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Kiwi Soldier Web
George Watson's War.
This is a story from the 2NZEF Divisional Signals.
Annie and the Generals - contd
The Strange Intercept at Casale
Casale, an Italian village in the steep hills to the right of Cassino, looking
north, is not easy to find on a map. Tourist guide books make no reference
to it. Nevertheless, it has a place in New Zealand history. Thousands of New
Zealanders stayed in the locality, one could say lived there, for a brief interlude
in the Italian campaign. It was spring and sleeping in the open under
bright stars of the Mediterranean, the music of the nightingales was a revelation
to even the hardest Kiwi. There was, however, in addition a less obvious
and more exciting sound at Casale. "Sound" is not the correct word because
it required a batlike aural sensitivity to be heard.
In order to understand these events and reactions at Casale it is necessary
to have an overview of the situation on the Italian front. The New Zealand
and United States assaults on Cassino had failed. Even sb we knew that the
tough defensive line hingeing on Cassino, guarding the gateway to
Rome, would fall to the next attack. We were convinced also that victory in
Europe was in hand. Of course we had little knowledge that all our advantages
could be wiped out by losses in the ongoing top secret races in labs and
backrooms for the nuclear bomb, more advanced guided missiles, long range
ballistic missiles and revolutionary aircraft. Although many will disagree, the
fact was that in Italy unless one carried a bayonet or had such rotten
responsibilities as minefield clearing, also requiring a bayonet, the war had become
a great adventure, tempered only by separation from loved ones back in the
South Pacific.
I was the Divisional Wireless Officer at this time. It was a good posting.
When I found, after the move to Casale that our HF radio links to the Brigades
were tenuous to the point of unreliability, I had only to look at the steep
hills surrounding our headquarters to see the reason. We had good line
communication, however, and as we did not expect to be attacked, there
was no great flap over the poor radio back up. I did take action, however,
and an HF station was installed on the rim of the major hill screen. It worked
well with a vertical antenna, but lugging supplies, especially batteries, indeed
getting up there at all, was an endurance test. This remote set was connected
by telephone to the divisional operations office and main radio control
in the topographical basin below.
The radio group now being secure and the situation tranquil, we became
interested in the comparative performance of vertical and horizontal antennas
in the particular combination of variables presented by this operational
environment. We had lots of time, lots of staff and no radio silence. The tests
went on for days. They involved a considerable amount of keydown transmission
and the delight of German SIGINT can be imagined. Of course the
imagination may have just been mine because we never received a thank you
signal from the Germans. Having said this, it may be thought
that our transmissions were more than foolhardy but we had complete
superiority on the ground, in the air and the enemy were very short of guns and
ammunition. Furthermore, the validity of the intelligence had to be weighed.
Our signals may have been a trap or a variant of the signals spoofing for which
Eighth Anny had become well known since Alamein.
Regardless of these hypotheses, the tranquility of the large HQ was shaken
one afternoon during the hour of siesta by a nasty bombardment. 50 far as I
know, no one was seriously hurt and damage was minor so it was a poor
investment for the instigators. No one connected the bombardment with our
radio experiments and indeed they were not in the same time frame. We
had stopped some time before. As so often is the case in 5IGINT, one has to
draw ones own conclusions.
Our comparisons of the perfonnance of the horizontal and vertical
antennas produced a collection of beautiful graphs. Among other things
the graphs for the horizontal antenna showed the passage of the sun through
its zenith with great accuracy each day.
The D region absorption is directly proportional to the sun's vertical angle.
We were using frequencies in the lower part of the HF band between 3 and
4MHz. We were just barely within direct ray range of both antennas for
the powers we were using. Even so in the case of the vertical, the low angle
direct ray was strong enough to mask the steep dip in indirect ray signal
strength at noon. It is tempting to go into this experiment in depth because
of the lessons involved. Although we reinvented several wheels, the work
dramatized for us the relationship of antenna angles, vertical and horizontal,
with the changing ionosphere both at a fixed frequency and with changes
of frequency to the optimum.
E Region absorption and refraction is interesting also, but for those of us
who were concerned with tactical radio, especially in the desert, 0 Region
absorption was the big factor and saved many lives. Typically our New Zealand
infantry would succeed in their night attacks, but their low power HF man
pack radio signals would be completely blocked at night by a multitude of long
distance high power point to point transmissions coming in at a low angle.
Without radio communication, artillery support, tanks and advice could not be
provided except on a preset plan which would surely turn out to be wrong. But
with the coming of dawn, the long distance radio clamour would slowly
fade as the 0 Region got itself together and order would be restored if the infantry
units had not been over run at sunrise. Prior to World War II the
Germans had opted for VHF tactical radio and the Americans were well
advanced in a similar move to VHF. Thus their problems were different to say the least.
Somewhere in this period of amateur radio research, one morning in our
radio control office I called the radio station, perched high up on the rim of
the miniature mountain, using the remote control cable to the set. I was a
little angry to hear CW signals and some atmospherics. The signals were
very weak but nevertheless indicated that the remote set was switched on
without need aI"\d contrary to strict orders. Conservation of battery power
was essential because of the severe porterage involved in maintenance. I
gave the senior operator, an NCO, a ticking off. He replied somewhat
strongly that the set was not switched on. Down at control, I handed the
headphones to the section sergeant saying, "listen to this, and they say the
set is not switched on." "I can't hear anything," the sergeant replied. Not
surprisingly, I was shaken and the sergeant looked at me strangely. I had
been involved in every action of the Division since Crete in 1941 and my
mind went back to Marconi marine days when jokes were cracked about
radio operators stuck too long in the Gulf, the Persian Gulf of course. I let
the matter drop in a meaningful silence. The next morning the signals were
stronger and this time our sergeant thought he could hear something. The
transmission was about 60 per cent copy for me. It was German and
mentioned numbers of Panzers here and there. Poor copy and poor translation
did not help us. I rushed to the Intelligence Office with what we had,
thinking it may have been a lucky intercept of a secret form of enemy
transmission involving earth currents occurring either accidently or deliberately.
By this time, it was apparent that the pitch of the signals was so high, they
were easily detectable only to me because of evident abnormally high cut
off of my hearing.
It was an exciting thirty minutes or so and I can still recall the scene in the
Intelligence Truck as I ran up the back steps waving the piece of paper. Geoff
Cox took only a minute or two looking at it. "John, " he said, "this is some
sort of broadcast news with a lot of Soviet tank casualty details." We had
the famous VLF Deutschland Sender on our line. The microvolts must have
been considerable for detection without tuners or amplification and with
army headphones reputed to cut off at 3000Hz. Later we heard GBR Rugby
even higher in frequency than the Germans.
This accidental induction on our line stirred the thinking of our Signals CO,
Sea Biscuit, or more properly, Bob Grant, a senior Post Office Telegraph
engineer and later consultant to the World Bank in Washington. He called
me into his office and asked me my opinion of the wlnerability of our lines
to intercept of earth currents generated. If he had in mind connections
with the bombardment he did not say so, but in retrospect I believe he did.
He did not guess the truth. We chatted a while. I said I thought we were at
very little risk with the fronts so widely separated, but the incident of the VLF
coupling had set us thinking deeply having reminded us of a basic characteristic
of earth working telephone lines.
Part IV
Signals Security in the Po Valley
There can be no doubt that for all of us temporary visitors, there could have
been nothing like living in the open to experience the dramatic changes of
climate with season in continental Italy by comparison with our group of
islands in the temperate zone of the South Pacific. By the winter of 1944
the Second New Zealand Division was attacking in a northwesterly direction
and already well established in the vast productive Po River Valley with the
Alps in the distance. It was cold and we were living in snow and ice. On
either flank there were British, Poles, the Jewish Brigade, Italians and others.
Progress was slow, frustrating and costly. The German defence was tough
and shrewd. It turned out that a series of small rivers almost in the creek
category crossed our attempted line of advance at right angles. They did not
look as bad on our maps as they did on the ground. Each river had a
substantial steep stop bank making the area flood proof. We were trying for a
complete breakthrough.
The German defence was well informed because at each river line they
forced us to carry out what we called a set piece attack. This involved typically
500 or more bombers of the Flying Fortress and Liberator types, pattern
bombing during the afternoon. For our own safety from' these bombers, our
front was marked by a series of lines of coloured smoke. These thousands
of American airmen were in many cases walking the streets of US cities
only months before and in addition would have assembled for the missions
from bases all over the Mediterranean.
Their navigation and consequent bomb drops could be uncertain to say the least
as at Cassino when they succeeded in hitting Eighth Army HQ many miles
behind the front.
Now, a year later in the Po valley, we still did not have direct radio
communication with the Americans as they flew over, although by this time we did
have contact with the RAF aircraft. There were so many men and aircraft
in these massive attacks that odd things were bound to happen. One such incident
was when a crewman fell out of his Fortress. He parachuted within
yards of the wrong side of the line to a safe haven with our infantry. I
some-times wonder if it was an accident or carefully calculated. He was very frightened.
In addition to all these US aircraft there were RAF dive bombers, medium
bombers and more artillery than at AIamein. PO,s the afternoon faded into
evening the actual attacks by the infantry were heralded by searchlights
creating artificial moonlight. Then following up the bombardment the flame
throwing tanks, the Crocodiles and the
Bren Carrier Wasps lumbered up the stopbanks with our infantry, smothering
the other side in flame and smoke.
For this series of Po Valley offensives I had been promoted to Signals
Officer for the Fourth New Zealand Armoured Brigade commanded by
Tom Campbell. He was the right man in the right place at the right time and
he made the Armoured Brigade a happy and exciting group to be with. I
was the proud personal owner of a Sherman tank, a Ford VB staff car and
a jeep. I took the tank out of the way and fired a few shots to get the hang
of it. It was not exactly like firing my father's .22 Remington. I hoped I
would not encounter eye to eye a German Panther or Tiger. As it turned
out, I never rode into battle in this particular tank. Those tough days were
in the past and I lived off the jeep which was much the most secure of the three
vehicles. The mobility of the jeep made it the most sought after vehicle in the
Division.
It was easy for me to pop over toDivisional Headquarters from Brigade
and I frequently visited Geoffrey Cox who was still Divisional Intelligence
Officer. In the evening, after the daily intelligence report had been produced,
a colossal wicker covered carafe of red or white wine would appear as various
friends gathered. Sometimes the wine would be a soft vermouth. We were in
vermouth country and had overrun a large factory with adequate supplies.
These sessions over a glass of wine were in fact formal business meetings.
The talk was the war, interspersed with New Zealand nostalgia and tales of
leave at the Quirindale hotel in Rome. In the shop category, a subject which
came up frequently and with increasing emphasis, concerned the mystery
of the manner in which the Germans were getting their information in advance
of our expensive set piece attacks. Forewarned in every case, they
moved everything but bare essentials to the next river line to their rear and
thus greatly reducing the loss of men and material in the colossal bombardments.
Our thinking was that the intelligence I leak was not intercept of our tactical I
radios. It was not line crossers. Air surveillance was a hazardous undertaking
for them and must have been poor.
Our camouflage was reasonable. We were unable to reach a consensus as to where
the loss might be until another clue was provided.
Early one afternoon Peter Glasson ZLIBPY the TMO came into the
Brigade Signal Office and told me that is instrument mechanics had by induction
or some form of remote coupling overheard a telephone conversation
between Tom Campbell the Brigade Commander and a Regimental Commander.
They had been testing a line amplifier newly constructed to reduce
the problem of poor signals via lines laying in the slush of the roadsides. He
was concerned about the poor signals security. I reported what Peter had said
to Tom Campbell. I recall that he went quite pale, called the Brigade Major and
they immediately sent a signal to Divisional HQ. Peter had provided the
missing link. Not that we ever thought the enemy could overhear Tom
Campbell's line, but our forward troops, very close to the enemy had
acquired a tremendous telephone system for their own safety and comfort.
Some of this system was official, most was unofficial. It was all earth working
and largely multi party.
HQ NZ Divisional Signals reacted quickly. They organised the circulation
of a stiff reminder of the need for complete signal security, both line and
radio. Reg Foubister who was Officer Commanding 2 NZ Div Sigs was well
aware that this reminder was not about to perfect our security. He knew how
much attention the NZ infantry at the sharp end would give this latest
exhortation from Div HQ, if indeed they did get the message. The forward area
infantry were fighting men and by their own standards they were secure more
or less regardless of advice from Div HQ.
The reality of German interception of our forward area telephone system
was, of course, no more than speculation at this stage. In addition, when
it came to assessing the difficulty of interception, the range and quality of
the signal, I believe I was the only person in the Division who had any
experience of tapping the feeble earth currents. Nevertheless, the principles
involved were simple except perhaps for the techniques of maximizing the
signal pick up and minimizing the noise.
We urgently set about exploring the basic parameters of this black art. Peter
Glasson's experts took no time at all in building a good rugged high gain
audio amplifier. It incorporated a filter on the front end to reduce the
crashes and bangs and the signals outside the speech frequency range.
This time around, reception of Rugby, the Deutschland Sender and other Vl.F
signals was bad news. On the other hand, the absence of man-made
electromagnetic noise in the region of no mans land at the front was a great aid
to significant intercept range.
Colonel Tom Campbell, a UK emigre, Rock House graduate, farmer
and later professional soldier, arranged for me to take a small team from Peter
Glasson's signals section to set up the experimental interceptor in an outpost
close to an enemy strong point about 250 yards by my estimation. We
joined the New Zealand outpost during the day. The location was excellent
for a feasibility study. Our objective, of course, was not only to see
what we could hear of the Germans but mainly to observe the vulnerability
of own own troops. Uke us, the Germans were using earth return line
systems for forward area communications.
I had anticipated that our first major hurdle would be to lure some one
into taking our line forward a hundred yards towards the enemy, more if
possible and drive in the earth spike.
Hopefully somehow he would avoid being shot at as we watched, in cold
blood as they say. To my surprise, a man volunteered immediately and we
gave him the gear. I had expected him to wriggle forward on his belly and
hope for the best when it came to using the wooden mallet. Instead, he held
the bits and pieces behind his back and bolt upright, walked steadily between
the rows of cultivated trees to the prescribed distance, drove the spike and
walked back. The birds sang, not a shot was fired. Now we were in business.
The sergeant took over the headphones. I looked over the outpost and
was briefed on the action if we were attacked.
It was a small solid stone single storey house with access to an attic. The main
look out was in the attic. From this height a German occupied house was
visible about 300 yards away or less.
Our lookout loaned me his rifle. I set the sights at 300 yards and fired my
only ground to ground shot during years of forward area warfare. I fired
into the blackness of an upstairs window and the Germans were decent
enough not to respond.
Downstairs in our house, in the main room was a large bed and behind it a
hole in the floor. A short tunnel to a hedge connected with this bolt hole.
The tunnel gave me confidence. An escape route is essential whether the
risk comes from the enemy, the stock market, or whatever. The next time I
saw anything like this twenty years had slipped by. I was spending a few days
with a US Special Forces outpost in the jungle of Vietnam. They had VHF
tactical radio problems as well as being infested with rats. Their tunnel came
out on a river cliff face. Below, sampans were ready for a haSty retreat
downstream to Saigon.
At the New Zealand outpost, pick up on the intercept amplifier was not
very exciting but it was most disturbing. We heard no German except very
doubtful "Jas" and "Neins" plus a few names. I was not too disappointed
because we had no idea how far our spike was from the nearest enemy telephone
earth. I know now that we were well out of range in the absence of a
line of conductivity such as a water pipe.
Our nearer earth spike was very close to the New Zealand outpost
telephone earth. The Germans could easily have had a concealed earth there. They
had withdrawn in good order through the area and would have anticipated
the subsequent New Zealand occupation of the house. Sure enough as we
had anticipated, in the course of the night, from the snippets of conversation
from our own troops we were able to put together the fact that they were
about to be relieved by Poles including the date and time. Later when the Poles
actually arrived on the specified date the cross roads were shelled. In addition,
they were showered with "Welcome Poles" leaflets churned out by
Gennan psychologists who were as out of touch with the reality of the war as
were their British counterparts.
I had to make use of my rank in this outpost environment. During the night
innumerable men turned in on the large ornate bed. When I felt my turn had
come, I demanded and got an outside position, but I never slept a wink. At
intervals there was a great noise like the braying of an ass. It was German
harassing fire from a recent addition to their armoury. It was a multibarrelled
Nebelwerfer. Its rocket like bombs at different points in their trajectories produced
screams at different and varying frequencies. I had heard
the nebelwerfers many times before but never been under the trajectory close
to the firing point.
In the morning, sometime after first light, we returned to Brigade where our
report caused quite astir. The infantry insisted that they must have their lines
and that they always paid full attention to security: the US army lightweight
twisted pair cable was unavailable to us in quantity: it was comparatively
fragile and harder to repair under fire than our multi-strand single wire. What
could we do about this critical hole in our security?
Part V
Annie in Action
We decided to attack German SIGINT by saturating the ground in the
forward area with noise centred in the speech band. Everyone knew that a
plan for the introduction of defensive jamming tones as earth currents right
across the front of Eighth Army would never be agreed for immediate action
unless the plan could be shown to be viable in every respect. Any weakness
would lead to endless research and committees. We had established to our
own satisfaction that the Army was at risk and the General Staff at Army HQ
had been surprisingly easily convinced of the validity of our findings. We
discovered the reason for this acquiescence later.
The question now was, what sort of jammer? In the move to produce a
prototype, 4 NZ Armoured Bde Sigs had many adantages over higher head-
quarters units. We were motivated, we were in the environment, we had available
expertise in our workshop equal to Army Headquarters and there was
no lack of ideas as to the form the jammer should take.
Peter Glasson suggested a spark or buzzer generator combining simplicity,
robustness, availabilitiy and frequency instability. Instability would be
advantageous assuming the enemy was using fixed filters. I went for a vacuum tube
oscillator probably because I had a prewar built-in bias against mechanical
vibrators. The technicians in the section suggested a neon tube to drive the
vacuum tube and broadly speaking, Annie had been created. The section
under Peter's direction set about making a prototype.
At this point, conveniently for what was now our project, the Brigade was
pulled out of the line for a rest at Cesenatico, a small seaside town on
the Adriatic, north of the popular resort of Rimini. At Cesenatico the deserted
area behind the crown of the beach presented a good testing ground to
evaluate the interference to our own earth working telephone lines. It was
necessary to evaluate the trade-offs of power with range against degradation
of our own communication. We were lucky in that we were not retarded by
committees and paperwork. That was all to come much later in London
although even there I had more or less carte blanche.
I was delighted to find that the interference to our own lines was acceptable
with optimum orientation of the jammer field. Conversely our experimental
interceptor simulating the enemy was paralysed by the tone which
we happily found varied hour by hour with dry battery voltage variation on
the neon tube and its load. It also became apparent from these tests at
Cesenatico that the number of jammer units required to cover the New Zealand
front was well within our capability to produce and maintain.
The next set piece attack was to be the assault on the Senio river line. This
was to be a classic of its kind. The 2 NZ Division was to attack on a narrow
front. Our reputation as shock troops meant that if as a bare minimum our
accents were rec~ized and associated with such a small front, the Germans
could expect an attempt at a major breakthrough in this vicinity. Telephone
interception was a new intelligence parameter for all of us and
looked as though it worked much more for the Germans than for us. They had
a bare minimum of telephones to forward units whereas on our side just
about every slit trench had its telephone.
Reg Foubister, OC 2 NZ Div Sigs, broached the subject of jammer coverage
of our front for the Senio battle with Divisional Headquarters staff. Our
proposal was to jam a wide frontage prior to our return to the Senio and
continue jamming until the battle commenced. Division consulted with
Corps and no doubt Corps with Army. To our great surprise it was disclosed
that the British were actually very secretly operating interceptors on our
front. Obviously our jammers would put them out of action. There was a short
sharp political skirmish which was settled by our General Staff. The British
super secret unit was getting little from the enemy but like ourselves was
reporting continously on violations by our forward troops. The New Zealand
General Staff said "jam", Corps agreed and Army agreed. Our infantry called
the jammer "Annie" and the name stuck.
Those readers not familiar with the methods of military intelligence will
wonder why we had no knowledge of the British interception. It is standard
practice for high level intelligence not to divulge the source of their
information. The recipients are lucky if they get an estimate of the quality. They are
seldom told the source unless it is basic such as prisoners or air surveillance.
There may be some wonderment also that they did not propose jamming in
view of the relationship of outgoing and incoming intelligence. The answer is
that the British units were in the business of intelligence not counter-
intelligence. In fact they did their best to stop us jamming.
2 NZ Div Sigs working as an entity with 4 NZ Armoured Bde Sigs rapidly
produced the few jammers required for the projected battle. Signals Officers
from flanking divisions arrived to get the plans so that they could cover their
fronts although little enough time now remained before the big Senio attack.
A senior NCO and staff from Peter Glasson's team of technicians carried
out most of the installation of our jammers. Although the enemy in many
cases were less than a hundred yards away he and those helping him were
protected by the river stop bank. I worked with him and we were lucky
not to run into trouble. During this time, as the banshee wails of our jammers
swept across the front, three men emerged from a dug out in the river
bank. They were a British intercept unit using a pick up line thrown by a mortar
into the Senio river. We listened on their machine. There was no doubt
they were out of business. I think they were happy to pack up. It was a very
forward location.
It occurred to me that if the Germans were using similar equipment they
would move across our front until they got clear of the noise. This then would
be a good place to probe to see if they existed in reality. Geoff Cox our
intelligence officer put a special request to the battalions asking their nightime
fighting patrols to look out for such a unit.
Almost immediately a prisoner under interrogation disclosed that a
strange team had moved into the vicinity of his unit. He said they had what
looked like radio gear, but it was not a radio. There was no antenna. As expected,
this was on our right flank. Arrangements were made to make a
thorough search for them when we attacked.
The Senio battle must has been the most spectacular of World War II.
AIamein was more dramatic because it was tj1e turning point of the war.
Cassino was dramatic because of the backdrop of the Benedictine monastry,
Montecassino, Monte Cairo and the countless observation points. The
landings at Normandy were on a grander scale but could be viewed fully
only by the Germans who were busy fighting for their lives.. The Senio battle
was emotional for me beause I felt it would be our last really "big and tough
fight".
As the battle developed the New Zealand battalion advancing on our
right flank discovered the nest of the suspected German intercept unit. The
German operators had fled, however, leaving ,only papers and bits and pieces.
The Senio attack is history now. Although it was successful, the Germans
once again were not beaten and as we pushed on towards the Po River and
Padua our search for the line telephone intercept operators continued. Many
prisoners were coming in and most were questioned when possible.
In the very early stages of this advance which took us through Padua,
Venice and on to Trieste, NZ Div HQ was heavily shelled quite unexpectedly
and Signals took some serious casualties. As a result I was moved to second
in command of 2 NZ Div Sigs. This was an easy job at this late stage in the
war because everyone seemed to be a self starter and knew his role. Thus I
had plenty of time to pursue the SIGINT research.
Part VI - The Generals
In late April 1945 we were advancing into the suburbs of Padua and I was
haunting the Intelligence Office because they had at last tracked down a
German telephone interception unit. But the whole thing was very shadowy.
It was early morning with misty rain. An Italian partisan was brought into the
office. He said that the Italians in central Padua had surrounded a church in
which a number of senior German officers had taken refuge. They refused
to surrender to anyone other than Eighth Army. I volunteered to go forward
into Padua and take their surrender. I hoped also to encounter the
elusive German SIGINT unit. I took a Sherman tank from the Defence i
Platoon and guided by the Italian, we were soon ahead of our infantry and
in a large central square in Padua. It was deserted except that a troop of
German Panther tanks drove rapidly across the far side of the square intent
on escape accompanied by the wail of the city sirens.
We stopped outside a beautiful church. The Italian partisan went into
the church and soon emerged with a group of Germans carrying white flags
led by General Von Alten and including Von Thoma, a long time adversary
of the Division. I spoke only with General Von Alten and did not identify
the others. This was done later by Geoffrey Cox back at Divisional Headquarters.
I assured the general that they would be safe with us. We spoke in
Italian. A great deal of blood was flowing already on the outskirts of Padua
as all those who had suffered under Mussolini and the German occupation
rose up with pistols and grenades to take their revenge. We New Zealanders
busy getting on with our war, were confused and shocked. The Italians
ignored us, or so it seemed to me, except as protection from the Germans.
I told the Germans to keep their white flags and get aboard the tank.
As there was no room inside, I had to stay with them outside. It was a
triumphal return as we moved back into the New Zealand units preparing to
advance through the university city and beyond to Venice. The Germans were
perfectly dressed and outstanding in their uniforms. Three large white flags
over the drab Sherman completed the scene. They were not received very
sympathetically by General Freyberg.
In retrospect I don't think we were the most genteel of captors. From what I
have read, our captured New Zealand generals-brigadiers actually were
treated with greater dignity by the Germans and Italians. However, if it
had not been for my interest in the effectiveness of Annie and my consequent
availability when the concerned partisan came in, the Generals may
have fallen into the hands of the mob in Padua while they were thirsting for
blood. This was what the Germans had feared. In this scenario, I was their
saviour and I did my best for them while they were in my control although my
men did not share my view. I often wonder where these generals are today
and how they fared as POW.
At Padua, confirmation was received that the Germans had been successfully
intercepting the earth currents from our telephones when the fronts
were close and static. It appeared that this form of intelligence was
particularly successful at Cassino where the railway line provided a line of
conductivity albeit a broken one, from them to our cables which were in many cases
laid on the railway to avoid the road traffic.
The advance through Padua and Venice to Trieste was carried out at
lightning speed. The move was greatly helped by another of those strange
British units, this time not in the olive groves behind us but in a lush Venetian
hotel ahead of us. This intelligence unit had, with considerable Italian help,
discovered a telephone line to Trieste overlooked for destruction by the Germans.
Under direction from Geoff Cox the British officer was able to ring
through to partisans all the way to Trieste and confirm that the roads and
tunnels had not been blown. Our unexpected arrival in Trieste was a shock
to the Yugoslavs against whom the Germans continued to resist strongly.
The Yugoslavs under Tito had hoped to capture and occupy this area for
their homeland.
The war in Europe ended as we drove along the esplanade into the city.
Our gunners pointed their artillery out to sea and fired a few victory rounds
to the tinkle of falling glass as adjacent windows which had survived years of
war succumbed to the blast of the New Zealand guns. But there was no champagne,
no cheering, already we new we were facing a new war, for the
moment a cold one, of East versus West. At this long yearned for moment,
Div HQ came to a halt in the Trieste suburb of Miramare right alongside the
dream palace, Castello Miramare built by Maximillian in a beautiful setting on
the water with a private dock and speedboats. It was one occasion I was
not in the divisional reconnaissance party. I think Headquarters just moved
in automatically and without reconnaissance as soon as the advancing infantry
could be pushed out and onwards to Trieste where the battle continued
as the Germans, more or less ready to surrender to us, held out against the
Tito forces. The Rothchilds could not have spent a better summer than we
New Zealanders did at Trieste. While there, Reg Foubister warned me that
Whitehall was interested in Annie and that I might be required to go there by
RAF transport via Naples.
Part VII - Whitehall and Richmond Park
The thousands of New Zealanders that poured over to Britain found that
things moved slowly there, but overall, much is happening. It was several
weeks before I received orders from Reg Foubister to move promptly to
Caserta, Central Mediterranean Force HQ near Naples, to demonstrate our
techniques of line telephone interception and jamming, then depart for
London by RAF transport. It was goodbye to the beloved Division, but I
had enjoyed the glorious Italian summer, the liberation of villages,
speeches, wine, music and the hero worship that goes for a while with
victory. Best of all, thanks to Annie, I had captured the generals.
The jammer demonstration at Caserta was not easy. The ground was
hard and dry. The place was a rats nest of cables and pipes. However unseen
and without intercept, I spent a lot of pleasant time using the vast military
trunk system at CMF to feed into the remnants of the civilian lines and give
me nationwide contact with variously located Italian girlfriends and their
families. Again, it was goodbye.
My London aircraft was a Dakota and as we flew low up the coast past
Rome to Marseilles I could pick out towns and other features where there
had been great adventures. I wondered if I would see them again and what lay
ahead in Whitehall. Soon we were over an island with snow on the mountains
and sandy beaches in countless coves. The water was as clear as any South
Seas lagoon. I asked the crew what island it was-Corsica they said, a sort
of crows nest for radar looking into the south of France. For me it was instant
love. I have been back many times.
Jaques Cousteau did much of his underwater research in Corsica when his
spe.:ial island the lie du Levant off the major naval base at T oulon became
over active. Corsica is a headquarters of the Foreign Legion. The islanders
have an affinity with New Zealand.
Hundreds of hectares are planted in kiwi fruit and grapes. They watch New
Zealand horticultural activity closely. Like nearby Sardinia it is a wonderful
location for HF communications with the South Pacific.
New Zealand London military HQ was in the Strand near Savoy Palace,
the location of Radio 2LO London.
The New Zealand staff gave me accommodation in an annexe of Chelsea
barracks in Sloane Street and I report to Army Intelligence in the War Office.
I never before had seen so many red tabs but they had their wits about them.
In conjunction with Royal Signals they decided to attach me to the Army
Operations Research Group in Richmond Park and not the Signals
Research and Development Establishment on the south coast. This was a
stroke of luck. AORG was located in a colossal mansion with countless small
rooms backing onto Richmond Park. At Richmond Park the work was
practical, earthy and clearly understandable to anyone with an interest.
The scientists at AORG had considerable influence with the War Office but
they were not directly playing power games. They were a joy to be with,
the British at their best. I shared an office with Bill Hill one of Britain's best
practical mathematicians. His in-tray was several feet high and never cleared.
I said to him, "thank God I'm with you Bill, my knowledge of advanced maths
is zero." "Don't get carried away," he replied, "you tell me the answers and
I'll adjust the maths to fit." I thought it would be the opposite. On another
occasion reading an erudite paper on earth currents, I admitted I could not
understand it. "The fellow who wrote the paper doesn't understand it either,"
was Bill's reply. It was a dry no nonsense environment which suited my life
style.
My objective at AORG was to fit tables and graphs made up from field
work in Richmond Park with the considerable theoretical studies available in "
the library. Also, beside our New Zealand apparatus to evaluate, we had the
best German and British interceptors obtained through British intelligence.
There was only one jammer of course. That was Annie. All her specifications
were measured and she was photographed from. every angle. Where is she today?
I Wish I knew.
I started off in the Park at the double. After all, I was being paid for this fun
and I believed it could not last, Richmond Park by day, the Chelsea
pubs by night. The section chief asked me what the hurry was, Slow down,
he said. People started to arrive overland from Italy including Reg Foubister
our CO. Another was Ken Barron ZLl TN who joined us at AORG for a
while. Ken missed the trip to Southend. Some mastermind decided that we
needed a vast area of homogenous ground. That had to be the mud flats
at the mouth of the Thames. When we alTived, the sea was lapping at the hotel
wall and I wondered what it was all about, but in the morning the water
had gone and it looked as though one could walk to France. There exposed
by the tide, was our mud flat and we proved the one hundred year old text
book to be correct.
At Richmond Park, the work of Dr Hey, later second in command at
Jodrell Bank radio telescope, interested me greatly. He was measuring solar
noise in the VHF band. His section was using Hallicrafter receivers and broadband
dipole antennas all mounted in rotatable radar cabins. Dr Hey explained
to me that solar noise was a major factor in the recent escape of
the German cruisers through the English Channel right under the nose of
British radar in foggy conitions. The Germans had enhanced the variable
radar noise with white noise jammers. Some radar operators realised what
was happening but the authorities did not take appropriate action.
The superintendent decided to invite the London press to see this experiment.
Dr Hey was a man of much experience, somewhat familiar with the
media. He arranged for a technician to be concealed in the bushes in the
appropriate direction with a noise box in case the sun let him down. My own
experience with the media was near zero except for a memorable New
Zealand occasion in the mid-thirties involving the Manawatu REC, the
Napier fishing fleet and the Post Office. It was the spectacular reporting
of the Dominion which drew the fire of the Post Office. Thus I knew vaguely
that the press must be handled with care.
In Richmond Park all seemed to go well as I observed easily, my field unit
being next to that of Dr Hey. The sun put on a good show. Next morning the
headlines were startling. Uttle mention was made of solar flux, German jammers
or radar failure, though the Times and the Telegraph were fairly objective.
The tabloids screamed "Valuable equipment rots in Richmond Park",
and worse for me, "The Royal deer trapped without mercy in field cable
laid at random." This was my cable simulating a tactical situation.
Soon after this we moved out of the park to the hinterland of Surrey. Before
the move our work on Annie had ended and is now a matter of record in
the histories. The importance of the jamming in Italy leading as it did to our
conclusive findings in London, enabled Royal Signals to make an easy post war
decision to switch from single wire earth working tactical telephone line
in forward areas to light weight twisted pair. For all practical purposes
assuming no phantom circuits using the ground, earth currents were eliminated.
Annie's work was over. My unit moved into the exciting field of mass radio
jamming.
Ian McNeur's Story
Bluey Houghton's story
George Watson's story
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