<!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?--><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:epub="http://www.idpf.org/2007/ops" xml:lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"/> <link href="../Styles/custom.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/> <title>Australia's First Spies</title> <meta content="urn:uuid:72ddaa28-3cb8-4cba-b4d7-fd3e6ba42ece" name="Adept.expected.resource"/> </head> <body> <p class="cn"><a id="page_231"/><a href="../Text/contents.xhtml#toc24" id="chap24">CHAPTER 19</a></p> <p class="ct1"><a href="../Text/contents.xhtml#toc24">Stepping on Toes: Australia’s Attack on Japan’s Diplomatic Codes</a></p> <p class="tx1-1">Early in the war, the Australian armed services of their own accord looked at Australia’s strategic intelligence capability and realised the country had none. They had then pushed for the creation of an Australian SIGINT capability that would serve Australia’s strategic needs by targeting Japanese codes and ciphers, including those of the IJA and IJN and, much more importantly, those of the Japanese Foreign Office and consular service. This decision was supported by the then CGS, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires, who although a British Army officer, as Australia’s senior soldier seems to have understood the need for Australia to have its own national capability separate from, but complementary to Britain’s. It was for this reason that General Squires had authorised the creation of the Special Intelligence Bureau in Sydney, before he unfortunately died and the whole project fell into a state of abeyance.</p> <p class="tx">With the outbreak of war with Japan at the end of 1941, the organisation started by Squires had only just been authorised and was being brought together. It had moved on from being a part-time arrangement using the academics from the University of Sydney to carry out some cryptanalytical work to one where the bulk of the staff were in Melbourne and working under the control of Eric Nave at Victoria Barracks. The problem that now arose was that they became unwelcome because the US Navy did not want <a id="page_232"/>either the academics or the British officers and consular officials involved in the SIGINT work at FRUMEL, and they certainly did not want Australia working on Japanese diplomatic traffic. Washington did not want Australia putting MAGIC at risk, and Britain was equally concerned about the impact on ULTRA. The question that would now need to be answered was how could Australia be safely brought into ULTRA.</p> <p class="tx">British and American sensitivities over ULTRA and MAGIC were substantial, and they were determined to ensure that they were never leaked. ULTRA and MAGIC were strictly limited intelligence only seen by officials and commanders with an absolute need to know. In order to see any ULTRA or MAGIC, the individual had to be indoctrinated—that is, briefed on the sensitivity of the material and the strict need to comply with the security requirements. These included burning ULTRA and MAGIC documents after reading and never immediately acting upon the intelligence they conveyed without having discussed the matter with and gained the approval of the responsible special liaison officer (SLO). Even then, permission to act might be withheld without explanation. Another requirement was never divulging the existence of ULTRA or MAGIC to anyone who was not indoctrinated.</p> <p class="tx">At the beginning of 1942, Australia was not part of this system. It had no Special Liaison Units (SLU) or SLU communications links for carrying ULTRA. There were no SLOs, and no one was indoctrinated, other than certain UK and US officers, which in the latter case did not even include General MacArthur’s Intelligence Chief, Brigadier General Charles A. Willoughby.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft995" id="fn995">1</a></sup> It is also clear that General MacArthur was not provided with all of the ULTRA or MAGIC that the US produced, and that General George Marshall and President Roosevelt kept his access to this material to a minimum.</p> <p class="tx">In Britain, there was substantial concern about Australia compromising ULTRA. If this had happened, it would have been a serious issue for Britain, as Japanese ULTRA was far more important to Britain than may be apparent at first glance. Unlike the Americans, the British understood that neither they nor the US could stop Australia from intercepting Japanese diplomatic traffic if Australia decided to. The pragmatic approach was to accept that keeping the Japanese ignorant of the success of such attacks was the objective and this meant bringing Australia into the ULTRA and MAGIC compartments, because once inside, they could force the Australians into complying with the security requirements.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_233"/>The importance of Japan’s diplomatic traffic to Britain in the 1941–44 period is hard to overstate when it is realised that the only insight the Allied powers had into high-level German political and strategic thinking was obtained from the reports of Japanese diplomats in Berlin and Rome. These secrets were unobtainable through ULTRA or any other intelligence sources and were a unique window into German strategic thinking and plans.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft996" id="fn996">2</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">It can be argued that the Japanese constituted Britain’s most productive high-level intelligence source across all of Europe between mid-1940 and mid-1945. It was certainly among the ULTRA material that Churchill wanted to see.</p> <p class="tx">Churchill’s interest in Japanese diplomatic messages is highlighted in his response to reading a report from the Japanese Ambassador to Germany, General Oshima Hiroshi, on 22 October 1941. This report detailed Oshima’s tour of German invasion preparations at Boulogne in France. The Japanese Embassy in Berlin had passed this message on 7 October and GC&CS had broken it out the very same day, but it was not put in front of Churchill for fifteen days. This led to a major explosion during which the head of SIS and all others within hearing were subjected to a severe Churchillian upbraiding.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft997" id="fn997">3</a></sup> Churchill ordered C to ensure that all Japanese diplomatic cables be immediately moved to the ‘Director/‘C’ Archive’, the file maintained by C of all raw ‘Y’ intercept of immediate and direct interest to Churchill.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft998" id="fn998">4</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The reason for Churchill’s explosion was that in October 1941 the accepted view was that the Germans were on the verge of defeating the Soviet Union and would then turn back to the invasion of Britain. Given German troops were on the outskirts of Moscow and Stalin had just ordered the evacuation of the Soviet government from the city, there was some justification for pessimism.</p> <p class="tx">Japan’s diplomatic traffic was important in another way; it offered the potential for cribs that could break open Germany’s high-level ENIGMA traffic. This possibility existed because there was always the hope that the Japanese might transmit the full-text versions of German reports sent by the as yet unbroken high-level ENIGMA. The resending of a decrypted high-grade message in the readable Japanese cipher would have been a crib of monumental proportions.</p> <p class="tx">The importance of Japanese diplomatic traffic as a source of intelligence to Britain remained high and it proved to be in the long term as well. On 10 July <a id="page_234"/>1943, Japanese diplomatic traffic from the ambassador in Berlin provided useful information on problems affecting Germany’s U-boats. Oshima had met with Grand Admiral Dönitz, who had openly discussed with him the concerns of his U-boat commanders about the British successfully diverting their convoys around waiting U-boat picket lines, and about British aircraft detecting surfaced U-boats without triggering the Metox radar receiver the U-boats were using as a warning device. The theories, Dönitz told the ambassador, included that the British had a new 10 cm radar system that did not trigger the Metox, that they had broken ENIGMA, or that there were nests of spies reporting on U-boat departures.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft999" id="fn999">5</a></sup> The issue was resolved to the erroneous satisfaction of the Germans when they later discovered the Metox emitted its own very small signal.</p> <p class="tx">Later again, in May 1944, the entire text of the Japanese naval attaché’s report on his tour of German defences in northern France, including detailed descriptions of the command structure, German expectations of Allied plans and German operational policies, was made available to Churchill and his advisors the morning after it was sent by the attaché.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1000" id="fn1000">6</a></sup> This intelligence on German defences in northern France came a month ahead of the D-Day landings in Normandy.</p> <p class="tx">This was the traffic that Australia’s Special Intelligence Bureau had been formed to intercept and analyse, and the importance of this source to Britain explains why GC&CS was less than enthusiastic about this initiative and the United States even less so.</p> <p class="tx">The first sign of US hostility was the way Lieutenant Fabian’s CAST unit took over the combined US Navy/ACNB SIGINT unit, now renamed FRUMEL in accordance with US Navy nomenclature. Fabian and OP-20-G made no bones about the work Eric Nave and his team of Australian academics and British consular officials were doing on Japanese diplomatic ciphers. It had no place in the US Navy’s plans and Fabian set out to put an end to it. As the British had already guessed, this proved harder to accomplish than Fabian and OP-20-G thought. By October 1942, however, Fabian and the US Navy, supported by Commander Newman, had made life so difficult for Nave and his team that they wanted out of FRUMEL.</p> <p class="tx">In October 1942, the discord among the Australian and British personnel at FRUMEL erupted when Consul C.W. Archer of the Foreign Office wrote to the Deputy DMI, Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. Little, raising concerns <a id="page_235"/>over the discussions between FRUMEL and LHQ over the future disposition of the Australian and British group working on Japanese diplomatic traffic.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1001" id="fn1001">7</a></sup> The members of the cipher-breaking group, the Special Intelligence Bureau’s title under FRUMEL, were disgruntled at the way they were being treated. This group had been working on Japanese diplomatic and commercial ciphers, and had been co-located with the ACNB’s cryptanalytical unit. With the arrival of Lieutenant Fabian’s US Navy SIGINT unit from the Philippines and its takeover of the RAN unit, problems soon arose. These included those caused by the inter-service jealousies plaguing the US armed forces but also involved poor Australian security practices and matters of high policy, specifically the involvement of Australia in the intercept and decryption of Japanese diplomatic traffic. The US Navy immediately moved to expel the civilians, particularly the Foreign Office officials and all non-naval personnel, from FRUMEL and all naval SIGINT organisations.</p> <p class="tx">The decision to get rid of the civilians was made way above Lieutenant Fabian’s head at the Department of the Navy. In fact, privately, Fabian was positive about the work of the Diplomatic Section, but emphasised that ‘since they had left Monterey they have given nothing’.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1002" id="fn1002">8</a></sup> This was not a question of simple jealousy; it was a matter of high policy involving the highest-level decision-makers in Washington and perhaps even President Roosevelt himself. The real issue for Fabian and his superiors was where the Diplomatic Section was obtaining its keys from. Fabian reported that although he had no way of knowing, he suspected they were getting the keys ‘from Washington via the Admiralty’. <sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1003" id="fn1003">9</a></sup> It would appear there were two sides to the story of FRUMEL’s unwillingness to cooperate.</p> <p class="tx">For the Australian Army, the question was whether to accept the decision of the ACNB or go it alone and take over the Diplomatic Section in the Australian national interest. The Australian Army rightly chose to protect Australia’s national interest by retaining the Diplomatic Section, and it was sensibly decided to co-locate it in Brisbane, where Alastair Sandford could control it. Archer and his Foreign Office colleague, Graves, were against this.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1004" id="fn1004">10</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The arguments against the planned move north ranged from weak to strong. The weakest was that moving to Brisbane would entail a loss of continuity in the flow of intelligence. This argument drew on the experience of moving the intercept unit from Melbourne to Bonegilla, which did indeed lead to a loss of cover. The move of the Diplomatic Section to Brisbane would <a id="page_236"/>not impact coverage, however, although it would have interrupted the flow of intelligence.</p> <p class="tx">A stronger argument put by Archer was the imminent change in the Japanese ciphers for Greater East Asia scheduled for November. If this occurred during the move of the group, they would lose valuable insights into the new cipher, as they would fail to intercept the usual Japanese mishandling of the changeover. This might lead to the loss of Australia’s capability in reading these particular ciphers.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1005" id="fn1005">11</a></sup> Of course, if the intercept sites were working and unaffected by the move, then this would entail delay and not loss.</p> <p class="tx">The strongest argument was that the move would result in the loss of the very experienced and highly capable female workforce based in Melbourne, at least two of whom, Archer believed, had proven themselves good cryptanalysts. Most of the female cryptological workforce would have been lost due to their family commitments in Melbourne and, as we will see later, to the Australian government’s antediluvian attitude towards women working outside the confines of a family kitchen. Consul Archer’s claim that ‘all of us feel most strongly that geographical stability is a “sine qua non” for efficient work’ was substantial, and someone reading his letter marked this sentence in the margin.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1006" id="fn1006">12</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">Archer, also keen to counter the US Navy’s efforts to restrict communication on SIGINT matters outside of Australia, argued for a continuation of the current practice of sending the intelligence derived from diplomatic decryption in Melbourne to the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Economic Warfare in London. These telegrams had previously been sent under the auspices of the ACNB to the Admiralty. This would no longer be possible if the group moved under the auspices of LHQ, so a new system for transmission and distribution would need to be set up.</p> <p class="tx">But the crux of Archer’s letter comes down to the treatment he and his colleague Graves had experienced at the hands of Lieutenant Commander Fabian, Commander Newman and another, unidentified, RAN commander. It appears that Archer, Graves and the DNI, Commander Long, were overruled by a committee made up of these relatively junior officers. Technically, Archer and Graves were full colonel equivalents and outranked everyone at FRUMEL. This committee, without any apology, summarily dismissed the work of the diplomatic group and the arguments they put.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1007" id="fn1007">13</a></sup> And this was all happening with the tacit approval of Navy Office.</p> <p class="tx"><a id="page_237"/>At LHQ, Lieutenant Colonel Little accepted Archer’s claims of unfair and overbearing treatment, most likely because he was well briefed by Long, the DNI. In a letter to the DMI, Little made it clear that Archer, Graves and the others, including Commander Nave, were not alone in their concern over the heavy-handed approach of the US Navy at FRUMEL. As Little describes it:</p> <div class="bkt"> <p class="tx1">My feeling is that since the advent of USN [US Navy] Crypto Sec under Lt Cdr Fabian [the Australian] Army have not been treated fairly as although Army provided about ⅓ of the staff and all the intercepts all Army was allowed to have was a précis of the diplomatic material. More recently we have been permitted to read through in the presence of a NO [Naval Officer] some of the diplomatic messages that Commander Nave was good enough to pass to us. These were taken away as soon as read.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1008" id="fn1008">14</a></sup></p> </div> <p class="tx1-1">Although this reads as if Fabian and FRUMEL were being extremely ungracious towards the Australian Army, the reality was that Fabian had good grounds for his concern. He had found Japanese frequency lists that FRUMEL had supplied to Central Bureau being ‘freely passed around Victoria Barracks’ and marked as being from the US Navy.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1009" id="fn1009">15</a></sup> Lax security in handling ULTRA was not just a problem in Australia, but also within the US commands in the Pacific, where action was taken by Admiral King to impress upon his commanders the serious consequences for their careers of failing to enforce discipline in the handling of ULTRA.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1010" id="fn1010">16</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The reality was that FRUMEL was abiding by the procedure for reading all ULTRA and MAGIC material that applied to British and American commanders in all theatres and he was following the direct orders of the Commander Allied Naval Forces, SWPA, to restrict the distribution of SIGINT to the US Navy, RAN and to General MacArthur and General Sutherland only.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1011" id="fn1011">17</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">But Little’s point is significant. The United States was dictating to Australia how much of the intelligence Australia was paying to produce it would be allowed to see. No nation-state can tolerate this situation and the Australian Army wasn’t going to accept this high handedness.</p> <p class="tx">The need to preserve the Special Intelligence Bureau as an Australian operation cooperating with Britain’s SIGINT organisation had been identified by <a id="page_238"/>General Squires in 1940, and it was reiterated in 1942 by Little. He was also rightly suspicious of General MacArthur, and felt that if they simply moved Archer’s Bureau to Central Bureau it was likely that MacArthur would also move to close it down:</p> <div class="bkt"> <p class="tx1">I am of the opinion that this diplomatic group should be continued for the benefit of the Commonwealth Government and the forces but think it would be better to keep it under the [Australian] Army away from Central Bureau as if under Central Bureau it would again be under GHQ control who might act similarly to USN.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1012" id="fn1012">18</a></sup></p> </div> <p class="tx1-1">Little was right. Washington would progressively become more and more alarmed at the disregard for the security of ULTRA in Australia and the SWPA, and so too would London—with good reason.</p> <p class="tx">Security within the broader Australian government and its institutions was appalling. Ministers disregarded security measures, with Herbert Evatt, the Minister for External Affairs and concurrently the Attorney-General, the worst of the lot. Even the prime minister, an ex-journalist, was lax with security in providing background briefings to the Canberra Press Gallery that ranged right across policy and operations. At the same time, intelligence was suspected to be leaking out of Australia via Chinese Nationalist reporting and via the Soviet legation in Harbin in China.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1013" id="fn1013">19</a></sup> Then there was the slapdash approach of the Australian military itself. In fact, the only people who were operating an effective security system were the SIGINT organisations themselves and the senior levels of Naval and Military Intelligence.</p> <p class="tx">The alternative to making Australia a member of the club was to leave her to her own devices. GC&CS understood that ‘if the Australians wish to have a diplomatic section we cannot prevent them’.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1014" id="fn1014">20</a></sup> Commander Denniston at GC&CS believed, however, that leaving Australia to her own devices would result in ‘an inefficient and insecure section’ operating against the Japanese, and this risked exposing the success of GC&CS and the United States in defeating the Japanese ciphers and codes.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1015" id="fn1015">21</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The answer was pragmatic. Bring Australia into the club via Central Bureau, and force Australia to comply with ULTRA security requirements.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1016" id="fn1016">22</a></sup> This offer was passed to Australia via a Mr Loxley, who spoke to Alfred Stirling at the Australian High Commission to inform him that ‘we set the <a id="page_239"/>highest store on security and we could only offer collaboration to a section whose security is beyond all doubt, and whose circulation of results is strictly limited’.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1017" id="fn1017">23</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">By mid-March 1943, Australia’s military commanders finally agreed that ULTRA would only be made available to Australian military officials and not to the Australian government, which was now being excluded and ‘kept in ignorance of this type of information for security reasons’.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1018" id="fn1018">24</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The answer the DMI, Colonel John Rogers, and the Deputy DMI, Little, came up with was to place Archer’s Bureau under dual control, with Sandford at Central Bureau being responsible for its technical SIGINT and Little at LHQ being responsible for policy and administration. This protected the Special Intelligence Bureau and now opened a whole range of issues, including to whom it should distribute diplomatic traffic. With this decision, Archer stepped back and Professor Trendall, an Australian, took day-to-day charge of the bureau.</p> <p class="tx">The distribution list for the traffic was restricted to the Australian DMI, DNI and Director of Intelligence RAAF, as well as General MacArthur and his G2, General Willoughby. It was also extended to the DMI, New Zealand, and the New Zealand Naval Board. The only organisation on the list was Central Bureau.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1019" id="fn1019">25</a></sup> ULTRA material from Japanese diplomatic traffic would not be extended to any Australian civil department until July 1943 or, officially, to any Australian ministers even after some civilian officials received it.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1020" id="fn1020">26</a></sup> Even then, the addition of Colonel W.R. Hodgson, the civilian Secretary of the Department of External Affairs to the list in mid-1943 was damage control, following his discovery of the existence of Trendall’s bureau and its work.</p> <p class="tx">This decision to exclude Australia’s political leadership from access to ULTRA seems extraordinary, but the likelihood is that it was done with the approval of Prime Minister Curtin. There is no doubt that Curtin was briefed on SIGINT activity. The record shows that Curtin received information from the British High Commissioner, Sir Ronald Cross, and that the decision to exclude the Australian Cabinet from access to ULTRA intelligence was done with the tacit if not explicit approval of Australia’s prime minister.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1021" id="fn1021">27</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">Whether Curtin was briefed on the precise details is another matter, but the likelihood is that a decision to exclude his Cabinet colleagues and Australia’s political class was made with his approval and that this is why General Richard Dewing, the senior British SLO, advised Britain that the <a id="page_240"/>politics in Australia could always change.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1022" id="fn1022">28</a></sup> This was code for the Australian prime ministership being filled by someone other than Curtin, implying the replacement might not continue the arrangement to exclude politicians.</p> <p class="tx">The Australian Army now moved to exploit the capabilities and advantages of Trendall’s bureau, and the collection site operated by 52 ASWS at Bonegilla in Victoria, to win friends and influence people. In January 1943, at the request of the Foreign Office in London, Little wrote to the DMI, GHQ, New Zealand, offering access to the ‘Weekly ULTRA Diplomatic Summary’ produced by the bureau. The offer was not a case of largesse; it was so the Foreign Office could send ULTRA intelligence to Mr Boulter, the ex-British Consul in the Philippines and the Foreign Office’s man in New Zealand.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1023" id="fn1023">29</a></sup> This kept ULTRA within the existing military ‘Y’ communications network, keeping the British High Commission and the civil departments of the New Zealand government out of the ULTRA picture.</p> <p class="tx">At the same time, Little also authorised Lieutenant Colonel W.H. Stratton in New Delhi to offer the DMI GHQ, India, increased cooperation between Trendall’s bureau and the Wireless Experimental Centre (WEC) in India.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1024" id="fn1024">30</a></sup> The reply on 15 May from Brigadier B.P.T. O’Brien on behalf of the DMI India, Major General W.J. Cawthorn, was fulsome. The DMI India was not only interested but also ‘very anxious to perfect our “Y” liaison with you’.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1025" id="fn1025">31</a></sup> This correspondence also details how the British were still reading all four Japanese diplomatic systems—Machine, Fuji, L.A. and X Cipher—in the United Kingdom and the last three in India. Brigadier O’Brien also informed Little that the intercept of these systems was done at sites in the United Kingdom, Mauritius and India, and went further and proposed that, as the operational tempo increased, an exchange of liaison officers should take place between Central Bureau and India’s WEC, and that a division of effort should be agreed, including a deliberate overlap of cover for southern Java, Celebes and the Philippines.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1026" id="fn1026">32</a></sup> Australia was now an active member of the ULTRA club.</p> <p class="tx">The contribution Australia was making to SIGINT production from Japanese diplomatic and commercial traffic was growing due to the increasing technical capability of 52 ASWS at Bonegilla. Although Bonegilla was not a bad location for an intercept site targeting German beam transmissions to the east, it was being increasingly affected by electrical interference from the army base growing up around it, and there was a better location for the <a id="page_241"/>intercept of beam transmissions from Europe at Mornington. It was decided to relocate 52 ASWS to Mornington Racecourse.</p> <p class="tx">The importance of the work being done by the bureau and 52 ASWS was now readily acknowledged by GC&CS, which informed Sandford in July 1943 of its appreciation for the Kuibyshev (now Samara) traffic that was now being routinely passed on by Trendall.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1027" id="fn1027">33</a></sup> It was also agreed that the first priority for the Diplomatic Section was the Berlin to Tokyo links followed by IRW (Rome) on 19,520 kilohertz, the main station working from Europe to the Far East, because it could be consistently intercepted at Mornington. The technical reality that Australia was ‘ideally situated for receiving our most important and at the same time most difficult services, namely Berlin to the Far East’, was not initially well accepted at GC&CS.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1028" id="fn1028">34</a></sup> J.H. Williams, who had earlier advised his superiors that ‘every effort should be made to obtain Australian co-operations in the Interception of Berlin-Tokyo traffic’, had persisted, however, and the quality of the intercept from Australia, where the sky wave was coming down, was so much better than anything being captured in India or Africa that all doubts were soon removed.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1029" id="fn1029">35</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The man upon whom the ‘Y’ Committee in London and GC&CS now depended to ensure the security and efficiency of the work was Sandford, now a Lieutenant Colonel and the Deputy Director of Central Bureau. The growing importance of Australia’s contribution meant that a representative had to attend the ‘Y’ policy meetings in London and Washington. Sandford was the agreed representative, and when he headed off to London in early 1943, Williams of GC&CS was ‘very anxious to meet’ him when he came to Bletchley.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1030" id="fn1030">36</a></sup> There can be little doubt that London now regarded Sandford as the de facto head of Australian SIGINT and perhaps even as its founder.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1031" id="fn1031">37</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">Sandford was next at Bletchley Park on 10 May 1943, as Australia’s representative at the Anglo-American Conference on the Japanese ‘Y’ problem.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1032" id="fn1032">38</a></sup> While there, Sandford met Mr Williams, Hugh Waterfield and Major Carr to discuss Australia’s contribution to the intercept cover of Japan’s diplomatic traffic. The first item agreed was that Sandford would arrange for Australia to adjust cover on Japanese diplomatic traffic to suit the needs of GC&CS. In return, Australia would receive the diplomatic intelligence derived from this material. This material given to Australia would be restricted to intelligence affecting Greater East Asia, but nothing relating to events in Europe <a id="page_242"/>would be provided. It was made clear that the Japanese ULTRA relating to Germany and the war in Europe was not going to be released to Australia.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1033" id="fn1033">39</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The Mornington intercept site now had twelve intercept positions operated by personnel who were ex-post office employees. GC&CS wanted at least fifteen intercept positions, but left it up to Sandford as to how he would achieve this, although they believed it would not be difficult.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1034" id="fn1034">40</a></sup> GC&CS then provided Sandford with its tasking in priority order.</p> <p class="tx">First priority was given to the Japanese diplomatic, Japanese military and naval attaché links from Berlin and Rome to Tokyo. The Tokyo to Berlin link operating between 0300Z (0300 hours Zulu time, the equivalent of Greenwich Mean Time) and 1000Z was second priority, and then Japanese diplomatic and attaché traffic on all other links was third priority. German diplomatic traffic, FLORADORA, was also listed as a third-priority task.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1035" id="fn1035">41</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">With this agreement worked out, Sandford was able to head back to Australia having preserved the country’s involvement in SIGINT operations. At this distance in time, it may not look much, but it was. Australia was now a formal player in the worldwide SIGINT system, and although this meant only access to ULTRA affecting the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, it was still access. This was as close as Australia ever got to the upper-level decision-making of the Western Alliance. This relationship set the model used in SIGINT even today.</p> <p class="tx">It was at this conference that the formal set of rules, the <i>Provisional Notes on Wireless Interception (‘Y’) Organisation in the Field—1943</i>, were agreed for the management of ‘Y’ personnel, units and materials. Sandford’s involvement in agreeing this set of rules committed Australia to enforcing compliance. Denniston’s plot was developing and it is more than likely that Alastair Sandford was in on it.</p> <p class="tx">The <i>Provisional Notes</i> were distributed to all British commanders responsible for units engaged on ‘Y’ work, and they directed that ‘Y’ personnel and units were provided to commands for intelligence collection from enemy communications only and were never to be used on other tasks, such as internal communications or security monitoring of own-force communications.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1036" id="fn1036">42</a></sup> Control of all ‘Y’ personnel and units was vested in the DMI at the relevant GHQ, who was assisted on technical signals proficiency by the GHQ signals officer in charge. The Intelligence Section of GHQ could advise the DMI, but he did not answer to this organisation, making it quite clear that <a id="page_243"/>while a GHQ might task a ‘Y’ organisation, it did not command the unit, which remained under command of the national organisation representing the national strategic interest.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1037" id="fn1037">43</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">A significant change in the status of ‘Y’ personnel was that no matter where they were working or for whom, they were to be regarded as GHQ troops attached to a subordinate formation and not as the troops of that formation. In military terms, this is significant because it meant local commanders did not ‘own’ ‘Y’ units and could not task them, except in accordance with the tasking provided by the GHQ that owned the ‘Y’ unit.</p> <p class="tx">Another area of activity detailed in the <i>Provisional Notes</i> was the security of SIGINT material. The ‘Y’ authorities did not insist that the interception of enemy signals be kept secret, but they did insist that the results of those intercept operations must be kept secret. To this end, the <i>Provisional Notes</i> banned the use of the word ‘intercept’ on telephone links or in clear-language communications of any sort. In fact, the view was that the word should not be used in any circumstance at all if it could be avoided.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1038" id="fn1038">44</a></sup> Information obtained from intercept operations was to remain secured within the ‘Y’ organisation and its units, and it was never to be communicated outside unless it had been ‘sanitised’—that is, once all evidence of ‘Y’ as the source had been removed or disguised.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1039" id="fn1039">45</a></sup> The provision of raw intercept to anyone outside the ‘Y’ organisation was forbidden.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1040" id="fn1040">46</a></sup> Even then, the only people allowed to see SIGINT were those who were ‘indoctrinated’—that is, those formally briefed into the security requirements by an SLO and who had a need to know. The provision of ‘Y’ material for information only was forbidden.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1041" id="fn1041">47</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">These instructions were timely, because the army authorities now responsible for ULTRA and ‘Y’ security in Australia were faced with their first breach of ULTRA security. This came to light when Colonel Hodgson became aware of ULTRA in late May or early June 1943. The breach had occurred in the Dominions Office in London, where someone erroneously showed the liaison officer from External Affairs an ULTRA message detailing a report from the Japanese Minister in Moscow that mentioned William Slater, the Australian Minister in Kuybyshev.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1042" id="fn1042">48</a></sup> As if this was not bad enough, the liaison officer told him the intercept came from Australia.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1043" id="fn1043">49</a></sup> It was a serious breach of security.</p> <p class="tx">Adding to the compromise, this information had now been passed back to Hodgson in Australia on the External Affairs circuit, a non-ULTRA <a id="page_244"/>communications system. Hodgson was not happy, and he immediately contacted Little at LHQ to know why the information had not gone to him directly.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1044" id="fn1044">50</a></sup> It was decided that Hodgson should be indoctrinated into ULTRA and that ULTRA from Trendall’s bureau would be turned into a précis for Hodgson’s eyes only. That was not enough. Hodgson was not prepared to keep his minister, Evatt, ignorant of ULTRA intelligence he felt the minister needed to see. Little insisted that Hodgson had to comply, that they could not have Hodgson go to Evatt and have Evatt raise it in Cabinet. There was no choice really. Army had to compromise and Hodgson got his précis and, if there was anything in it he believed Evatt needed to see, he would call upon the CGS, General Northcott, who would review the intelligence and, if he agreed with Hodgson that Evatt should see it, then it would be ‘sanitised’ to hide SIGINT as the source and provided to Evatt.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1045" id="fn1045">51</a></sup> Hodgson agreed to this procedure and it remained in place until 1967, when Malcolm Fraser was appointed Minister for the Army and demanded he be indoctrinated.</p> <p class="tx">All this was coordinated with GC&CS. Paymaster Commander Merry, GC&CS’s man at FRUMEL, acted as a link between the Australian authorities at LHQ and GC&CS, and he no doubt assisted in the establishment of the system for Hodgson. London took on the responsibility of managing the distribution of ULTRA to Hodgson, leaving Washington to distribute ULTRA to all of the other readers within SWPA.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1046" id="fn1046">52</a></sup> This was a real necessity because, as it turned out, Washington was actively withholding a significant amount of ULTRA from General MacArthur and GHQ, SWPA.</p> <p class="tx">It was now that the fears Lieutenant Colonel Little had expressed about General MacArthur moving to prevent Australia working on Japanese diplomatic ULTRA proved prescient.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1047" id="fn1047">53</a></sup> In early April 1943, while Sandford was absent in the United Kingdom and Washington, Sutherland told Sandford’s deputy, Squadron Leader Booth, that no civilians should be employed at Central Bureau. At this time, the only civilian working at Central Bureau was Professor Room, but he was about to be joined by Professor Trendall, R.J. Lyons and Commander Nave.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1048" id="fn1048">54</a></sup> Booth and the Australian officers at Central Bureau objected to this and raised the matter with Little, as they believed it was ‘essential that the services of these able men be retained’.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1049" id="fn1049">55</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">This was the first move against the personnel of Trendall’s bureau being involved in Central Bureau. It is most likely that GHQ, SWPA had now been <a id="page_245"/>pressured by people in Washington, who had become aware of Australia’s increasing role by Sandford’s visits to the ‘Y’ Committee in London, GC&CS and Arlington Hall in Washington. Sutherland’s instruction that no civilians be employed makes it clear that it was not Australia’s role as an intercept site that was being targeted, but its cryptanalytical attack on Japanese diplomatic traffic, for this was the work undertaken by Trendall’s team.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1050" id="fn1050">56</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">On top of this, Sutherland now ordered Central Bureau to stop all exchanges of information with British SIGINT authorities.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1051" id="fn1051">57</a></sup> This could have been another of MacArthur’s attempts to make life harder for people he saw as competitors, but this explanation doesn’t fit with the wholesale nature of the interference by Sutherland. The specific area of disagreement was over exchanges of ULTRA intelligence and ‘Y’ technical information between the Australian elements within Central Bureau and Trendall’s bureau and the WEC and other agencies in India.</p> <p class="tx">By the end of 1943, it appears that an effective modus operandi had been negotiated for Australian participation in the interception and cryptanalysis of Japanese diplomatic traffic. The British government had achieved its major requirement for the establishment of this relationship on an even basis: a commitment by Australia’s military authorities to ensuring the security of ULTRA.</p> <p class="tx">At the beginning of 1944, the situation had changed so sufficiently that even Washington was willing to share its ULTRA insights with Australia.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1052" id="fn1052">58</a></sup> The Foreign Office had obtained the agreement of the US State Department to send summaries of the highest-grade Japanese diplomatic ULTRA to Sandford for distribution to Colonel Hodgson only. These messages were for Hodgson’s eyes only and were not even to be sent to Central Bureau. This was a major change in policy. Now it was the Australian government, although only at an official and not a political level, that was to see a particular line of ULTRA. The reason for the exclusion of Central Bureau was exceptional. The US State Department and other officials in Washington did not want MacArthur to see this form of ULTRA, as they were excluding him deliberately. They also did not want MacArthur or other military authorities to know that Australia was now receiving ULTRA that they were not.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1053" id="fn1053">59</a></sup> Political intrigue was not just an Australian problem.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1054" id="fn1054">60</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The agreements and arrangements made between the Foreign Office and the State Department may have legitimised Australia’s status at one <a id="page_246"/>level, but this did not mean all US authorities were happy. At the same time these arrangements were introduced, MacArthur’s HQ renewed its efforts to stop the exchanges between Australia’s SIGINT establishment, GC&CS and India. In early January 1944, General Akin and Colonel Sherr, Sandford’s bosses, ordered him to cease direct communication with London and Delhi, and to pass all communications on ‘Y’ matters through Akin. This order led to a meeting between Sandford, Brigadier Rogers and General Blamey on 21 January 1944.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1055" id="fn1055">61</a></sup> The notes from this meeting make it clear that the Australians believed Akin was acting on General Sutherland’s orders, and that Blamey saw it as an affront to Australian sovereignty, something he would not tolerate.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1056" id="fn1056">62</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">Blamey instructed Rogers and Sandford to demand that any such orders be put in writing by Akin or Sutherland and he would then take it up with MacArthur. The notes also confirm the fact that Australia’s involvement in ULTRA was a matter of the highest policy, well outside the purview of General MacArthur or any senior commander. During this set of meetings, the files make it crystal clear that Blamey was acting on the orders of the Australian government, most likely Prime Minister John Curtin, to ensure the ‘firm undertakings’ Australia had given to Sir Ronald Cross, the British High Commissioner to Australia, that Australia would remain committed to the imperial ‘Y’ system and reject any instructions from US authorities to exclude Britain from SIGINT activity in the Pacific were adhered to.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1057" id="fn1057">63</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">The most important statement by Blamey during this meeting was that if Akin raised this matter in writing, Blamey as the C-in-C of Australia’s military forces would confront Sutherland and if he did not back down, Blamey would inform GHQ, SWPA that they should form their own version of Central Bureau and split away from the Australian organisation, which would continue to work as part of Britain’s ‘Y’ system.<sup><a href="../Text/notes.xhtml#ft1058" id="fn1058">64</a></sup></p> <p class="tx">This was the penultimate step in the creation of an independent Australian national SIGINT authority. Australia was willing to go it alone if the choice was between doing this or giving up its right to be part of Britain’s ‘Y’ system or any other system for that matter. It was an unambiguous statement of Australian independence.</p> </body> </html>