Hitler's Spy (15 page)

‘From our personal talk,’ deduced Robertson, ‘I am very much inclined to think that Snow is entirely trustworthy, and quite straightforward in the things which he gives me and
the answers to my questions.’

Having invested rather less in the Little Man, Guy Liddell sounded a note of caution. ‘These bombs may well be a plant, and I am advising that we take no action. The Director-General and
Jasper Harker agree.’

In fact the Ryvita bombs were all too real, but of inferior design, and failed to explode before the ship reached Port Louis seven weeks later. Robertson was wrong to
trust Owens, no doubt hoping against hope that money, comfortable lodgings and 18B bought loyalty of a sort. Harder to comprehend is the fact that MI5 seemed to miss the significance of
Owens’ next treff with Rantzau, proposed for May by the mysterious Doctor – on board a fishing trawler, in the middle of the cold North Sea.

Agent Snow had forecast ‘real war’ for the middle of April, a prediction borne out by the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. Now the trawler treff surely tended to suggest an
absence of neutral dry land in Western Europe by the end of May. No Netherlands, no Belgium, not even a Duchy of Luxembourg.

Yet again, MI5 were in danger of missing the boat.

6

In a fit of uncommon bravado, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, denounced the German invasion of Norway on 9 April as the act of ‘a homicidal lunatic or mad
dog’. In fact, precisely the opposite was true. In moving to ‘protect’ Norway against ‘Franco-British aggression’ Hitler not only obtained sheltered bases for U-boats
and surface raiders to harass Allied shipping in the North Atlantic but also secured vital shipments of iron ore from Sweden, Norway’s close Scandinavian neighbour. There was also the small
matter of the Norsk Hydro plant in Telemark, the only facility in Europe capable of producing heavy water for nuclear fission.

Right hot.

Parachute troops (
Fallschirmjäger
) dropped from the skies over Oslo to seize key harbours and airfields, in the process revealing a novel military innovation already flagged as a
threat to London by Agent Snow. With no airborne arm of their own, Britain and France hurriedly embarked an amphibious force for Norway, though the troops boasted little in the way of specialist
training and looked certain to face opposed landings at ports such as Narvik and Trondheim. Plainly some form of deception would greatly increase their chances of success, and perhaps repeat the
trick of the ‘Russians in England’ in 1914, whose phantom presence delivered victory at the Battle of the Marne.
Thus, as a scratch Allied force was hastily
assembled in northern ports, MI5 laid plans for the vanguard to land with Snow on their boots.

‘French and Canadian troops sailing from Scotland to Norway,’
Owens buzzed Wohldorf, sticking to a script dictated by the Wireless Committee.
‘Information
difficult to obtain. Very secret.’

Adopting a somewhat bolder stance, on 19 April the Joint Intelligence Committee agreed that Agent Snow should try to convince the enemy that the main Allied effort would fall on Bergen. A scheme
was devised whereby Owens would put across to the Germans that the War Office had issued an urgent call for photographs of Bergen. ‘This information should be brought to Snow through Charlie,
who is in a first-class position to hear of such requirements. On sending this over by radio, it is hoped that the Allies will be able to make a fairly easy landing at Trondheim.’

The stunt became all the more urgent after several British, French and Polish brigades landed at Narvik, only to encounter determined counter-attacks and raging blizzards. Inevitably,
Snow’s Bergen deception fell apart just as shamefully as did the entire Norwegian campaign. Charlie inexplicably failed to call Snow as arranged on the morning of Saturday, 20 April, after
which Owens set off on a lengthy reconnaissance tour of the West Country, leaving William Rolph in charge at Sackville Street. Eschborn finally telephoned on Tuesday, but made no mention of Bergen
and spoke only of Trondheim – where landings had already begun, flagged loudly in advance by the Fleet Street press.

The result was another inglorious debacle. Allied forces failed to gain a viable foothold anywhere in Norway and by the end of the month were being evacuated, with Quislings and a phantom Fifth
Column widely held to blame. ‘The place was full of spies,’ complained one Scots soldier of the Trondheim expedition. ‘Every move we made was known to the Germans almost
as soon as we made it. A Norwegian radio operator signalled directions to German aeroplanes which were carrying out raids. The Norwegians shot him.’

Spies, so it seemed, lurked on every corner. The day after Owens set off on his field trip, Rolph received an exotic visitor at Sackville Street. Sporting a blue suit and an impressive black fez
(but a limited command of English), an Indian seaman dropped off a package containing two brand-new wireless valves. In a rare display of efficiency Rolph tailed the dapper courier back to the
City of Simla
, a freighter berthed at the Albert Dock following a round trip from Tilbury to Antwerp. The Lascar was quickly identified as Mohideen Coonjee, almost certainly hired by Obed
Hussein, a disaffected Indian national based in Antwerp, who had already attempted to sabotage British shipping using the port. Fortunately his efforts were no more effective than the dud firebombs
placed on the
City of Sydney
.

MI5 remained at sea throughout April. While Snow toured aerodromes and ports around Exeter and Bristol, Robertson turned his mind to the intricacies of the proposed trawler treff. Although
chartering a worthy vessel was relatively straightforward, hiring a civilian crew threw up significant security risks. Looking further ahead, Tar also recognised that it would not be enough to
simply land the explosives on the east coast. ‘Suitable factories must be picked in various parts of the country,’ he advised Liddell. ‘Naturally it will be necessary to have an
actual explosion in order to instil confidence into the enemy. This should be followed by a necessary amount of publicity in the press.’

There was also the vexed question of a suitable sidekick. Walter Dicketts’ lengthy criminal record kept him out of the frame, besides which he already knew far too much about Snow and the
double-cross system to be allowed to travel into Germany. Gwilym Williams, too, was unsuited to the task,
having been unable even to penetrate Plaid Cymru, let alone raise a
functioning Welsh Fifth Column. ‘I filled in the form but I received no reply,’ the retired inspector informed Tar in a discouraging letter. ‘With great respect, I wish to point
out that my activities might be construed as being contrary to the provisions of the Police Pensions Act 1921, Section 15.’

Ironically, the candidate put forward by Maxwell Knight of Section B5B was a dead ringer for Dicketts. Sam McCarthy was an occasional MI5 informant who had ‘knocked around the world a good
deal’ as a dope addict, smuggler, petty thief and jailbird, and had recently completed a mission in Holland linked to a fascist named Heath, now interned under 18B. Canadian by birth, and
variously known as ‘Frank’ or ‘Mac’, B1A now saddled Knight’s rough diamond agent with a puzzling new cryptonym: BISCUIT.

‘He is to be put on Snow in such a way as to preclude the possibility of Owens realising that he is one of ours,’ proposed Liddell. ‘Snow is to see him and let things develop
in the ordinary way.’

Owens returned home on the last day in April. Despite having spent more than a week in the field, however, the dope buzzed from Richmond to Wohldorf remained dangerously low-grade.
‘Westland Aircraft producing new machines, Supermarine production 50 Spitfires monthly. Bristol Aircraft making new twin engined fighter . . . Cirencester aerodrome 30 machines + Airspeed
Oxford, Hawker Fury and Hawker Harts.’

Demanding rather more than he troubled to deliver, Johnny signed off:
‘Urgently send me bombs.’

On Monday, 6 May, two more Indian seamen called at Sackville Street, checking on the valves but dropping nothing explosive. The pair were traced to a cargo ship at Greenwich and allowed to
remain at large, but failed to lead to other Nazi agents in London. Rolph, it was noted, appeared to be growing too close to Owens, yet MI5 failed to appreciate that these
several visits by Lascar seamen indicated a private communication channel between Agent Snow and the Abwehr organisation in Antwerp.

The following day Robertson briefed Sam McCarthy at his London club. ‘I asked him to go down to The Marlborough some time round about 6 pm tonight. I gave him a description of Snow, and
suggested he should approach him from the Canadian aspect.’ Mac would explain that he was thinking of moving to Richmond, and was short of funds. Tar advanced the hard-drinking former dope
fiend a pound by way of beer money, and asked him to report on progress the next morning. ‘I gave him a rough outline of Snow’s character and pointed out that he was a tremendous
talker.’

As Biscuit moved on Snow, speculation mounted that Germany was poised to invade Holland and Belgium. Dutch forces mobilised on 7 May, prompting an urgent signal from the London stelle to
Wohldorf.
‘Have secret documents + RAF reports. Applied for exit permit. When can I meet you?’

Answer came there none. At dawn on Friday, 10 May, Hitler launched Operation
Sichelschnitt
, a broad ‘sickle stroke’ in which seventy-six German divisions steamrollered
Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, at the same time penetrating into Northern France through the thick forests of the Ardennes. The Sitzkrieg was over. German paratroops again dropped from the sky to
seize key bridges and airfields around The Hague and Rotterdam, while just eighty men in gliders neutralised the giant Belgian fortress at Eben-Emael near Liège. Galvanised at last, the
British Expeditionary Force advanced into Belgium to meet the enemy head on, repeating a strategy adopted in August 1914. By the end of the day ailing Neville Chamberlain had resigned as Prime
Minister, to be replaced by a far more robust war leader in the form of Winston Churchill who famously offered the British people ‘blood, toil, tears and sweat’.

Electing to govern by virtual decree, Britain’s new premier
immediately stepped up the internment of aliens and hostiles under Regulation 18B. The success of enemy
paratroops in Holland inevitably heightened paranoia about the Fifth Column, flooding the press with lurid tales of fanatical Nazis dressed as priests, postmen and – bizarrely – nuns.
Paradoxically, Agent Snow welcomed these alarmist developments. A clean sweep of rival agents under 18B meant that Hamburg would become wholly reliant on the London stelle, and reduced the risk of
visits by sinister sleepers. Moreover, the onset of Blitzkrieg in Western Europe might bring the war to a rapid conclusion, with Colonel Johnny a feted hero on the winning side.

Because countries didn’t count.

Excepting Holland, where Ritter found himself arrested and detained on the eve of the German assault. As a result Wohldorf resumed radio contact with Owens only on 14 May, fully four days into
the
Sichelschnitt
campaign. For MI5, the good news was that Doctor Rantzau wished to meet Johnny the following week. The bad news was that the centre of Rotterdam was razed by the
Luftwaffe on the very same day, a blunt demonstration of air power that killed a thousand civilians and forced the Dutch government to capitulate. With Holland neutralised rather than neutral, the
trawler treff was impossible to avoid.

By meeting Rantzau in the North Sea, Agent Snow stood to discover whether German paratroopers were set to ransack the Home Counties, or if a seaborne invasion was more likely. On 15 May
Robertson and Richman Stopford hastened to the busy east coast port of Grimsby, where they met with Mr Leach of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to discuss chartering a suitable boat.
‘We explained that we wanted to arrange for a trawler to go to a certain rendezvous in the North Sea, taking one or two people from our side who would meet a German submarine, or seaplane or
trawler.’ Leach was told nothing about the Snow case, or the reason for the rendezvous, learning only
that ‘there would be a short conversation, and possibly one
or two from our side would not return.’

Leach recommended Sir Thomas Robinson & Son (Grimsby) Ltd, who readily agreed to lend MI5 a large fishing trawler named the
Barbados
. Built in 1905 and displacing 130 tons, the
Barbados
carried a crew of nine and was skippered by Captain Walker. ‘He is entirely trustworthy,’ noted Robertson. ‘He is going to tell the crew that they will be seeing
funny things on this trip, but whatever they see will not be what they think it is.’ Tar also promised to pass Walker the German recognition signal as soon as it was known, having come to
appreciate that ‘it would not be safe to rely on believing Snow once the voyage has begun.’

So far as the crew of the
Barbados
were concerned, the two strangers were ‘special observers’ from a government department. As with Owens, financial reward was the principal
driver. ‘It is said they value money above most things. Each man will be promised a bonus of £5, the mate £10, and the skipper £20 – if the trip is satisfactorily
carried out.’

After consulting with Leach and Walker, the treff was fixed for a point 120 miles due east of Grimsby, precisely midway between England and Holland and slightly south of the Dogger Bank.
‘We decided on this position because fishing any considerable distance outside the permitted grounds would arouse suspicion, and might lead to action against the ship on the part of our own
aircraft. The trawlers generally fish in company, or at any rate not far from each other. The skipper will have to detach the ship from any company she may be in discreetly and if possible after
dark.’

Owens buzzed the details to Wohldorf next day.
‘Name of ship Barbados. Meet me 53 degrees 40 minutes north 3 degrees 10 minutes east, 26 fathoms – midnight Tuesday 21st or
Wednesday 29th May.’