Secret Alliances Read online

  SOE were of course considerably perturbed to learn the news of Johansen’s and Solem’s activities. They maintained that Johansen had been loyal to them, because they could find no evidence that any of his expeditions had gone wrong. H. P. Milmo, in the counter-espionage branch B1B, accepted this view, and wrote to Liversidge in late January:

  I think we can rely with confidence on the crews not taking messages to Norway and I very much doubt whether any of our crew men are in the pay of the Germans. My opinion, with which SOE concurs, is that during the period when Johansen was working for SOE he was not communicating with the Germans. The reason is that the remainder of the crew was not known to him before he worked for us and were in my opinion trustworthy. Furthermore, apart from the trips which he made himself, Johansen would also know all the other trips made by our crews. We have no knowledge of any agent having been sent to Norway via the Shetland base having been caught or any of our arms dumps having been discovered by the Germans. Apart from information confirming this received from messengers in Norway, we have been back to the same places on more than one occasion and no indication has been given to us that the Germans have known that we have been there in the past.

  In late March, Milmo requested that a full summary of the case be forwarded to Gleditsch. He commented that this ‘contained a great deal of intelligence information which should be of peculiar interest and we hope use to the Norwegians’. He speculated that the reason for Johansen’s sudden change of allegiance might be found in the fact that after his discharge from RVPS he and Solem had embarked on a riotous drinking bout, ‘during which they appear to have got rid of most of the money given them by Andersen [i.e. Angermeyer] to buy whisky. Possibly, after having misappropriated Andersen’s money, Johansen did not feel that he could return to the old fold.’ In a later summary in April, J. P. de C. Day agreed with this evaluation, adding with wit that since they had conspired together to spend the money given them by Angermeyer for purchasing whisky for themselves, they had fulfilled the letter but not the spirit of Angermeyer’s instruction. This does seem a plausible explanation, but given the sum they had available, to have disposed of it all in a drinking spree within about ten days would have represented a prodigious feat even for two hard-headed Norwegian fishermen. It is, however, possible that not all the money which they had been given by Angermeyer was available to them to spend on riotous living. Nagell wrote to SOE on 5 April, complaining that Johansen and Alseth had both had SK 450 in their possession when they arrived, which had been taken from them by the immigration officer. He sought advice on how to recover it. The amounts do not match those in KV files, though Solem did admit under interrogation that he and Johansen had given NOK 170 to Alseth. Perhaps the story became garbled as it was passed to Nagell.6

  In internal correspondence, Milmo noted the ease with which two German agents were enlisted in SOE. He acknowledged that this was the responsibility of the Security Service, inasmuch as it was discovered, when the case was reopened on the basis of ISOS information, that the security examination of the party on arrival had been inadequate.7 At the end of Solem’s interrogation, the Security Service assessment was extremely disparaging, describing him as stubborn, cunning and a regular drunkard, and the Camp 020 history concluded that ‘Solem proved a worthy inmate of Camp 020 since he had a long record of treachery in Norway’. Both Solem and Alseth were interned for the remainder of the war.

  It might seem surprising that in the aftermath of this investigation, no action was taken to discourage crews who were delivering agents or landing supplies in remote spots, from entering small ports and allowing their presence to become known to local inhabitants, or to prevent them from sending mail in the way that Johansen had done to his girlfriend. It does not even appear to have been considered. This oversight had some serious consequences, particularly in Telavåg, as highlighted in Chapter 3, after the Borghild had landed an SIS agent and the Olaf had landed two SOE agents at the same site within days of each other, leading to a German raid and severe reprisals.

  The behaviour of the Borghild crew in Telavåg was not an isolated instance. There were plenty of other examples. When the SIS agent Kristian Fougner returned to Norway in May 1942, on Sigalos commanded by Leif Larsen, he was landed at Vindholmen, just north of Brattvær. He wrote later that the crew wanted some Norwegian salmon so they berthed right inside the harbour and a couple of the men, with Fougner and his suitcase in tow, strolled up to the village shop.

  They didn’t even bother to take off their uniforms. There was no doubt that they were in the Norwegian Navy. They got their salmon and after a while I was left standing there with my suitcase. I must admit I didn’t feel exactly on top of the world – I might as well have had a baggage tag tied to my hand – ‘Handle with care, just arrived from England’. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. I rather wished that I had been onboard again as I saw the boat disappearing over the horizon.8

  It was only in March 1943 that the Admiralty introduced orders prohibiting this behaviour. They instructed the crews of all vessels, including MTBs as well as those operating for SOE and SIS, that no one was to go ashore in Norway except in the course of his duty, and then only if permission had been obtained from the senior officer present. All conversations with the local population were to be recorded in writing. No letters, written or printed papers were to be sent or taken ashore in Norway without authority, and posting of letters by unauthorised persons was also strictly forbidden.9

  The only agent who committed suicide at Camp 020

  The case of Olaf Sætrang was quite different, and had a number of unusual characteristics. In particular, Sætrang had worked for the Abwehr before the war and had been the subject of SIS reporting when he worked in Panama in 1939. He also appeared to have cultivated the wife of Finn Nagell while living in her house in Oslo. Moreover, he was the only detainee who succeeded in committing suicide in Camp 020 which, as the Security Service historian wryly acknowledged, complicated their investigation of his case.10 Though born in Rotterdam, Sætrang was a Norwegian citizen, a fluent linguist who dabbled in a number of businesses and had spent several periods in South America. He also worked as a purser on cruise ships, often in the Caribbean, and made a number of British contacts. He had retained their addresses, which were found when he was searched on arrival, and it was apparent that he had intended to make use of them.

  In March 1939, Sætrang got a job working in the office of a shipping company in Panama. It was thought that he had done this at the behest of the Abwehr. One of his contacts there was Inga Guttman, the secretary of the German consul, who was deported as a spy after she had been found in a prohibited zone. When he left Panama in April 1940, he travelled back with Guttman, going via Italy to Germany, where he spent seven weeks in Berlin. After his return to Norway in June, he made several trips to Stockholm, cultivating the Norwegian military attaché Colonel Oscar Sigvald Strugstad and offering to obtain information on damage to aluminium works in Norway, which the Security Service considered to be evidence of an attempt to penetrate one of the Norwegian services. Sætrang was also found to be in possession of Strugstad’s address when he was arrested. In early 1941 he was running a cover business dealing with fire extinguishers based in Klingenberggata 4: right next door to Abwehr HQ! During this period he was living in the house of Nagell’s wife. The Security Service concluded that this was either to obtain evidence of his bona fides with which to impress loyal Norwegians on arrival in London, or because he was spying on her. It was also known that he had acted as an agent provocateur, using a letter purported to have been sent to him by Strugstad, as a passport into loyal Norwegian circles. This did not work; the Germans arrested Mads Wiel, the man he had approached asking for assistance to send important information to Britain, before suitable incriminating evidence could be planted on him.

  ISOS messages showed that Sætrang was preparing to travel to Britain via Iceland in August 1941, leading a group of passengers who were initia
lly thought to be other agents, but who turned out to be innocent refugees enlisted to provide him with cover. ISOS also revealed that before his departure, Sætrang had been seen by Major Novak, head of the Abwehr in Norway. The party travelled on the Hornfjell from Tromsø, but they were all arrested on arrival in Iceland, and reached Britain in September. When Sætrang’s possessions were searched, two compromising addresses in Panama and the Netherlands were found, which were linked to the head of Japanese intelligence in Panama and an accommodation address for German agents in Britain and France. Sætrang was taken to Camp 020. He was confronted with the damning information already known about him and his activities, and was told to write a full statement of his life story. He committed suicide that night.

  Deprived of the opportunity to interview their suspect, the Security Service were unable to work out what mission Sætrang was expected to perform. Since he had been working for the Abwehr for at least two years and probably rather longer, they concluded that he was intended to perform a much more important mission than the usual type of assignment which had hitherto been given to Norwegian spies sent to Britain. He was known to have been a code and wireless expert, which suggested that he might have been intended to organise some sort of subversive activity in Britain. Furthermore, the fact that he had so many English addresses in his possession indicated that he expected his stay in Britain to be a long one.

  Other agents who succeeded in getting through the RVPS

  There were two other Norwegian agents who managed to pass through the reception centre at the RVPS and were only picked up later. The first was Helmik Wallem, recruited by the Bergen Abwehr in March 1941 when he was a wireless operator on ships plying to German ports.11 He refused an initial proposal to go to Britain on their behalf, and instead agreed to spy on Norwegian activities, trying to find out about arms dumps and attempts to escape to Britain. However, in June 1941 his fiancée became pregnant and he needed money, so he agreed to go. He was instructed to familiarise himself with conditions in Britain, and then to offer his services as a wireless operator. The Abwehr hoped that he would be sent back to Bergen with a wireless set, which could be used against the British. He had been paid NOK 100§§ on his initial recruitment and a further NOK 1,000 when he agreed to go to Britain. His fiancée would receive NOK 300 when he was away, and he would be paid NOK 10,000 on his return. He left Bergen on the Hernie on 5 July with two refugees (Georg Lunde and Inge Nilsen) to give him cover, and arrived in Lerwick on 8 July 1941.

  After interviews at the RVPS, all three were cleared and released on 17 July. Wallem joined the Cetus as a wireless operator and the other two joined the Norwegian Navy. On 25 July, SIS circulated an ISOS report showing that the Abwehr in Bergen had been preparing to send over an agent named Nilsen by boat on 5 July: it proved possible to establish that the Hernie was the only boat which had left Bergen on that date. The three were arrested and taken to Camp 020. This was a close call, for by then the Cetus had sailed to the Tyne and was preparing to leave as part of an Atlantic convoy. After several interrogations, Wallem eventually made a detailed confession and revealed that his spy name was actually Nilsen, so clearing his fellow passenger. In a report to B1, Stephens revealed that ‘Wallem himself states candidly that the object of his mission was to come to England where he would certainly be employed by the British Secret Service to return complete with a wireless transmitter to Bergen, where he was to recontact the German Secret Service’.

  Stephens also noted that after his release from the RVPS, Lunde had been interviewed by Commander Smith at Norway House and asked to train as a wireless operator and return to Norway, an offer which he had accepted. A similar offer was made to Wallem by Nagell shortly afterwards: he did not accept – a fact which counted in his favour when he eventually admitted it after his arrest. He may also have helped himself by revealing details of another Abwehr spy, the Swede Karl Hanssen, who had arrived on the Volga in March 1941 and was already in detention. Summarising this investigation, the Security Service concluded:

  The case illustrates the serious dangers which exist of the Germans penetrating this country through Norwegian escape parties and the great difficulty which is experienced in detecting agents who are sent here and who do not carry on them any incriminating property. In this case, it must be frankly admitted that had it not been for the information from MSS, Wallem would never have been apprehended and would have been in a position to do incalculable harm, seated at the key of a wireless transmitter aboard a ship proceeding overseas in convoy. The technique adopted by the Germans in this case was much superior to the usual run of expeditions which they have launched from Norway.

  Wallem was detained for the rest of the war and then deported to Norway.

  The other agent who passed unhindered through the RVPS, much later in the war, was Henrik Larsen.12 He had been a deckhand on a Norwegian whaler captured by a German raider in January 1941 and was sent back to Norway. He was recruited by the Abwehr in April 1944 and persuaded to go to sea again. His early missions were to report on shipping in Norwegian coastal waters. Later in 1944 he was sent to Sweden to report on Swedish military organisations and their general state of preparedness. He did this by sending letters to his wife, Ruth, using secret writing. He was paid NOK 400 a month, which was given directly to Ruth. However, he was arrested by a Swedish patrol when trying to cross back into Norway. Larsen gave the Swedes a plausible cover story about attempting to escape from Norway, which he then developed sufficiently to enable him to be flown over to Britain in January 1945. He spent a brief period at the RVPS and was released in early February.

  Larsen came to attention when SIS wrote to the Security Service on 19 March, stating that Larsen had worked for the Germans in the past and might still be doing so. A Norwegian counter-intelligence officer in Stockholm had informed them that he occasionally obtained copies of lists compiled in Oslo for use by the German censorship authorities. One stated: ‘Hans Larsen, Norwegian refugee in Sweden in contact with Ruth Larsen, Solhagen i Sandar, Sandefjord. Uncensored to 144’.13 SIS concluded that this suggested that Larsen had accepted employment with German intelligence and was using his wife as a cover address. They suggested that he should be sent to Camp 020. Larsen was first taken to the RVPS as it was initially judged possible that there could be an innocent explanation for the evidence against him. However, in his possession was found a letter from Ruth, in which she complained that his writing was indistinct – a comment which could be construed to mean that his secret writing message was not clear. He was therefore taken to Camp 020.

  Following interrogation at Ham, Larsen confessed to his espionage activities and admitted that he had written to his wife on several occasions. As a consequence, action was also taken against her: she was arrested in Oslo on 16 May, after the German surrender. Neither Larsen nor Ruth, who also eventually owned up to her involvement, acknowledged that any of his letters to her had contained secret writing messages – but that may have been because both realised that such an admission would make the case against them much more serious. No trace of secret writing was found in any of the letters which she had retained, though presumably any letters of interest would have been passed to the Germans. Larsen was deported back to Norway in June, and was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour.

  Brodersen avoids a trial for treason

  One lucky Norwegian, Knut Brodersen, came within a whisker of being put on trial for treason at the Old Bailey, where he would have certainly been sentenced to death. (The only Norwegian to have been sentenced to death for espionage in wartime was Alfred Hagn in 1917. He was given a royal pardon by King George V and his sentence was commuted to hard labour.14) Brodersen was recruited by Abwehr officer Horst Fanger in Bergen in September 1943 after a black-market deal had gone wrong. He agreed to go Britain, enlist in the Norwegian Army and report by secret writing on preparations for an Allied invasion of Europe. He was also trained in coding and would receive instructions from Fanger by radio. His fa
mily would be paid NOK 800 a month, while he could live on what he earned as an officer. Unlike almost all the other Norwegian agents, when he was despatched in December 1943, he was sent to France (where he spent a brief period in the guise of a Todt worker¶¶) before travelling on to Spain, where he contacted the Norwegian embassy.

  Reporting his arrival in Madrid in January, Nagell informed the Security Service of Brodersen’s Nasjonal Samling background and recommended that he be excluded. SIS then reported in mid-February 1944 that their station in Madrid had confirmed that he had been working for the Germans both in Norway and also in Bayonne. They had known of his mission from ISOS, and there are details of the preparations for his journey contained in ISOS extracts on his file.15 SIS wanted him brought to Camp 020 for interrogation and so informed Nagell. Milmo agreed and told the Home Office that such interrogation could provide details of the many German agents who had transited Bayonne on their way into Spain. Philby in Section V of SIS wrote to Hart in B1 suggesting that if Brodersen was found to be in possession of secret writing materials when he arrived in Britain, then consideration should be given to using him for deception purposes, an idea which was toyed with for several months.

  Brodersen arrived in Leith on 6 May 1944 where he declined under initial questioning to reveal anything about his espionage mission, and was taken to Camp 020. Confronted with detailed knowledge of his activities he confessed, answering all the questions put to him and explaining how the Abwehr would communicate with him. A search of his belongings and person revealed that he was carrying secret writing (SW) materials variously concealed in: a hollow tooth, under a toe nail, in the knee band of his plus fours, under the stud of a boot, in his spongebag and in his suitcase. When reviewing the case, the Security Service considered whether Brodersen could be used for Double-Cross purposes: ‘insofar as contre-espionage [sic] is concerned, the question arises whether Brodersen’s services are worth more than the deterrent effect of a sentence of death for espionage at the present time’. In deciding to recommend prosecution, the Security Service noted that Brodersen had had chances to admit to espionage during meetings with both Norwegian and British authorities, but did not take them, and only did so when he reached Camp 020. They concluded that there were no mitigating circumstances. However, difficulties now arose because SIS had intercepted radio messages in code from Norway which followed the form and times which Brodersen had given as applying to instructions which he and other agents in Britain might expect to receive. Although Brodersen’s code had been fully described by him at Camp 020, it was not possible to make sense of the messages. Brodersen, in frantic fear of death, could make nothing of them either. Consideration was given to getting him to send a letter in secret writing demanding clarification. Such contact might lead to a Double-Cross link which might assist in apprehending other spies trained in the same as yet undecyphered code. But this was not a straightforward proposition.