STILL LISTENING
What did Prime Minister Winston Churchill make of the wartime bugging operation?
For him, the transcripts of bugged conversations were regular bedtime reading.1 Although he had been outraged by the pampering of Hitler’s generals, he had admiration for the achievements at Kendrick’s sites and wrote to the chief of staff, General Ismay that
the records of conversations between enemy prisoners of war afford an excellent insight into the German character and the results of the Nazi regime. I am informed that special files have been kept of the more remarkable conversations under subject headings and that these contain accounts of atrocities that have been committed by the enemy . . . If a summary of these conversations were prepared by a skilful writer, with a number of the conversations in original as annexes, this might prove a most educative book for the public after the close of hostilities.2
In spite of Churchill’s aspirations, nothing official could be published on the subject. European hostilities may have ended, but the intelligence work was far from over, and the same methods of gathering intelligence were needed. For the new threat facing Europe was one that Kendrick was familiar with – Russia and communism. Europe had entered the Cold War, and Russia was no longer an ally of Britain and America.
The spymaster’s work went on after the unconditional surrender of Germany: Kendrick’s sites did not close until November or December 1945 and their existence remained a closely guarded secret. What histories of intelligence or of the Second World War have thus far failed to appreciate is the level of intelligence gathering on Germany, even after the surrender was accepted. Kendrick commissioned his officers to write comprehensive reports on every aspect of Germany using intelligence gained from prisoners of war via both direct interrogation and transcripts of conversations. These full reports, which survive in the CSDIC files, often run to 20 or 30 pages each, and are staggering in the level of detail and in their specialisms. They provide a complete intelligence picture of Germany.3 They cover subjects such as the German war machine and its resources; the history of German units and operations; the German cryptographic service with the German army; an overview of the German secret service; the history of anti-aircraft and infantry divisions, as well as of the armoured division; and German intelligence on Japan.4 These offered an overview to help understand the German capability, new technology and the condition of its three services – the army, air force and navy. These specialist reports were still being compiled by Kendrick’s unit in the autumn of 1945.5 One report outlined intelligence gained on the war in East Prussia and Russian plans, as well as German counter-espionage targeting Russian intelligence and agents, and was based largely on information carelessly given up to the microphones by General von Manteuffel (commander of a Panzer division).6 Another report studied tactics and logistics on the Eastern Front and Russian battle strategy.7 As has already been mentioned, intelligence on Russia was particularly hard to acquire, as Britain had not spied on its ally during the war. It was essential now to understand what Russia might acquire in those areas of Germany that the Russians had overrun and occupied. The new stand-off (soon to be known as the Cold War) was as dangerous as the ‘hot’ war from which Europe had just emerged. The most urgent priority for Britain and the United States was to gain knowledge of Germany’s atomic programme. How close had it been to succeeding with a nuclear bomb? Having such a weapon would give any country the upper hand in the new and dangerous times. Thus, the hunt for Germany’s scientists amidst the post-war chaos became the highest priority. Many had gone into hiding.
Once again, a glittering prize of intelligence – this time concerning Germany’s atomic programme and whether the Russians had made much progress – would come the way of one of Kendrick’s sites.
Interrogation of Dornberger
Lieutenant General Walter Dornberger was one of those being held at Trent Park. To date, historians have not considered him to have been an intelligence asset and yet his interrogation is said (by an unnamed source) to have been the most important ahead of the Cold War.8 His case provides yet another example of the achievements of the unit under Kendrick’s command.
Dornberger’s interrogation is worth examining here, because it helps us understand the enormity of what Kendrick achieved and why his unit’s work should be considered on a par with the codebreaking at Bletchley Park. Ultimately, it enabled MI6/SIS to survive.
The 49-year-old Dornberger was captured on 2 May 1945 at the ski resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Bavaria. He had served as the site commandant of Peenemünde and was ‘inspector of the long-range rocket arm’ (Inspekteur der Fernraketentruppe).9 His vast experience of Germany’s V-weapon development programme made him one of the most valuable prisoners of war ever captured, and his knowledge of V-weapons was virtually unparalleled in the Nazi regime. In the 1930s, he had been in charge of the site at Kummersdorf, which was set up for the purposes of rocket experiments. By 1933, he had become chief adviser to the Department for Development and Testing of Weapons. His ideas for powder-fuel propulsion in 1935 and 1936 were adopted, and the Do-Geräte (Doodlebugs) took their name from the first two letters of his name. As leader of Group D, he persuaded the Army Ordnance Branch to take up liquid-fuel rocket propulsion. As a result, the Peenemünde experimental site was established, which he headed in 1937.10 From then until his capture in May 1945, he exercised complete oversight of Hitler’s V-weapon programme.
Dornberger was so valuable, because he provided Kendrick’s officers with a complete history of the German rocket programme.11 In an unguarded moment, he told Lieutenant Generals Ferdinand Heim and Maximilian von Herff:
Our people tried to split the atom by means of higher tension current. About 50 million volts are needed to get the pitchblende, mixed with heavy water, to disintegrate. But the amount of energy released was only as much as that put in. We haven’t yet got it to the stage where the process will continue independently.12
Dornberger believed that the results of this work could have materially influenced the development of V-weapons.13 He explained further about the disintegration of the atom in the presence of certain chemicals: this effect could be harnessed and would use considerably less energy. In an interesting admission, he told Heim that Hitler had not originally believed in the V-2 rocket, and consequently had not authorized its development. He spoke of how, during the 1930s, Hitler had received regular updates on the experimentation progress at Peenemünde via the minister for armaments, Albert Speer. Then, for a while, Hitler’s contact with the project dissipated, and Dornberger and the scientists were left largely alone to carry on their experiments. Contact with Hitler’s headquarters only resumed again when Dornberger had a brief five-minute conversation with Hitler in 1942. He told the Führer that the programme for the long-range weapon was complete and the rocket should be able to fly. Hitler showed no interest and said nothing. Field Marshal Keitel followed Dornberger out of the headquarters. Dornberger turned to him: ‘Sir, what now? I need a certificate of priority, otherwise we cannot go on.’
Keitel replied: ‘I can’t help you. You’ll have to fend for yourself.’
By May 1943, Dornberger and Field Marshal Brauchitsch took the decision to continue the V-weapon programme. The matter was passed to General Friedrich Fromm (head of the reserve army), who turned it down on the basis that he did not believe the technology could work. Dornberger responded: ‘What are we to do, if we do not get any support? I get no aluminium or electric power, no raw materials, no cement. I can’t work if I do not get the support.’
Fromm replied: ‘Get on as best you can. Everything will be much easier once you have fired projectiles.’14 It is extraordinary to think that if the Nazi elite and Hitler himself had fully supported the rocket programme in the earliest days of its development, the outcome of the war could have been very different.
The situation for Dornberger and the scientists changed when Hitler visited Peenemünde in May 1943 and was escorted around the site personally by Dornberger. The Führer was impressed by what he saw, and commented, ‘If only I’d believed in it!’ He then turned to Dornberger and said:
There are two people in my life whose pardon I must ask. One is Field Marshal Brauchitsch who said at the end of each report he made to me: ‘My Führer, think of Peenemünde!’ and the other is you, General, for not having believed in you.15
Dornberger became so valuable to Hitler that, as Allied troops advanced across Western Europe, he issued an order that Dornberger, Wernher von Braun and 450 scientists and technicians at Peenemünde were not to be captured under any circumstances. He issued an instruction that Dornberger was ‘to liquidate them all beforehand’ and commit suicide himself.16 This did not happen, because Braun and Dornberger had already realized that the situation was bad for Germany. By the end of 1944, they had contacted the General Electric Company, through the German embassy in Portugal, to try to come to an arrangement with the Allies.17 In recorded conversations at Trent Park, Dornberger did not elaborate further on this.
During his interrogation – more like a friendly, casual chat with a British army officer – Dornberger confirmed that development had started at Peenemünde in 1936.18 There were initially 3 testing areas on site, and eventually 11. He confirmed that building work on the site never really concluded and it was always being expanded. In the spring of 1937, the personnel from a smaller site at Kummersdorf were all transferred to Peenemünde, with the exception of those in the propulsion unit, which stayed at Kummersdorf. He then spoke about the V-weapon ‘bunkers’ at Cherbourg and Watten: they both had a concrete bunker, a firing bunker, a store bunker and a fuel bunker. Construction on these had begun in October 1943, and he estimated that in 1945 they were around 8–12 months from completion. The plants for producing oxygen for the experimental firing of V-weapons were at Peenemünde, Schmiedebach and Friedrichshafen. For operational use, oxygen was produced at a large plant at Wittlingen, but it could not manufacture enough. Hitler’s aim was for 2,000 projectiles a month, but there was only oxygen enough for 900 a month. There was also a great shortage of alcohol to mix with petrol for the fuel for vehicles and aircraft, and Germany did not have its own alcohol plants. The Germans instead turned to synthetic fuel production through the Reich Monopoly Administration for Spirits and Alcohol.19
British intelligence now had a detailed history and picture of the most secret parts of Germany’s rocket programme. But it had no information on Russian advances in rocket technology. Again, it was Dornberger who provided this – via unguarded discussions with fellow generals at Trent Park. From a conversation he had with Bassenge on the V-2, British intelligence learned that the Russians had secretly contacted the German scientists and offered to double any American bids for it.20 It is not clear when this offer was made, but the Russians wished to rebuild Peenemünde and construct a parallel factory in Russia. Of the offer, Dornberger commented: ‘We turned it down flat.’ He went on to say how the Russians had tried to kidnap Professor von Braun at Witzenhausen: ‘They appeared at night in English uniform; they didn’t realise it was in the American zone . . . Real kidnapping, they don’t stick to the boundaries at all.’ Fortunately, the quick-thinking guards realized the ruse and did not allow them through the checkpoint, even though those Russians in British uniform had acquired the proper passes.
There was another conversation with General Kurt Dittmar, in which Dornberger expressed his belief that Russia would soon be in a position to produce the bomb. The Russians would acquire the knowledge from Jewish scientists living in Russia:
just in the same way as the Russians stole all the secrets of armaments production from Great Britain and from Germany through their Communist Party, for the Communist Party is everywhere . . . the Russians will plant their agents systematically in all the countries concerned.
Dornberger’s presence in the house sparked a number of separate discussions among the generals about the atom bomb. Von Thoma said to him: ‘Don’t forget the number of our scientists whom the Russians have got.’
Another conversation of relevance was one in which General Pfuhlstein confirmed to Dornberger and Dittmar that the Russians already had access to scientific data on splitting the atom. This intelligence had been gleaned by German commanders, as German forces advanced into Russia in 1941. Pfuhlstein commented: ‘When we got to Dnipropetrovsk, we found that the Russians had similar apparatus, also for splitting the atom, and were just one step further than the people in Heidelberg.’ At that time, the Russians were keeping quiet about their progress on this. Dornberger understood the seriousness of the atomic technology in development and replied: ‘weapons of such a nature in the hands of irresponsible elements will bring about the utter disappearance of nations who are not members of some bloc of powers’.21
The significance of all this is vividly brought home by the words of Kendrick’s colleague Leo St Clare Grondona, who wrote after the war: ‘Had it not been for the information obtained at these centres [Trent Park, Latimer House and Wilton Park], it could have been London and not Hiroshima which was devastated by the first atomic bomb.’22
Atomic secrets and Farm Hall
While Dornberger was being held by Kendrick’s unit, Kendrick himself was planning the next stage of operations that would seek to gain intelligence surreptitiously from Hitler’s top scientists. The race was on for the British and the Americans to find Hitler’s atomic scientists (wherever they were hiding in Germany) and bring them to Britain and the US, before the Russians could capture them and tap into their scientific knowledge.23 Special British task forces searched for them across Germany, as Kendrick prepared Farm Hall, at Godmanchester, near Cambridge. This was a site that had already been used by MI6 for agents preparing for missions abroad during the war.
Twelve senior German atomic scientists were picked up in various locations in Germany, with the help of counter-intelligence sections, field security units and Ian Fleming’s 30 Assault Unit. They were held at a site known as ‘Dustbin’, a detention centre set up at Château du Chesnay (France), later moving to Château le Facqueval (Belgium),24 before transfer by special flight to Tempsford airfield in Bedfordshire.25 On arrival in Britain, they were taken to Farm Hall, where they were interned for six months – from 3 July until December 1945 – in a highly classified operation codenamed Operation Epsilon. By the time of their arrival, Kendrick had already arranged for the house to be wired for sound, with microphones again hidden in the lights and fireplaces.26
The scientists were not POWs, but civilians, and no reasons were given for their internment. The purpose of holding them, before their eventual transfer to the United States, was to gain scientific intelligence and ascertain their reactions to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.27 Discussions covered the topics of uranium production, isotopes, radium and heavy water. They admitted that they had not had enough uranium to succeed with an atomic bomb.28 These were important insights for British and US intelligence, as it sought to piece together how far Hitler’s atomic bomb programme had progressed.
From the M Room at Farm Hall, the secret listeners overheard Professor Heisenberg saying: ‘Microphones installed? (laughing). Oh no, they’re not as cute as all that. I don’t think they know the real Gestapo methods; they’re a bit old fashioned in that respect.’29 Ironically, nothing had changed in the attitudes of German personnel since Kendrick’s teams first listened to the conversations of prisoners of war in 1939.
From May 1945 and over the summer, personnel began to leave their posts at Kendrick’s sites, some for demobilization and civilian life. Memories of their war under his command were strong, and the impact he had had on them as a commander is reflected in letters written to him at this time. Senior intelligence officers always began their letters ‘Dear Tommy’.
Kendrick had been a fair, honest man, who was clearly supportive of his staff. Dr W. Stark, who became a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, wrote: ‘I beg to assure you that I was always happy in the work which I had the privilege to do under your command.’30
Army psychiatrist Henry Dicks wrote to express his sense of gratitude
for all the kindness and hospitality shown me by you personally, and all the people under you during my attachment to the centre. Your toleration and forbearance of this queer ‘foreign body’ within the organisation of your unit, has enabled me to be of some help to my various departments. As is usual, the job developed far beyond the original brief on which I was sent to No. 1 [Latimer House].31
In November 1945, the musician Aylmer Buesst told Kendrick:
On my return to civilian life, I would like to express my appreciation of your kindness during the time I served under you. I shall always consider myself lucky to have come under your notice. It could so easily have been otherwise and many people were inclined to be – well, unenthusiastic, in regard to a man of my age, and preferred to pass them over to someone else.32
In another letter, signature indecipherable, an officer wrote:
On July 2nd 1940, in a grey suit, I joined. Five years later, I have had a very great deal to thank you for. I always felt, and still feel, that I was the worst linguist in your command, so I am particularly grateful for the fact that you took me on at all, and that having done so, you helped me along so kindly.33
There was praise from female officers. Betty Cole (Women’s Royal Naval Service) wrote: ‘I have had a very happy time at 1 DC, and I shall look back on it as one of the pleasantest periods of the war. May I wish you, Sir, all prosperity in the future.’34
Secret listener Albert Hollander assured him that ‘it was always an honour and pleasure to me to serve under your command and that I was really happy at both No. 1 and No. 2 DC . . . accept my grateful thanks and respects for all you have been to me’.35 In July 1945, when secret listener Fritz Lustig wished to marry Susan Cohn (ATS), also a Jewish émigré from Germany, it was army protocol to ask permission for marriage from the commanding officer. Kendrick readily gave it.36
The distant days of the spymaster’s life in Vienna could not be forgotten. Kendrick wanted to establish the safety of friends in occupied Austria. When he discovered that a British officer (unnamed) was being posted to Vienna, Kendrick asked him to make contact with his friends and to call on Count Wilczek, to check whether he had survived the war.37 Wilczek had survived, although in very poor health. He had used all his finances to support Austrian Jews in hiding from the Nazis and, by the end of the war, was struggling to find food for himself.
Again, on Kendrick’s instructions, the British officer travelled to Prague to visit Count and Countess Sternberg, where they had lived with their daughter throughout the war. The Sternbergs had refused to bow to Nazi ideology and, as a consequence, had been forced to lead a very restrictive life. They were permitted to return to their estate at Častolovice in Czechoslovakia, where they carried on entertaining as in the olden days. They were keen to learn from the British officer about his visit to Wilczek. Over a cup of tea, the countess asked him: ‘Who sent you to him?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ he replied, ‘except that it was someone pretty high up at home.’ As the Russians tightened their grip on Eastern Europe, the Sternbergs emigrated in 1948 to the United States, where they struggled financially until the countess’s talent as an artist again brought a decent standard of living.
It was in the post-war period that Kendrick heard word about the Italian naval officer from whom Kendrick’s SIS secretary Clara Holmes had tried to gain intelligence in Italy via ‘pillow talk’. He is also unnamed, but it was known that he had betrayed his friends to the Nazis. Over dinner one evening after the war, mutual friends of Holmes and Kendrick in Vienna reassured her that the man ‘had been dealt with’. Daughter Prudence Hopkinson commented: ‘We understood perfectly well the implication of that. During a meal he was poisoned for betraying those friends.’38
CSDIC at Bad Nenndorf
Kendrick’s operation throughout the war had proved so successful that Field Marshal Montgomery requested the establishment of such a unit for 21 Army Group in post-war Germany. This became known as No. 74 CSDIC or CSDIC (Western Europe Area) and was located at Bad Nenndorf, in the British occupied sector of Germany. It opened in September 1945 with a skeleton staff, including secret listeners dispatched from Kendrick’s wartime sites. Kendrick did not command this CSDIC unit himself, since he was considered by MI6 and the director of military intelligence to be too valuable to be sent to Germany, although the precise reasons were not outlined by them.39 Instead, No. 74 CSDIC was run by a wartime colleague of his, Colonel Robin (‘Tin-Eye’) Stephens of MI5, who had commanded the MI5 interrogation centre at Latchmere House, near Richmond. Kendrick’s success during the war in methods of intelligence gathering had again provided the template for No. 74 CSDIC, where Stephens’ intelligence personnel secretly recorded the interrogations and conversations of German political prisoners, technologists and suspected Nazi war criminals.
In an interesting twist of fate, it was at CSDIC Bad Nenndorf in October 1945 that Abwehr officer Captain Sokolowski was interrogated, during which he referred to Kendrick’s arrest in Vienna in 1938. Sokolowski admitted to having worked for the Abwehr branch Amt. III (F), counter-espionage, in Wilhelmshaven, although he had not been engaged on deception work. He was able to recall the case of an Austrian, Tucek, whose first name he never knew (see chapter 4). Tucek had been sent out from the Abwehr station in Vienna (known as Ast. Vienna) to Ast. Wilhelmshaven. Sokolowski passed him on to Captain Stobbe, the Abwehr naval officer based undercover in the dockyard. The summary interrogation report then reads:
Tucek was in contact with a British intelligence officer in Vienna, whose name Prisoner [Sokolowski] believes was Candrick or Kendrick. Candrick wished Tucek to obtain drawings of U-boats. Tucek informed Ast. Vienna, and with the agreement of Stobbe he was employed in the drawing office in the naval dockyard. Prisoner believes that on two or three occasions Irreführungsmaterial [chicken feed] was passed through Tucek to Candrick, but the nature of this material is not known to him. Tucek was also sent to Switzerland in order, Prisoner thinks, to find Candrick’s contacts there. At a subsequent meeting between Tucek and Candrick, the latter was arrested, but after a few days was allowed to proceed to England.40
This provides a rare eyewitness account of the Abwehr’s deception operation against Kendrick, and confirms what has been discovered elsewhere about Kendrick’s betrayal – that his real name and identity had eluded the Abwehr until his arrest. He had remained the ‘elusive Englishman’.
The fate of Kendrick’s sites
Valuable prisoners were still being brought to Latimer House in autumn 1945. From 1 September, all the members of the German air force staff who had been captured by British and US forces in Germany were brought to Latimer House, under the jurisdiction of ADI(K).41 The site changed its name from No. 1 Distribution Centre to No. 2 Personnel Holding Unit. It was capable of holding up to 300 German air force personnel.42
Among the Luftwaffe commanders to arrive at nearby Bovingdon aerodrome were Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle, General Karl Koller (chief of the general staff of Luftwaffe) and General Adolf Galland, together with many significant civilian technicians.43 German air force personnel continued to arrive on a daily basis throughout September. They were interrogated chiefly about technology and weaponry, and from them British intelligence was able to compile a comprehensive report on German policy, as well as map the technical developments of German research and technology.44 They remained at Latimer until December 1945, when they were repatriated to Germany.
Hermann Goering was interrogated at length by Felkin, who flew to Luxembourg, where Goering was being held in a special detention centre. The three services had prepared over 500 questions for him. It is understood that Goering may have been brought – very briefly – to Latimer for interrogation, but this has not been verified.45
The CSDIC side of Latimer House under Kendrick formally closed on 7 November 1945. It had been an extraordinary war, as John Whitten, an interrogator who specialized in fighter pilots, recalled: ‘Latimer was the most exciting year of my career.’46 Lord Chesham never occupied the Latimer estate again. It was the subject of a compulsory purchase order, and from 1947 became a site for the Joint Services Staff College, then the National Defence College. Today, it is a hotel and conference centre.
Wilton Park became No. 300 POW Camp, where thousands of German POWs underwent a re-education and denazification programme, in readiness for their repatriation to Germany. Afterwards, Wilton Park continued to have military links, and by the 1980s had become an army languages centre. It has since been sold for development.
In December 1945, Trent Park finally closed as ‘special quarters’, but the full extent of its clandestine wartime operations did not come to light until files were declassified between 1999 and 2004. By 1948, the generals had been repatriated to Germany. With operations concluded, Kendrick authorized the clearing of the three sites to remove all evidence of the bugging operation.47 Between January and summer 1946, a team of engineers from Dollis Hill quietly dismantled the microphones at Trent Park, although the original wiring, which was deeply embedded in the fabric of the house, remained: it was discovered in 2017.48
For over 65 years, a shroud of secrecy descended over the whole wartime work that had been carried out behind the barbed-wire fences of Kendrick’s three sites.
Kendrick returns to MI6
On 7 November 1945, Kendrick was posted back to MI6 for ‘special duties’.49 The discussion about his future had already begun the previous year, when John Sinclair (‘Sinbad’), director of military intelligence, wrote to Menzies (head of MI6): ‘We are all grateful to you for the loan of his services . . . He has such wide experience that I feel that care should be taken to see that he is used to the best advantage.’50
Menzies replied:
So long as he is capable of work, I feel strongly that his vast knowledge of Germans should not be lost to the war effort, and I would be prepared to retain him with a view to taking a later decision as to where he could best be employed. I am not particularly anxious to offer him to the Control Commission until you and I have made up our mind that there is not a more important role for him.51
In September 1946, rather than a posting to the Control Commission in Germany, Kendrick was sent to the Intelligence Corps depot, Oudenarde Barracks at Aldershot, for unspecified duties.52 His personal army record states that he returned to MI6, but the nature of that posting has never been divulged.53 He had, in fact, always been part of SIS, even though he had been attached to the Intelligence Corps from 1939 to 1945. It was a proud moment when, in 1946, he was given the Legion of Merit award for his services to US intelligence. The citation, signed personally by President Truman, noted that he had
rendered exceptionally valuable services as commanding officer of a special center for interrogation of enemy prisoners of war . . . He willingly made available to the United States intelligence units all facilities at his command, and contributed greatly through his earnest cooperation to the effective training of American intelligence personnel.54
From the British side, there was no further recognition beyond his OBE of 1943. Today, when people hear about the achievements of Kendrick, they question why he was not given greater recognition.
Although nothing official could be written about the wartime operation (because it remained classified for over 60 years), it was fictionalized in 1965 in a three-part BBC radio play entitled Lord Glenaldy – a take on Lord Aberfeldy, the fake aristocrat at Trent Park.55 The script was by the former head of MI19, Arthur Rawlinson, and he changed the names of intelligence officers to hide their true identities. Kendrick was rather disconcerted by the main character’s name – ‘Tommy Kaye’ – because he thought ‘Tommy’ as a first name might give him away.56 Rawlinson reassured him that Tommy Kaye was only loosely based on him; but he did tell Kendrick that the chief characteristics of Tommy Kaye, as ‘a wise, efficient and sympathetic personality’, accurately reflected Kendrick’s own disposition.57
The play was humorous and accurately reflected the ingenious deceptions and tricks that Kendrick and his colleagues used to charm Hitler’s generals. Billed as ‘faction’, it enabled the public to enjoy the amusing anecdotes of a wartime operation – though based on facts, they were still officially classified and not definitely confirmed as having taken place.58 In the piece, Rawlinson provided a rare insight into the qualities of Kendrick, the spymaster – a man about whose personality nothing is written elsewhere.
In retirement
In 1948, Kendrick retired from SIS after four decades of distinguished service to British intelligence.59 In retirement, he enjoyed membership of the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall and matches at Lord’s Cricket Ground, where he joined his MI6 colleagues in the gentlemen’s box. Here the old boys’ network was in full swing: smoking cigars or cigarettes on the terrace, they would rag one another, with jokes and veiled references to their clandestine life. Perhaps, even then, he had not retired.
Fact can certainly be stranger than fiction. Not for the first time, Kendrick’s past resurfaced after he and Norah moved from Woodton to Briarholme, still in the village of Oxshott. Living next door was his colleague and one-time agent Charles ‘Dick’ Ellis. Ellis had risen high in SIS, and had later became an instructor for the Office of Strategic Services in the United States, and then a founder member of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. A question mark has always remained in Kendrick’s family over whether it was Ellis who betrayed Kendrick in Vienna. Ellis came under suspicion after the defection to Moscow of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean in 1951, and of Kim Philby in 1963, when the intelligence services began a molehunt for other traitors. But, as this biography has shown, it was actually Karl Tucek, not Ellis, who betrayed Kendrick to the Abwehr in 1938.
In Kendrick’s twilight years, life became something of a struggle, as he and Norah tried to survive on a small army pension. Barbara Lloyd has fond memories of regularly cooking Kendrick’s favourite dish of tripe and onions for him when he was old. His life was simple and yet he never complained. It was a far cry from the clandestine world and high-society circles that he had penetrated during his days as the spymaster.
Death of the spymaster
Kendrick died in Weybridge Hospital, in Surrey, on 3 March 1972 at the age of 91. A few days later, family and friends gathered at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Cobham for the funeral service. Standing aloof from other mourners were several men in black suits, raincoats and trilby hats.
Grandson Ken Walsh turned to his mother to ask: ‘Who are they?’
‘Oh, they’re from the secret service,’ she whispered.
This was the world that Kendrick had inhabited: not the fast cars and ostentatious gadgets of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, but the grey, gritty world of Graham Greene’s The Third Man or John le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
After the church service, a small group of mourners drove to the municipal cemetery in the leafy middle-class suburban town of Weybridge. Sheltered from the noise of the local traffic, time seemed to stand still in this burial ground. Pockets of crocuses defied the crisp, cold March day to demonstrate that spring had arrived. Daffodils were beginning to make a show. Family and friends fell silent as the cortege came into view and pulled up at the main gates. They watched as the coffin was gently lifted out. The four pallbearers began the slow walk down the main path, past the tiny Jewish burial section and row upon row of Christian headstones. At a junction in the path, they turned left and the coffin was brought to rest on the wooden supports across the grave. Prayers were said for 91-year-old Thomas Joseph Kendrick, who was being buried that day, and the mourners remembered him in their thoughts.
Norah lived on for five years after his death, passing away in 1977, but not before traces of her husband’s secret life had started to emerge. Grandson Ken recalled seeing a suitcase in the attic:
It had gadgets in it, like hairbrushes with secret compartments, fountain pens with compasses hidden in them, and silk maps of Europe carried by spies. As children, we picked up vibes that prevented us asking questions about Grandpa’s goings on.
With a keen interest in cricket and rugby, Kendrick had been loved and respected in many circles, even by Hitler’s generals in the Second World War, who had no idea that he was actually working for the British secret service. Kendrick never spoke about that life, except to make an occasional, veiled reference or fleeting comment. He left behind no paper trail, diary or footprint that could compromise the organization headquartered then at Broadway Buildings. There was no obituary or any tributes in the national press – in contrast to 1938, when his unceremonious expulsion from Vienna on allegations of spying made headlines around the world.
Behind the jovial mask of culture and old-fashioned humour, this gregarious military man hid an epoch of state secrets even from his own family. In the end, they did have a notion that he had worked for SIS; but that was the extent of their awareness. To them, he was a husband, father or grandfather, who frequently came home in army uniform and who taught his grandchildren songs from the First World War: ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’, ‘Hello, Hello, Who’s your Lady Friend’ and ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’. Barbara recalls: ‘When entertaining at home, Grandpa often asked myself and Ken to perform these songs to his guests and made many recordings of their singing onto wax records with his old cumbersome recording machine.’60
And, even though Barbara went on to work for ‘the Office’ for a short period in the 1950s, Kendrick never disclosed to her what he had done in the same world. She knew better than to ask.
Neither Barbara nor her brothers had any inkling that he was one of the greatest spymasters of the twentieth century. Only a couple of paragraphs about him appeared in the official history of MI6 in 2010, obscuring his true significance in the organization. In fact, Kendrick’s life provides a window onto that intimate and mysterious world of MI6, played out against the backdrop of the macro-events of Europe in the twentieth century. But most of all, Kendrick could be trusted in an era of double agents and defectors. That is a shadowy world that continues to fascinate, and Kendrick’s story is no exception. He served five British monarchs and gained huge respect and legendary status within MI6. His long and rewarding life as a spy spanned over 40 years in the top echelons of British intelligence. He had achieved more than most in the service, and yet only the men in trench coats at his funeral knew or understood his enormous legacy. No one could speak about it in the eulogy: MI6 did not officially exist. Kendrick took to his grave some of the most sensitive and closely guarded secrets of a nation and its secret service.
Vienna’s ‘Oskar Schindler’
As of this book’s publication, Kendrick has not yet been recognized as a ‘righteous gentile’ at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, although efforts are under way to rectify this. One reason is that those people whom he rescued have long since passed away, and Yad Vashem has traditionally required eyewitness testimonies. It is hoped that the material in this biography – alongside the accounts in Lord Weidenfeld’s autobiography and in the autobiography of Eric Sanders, whom Kendrick saved in Vienna – will enable him to be officially recognized.
On 20 November 2008, the Foreign Office in London unveiled a plaque to acknowledge the British diplomats and consular staff who saved Jews from the Holocaust in various cities across Europe. Many of those listed were prominent members of the British secret service who had been on active service abroad and among the names was that of Kendrick. Eleven years later, in November 2019, a plaque to Kendrick was unveiled on a special memorial wall in the Jewish cemetery at Hoop Lane, Golders Green. The other plaques on this wall recognize the humanitarian efforts to rescue Jews made by a number of gentiles, including Kendrick’s SIS colleague Frank Foley. This is currently the only plaque dedicated to Kendrick as a righteous gentile for his part in saving thousands of Austrian Jews in 1938.
As far as possible, I have always believed it important to see the places and sites relevant to my research: it provides a sense of place and history, and offers a chance to understand the surroundings and to make observations. Accordingly, one autumn day in 2010, I drove to the cemetery at Weybridge. As I stood at Kendrick’s grave, nearly 40 years after his passing, I felt the presence of that lost world of espionage; and I sensed that something of the secret service had died with him. I picked up a small pebble and placed it on the polished granite gravestone (something that is customary in the Jewish tradition). That pebble was for the thousands of Jews whom Tommy Kendrick had rescued from certain death in the Holocaust; for their descendants who would not have been born; and for freedom, which he had spent a lifetime defending.