A fight cannot be carried on without intelligence
George Grivas
As the British were preparing to leave Palestine in 1947, unrest broke out in Malaya. London was keen to give the colonies independence but when the Malayan states amalgamated to form a federated state in 1948, Chin Peng, who had been awarded the Order of the British Empire for his wartime resistance, renewed his campaign to replace the British colonial government with a communist regime. In the first of a series of major revolutionary surges that affected the Far East for the next twenty-seven years, he reformed his Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army as the Malay Races Liberation Army and adopted the Maoist principle that small forces can conquer using a three phase strategy of:
• Creating ‘liberated areas’ by forcing rural police and colonial authorities to abandon government.
• Establishing guerrilla bases in these ‘liberated areas’ and training recruits.
• Crippling the economy with sabotage and then facing the British on the battlefield.
But the colonial authorities were reluctant to accept that an organization that had fought against the Japanese was taking up arms against its liberators. The Japanese linguist Captain Navin was travelling by train to Singapore to catch the troopship to Great Britain to be demobilized when he met a friend who had been working in HQ Malaya Command in Kuala Lumpur as an intelligence officer, also on his way home – for daring to predict in Intelligence Summaries that the Malayan Communist Party was about to act. That night the train came to a screeching halt when guerrillas blew up the railway in an early act of the eleven years Malayan Emergency. The communist offensive began in April with the murders of several estates’ foremen and then, when three expatriate managers were killed in mid-June in the northern state of Perak, a State of Emergency was declared in which military aid through the 17th Gurkha Infantry Division to the civil power was reinforced by mainly National Servicemen sent from Great Britain. Lieutenant General Sir Harold Briggs, who was appointed Director of Operations during the year, reduced Chinese support to the Communist Terrorists, usually known as CTs, by resettling squatters into about 500 defended villages and regulated inter-agency co-ordination by forming War Executive Committees at all levels
Little is known about Intelligence Corps activities in this period because most Field Security sections were integrated with Special Branch and those attached to military units were often used in operational intelligence support. In Johore Bahru 1 FSS, supporting 48 Gurkha Brigade in Pahang in the eastern foothills of the Cameron Highlands in March 1949, had NCOs attached to battalion intelligence sections. Chin Peng had his headquarters in the state. Meanwhile, 355 FSS supported HQ Malaya Command with fingerprinting, photographing and processing locally employed civilians’ applications and investigating security breaches. Throughout the Emergency, 103 Army Photographic Interpretation Section produced large annotated mosaics that proved vital for planning ambushes, and cordon and search operations. On patrol, 9in x 9in air photographs often complemented maps. Captured documents were exploited. During the year, the Singapore Special FSS captured five Communist Terrorists and weapons and subversive documents in a raid. A sergeant investigating breaches of security leaks about an operation at Mentakab discovered that a commanding officer was not only displaying a large map in his office showing deployments and plans, he was also allowing access by local officials and civilians, and twenty-five local contractors had been informed about the operation.
After High Commissioner Sir Henry Gurney was assassinated in 1951, General Sir Gerald Templer was appointed High Commissioner and Director of Operations in February 1952. Applying the psychological operations principle of ‘hearts and minds’ and national independence as the goals and developing post-1945 counter-insurgency techniques which soon became familiar, he created an integrated civil and military platform and adopted a strong counter-insurgency warfare strategy that earned him the nickname the ‘Tiger of Malaya’. The Federal battalions were strengthened, the Home Guard and the police were reinforced by Commonwealth units, and the Communist Terrorists were confined largely to the jungle, which enabled him to develop urban and rural ‘white areas’ free of terrorist activity that were rewarded with relaxed food supply and travel restrictions. He refined the intelligence structure and ensured that the State War Executive was supported by pyramids of local intelligence and security networks reporting to the Head of Intelligence. Increased confidence was enhanced by the Box 50 scheme in which terrorist activity could be reported anonymously.
In 1952, 355 FSS in Kuala Lumpur was made responsible for the whole of Malaya and spread detachments to Ipoh, Taiping, Penang, Seremban, Port Dickson, Kluang and Johore Bahru. The Corps lost its only killed in action during the Emergency when Lieutenant Peter Hunt, serving with HQ North Malaya Sub-District, was killed in an ambush on 29 April. Three others were non-battle casualties. When two corporals supporting the Garrison Headquarters and battalion in Pahang learnt that they were on a communist ‘hit’ list, they exchanged their pistols for Bren guns and their Land Rover for a Daimler Scout Car. In 1953, 355 FSS formed the Special Military Intelligence Unit specifically to work with Special Branch through Military Intelligence Officers, who were selected from any arm or service of the Army and tasked to work with the police to share and collate intelligence that could affect military operations. The following year, HQ Field Security Wing (Malaya) took over from 355 FSS. Commanded by a major and supported by a British and a Malay Army warrant officer running the Operations and Pass Issue Office, its 100 military and civilian staff were spread across Malaya in eleven detachments. By 1954, the Communist Terrorists were under sustained pressure as the net closed in on Chin Peng, to the extent that, by the end of the year, he had fled into Thailand. With independence a certainty, negotiations to end the Emergency failed, nevertheless, operations were mainly mopping up. As the intensity of internal security operations decreased the following year, the Field Security Wing, now commanded by Major L.G. Masterson, joined the 17th Gurkha Infantry Division in Seremban and reformed as 355 FSS divided into eight detachments. Meanwhile, 103 Army Photographic Interpretation Section became involved in interpreting for surveys of civil projects, such as road building and water-pipe laying. When Malaya gained independence in 1957, the British essentially returned to barracks.
At the same time as the Malayan Emergency escalated, another communist surge was emerging in the Far East. In 1945 the United Nations (UN) imposed a trusteeship that Korea, a wartime ally of Japan, would be divided into the area north of the 38th Parallel administered by Moscow while Washington governed the remainder but, within three years, two separate governments with different ideologies emerged.
In June 1950, when several North Korean divisions invaded the south in an expansionist strategy, on 25 June President Truman instructed US forces in Korea and Japan to assist the South Koreans, but they were unable to stem the offensive and were driven to the southern port of Pusan. After General MacArthur, as the senior UN military representative in the region, had appealed for reinforcements, 27 Infantry Brigade Group was despatched from 40th Division in Hong Kong. In September UN forces landing at Inchon linked up with the breakout from Pusan and drove the North Koreans north across the 38th Parallel and then escalated hostilities by pursuing them to the River Yalu on the Chinese border. The arrival of Australians, New Zealanders and Indians saw the Brigade renamed as 27 Commonwealth Brigade.
In early November, 29 Infantry Brigade Group joined 27 Brigade from Great Britain. It was supported by 904 (Mobile) FSS commanded by Captain D.W. Saunders MBE to provide counter-intelligence and protective security support. Leaving half the section at Pusan, Saunders moved up to Pyongyang with the British element but was caught up in the crisis when HQ Far East Command ignored prisoner of war intelligence that 300,000 Chinese Communist forces were about to attack. As winter cloaked the bleak hills, the UN forces recoiled under Chinese human wave tactics. When 29 Brigade briefly held the Chinese at the Imjin River in April 1951, 904 FSS was involved in the fighting. The arrival of 25 Canadian Infantry Brigade with its 1 (Canadian) FSS at Pusan saw the three brigades grouped into the 1st Commonwealth Division in July. The arrival of the Canadians was welcomed by the other half of 904 FSS but when allegations emerged that several NCOs from 904 FSS were dealing in the black market, the Canadians took over its responsibilities and 904 FSS was relegated to low level Field Security security functions. This included becoming the largest employer of local labour, behind the Royal Engineers; managing some civil affairs and two companies of the UN Security Guards, a para-military organization of former servicemen and police and ex-North Koreans prisoners established to prevent saboteurs and agents infiltrating into the prohibited border zone ten miles from the front line. It also provided guards at military installations. Sergeant Edward Hall disappeared under mysterious circumstances while conducting an investigation in a village, possibly captured and murdered by North Korean agents.
In early 1952, 1 (Canadian) FSS had been reduced to a warrant officer and five NCOs. On 31 March, Captain David Devitt assumed command of 904 FSS and in February 1953 was kept waiting for four days by the Canadian GSO 2 (Intelligence) and then suggested that while the Division may have lost confidence in 904 FSS, the Divisional counter-intelligence strategy was almost non-existent; he then recommended that 904 FSS be reinstated to address Divisional counter-intelligence and nothing else. With the Canadians added to his command, Devitt raised morale by despatching detachments to the two brigades, the Forward Maintenance Area in Seoul and to Pusan and reverted to standard Field Security operations of conducting periodic sweeps for agents, guerrillas and stay-behind parties and carrying out protective security surveys. Gaining ‘hearts and minds’ of a peasant population that was not infrequently bullied by the Republic of Korea (ROK) units helped to create an effective Human Intelligence strategy. At one stage, orders were issued for the arrest of ROK intelligence personnel. The Joint US/British Special Forces Divisional Agent Detachment of Technical Liaison Officers on Cho-Do Island trained and managed Korean ‘runners’, who crossed the front line to collect information. Serving with the unit was Acting/Sergeant C. Jackson, who would be awarded the Military Medal and the US Silver Star. Interrogation was largely the responsibility of the Americans.
During heavy fighting around The Hook in 1953, daily photographic sorties covering the front allowed 104 Army Photographic Interpretation Section to make daily comparisons of imagery to a depth of two miles into the enemy rear areas, enabling it to assess enemy intentions. The results were briefed at the daily Divisional Headquarters ‘Morning Prayers’. Captain Hamish Eaton frequently predicted attacks. Second Lieutenant Brian Parritt (Royal Artillery), later to become one of its most distinguished Directors of the Corps, was serving with 12 (Minden) Field Battery when he was wounded in a 1 Kings raid on several 76mm self-propelled guns located in fifteen caves spread between three re-entrants:
The photos supplied by 104 APIS were invaluable in planning our route as it was dominated on both sides by hills held by the Chinese. I carried an annotated print with me during the attack.
Meanwhile, 904 FSS remained in Korea dealing mainly with security to prevent the theft of stores until September 1954 when its rear party, led by Sergeant Les Maisey, left with the Divisional rearguard. Thereafter, the Intelligence Corps in Hong Kong supported Commonwealth units with regular visits.
Among the prisoners freed after the armistice was signed at Pyongyang on 27 July 1953, was Corporal William Westwood of 1 Glosters, who had been captured when the Battalion surrendered at the Imjin River in April 1951. A former member of the Intelligence Corps, he had been transferred from the Motor Transport Platoon to the Battalion Intelligence Section. Since the Orderly Room and its files had been captured, Westwood was singled out because the Chinese believed him to be Intelligence Corps, which he denied by claiming he was a driver. Held in three Chinese prison camps, he underwent the ‘brainwashing’ phase of indoctrination and conditioning, and the ploy of ‘wearing down’ resistance by long aimless night marches with no apparent destination and being placed in camps where amenities were basic. The Geneva Conventions were not recognized by the Chinese and there was always the threat of being bombed by UN aircraft.. Although conditions improved during 1952 and 1953, rules still governed the prisoners, to the extent of whistles being blown at each stage of a meal – sit down, pick up utensils, commence eating. Nevertheless, Westwood resisted and while in Camp No 2, was one of twenty British and ninety US prisoners, graded as ‘enemies of the people’ after they had secretly planned and then openly celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, in May 1953, by making a Union Flag and a Stars and Stripes, parading in their ‘shabby best’ for a short church service and singing the National Anthems as loud as they could. The camp authorities told them they had benefited from leniency but future rebellion would be dealt with harshly. Westwood rejoined the Intelligence Corps after repatriation and recovery but, after the George Blake spy scandal, always believed he was under suspicion as a communist sympathizer because of his captivity. Blake had been held in a Korean detention camp.
Major G.D. Gimblett was part of an American, British and Canadian inquiry into the experiences of prisoners captured by the communists and then formulating a resistance to interrogation strategy. The investigation into the conduct of British prisoners published in the Treatment of British Prisoners of War in Korea (1955) concluded that while there had been interrogation, indoctrination had been predominant. This led to the recommendation that the British should adhere to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Conventions of releasing only serial number, rank, full name and date of birth with all other questions answered by ‘I cannot answer that question’, a response carefully crafted to mean:
• I cannot answer that question (because I do not have to).
• I cannot answer that question (because I have been told that I do not have to give you the information that you require).
The Intelligence Corps had retained responsibility for interrogation training of the three Armed Forces from first-line battlefield tactical questioning to in-depth interrogation, the principles of ‘no hands on’ developed by Colonel Stevens at Camp 020 maintained. The Corps also became responsible for managing the resistance to interrogation of prone-to-capture service personnel, which in practical training exercises, meant simulating some techniques used by communist interrogators during the Korean War, including using ‘white noise’, hooding, periods of stress positions and rationing sleep, food and water in holding centres and under strictly controlled conditions to ensure that ‘prisoners’ are not exposed to physical and mental suffering. They collectively became known as the Five Techniques. Interrogators were trained not to use them during the debriefing process. Part of the training included the powerful black-and-white film I Can’t Answer That Question, in which aircrew and interrogators were filmed on a practical exercise. An updated version using actors produced in 1985 did not have the same impact.
By 1951 the Corps establishment of 472 officers and 1,071 other ranks was bigger than the War Office anticipated in 1948; however, most were National Servicemen deployed in operations, in West Germany and overseas garrisons. The mainstay remained Field Security, Photographic Interpretation and Signals Intelligence, but inadequate numbers of Regulars and career officers meant that the continuity of wartime experience slowly faded. The crisis led to Field Security sections in West Germany struggling with inexperienced officers and limited resources to provide security advice, vet locally employed civilians and liaise with the national and local police agencies. That they continued to function efficiently in a long period of limited recognition is a tribute to the Intelligence Corps esprit de corps. Many demobilized Intelligence Corps returned to the Intelligence Division as civilian intelligence officers in an era when de-Nazification and occupation standards were being replaced by memoranda of understanding and contractual agreements governing British intelligence activities in the sovereign state of an ally, West Germany. While effective relationships had been established with the emerging West German intelligence and security services, many of whose officers had direct experience with Soviet methods, low morale among civilian intelligence officers, perceiving themselves to be cheap Civil Service labour, led to Major General John Kirkman CB CBE, then commanding the Intelligence Division and former deputy to Major General Davidson, negotiating that they should fill intelligence posts on Civil Service pay scales. He also recommended that the Scientific and Technical Intelligence Branch be transferred to the War Office and covert operations to MI6. By this time, MI5 and MI6 had transferred to Home Office and Foreign Office control as the Security Services and Security Intelligence Services respectively. In 1952, Northern Army Group, which was British-commanded and reported through Allied Forces, Central Europe to Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, was formed in Bad Oyenhausen from 1 (British) Corps and a Corps each supplied by Belgium, The Netherlands and West Germany. The three divisions of 1st (British) Corps had reinforcements earmarked from Great Britain.
Major R.T. Brown reformed existing Intelligence Teams and eight Field Security sections into HQ Field Security (BAOR) at Herford and deployed 1 FSS to Osnabruck, 72 to Hamlen, 93 to Luneburg, 100 to Dusseldorf, 273 to Bunde, 309 in Berlin, 902 at Hamburg and 905 FSS at Krefeld. In 1948 Sergeant Schwartz of 100 FSS had tracked and arrested the former Nazi Governor of Cologne in the US sector. Formed in Rangoon in 1947 from sections disbanded in Burma, and moving to Hannover in 1951, 905 FSS had provided Boundary Intelligence Teams detachments at Lübeck, Lauenburg and Helmstedt. In 1953 the Krefeld Field Security section assumed responsibility for providing lines of communication security from Great Britain to the Hook of Holland, Antwerp and the West Rhine military area, which included covering the troop trains. The Berlin Intelligence Staff was commanded by a Principal Intelligence Officer subordinated to the Intelligence Division and acting as security advisor to the Berlin Garrison commander and intelligence co-ordinator with the American and French military and civilian intelligence and security agencies. In 1954 West Germany and Italy joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). Next year, the Soviet forces in East Germany, reformed as the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, were absorbed into the Warsaw Pact military alliance. Third Shock Army, with its Headquarters at Magdeburg, was of particular interest to the British.
While Field Security suffered, Photographic Intelligence and Signals Intelligence was becoming increasingly important to BAOR, a permanent cause of anxiety being the huge former Nazi training area bisected by the border of Letzlinger Heath in East Germany and Lüneburg Heath and Soltau in West Germany providing a platform for an armoured thrust. No. 1 Wireless Regiment at Bunde maintained an electronic watch on the Soviets but its nearest voice-intercept station to the border was 101 Wireless Troop at Hildesheim, but it was insufficiently close to Letzlinger Heath. In 1951 the Troop, which included Intelligence Corps analysts masquerading as Royal Signals, pitched tents in a field near the hamlet of Langeleben on the Elm feature midway between Brunswick and Helmstedt. Pleasant in the summer, wet in the autumn and bracing in winter, initially the only heating was in R series box body lorries and a tin shed doubling as the cookhouse. In 1953 the Troop sent an advanced Detachment to the opulent comfort of the former Luftwaffe officers mess at RAF Gatow in Berlin, but it suffered from the defection of Corporal Brian Patchett which was announced by the East German News Agency on 6 July. Mystery surrounds his disappearance. An interim investigation discounted hostile intelligence agency involvement and suggested a breakdown after he had been rejected by a girlfriend; indeed, on 2 July he had written to her that he was defecting. In 1955 wooden huts and a cookhouse replaced the tents and life gradually became more comfortable. Operations remained a cruciform of box-bodied lorries. Welfare was initially limited to a truck taking off-duty soldiers to Königslutter. The 1956 Hungarian Uprising provided some excitement when plans were circulated to defend the camp against Russian tanks! In 1957 101 Wireless Troop reformed as No. 2 Squadron, 1 Wireless Regiment when it moved to Mercury Barracks, Birgelen near the Dutch border where, two years later, it reformed as 13 Signal Regiment (Radio) and transmitter of strategic information to the Government Communications Headquarters. As 2 Squadron it consisted of Intelligence Corps; 3 Squadron was co-located with the RAF in Berlin.
When a new joint BAOR and RAF (Germany) headquarters was built on marshland near the village of Rheindahlen, about ten miles west of Moenchengladbach, 273 FSS provided security support. In 1951, enlarged to about fifty NCOs, it had moved to the opulent house of the proprietor of the Herforder Pils brewery, complete with tennis court, oak-panelled dining room and Bechstein piano, but, within the year, it was ejected by the Postal Unit Officers Mess to a house in Bunde until May 1954, when it moved to Moenchengladbach. In 1955 905 FSS covered the move of HQ BAOR and NORTHAG to Rheindahlen. The archives record:
A farcical situation developing when section personnel were posted as guards at sensitive office locations throughout the new headquarters to prevent unauthorised individuals from gaining access. ‘Unauthorised personnel’ included the staff officers who would soon occupy these offices, but not the MSO and GCLO drivers and removers who nonchalantly carried uncovered Top Secret map boards past their owners, who were left seething at the entrances to their own corridors.
The following year the Intelligence Division reformed as the, now civilian, British Security Service Organisation (BSSO) and retained its primary counter-intelligence function against the Russian Intelligence Service and domestic threats. HQ BAOR agreed that the BSSO should be managed by the Security Services on the proviso that its Director was a Service officer, a concept that was agreed in 1961. The Berlin office was renamed Berlin Intelligence Staff in 1954 and remained charged with maintaining the protective security of military units and provision of counter-intelligence in the British Zone.
In 1936 Egypt had agreed a defence treaty against Italian aspirations that allowed the British to keep 10,000 troops in the country until 1956. GHQ Middle East Command covered a huge area. HQ Field Security Wing in Ismailia, commanded by Major Bickerton-Edwards, had, on paper, sixty-four FS sections including:
• Five sections in Egypt reflecting the importance of the Suez Canal.
• 24 FSS in Athens and Salonika in Greece.
• 3 (1st Infantry Division) FSS in Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya.
• 261 FSS in Asmara, Eritrea on port security duties and supporting operations against Shifta (rebels) until 1950.
• 299 FSS in Famagusta, Cyprus.
• Two sections in East Africa covering a million square miles that included Kenya and Somaliland encompassing 700 tribes and their associated dialects and several thousand European, Asian, Mauritian and Goan expatriates.
• Supporting British forces in Sudan.
After leaving Palestine, the Strategic Reserve, namely 3rd Infantry Division, moved to Egypt but nationalist demands led to the Egyptians abrogating the treaty. Serious anti-British disturbances led to the garrison moving from the comforts of Cairo and Alexandria to partially completed barracks and camps in the less salubrious Canal Zone centring on Ismailia and ill-named Sweetwater Canal. The Canal Zone quickly became a running sore as militant Liberation Battalions attacked Service dependants, ambushed patrols and vehicles along the Moascar/Abu Sueir/Tel El-Kebir road, kidnapped and murdered British servicemen and intimidated the 66,000 locally employed workforce. The only Intelligence Corps to be killed in Egypt was Captain Charles Kelsey, of the Air Photographic Interpretation Unit (Middle East), shot outside his married quarter on 18 November 1951. The quality of life of the self-styled ‘FS Types’ mirrored the experiences of the garrison – flies, overcrowded accommodation, tents, unreliable vehicles transferred from Palestine and learning the value of motor-cycles for escaping ambushes and incidents. At Port Said, 251 FSS took responsibility for the northern segment of the Suez Canal. Operating as the district section, 36 FSS was in the centre at Moascar, near Ismailia, with responsibility for the huge Ordnance Depot at Tel-el-Kebir and its 17-mile perimeter. Sergeant Maurice Oldfield supervised the security of families evacuated from Palestine living in the former military hospital at Helmiah. Thefts from depots were constant. At Camp Gordon at El Ballah, Field Security NCOs were not infrequently summoned to explain to commanding officers why they had tried to prevent officers leaving camp without signing out their female companions; some were Service dependants.
Meanwhile, 284 FSS at Port Tewfik and Suez, with a detachment supporting GHQ Middle East on the north-western shores of the Great Bitter Lake at Kabrit Point, were accommodated in a small house overlooking the Canal Road that teemed with dockers, stevedores and labourers. It was bombed in 1947 by the Muslim Brotherhood in one of the regular riots. Several NCOs accommodated in tents in the grounds were guarded by a terrier named De Gaulle who ambushed anyone unwise enough to approach their encampment. The section also patrolled the Oil Jetty and other parts of the harbour, including the Blue Nest night club, the Moses Wells refugee camp on the Sinai Peninsula and Suez town, using a 20ft flat-bottomed launch steered by an Egyptian coxswain struggling to prevent it from being buffeted off course by strong winds in case it ended up in the furthest reaches of the Red Sea. Working closely with 284 FSS was 253 FSS which, in 1948, shortly after reforming at Spearhead Camp in Moascar as the 3rd Infantry Division Field Security section, had its offices bombed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The section also provided railway security for the Cairo to Haifa trains, which involved liaising with the Train Security Officer, patrolling the carriages and sometimes clambering onto the roofs to deter Arab thieves and Jewish terrorists reaching through open windows to steal the weapons of sleeping soldiers. When Sergeant John Bisby shot a thief who had stolen a weapon, the military police were less than impressed when it emerged that it belonged to one of its NCOs who had failed to report the theft.
The Intelligence Corps connection with the Long Range Desert Group resurfaced in 1947 when the FSO, Captain A.W.R. ‘Pop’ Locke, who had served with the Group and with No. 1 Demolition Squadron, commonly referred to as ‘Popski’s Private Army’, convinced Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Fugelsang, at HQ Field Security, that the chances of apprehending Jewish and Arab arms smugglers could be improved by patrolling the Sinai Desert as far east as the Dead Sea and south to Aqaba in Jordan. Patrols usually consisted of four jeeps mounted with Bren guns, two Chevrolet 15cwt lorries and a Dodge half-track armed with two 2in mortars and towing a 250 gallon water trailer. The RAF resupplied patrols by parachute. The Suez Canal, Lakes Timsah and Manzala and the Bitter Lakes were scouted in the fast launch The Char with fishing boats checked for smuggled weapons. Wharves where ammunition and stores were landed were also checked. On one occasion the NCOs intercepted German prisoners of war separating a box of tinned fruit from a consignment they were unloading from a railway wagon.
In October 1951, 284 FSS withdrew to the Military School in the Suez Garrison and assumed responsibility for the southern sector of the Canal Zone. The School was guarded by locally recruited wardens but, one morning in March 1953, the section awoke to find the compound gates open, the transport was missing and discarded warden uniforms littered the grounds. It then moved into Suez Garrison and deployed detachments in Fayid and Corunna Barracks. The FSO, Captain Roberts, once became involved in a riotous mass of workers from the nearby factory and was seen to be:
…fighting a lone battle for survival amidst an atmosphere thick with fragmented wickerwork chairs and powdered glass. During this fracas, FS were seen at their observatory best, and long before the workers themselves knew what they were about, FS were despatching sitreps in all manner of directions from the comparative safety of a nearby Greek Bar.
Formed in October 1951 in Maresfield as a direct result of the unrest in the Canal Zone, 242 FSS became the Canal Zone Field Security section. Reporting to the Defence Security Officer (Canal), it had a varied brief that included source handling and investigations into sabotage, high tension power cables being a popular target. On 21 January 1952, it accompanied 2 Parachute Battalion as it fought its way into the Muslim Cemetery where 300 cases of stolen 40mm ammunition were found. Four days later, in an attempt to disrupt the terrorism in the Canal Zone Base, Operation Eagle involved the counter-intelligence screening of more than 1,000 regular and auxiliary police after the Army had raided their barracks in Bureau Sanitaire in a bloody five-hour battle that cost fifty policemen and four soldiers their lives. The next day fundamentalists murdered twenty-six foreigners and burnt their bodies before order was restored. When Captain Reginald Riley was threatened with assassination, the General Officer Commanding, General Sir George Erskine, loaned his personal armoured staff car as a wedding limousine so that he could marry his French-born wife in the Roman Catholic cathedral in Moascar Garrison and then transferred him to 3 FSS in Libya.
By 1954 the British presence in Suez had become politically untenable and as GHQ Middle East started transferring troops to Cyprus, the FS sections monitored the destruction of classified documents and closed classified document registers and carried out security sweeps of barracks and depots to ensure that no stores and equipment that should not have been left behind was not forgotten. The closure of the Defence Security Office led to its duties being transferred to 251 FSS for the final evacuation.
After the Italian occupation had ended in 1973, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica remained under British administration. In 1947, a mandate was agreed with the Allies that relinquished all Italian claims to Libya. Middle East Command had responsibility for Libya and when 1st Infantry Division began arriving from Palestine, it did so with 3 FSS, the Divisional FS section since 1939.
In 1948 3 FSS arrived from Palestine and, taking over from 260 FSS in Tripoli, then moved into the Officer’s Mess in Kuffra Barracks to support 1st Infantry Division, as it had done since 1939. Between 1948 and 1949, the FSO was Captain P.P.P. McCraith, of the North Irish Horse who sometimes rode a horse to his office. Others members of the Section included Sergeant John Attenborough (brother to Richard, the film director, and David, the wildlife presenter) and Sergeant Fred Everson, whose son, Peter, became Director, Intelligence Corps in the 1990s. An interesting member of the section was the Arab-speaking Sergeant Peter Ward, who had lived in Libya for several years. His father, a Harley Street surgeon, had been Winston Churchill’s doctor during the 1930s. In 1945, while serving with 575 (XXX Corps) FSS in Rangoon investigating war crimes, Ward had walked fifteen miles to a town to investigate a suspect named U Mau Mau only to discover most people had the same surname.
The 1949 Bevin/Sforza Agreement saw a week of disturbances during which the section helped enforce the curfew. By January 1950 a detachment was based in a flat in Benghazi. In September Captain Roy Bignell, the FSO, moved the Section to a flat in Tripoli. One NCO recorded:
Our pockets bulging with Ration Allowance money as we scavenge for ourselves. Actually, we do not do too badly; for those with a taste for Italian cooking, a tiny restaurant caters within our means.
On 24 December 1951, Libya became the first former European colony in Africa to declare independence under the principles of the Atlantic Charter; however, since the country did not have adequate military forces, Middle East Command provided the reformed 25th Armoured Brigade in 1952 as a garrison. The desert was also used as a training ground for British forces from the United Kingdom and West Germany.
By 1954 Libya had established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and as anti-British riots and nationalist sentiment escalated, 3 FSS monitored Soviet and Egyptian Intelligence Service activity and exploited several high grade political informants. The antennae on the roof of the Egyptian Military Attaché’s house was also measured and ‘borrowed’ documents photographed against the white tiles of Bignell’s bathroom using a box camera. During the Suez crisis, the encyclopaedic knowledge of Sergeant Ward became almost indispensable to the extent that when the British Ambassador was faced with a difficult security situation, his first question, allegedly, was, ‘What does Ward say?’ When the 10th Armoured Division reformed during the 1956 Suez Crisis, 48 FSS, which had spent the war in Northern Ireland, was reformed as its FS section.
In 1957/58, 3 FSS was retitled as FSS Tripolitania and confined its operations to protective security of British units and monitoring the desert training areas bordering Tunisia and Algeria being used by freedom fighters opposing French rule in Algeria. As the British began withdrawing from Libya in 1960, when 48 FSS was disbanded, with the Intelligence Corps maintaining a Field Security presence commensurate with troop levels until 1967, when it was represented by the Security Detachment, RAF El Adem. In March 1970 the British withdrew, and the Field Security was, as customary, among the last to leave. Two years later, Engineer Corps Lieutenant Muammar Gaddafi overthrew King Idris and introduced his version of Arab nationalism, that would contribute to regional and international tension over the next forty years.
FS cover in East Africa was largely confined to two sections. Based at Mogadishu in Somaliland, 257 FSS submitted reports that could upset the colonial status quo, such as tribal affairs ranging from the theft of camels to smallpox outbreaks. Close liaison was maintained with District Commissioners. When 277 FSS arrived in Nairobi from the Canal Zone in 1946, it was integrated with an East African detachment commanded by Captain Bill Williams, formerly GSO 2 (Intelligence), HQ East Africa Command, who had selected the increment from the King’s African Rifles and was careful to mix tribes. Several NCOs had served in Burma and one wealthy corporal owned two trucks and several bicycles. A detachment supported Gilgil internment camp for detainees from Palestine, one problem being the risk of Jewish expatriates assisting escapes. The marriage between Sergeant J.D. Davidson, who became ICA Regional Secretary in Scotland, and an Auxiliary Territorial Service member caused such local interest that the General Officer Commanding contributed his car as a wedding carriage.
In June 1950 277 FSS was disbanded but as the Mau Mau uprising gathered pace and an Emergency was declared in October 1952, Captain E.C.W.R. Hall formed the FS (East Africa) Section that investigated Mau Mau penetration of military units by forging identification permits to acquire weapons and medical supplies. They also vetted local labour. By 1954, the East African FS Section had expanded to include four staff sergeants and three African NCOs.
In a campaign that was principally run by the colonial police, the main Intelligence Corps contribution was the provision in 1954 of an Army Photographic Interpretation Section commanded by Major C.A. Lowe:
The enemy in Kenya is a particularly difficult one from the PI point of view. The only signs of his movement and occupation of territory are tracks and huts. Even on the ground, these signs are not easily visible; for a large part of the Mau Mau use game tracks and their huts or ‘hides’ are usually hidden in dense forest and well camouflaged into the bargain. From the air photography we are trying to find, therefore, enemy track activity in a country which is covered with tens of thousands of game tracks, and enemy dwelling hidden in dense forest and usually constructed or camouflaged with the natural vegetation growing in the area. The whole of the Mount Kenya and Aberdare Mountains areas have been mosaiced and of the 300 mosaics about 200 have been reproduced in quantities down to infantry company.
Two Divisional Military Intelligence Officers, of whom two were Intelligence Corps, supported the Kenya Police by collecting and collating Operational Intelligence. One, Captain Frank Kitson (The Rifle Brigade), later wrote the controversial Low Intensity Operations in 1971.
When, in 1960, a British battalion was sent as part of a UN force to Cameroon during its conversion to independence, it was accompanied by French-speaking interrogators, who, ‘by patience and keeping any promises’ discovered Algerian and Red Chinese complicity in training the insurgents.
Cyprus had been part of the Ottoman Empire for 318 years until 1878 when its administration was ceded to Great Britain keen to protect the Suez Canal and the route to India. During the First World War, the island was annexed when Turkey sided with Germany and was offered to Greece as an inducement to enter the war with the Allies against Bulgaria. This was refused. The population majority were of Greek heritage.
Consisting of a sergeant major, a sergeant and four corporals, 299 FSS was reactivated in Famagusta in 1946 to screen Jewish immigrants en route to Palestine, now deemed to be illegal for a year, and detained in internment camps, such as at Caralaos and Xylotymbou near Dhekelia. In addition to ships arriving from European ports, as the crisis in Palestine grew worse, several left Black Sea ports, almost certainly to embarrass the ‘British Imperialists’. Sergeant Leonard Andrews recalls:
These refugees were crammed solidly into the ships which were mainly ‘rust buckets’ and on the point of sinking by the time they reached the Levant. Even so, they were reluctant to leave them and had to be forcibly transferred to the British transports. By the time they arrived at the camps they were often in a pitiful condition, filthy, smelly and verminous.
The section conducted a counter-intelligence census of every town and village on the island to pinpoint Jewish extremists. Notes in the July 1949 Intelligence Corps magazine noted:
The Section continues to probe out the secrets of the island’s most remote villages. Nothing is too inaccessible for our intrepid riders, who are fast reaching TT Standard!
When the state of Israel was created in 1948, the census was discontinued.
Meanwhile, despite the fact that Cyprus had no recent historical links with Greece, the Greek-Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios was demanding union with Greece (enosis). He then convinced Lieutenant Colonel Grivas, the former leader of the right-wing X resistance group in Occupied Greece, to organize a military campaign. After conducting two clandestine reconnaissances, Grivas formed EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston) and developed a strategy based on the fact that while the nature of Cyprus as an island would restrict operations, the Troodos Mountains were suitable for guerrilla operations and the towns and villages provided opportunities for ambushes, assassinations and unrest. He recognized the value of intelligence as:
The pilot which guides one to the right course of action and brings one to one’s objective; it is also a scout which spots traps and rocks which the enemy sets in one’s path in the hope of tricking and finally crushing his opponent. No fight can be carried on without intelligence’. (Memoirs of George Grivas)
Knowing he could rely upon Greece for support, Grivas proposed using the postal system and couriers, as opposed to radios, and started recruiting informants. In the background hovered Turkey, determined to protect the Turkish-Cypriot minority. When Middle East Command moved to Cyprus in 1954, the peninsula at Akrotiri was selected for an airfield and land at Episkopi and Dhekelia as British garrisons. GHQ moved to Wolseley Barracks, Nicosia in December and was joined in early 1955 by 147 FSS, commanded by Captain Leo Hillman, transferring from the Canal Zone. Meanwhile, the Command Field Security Wing had consigned more than fifty Middle East sections to history with little ceremony. Captain Hillman was a remarkable soldier. Born Leo Loebel in Vienna to prominent Jewish Socialists, the family left Austria and settled in Palestine. After a spell in the French Foreign Legion, he enlisted in the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps and adopted the surname Hillman. He joined the Specialist Interrogation Group and was one of the few to survive the disastrous 1942 raid on Tobruk. Awarded the Military Medal while serving with raiding forces in the eastern Mediterranean, he was commissioned into the Pioneer Corps and then, in 1944, underwent SOE training. When an Austrian Gestapo officer was executed during an anti-Nazi uprising, in 1945 he parachuted into Austria masquerading as the officer to promote mayhem and collect intelligence on senior Nazi leadership, but he was ‘captured’ by the Russians who did not believe that he was not a Nazi, and he spent several months in a prison camp until his release was negotiated. In the meantime, he had been awarded the Military Cross. At Wolfsburg Internment Camp in Austria, Hillman interrogated the head of the Vienna Gestapo, SS-Brigadier Franz Josef Huber, and then commanded 309 FSS in Hamburg, where he was nearly court-martialled for killing a wanted German resisting arrest.
The Korean War had finished in 1954 and although operations were underway in Malaya and Kenya, Great Britain faced another counter-insurgency conflict when Greek-Cypriot demands and EOKA opened its campaign on 1 April by detonating several bombs. When a grenade exploded in Wolseley Barracks, Sergeant Alan Gudgeon reported the attack to Captain Hillman, however, he, like many in Cyprus, thought it was an April Fool’s Day trick. Gudgeon persisted and it was only after another explosion in Nicosia that Hillman swore him to secrecy over his misjudgment. Corporal Mike Warner investigated a bomb left in an RAF teleprinter vehicle at Four Mile Point near Famagusta. But intelligence on EOKA was limited and throughout the summer the demoralized Cyprus Police struggled to contain the tension. On 1 October, 253 FSS arrived from Colchester and deployed ‘A’ Detachment to cover the Panhandle, Kyrenia and Famagusta Docks, where there had been a theft of arms and ammunition, while its ‘B’ Detachment covered Larnaca and Dhekelia and supported the Royal Navy intercepting caiques smuggling weapons and explosives, sometimes in small religious statuettes and barrels of olives.
In early October, Field Marshal Sir John Harding arrived as Governor and opened largely fruitless talks with Makarios. During the negotiations, a bomb was thrown at the married quarter of Sergeant Dick Stafford of 147 FSS. Rushing into a bedroom to retrieve his revolver from under a pillow, while he was making for the front door, he was fortuitously held back by his shaken wife. A few seconds later a bomb exploded below the veranda. Stafford was in a second incident when a grenade exploded near him and Staff Sergeant Crane in one of the many disturbances in Metaxas Square, Nicosia. During the night of disorder in Nicosia on 18/19 November, the section supplied Corporal Law as an armed escort for an Army lorry ferrying the wounded to hospital. Sergeants Butt and Davis were following in a Land Rover when the convoy was ambushed with grenades. Fortunately no-one was hurt, however, Law later discovered that he was wearing two different kinds of shoes and was worried that, had he been blown to pieces, EOKA would have claimed two victims.
On 26 November, Harding declared a State of Emergency and announced that the Army would lead the internal security response. To improve Security Forces integration and the flow of intelligence, Harding formed the Internal Security Training School and also established Security Committees centred on the eight administrative districts of Cyprus, each reporting to the Command District Committee and each supported by a district intelligence officer. As joint Military and Police HQs, also known as MILPOLs, gripped their operational areas, intelligence began to flow. Under the control of the GSO 1 (Intelligence) reporting direct to the Director of Operations was military vetting, an Intelligence cell, Field Security HQ and the Travel Control Security Unit.
In 1954 Brigadier Robert Stevens had succeeded Colonel Hinchley-Cook, who had died in service, and took advantage of the disbandment of Anti Aircraft Command (TA) to increase the Travel Control and Security Group war establishment to 159 officers and 523 other ranks. Taking over 1a, Iverna Gardens and a nearby gun site at Warwick Road from 499 (London Welsh) Heavy Anti Aircraft Regiment, twelve Women’s Royal Army Corps officers and 154 other ranks joined the Group, as did Royal Navy Reservists, RAF Volunteer Reserve and Women’s Royal Air Force RAF and ninety-eight Maritime Royal Army Service Corps to man launches and vehicles. In 1949 the Auxiliary Territorial Service reformed as the Women’s Royal Army Corps. By 1956, Stevens, now Group Commandant, formed his Group into Northern and Southern Regions, each commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and consisting of several Districts and drill halls covering thirteen ports and airports. The Group boosted its establishment again when Mobile Defence Columns, used to reinforce defensive stop lines in the UK and the Coast Regiment RA, were both disbanded. Group HQ moved to 1, Fitzjohns Avenue, Swiss Cottage. Stevens introduced Trade Tests to test competencies.
Since the island of Cyprus lent itself favourably to Travel Control Security, in February 1956 a Regular Port and Travel Control Security Group, trained largely by those who had gained operational experience during the Second World War, deployed 52 (Famagusta) Section and 53 (Limassol) and 54 (Larnaca) Detachments. Group HQ was co-located at Famagusta Police Headquarters. Meanwhile, 188 Radar and Searchlight Battery RA played an important role in reporting suspicious vessels. Most nights, NCOs joined naval or police maritime patrols looking for gunrunners. The 54 Detachment accommodation close to the ports gates was staffed by a couple of NCOs during the day. It had a launch manned by a Royal Army Service Corps (Maritime) crew that was capable of intercepting any craft except that the keel had been weakened during the bombing of Malta during the war and it was this that led to her retirement when she grounded on rocks. She was replaced by the Carron, which was sister to the Char. One lance corporal who provided ship-to-shore communications from a launch when the tanker MV Clyde Guardian ran aground, received a £3 cheque years later from the ‘Divorce Probate and Maritime Department’ as his share in the salvage. As he later wrote, ‘There can’t be many National Service soldiers who have received salvage money’. The 52 Detachment launch, nicknamed the ‘Security Interception Barge’ by EOKA was sunk by a bomb that blew off its propeller shaft.
Operation Fox Hunter was launched in mid-December as the first of several cordon and search operations in the Troodos Mountains that destroyed the mountain guerrilla groups within six months and drove Grivas to a hideout in Limassol. It was during these operations that the Army Air Corps pioneered using Sycamore light helicopters to deliver patrols to ground inaccessible by vehicle. Several EOKA who defected to the Security Forces were formed into intelligence gathering and terrorist hunting patrols commanded by British Military Intelligence Officers and were either based in isolated houses or lived in mountain camps. The Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre sought out EOKA hides and provided annotated air photographs of the maze of streets in towns and villages. The lack of linguists was partly resolved by using Intelligence Corps linguists who had studied classics, not that the Greek spoken by Alexander the Great of Macedonia was recognized by Greek-Cypriots.
An important intelligence resource was the Postal Detachment of two NCOs at Nicosia Central Post Office who supported Customs intercepting letters and packages, in particular those sent from Greece and the Greek Embassy to known and suspected EOKA. It was eventually enlarged to about ten NCOs examining all mail. The smashing of a smuggling ring in Limassol in December 1957 by a counter-intelligence operation uncovered weapons and explosives allegedly stolen from Greek Army armouries and magazines. The setback worried Grivas because three of those arrested had built his hideout in the town; nevertheless, Grivas organized another smuggling network, which remained undiscovered.
In early 1956, Human Intelligence operations had been sufficiently effective that Grivas accused the Security Forces of the mistreatment of suspects during interrogations. However, in appeasements some considered to signal the effectiveness of interrogations, Captain Gary O’Driscoll was one of two Army officers convicted of assault and cashiered. Field Marshal Harding did not confirm the finding against him. The fact was that EOKA had been thoroughly penetrated by Human Intelligence, including through interrogation. Grivas himself had been complicit in EOKA insecurity when he carelessly allowed his diaries to be captured on three occasions. A year later EOKA again accused interrogators and intelligence officers of torture until several allegations were exposed as dishonest. In mid-June, Harding published the Cyprus Government White Paper Allegations of Brutality in Cyprus in which he criticized lawyers for persuading witnesses to claim ill-treatment. The refusal by the British Government to hold an independent inquiry into mistreatment claims by those convicted EOKA sent to Wormwood Scrub Prison led to the allegations being aired by the Human Rights Sub-Committee of Europe and at the United Nations.
Within a fortnight of Major Stuart Macpherson arriving from 3 FSS in Libya to take command of HQ Field Security, Middle East Land Forces, he found a time bomb concealed in his married quarter garden. In mid-1957, 147 FSS moved to Nicosia and generally looked after the western segment of Cyprus while 253 FSS monitored the eastern districts.
Meanwhile in Egypt, Colonel Nasser had raised regional tension by nationalizing the Suez Canal and was resisting attempts from the main shareholders, Great Britain and France, to permit international control. Against international support, both countries adopted a military solution. Great Britain reformed II Corps from 3rd Infantry Division and 16 Parachute Brigade and mobilized the Regular Army Reserve of recently discharged National Servicemen. Corporal Warner had just completed his National Service with 242 FSS in the Canal Zone and 147 FSS in Cyprus when he was instructed to mobilize at the Corps Depot in Maresfield. The Air Photographic Interpretation Unit, Episkopi reported on the effects of preparatory air strikes against Egyptian targets. No. 1 Air Photographic Interpretation Unit was also formed at Maresfield from serving and Reservist photographic interpreters, under the command of Major Ian Alexander. It included the first two Intelligence Corps other rank photographic interpreters, Staff Sergeant G.A. Clarke and P.B. Watterton. 3rd Infantry Division had its own Air Photographic Interpretation Unit, commanded by Captain Gordon Mole. On 4 November in Operation Musketeer, 3 Commando Brigade and 3rd Infantry Division landed near Port Said while 16 Parachute Brigade seized Gamil Airport. At the same time, Israeli forces invaded the Sinai Desert.
In Libya, there had been a major breach of security. Sergeant Ward was at home when Captain Bignell arrived, ‘Get your skates on, Ward. There has been a nonsense’. Ushered into the office of Major General Sir Rodney Moore, they were told that a newly-arrived despatch rider (DR) had accidentally delivered a Top Secret Operational Plan that detailed the intervention of 10th Armoured Division into Egypt from Libya in support of Operation Musketeer to the Libyan Army barracks in Porta Benito as opposed to Commander Royal Engineers in the adjacent British barracks. The problem was that in the Libyan barracks, there were several Egyptian Army instructors. Ward:
I made my way with a Libyan friend and the two of us positioned ourselves with a good view of the Libyan barracks gate. We sat on the forecourt of a little Arab café keeping watch as we sipped Turkish coffee. Suddenly, a miracle occurred. The smart Libyan corporal came out to change sentries and I recognised the corporal of the Guard. Some years previously, he had been one of my apprentice tractor drivers when I was farming near El Marg in the Gebel area of Cyrenaica. I strolled over to him and was greeted as a long lost brother. Soon we were talking about old times on the farm over a Coke. Yes, he had seen an English DR arrive with the despatches being handed to the Orderly Officer. Where was the Orderly Officer now? Well, it was Friday, a day of rest and he had changed into his civvies and gone down town.
Further small talk and I was able to ascertain exactly where this officer’s billet was. Mingling with the odd soldiery wandering around the barracks caused no problems and soon I had my hand on the door handle of this officer’s room. And there in a corner was a cabinet. It too was not locked. Imagine my joy when on finding a service Dress KD jacket hanging in the cabinet and slipping my hand into the inner pocket, I pulled out three OHMS envelopes.
Ward rewarded his Libyan friend and the corporal but was somewhat deflated when his CSM said there were no funds to pay for his rewards.
Sergeant F. Yarwood was serving with the Field Wing (Malaya) in Johore Bahru when he and several NCOs were rushed to England in to be part of the reformed 1 (3rd Infantry Division) FSS. Within days of being sent on disembarkation leave, they were recalled to Maresfield to be refitted and ten days after leaving Malaya, the section departed from Heathrow in a British Overseas Airways Corporation Britannia and landed in Cyprus. Transferring to a Transport Command Dakota, the NCOs arrived at El Gamil Airport where a military policeman warned them that their holstered 9mm Browning pistols were at risk of theft and should be secured and so they fashioned lanyards from pyjama trouser cords. The section spent the first two nights in an insect-infested billet in Port Said above a tailor’s shop before moving to several damaged beach cottages near a 1 Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders section. Staff Sergeant Eddie Hughes, formerly Royal Army Pay Corps, quickly organized a section bar. When intelligence emerged that Arab agents were infiltrating into Port Said using square-sailed feluccas, the NCOs and the Argylls also used feluccas to intercept suspect vessels. During an operation to pinpoint presses printing anti-British, French and Israeli propaganda plastered on walls throughout Port Said, Yarwood marked each cleared area on a map until he identified a suspect house. Charging through the back door with an infantry section, he waved his pistol, and its pyjama lanyard, at a room full of coffins. Meanwhile, other FS and infantry found the presses in the front room and arrested the propagandists.
As II Corps went firm, 7 FSS, which had been reformed in September, provided Port Said town security and was supported by two 902 FSS detachments, 1 Special Identification Section (Egypt) and 1 Special Counter-Intelligence Unit. Meanwhile, 152 Port Security Section passed under command of 3rd Infantry Division. A major problem faced by I Joint Service Interrogation Unit was that several prisoners, including an Egyptian brigadier, had been questioned by untrained ‘interrogators’ in the capturing units and, knowing what to expect, had become resistant. This was, by no means, not the first and only time that the amateur interrogation had led to intelligence lapses. After the ceasefire, some of 1 FSS returned to England on board the Empress of Australia and encountered the inevitable winter Bay of Biscay gale. The Intelligence Corps held their own during one memorable night in the Sergeant’s Mess with their version of ‘The Bloody Great Wheel’. The section was disbanded at Maresfield early in the New Year.
By the autumn of 1957, EOKA faced defeat. On 3 October, the same day that the wife of a Royal Artillery sergeant was murdered in Famagusta, one of two dependents murdered during the Emergency, the Royal Ulster Rifles surrounded three EOKA in a barn near Liopetri. Early the next day, the Greek-speaking Corporal Fleet, who was attached to the Battalion Intelligence Section, was unable to convince the gunmen to surrender. The informant was given sanctuary in England but was so overcome by guilt that he returned to Cyprus and appealed to Grivas, claiming that he had been tortured. Grivas had him executed, as he did with most compromised informants.
The February 1959 Zurich Agreement ended the Cyprus Emergency and Grivas returned to Greece. The Travel Control Security Group, which now included 73 (Airport Nicosia) Detachment deployed with small sections to Karavostas, Kyrenia, Latchi, Paphos, Xeros and Zyyi, remained for a year until it reformed as 7 Intelligence Platoon in London. The necessity to retain a command presence on NATO’s southern flank and control British interests in the Middle East saw HQ Middle East Land Forces divide, in 1959, to HQ Near East Land Forces in Episkopi and HQ Middle East Land Forces to Kenya. The 1960 Treaty of Guarantee acknowledging the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus gave the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots equitable constitutional assurances backed by mutual security support by Greek and Turkish national military contingents based on the island. The British withdrew into Sovereign Base Areas Eastern centred on Dhekelia and Western on Episkopi and RAF Akrotiri.
The wind-down after the Emergency saw HQ Field Security, 147 and 252 FSS and the Security Identification Section (Cyprus) merge first into Field Security Unit (Middle East) until it was split into two Counter-Intelligence Units supporting the two Commands in 1961, along with two Joint Intelligence Staffs monitoring regional security, which in Cyprus, included discreetly counting troops numbers during the rotations of the two national military contingents.
In the Middle East, the Trucial States, now known as the United Arab Emirates, and the rulers of Kuwait and Bahrain watched as communist subversion and nationalism fostered by Nasser spread and the use of Middle East oil as a political weapon. All had defence treaties with Great Britain. Warrant Officer 2 Colin Barnes spent ten years in the Middle East and accompanied the Trucial Oman Levies in two operations at Buraimi Oasis during the mid-1950s. At one stage, he and a brigadier were the only British Army representatives in the Persian Gulf. When dissidents supported by Saudi Arabia rebelled against Sultan Said bin Taimur of Oman, between 1957 and 1960, they were overthrown by the Omani Armed Forces, supported by the British Army and RAF. Tribal unrest in the Radfan mountains of the Aden Protectorate in the mid-1950s saw the deployment of the Aden Protectorate Levies supported by British units. In 1957, British Forces, Arabian Peninsula was reinforced by 4 FSS assembled from unmarried Intelligence Corps NCOs serving in West Germany and Berlin. Arriving in Cyprus on the troopship Empire Clyde, they flew to Aden via Turkey and Iraq. With Section HQ was in the Admiralty compound, Singapore Lines, detachments dispersed throughout the region. In 1958, 4 FSS reformed as the Counter-Intelligence Unit, Arabian Peninsula. Staff Sergeant Laurie Jones joined HQ Land Forces, Persian Gulf in Bahrain and was first attached to 1 Cameronians and then to the Trucial Oman Scouts, which gave him the opportunity to claim that he was the only Intelligence Corps in the Arabian Gulf. Another detachment covered three Aden Levy camps in West Aden. Sergeant Charles Butt acted as bait in an operation against a Yemeni Army detachment in As-Soumah, which frequently ambushed convoys passing along the road to Merta. Butt recalled:
I drove the decoy Land Rover when we countered a Yemeni ambush from As-Soumah against a resupply run to the Government Guard fort at Merta. I had to drive openly across the exposed stretch and when they fired, we really let them have it from 3in mortars, 75mm Pack Howitzers, machine guns from the Ferrets, rockets from Vampire jets and bombs from Shackletons of 37 Squadron.
Several newly commissioned Intelligence Corps officers completed their infantry attachments as platoon commanders with the Parachute Battalion Group at Hamala Camp on the west coast. The Corps presence in Bahrain remained until 1971 when their parent unit was the Security Unit (Gulf).