allied Airmen and Evasion of Capture, ch. 8; Jacques Doneux, They Arrived by Moonlight (London: St Ermin’s Press, 2000).
come to see Michelli: Albert Mardagar – also known as BAVEY – was dropped on 1 May 1942 to make contact via Michelli with Maurice Vandael, the uncle of Jean Vandael.
Chapter Eleven: Battle of the Skies II
using a collar-stud compass: Larry Carr’s escape report for MI9. Copy provided by John Clinch.
shot down four bombers: Columba message 988, 6 August 1944.
German night fighter: HS 9/932/8; http://www.conscript-heroes.com/Art48-Lockhart-960.html; http://aircrewremembered.com/william-lockhart.html; Columba message 214.
consider discontinuing the service: ‘When we have considered washing them out in the past,’ one officer wrote in January 1942, ‘the reaction has been well – we’ve got them, and they may be some moral encouragement to one or two chaps, and you never know, they may save a crew some day, so we may as well hang on to them.’ (AIR 15/716).
ground-based interception system: AIR 40/3054.
plane back to England: Jones, Most Secret War, p. 341.
‘Pigeons drew … control stations’: R. V. Jones papers B85.
‘Cheerio!!!!! Twee Geuzen’: ADM 199/2475.
found by pigeon that year: Jones, Most Secret War, p. 357.
Leopold Vindictive’s message 37: WO 208/3564.
‘I have never seen … profuse message’: Jones, Most Secret War, p. 390.
‘This information … so wide a distribution’: R. V. Jones papers B85; F. H. Hinsley, British Intelligence in the Second World War, Vol. 3 part 1 (Cambridge: CUP, 1988), p. 309.
Chapter Twelve: Capture
used on the escape line: Jean-Leon Charles and Phillipe Dasnoy, Les Dossiers secrets de la police allemande en Belgique, pp. 377–8.
also known as Flore Dings: Florentine was separated from her husband, Paul Dings.
in order to save his parents: HS 6/205, Etienne van Hoyer information; Foot, SOE in the Low Countries.
using the agreed codenames: The Abwehr had sent a Belgian collaborator to Michelli using the correct recognition phrase: ‘I am coming from Marcel to know if you are interested in Malaga’. The collaborator asked Michelli to help get messages to France. Michelli had provided the name of a priest who could hide documents under his vestments. The Germans had used Van Horen’s codes and radio set to send out another message to London on 4 May, making it look as if everything was progressing fine.
no one watching his back: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 272.
hands of the Germans as they arrived: HS 6/111. The Beaver network to which Michelli was linked had been penetrated and one of its agents turned. Van Damme – Beaver – had been arrested on 15 January.
captured by the Gestapo: Carr’s escape report, provided by John Clinch.
Chapter Thirteen: Interrogation and Infiltration
hung everywhere: http://home.clara.net/clinchy/neeb2a3.htm
‘They will all … depends on it’: Letter in Brigitte Raskin’s papers.
a series of false identities: Devos testimony in Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
careful of him: Letter from Clément Macq, 11 November 1945, papers of Brigitte Raskin.
being treacherous even earlier: Julian Praet was among those who accused Thonus of possible treachery. Another member of the Brussels group, Jean Starck, in a two-page letter to Justin Raskin written after the war on 21 March 1946 (Brigitte Raskin papers), also pointed the finger at Thonus, with whom he had worked for two months. See also Joseph Raskin file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
Thonus denied betraying anyone: Thonus testimony in Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives. Thonus countered accusations by saying he was suspicious of Marcel Allard, a Brussels contact of Devos with whom he stayed and whom he heard had been arrested on the morning of 6 May.
probably Devos: Charles and Dasnoy, Les Dossiers secrets de la police allemande en Belgique.
passed on to Leopold Vindictive: http://www.cegesoma.be/docs/Invent/AA_1098_AA_1100.pdf
‘Vindictive is safe and has money’: Leopold Vindictive file, Belgian Security Service Archives.
‘I very much hope … on the whole unlikely’: A draft of the letter from DO of MI14/G1H is in WO 208/3561.
betrayal, failure and denial: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries.
‘organization in the field … created by the Gestapo’: Quoted in Jeffery, MI6, p. 520.
under enemy control: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 277.
it was also sloppy: KV 6/10.
under German control: HS 7/100.
broke on his drop: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries.
enjoyed their drink very much: HS 6/205.
‘unless some drastic steps … left in Belgium’: Jeffery, MI6, pp. 520–1.
arrested in quick succession: HS 6/300.
they were always caught: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 287.
to frame him: HS 6/300/1.
‘Germans have full knowledge … in Belgium’: HS 6/231. The MI6 note to SOE alongside it commented: ‘We have no information as to precisely where this report came from or whether it is supposed to apply to individual landings or some combined operation. However, it is forwarded to you under strong reserve.’
‘Mme Sauvage of Liège … this side of the Channel’: KV 6/10.
in Belgium at the time: Hooper was an agent of the SS by March 1939. Twice that spring and summer he met Giskes of the Abwehr at Cologne (Liddell diary, 27 July).
liked living in London: Hardy Amies, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive.
‘Your trouble is … love your agents: Langley, Fight Another Day, p. 202.
Chapter Fourteen: The Viscount
Girl Guide leaders: The transcript and details of the court martial are in WO 71/1078.
‘unique fairy prince of modern life’: Biographical details of Evan Morgan drawn from Monty Dart and William Cross, Aspects of Evan (William Cross, 2012) and William Cross, Not Behind Lace Curtains (William Cross, 2013).
enhanced by the industrial revolution: Christopher Wilson, ‘The devil worshipping viscount and his very naughty party trick with a parrot’, Daily Mail, 18 June 2013.
head of the SA, Ernst Rohm: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/waleshistory/2010/12/evan_morgan_of_tredegar_house.html; http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/wales/entries/58b3be05-87b7-3fca-b511-2c9c24bc61a8
‘glorious house … crucifixes and crocodiles’: Dart and Cross, Aspects of Evan, p. 96.
a job he loved: WO 208/3556.
‘One Lord Tredegar … very keen’: BBC E2/78, 11 November 1942.
‘considerable value … CX reports’: WO 208/3561.
a supply of pigeons: Foot, SOE in the Low Countries, p. 62.
take it over directly: The next day a senior officer wrote to the Deputy Director of Military Intelligence backing Melland, saying that he viewed the material as of real value. And he stressed that its value would increase when the time came to send troops over the Channel and back into Europe. ‘Then, and not till then, will be the time to consider its abolition,’ the lieutenant colonel (Hirsch) wrote. WO 208/3561 has details of the plans to abolish the service and of the impact of Tredegar’s arrival.
some of the best pigeons: Columba Summary 7, MI14(d), 21 December 1942, WO 208/3556.
details of the agents involved: SOE had already expressed some security concerns, dating back to the summer. They used Columba pigeons in preference to Air Ministry birds because they performed better, but wanted to be sure there was no danger that details of operations would leak out. They asked MI5 to keep an eye on Columba’s security for them.
discuss the problems: Columba Summary 8, 21 January 1943, WO 208/3556.
at least thirty birds: McCafferty, They Had No Choice, p. 17.
without proper permission: WO 208/3563.
value of the information: AIR 2/4969, April 1944.
‘If the whole scheme … facilitate it’: AIR 2/4969, July 1944.
did not comply: The NPS was dominated at national and local levels by strong personalities who were accused of using it to serve their own interests. An MI5 report noted that ‘the personnel appointed held conspicuous peace-time positions within the fancy and the services were thereby brought into political issues affecting the civilian pigeon world’ (KV 4/229).
sale of pigeons: WO 32/10681.
‘not in accordance … patriotic motives’: One version has it that Osman failed to offer up his own birds for NPS work, which then led the committee to withdraw his membership. They suggested he had a conflict of interest with his editorship of the Racing Pigeon and had generally been obstinate (WO 32/10681).
scope of Columba’s activities: WO 208/3561.
Chapter Fifteen: Trials and Tribulations
tried to break the men: The account of Macq, who survived and provided testimony to the Belgian Sûreté after the war, is the only one we have. The most detailed account of the specific allegations against the men comes in a series of German court documents. One set is in the Leopold Vindictive file in the Belgian Security Service Archives, with other versions obtained from Berlin on microfilm in the same archive (CEGES AA MIC 136). Another copy obtained from Germany is in the papers of Brigitte Raskin.
source of every one: Testimony of the German interrogator given after the war, in the Belgian Security Service Archives.
never made it out: Details emerged in a packet of information and belongings released to the family after death. Further information from Brigitte Raskin and her papers.
Chapter Sixteen: Deception
win it the Dickin Medal: Dickin Medal citation 30: Pigeon NPS.42.NS.7524, bred by C. Dyson, Barnsley. Date of Award: October 1945, ‘For bringing important messages three times from enemy-occupied country, viz: July 1942, May 1943 and July 1943, while serving with the Special Service from the continent.’ The three flights appear to be: (1) departing 23 July 1942, arrived 28 July from Brittany; this is possibly Columba message 177, which has details of arrivals of minesweepers at Duistieham from Caen, and was received in MI14 on 29 July; (2) from France, 10 May 1943, returned 17 May; (3) from France, released by agent 22 July 1943, arrived 26 July.
The Canadian troops involved in Dieppe used their own pigeons, of which four were taken from a loft for the raid. Two were released from Dieppe beach with operational messages from the brigadier. The first bird, 4230, returned in less than three hours; the second, 2707, was presumed killed by heavy flak. A third bird was released from a British destroyer in the middle of the Channel with an operational message from Major General J. H. Roberts and returned at 5 p.m. that day. The last bird was released on return to England.
The losses proved terrible: MI14 note 24 September 1942, WO 208/3556; Columba messages 195 and 214 from Pas-de-Calais.
‘They’ve always said … aim at an area’: Jones, Most Secret War, p. 425.
spots in northern France: AIR 20/8457.
risky for the crews: AIR 20/8457.
pigeon section in Palestine: Memo of February 1944, https://worldwar2militaryintelligence.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/microgram-pigeon-service-1944.html
‘On one occasion … by this means’: KV 4/229, 3a.
Bordeaux in southern France: In 1943, 5,814 birds were dropped, of which 634 came back, 378 with messages. Messages of support continued to come in. By 1943 the team had also moved to cardboard message containers, which were less likely to be lost. They also started to drop the birds in pairs to improve the chances of return. No compensation was initially offered to the owners of intelligence pigeons, but in late 1943 pressure from NPS and the Air Ministry led the War Office to adopt a less direct method of selecting civilian fanciers. In 1944 the selection of lofts was no longer permitted to be the sole responsibility of the special section, although the War Office thought this a retrograde step.
‘She was arrested’: Liddell diary, 16 July 1944, KV 4/194.
no returns whatsoever: MI14(d) looked at what it might do – for instance asking the Dutch underground to advise contacts through a whispering campaign that pigeons were genuine, perhaps with the addition of a sign such as if the last two numbers of the pigeon ring added up to 4, 7 or 11. They also wondered about having the same newspaper publish a retraction that would be dropped along with the pigeons. The last option was to broadcast a message on the BBC.
‘smoke the cigarettes – eat the pigeons’: WO 208/3561.
nine out of ten messages useless: Melland also wondered whether some references to different types of basket might not relate to the Gestapo but to MI6. ‘I am just wondering whether the users of the “petits paniers en osier” are the Gestapo or whether friends [the semi-ironic name often used to refer to MI6] are running a service as well. Do you remember a CX report [issued by MI6] which rather suggested something of the sort?’ he asked. It was clear that MI14 were under no illusions that their sister service might keep them informed as to its activities.
messages planted by Germans: WO 208/3556.
‘They are apt … we know already’: WO 208/3561.
War Office on 24 June: CAB 154/35.
prevent it being too obvious: Minutes of meeting, WO 208/3561.
worry about such consequences: https://worldwar2militaryintelligence.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/1943-british-correspondence-reveals-use.html; CAB 154/61.
over Belgium and the Netherlands: See also Liddell diary, KV 4/193. In November 1944 (29 November according to KV 4/195), Walker says that a pigeon dropped in Belgium with phoney rings and markings had been picked up by the resistance and seemed to have been used by the Germans, as it had another mark on its wing which had not been put there by the British, although there was no message attached. Bert Woodman in Plymouth claimed that the Germans did something similar by putting fake British rings on their own pigeons and sent them to infiltrate British lofts by throwing them out of planes over the south of the country.
possibility of deception: KV 4/195.
Chapter Seventeen: The Americans are Coming
Information on US pigeon operations is drawn largely from the US national archives. The primary set of files are RG111 National Archives Identifier 6924019 which are on the US Army Pigeon Service. These boxes also contain significant amounts of information about the German pigeon services, activities in Belgium and also correspondence with the British Army and other services, including a significant amount of MI5 material on stay-behind networks and countering German pigeon operations towards the end of the war. The files also include histories written by some of the US Army Pigeon Signal companies such as the 280th. Within the NSA records at the National Archives, NR 4660 (National Archives Identifier 2765793) has a useful file on pigeon messages. Another set of useful files is RG 498 (National Archives Identifier 5896574) with a box on British organisation records including the role of pigeons.
shipped to Iceland: 280th Signal Pigeon Company Report, US National Archives, Records Relating to Army Pigeons R 611.
purchased from American fanciers: Levi, The Pigeon.
‘Cheer up … Drafted’: Joe Razes, ‘Pigeons of War’, American Pigeon Museum website.
emblazoned with a Nazi swastika: US National Archives, Historic Cryptographic Records RG 457.
marked secret and urgent: On 9 May 1943 a pigeon brought through the very first news of the surrender of the German 10th and 15th Panzer Divisions by almost two hours (WO 204/2930; http://www.arcre.com/archive/pigeons/pigeonstunis)
as well as civilians: WO 204/2930, cited at http://www.arcre.com/archive/pigeons/pigeonsgijoe
age of 18: MI14 had considered trying to use Columba in southern Italy but found it was relatively easy to get agents through on foot in both directions, while it was thought that the Italian population would not be sympathetic enough to provide reliable intelligence. A service for Greece was also considered but the distances were too far from the nearest base (WO 208/3561).
invasion of the Chinese coast: Levi, The Pigeon, pp. 21–2.
Dar es Salaam: KV 4/299. On 14 April 1943, a six-month-old pigeon named Princess was liberated from Crete at 5.30 a.m. and arrived at the Middle Eastern pigeon loft in Alexandria at 4.30 p.m. the same day, 285 miles away, but died of exhaustion from the flight. It received the Dickin Medal. MI5 officers in the Middle East caught the odd pigeon with a message in Arabic, but when translated found they were invocations and prayers since some locals thought that a message would fly straight to God.
heard in Europe: The only correspondence and references to the US questionnaire are in BBC E2/78, August–October 1942. There is a 1993 article – now declassified – in the CIA’s classified journal, Studies in Intelligence, about the US and Columba. However, many of the details appear to be wrong and based on a partial understanding of the operation from when the US joined in 1944. The article fails to appreciate that the operation had already been going on for a number of years. The article is at https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol5no2/html/v05i2a11p_0001.htm
born in the pub: Woodman, ‘War of Little Wings’.
fall victim to their talons: HS 8/85.
exhausted enemy birds: WO 208/3565.
accidentally stepped on him: Another bird was deemed slightly less useful on D-Day. A message made its way back to HQ from a keeper the day after D-Day: ‘Pigeon released owing to unsuitable accommodation. Having laid 2 eggs I think she deserves some compassionate leave.’
a bridge too far: McCafferty, They Had No Choice.
group of partisans might be: One short message picked up in West Cork, Ireland, even though the pigeon was sent from Cambridge, was telephoned to MI5. It asked for the bombing of targets in Côtes du Nord with the promise that a battalion of Free French would attack the moment the bombing started. Another pigeon alighted exhausted on a British ship, the HMCS Kootenay, on 2 August 1944, and in a reverse of the usual flow, the message was passed from Naval Intelligence to MI14(d). It was filled with useful intelligence about a German naval base and a fortified island (ADM 199/2475). There was also extensive reporting of battle damage – for instance of how twenty American aircraft had bombed trains and railway depots at Bertrix-Libramont, with the result that twelve trains were put out of order, although there were no casualties.
sports grounds of a college: Columba message 987, August 1944. ‘The following are safe and well and awaiting developments under cover: F/Lt. DM Shanks – RAAF, W/O Capusdin, A., RCAF, Lts V. Dingman – Pensinger, Clements, Bishop, Hansen, McDonald B. – USAAF’.
Jean du Coin Larue: Columba message 938.
driver and his fireman … were not hit: Columba message 935.
‘I implore you … low flying aircraft’: Columba message 978, 15 August 1944.
maintain radio silence: Woodman, ‘War of Little Wings’.
various messages received: Note from T. A. Robertson, 6 October 1944; note from Paris, 9 November 1944; Counter-measures enemy pigeon service, 25 December 1944; Walker note, 23 January 1945, US National Archives British Organization Records RG 498.
forced to retreat: Prisoner of War Interrogation Report, US National Archives Records Relating to Army Pigeons RG 111.
then interrogate them: Memo of 30 April 1945, US National Archives British Organization Records RG 498.
supplying Nazi networks: KV 4/10.
‘Every time we halted … greengrocer’s shops’: Frank William Clarke, WW2 People’s War, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/79/a4801079.shtml
run agents into Germany: Jeffery, MI6, p. 544.
‘spicy tit-bit’: HS 9/29/2.
fly to German lofts: Special Section 1940–1945, Royal Signals (The War Office).
Chapter Eighteen: Fates
say the rosary and give sermons: Macq letters, Belgian Security Service Archives.
working for an escape line: The Australian was Bruce Dowding (WO 311/296).
Seventeen were killed in all: http://herinneringmemoire.be/documenten/Knippschild/Rede-Knippschild/index.htm; http://herinneringmemoire.be/documenten/Knippschild/Willkuerjustiz/index.htm
the same day as Raskin: Their times of death can be found at http://www.herinneringmemoire.be/lijsten/Gexecuteerden/Dortmund/Dortmund-Hinrichtungen-NN-Belgier.htm
‘There are empty chairs … in the loft’: ‘Women, Wartime and the Fancy’ in McCafferty, They Had No Choice.
more naturally timid and nervous than a dog: AIR 2/5036.
‘This pigeon … delivered the goods’: The Director of Signals then presented three medals, bearing the Signals emblem, to Herbie Keys of Ipswich, as the pigeon supply officer who had presented the greatest number of recorded service returns, to Mr Bryant, whose pigeon NURP38BPC6 had homed three times, and to J. H. Catchpole from Ipswich, owner of a bird which had homed 480 miles from northern Denmark, the most outstanding single performance.
on behalf of the intelligence services: KV 4/299, minutes of first meeting held on 2 April 1946.
to a specific target: Rayner paper, AIR 15/716.
‘the nearest thing … job for himself’: KV 4/466(1), 10 July.
‘Otherwise … can be obtained’: KV 4/229, 3a.
did not want to pay for it: KV 4/229, 25a.
included Boomerang as standard practice: KV 4/229.
from a distance: Jones, Most Secret War, pp. 636–7.
rather than a permanent establishment: KV 4/229, 14a.
work at Fort Monmouth: KV 4/230.
lobbied for his removal: KV 4/299.
knocked out electronic communications: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8356921/China-trains-army-of-messenger-pigeons.html
organize its war archives: KV 4/196, 30 May.
he and Sanderson agreed: WO 208/3564.