Commandos and Codes
It has been suggested that the Dieppe raid in August 1942 was a diversionary activity for a pinch operation mounted by an elite commando unit assigned as 30 Commando Assault Unit (30AU) to target a number of key locations in and around Dieppe. These included the Hotel Moderne by the port housing the German Naval HQ and allied intelligence had also convinced themselves that trawlers moored in Dieppe harbour were acting as secret German signals intelligence collection platforms. It has been suggested that 30AU’s main target was to obtain spare parts for the new 4-rotor wheel version of the Enigma cipher machine and associated code books, to aid the work being done by GC & CS at Bletchley Park.
The team was put ashore acting as No. 40 Royal Marines Commando on HMS LOCUST, which failed to breach the inner channel in Dieppe harbour so the 30AU troops had to go ashore aboard a landing craft. Strategically, the Dieppe raid was a disaster. Over 900 Canadian soldiers were killed, 586 injured and 2000 captured. The 30AU team returned to England empty handed.
Bletchley had been successful at breaking the 3-rotor wheel Enigma machines which provided allied planners with some rich streams of German intelligence, up until 1st February 1942 when a fourth rotor-wheel was introduced. Ian Fleming, the PA to the then Director Naval Intelligence (DNI) Admiral John Godfrey in Naval Intelligence Division (NID) who helped set up 30 Assault Unit, routinely visited Bletchley to understand how significant the exploitation of the Enigma traffic would be to the war effort in Europe.
30AU was the brainchild of the now famous Commander Ian Fleming RNVR, who after the war became the author of the first James Bond novels. He was affectionately known as 17(F) which is how he appeared in Naval Intelligence files. His role was to act as the NID liaison to the Head of SIS (MI6) and SOE. One of the Royal Navy officers in No. 36 Section, Commander Patrick Dalzel-Job RN was said to have been the inspiration for his character, James Bond. Fleming was also in contact with elements of MI5’s deception operations and was a regular visitor to Bletchley Park. The secret team from 30AU were under the command of Lt. Huntington-Whitely, a close friend of Fleming and the grandson of the former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.
The Germans had their own specialist intelligence gathering unit which deployed ahead with forward troops and it became the model for what Ian Fleming was suggesting. A branch of the Abwehr known as the Marine Einsatz Kommando (shortened to MARES) and was commanded by Kapitaen Leutnant Obladen. The covert unit had the following objectives:
- The seizure of secret documents, charts, naval stores and supplies and fuel and lubricants
- Counter-demolition duties in captured harbours
- The transmission by W/T of operational intelligence concerning the state of harbours location of wrecks and minefields and manpower requirements for the operation of port installations
- The interrogation of POW’s and civilians and counter-espionage work
MARES would accompany the assault waves of a Naval force and comprised in large part by personnel from the Lehr Regiment Brandenburg, who typically were Germans who had lived abroad. During the German advance in Greece, MARES proved its worth in the capturing of valuable intelligence materiel from the British in Athens and Crete. The German army also had its own equivalent, the Abwehrtruppen who had a similar role and function to the MARES units.
Originally the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) had doubts about 30 Assault Unit, but the DNI’s persistence won through. 30AU was originally formed as the Special Intelligence Unit (SIU) on 30th September 1942. It was later renamed 30 RN Commando (Special Engineering Unit) and later designated 30 Assault Unit by December 1943. The unit initially reported to the Chief of Combined Operations as its chain of command but in reality it came under the direct authority of DNI. The number 30 is alleged to have come from the door number for NID in the Admiralty. The term ‘Assault Unit’ was to act as a veil to cover up the covert intelligence remit for the teams.
A memo written at the time, outlined that the unit was ‘on an experimental basis...designed to provide a force of armed and expert ‘authorised looters’ who will operate in small groups which will move with the assault troops to fight and capture enemy material and documents of special importance; in some cases they may be required to work behind the enemy lines in advance of assault troops. During an assault and advance the local Gestapo HQ in some port or town might be seized before papers can be destroyed. Enemy black lists would then become our white lists and vice-versa; we should know at once who can be trusted and who must be arrested. Thus in occupied territory our Security Police would be provided with information which would enable them to strike deep and quickly at the enemy’s organisation and suppress espionage and political warfare. The importance of seizing the enemy’s codes and ciphers needs no emphasis and is one of the reasons why this unit has been so strongly pressed for by the Admiralty.’
Also attached to 30 Assault Unit was a Forward Interrogation Unit (FIU) from the Royal Navy. Deployed teams would often work in close collaboration with the Intelligence Corps Field Security sections. A typical team would a Royal Navy officer in command, a technical officer/attached scientist, a German-speaking officer from the RN FIU, a Royal Marines officer or a SNCO with a section of Royal Marines, vehicles and a W/T (Wireless Telegraphy/radio) section. Cooperation with the FIU interrogators was invaluable to the unit when it deployed into Normandy, ‘a very high percentage of success obtained by 30AU was due to interrogation under operational conditions.’
Much of the administration and organisation of the HQ fell to its secretary Miss Margaret Priestley, a history academic from Leeds University who had transferred to 30AU from the Department of Naval Research (DNR). Priestley is believed to be the inspiration for Fleming’s Miss Petty Pethaval, the original character name that became Miss Moneypenny.
The Operation TORCH landings in North Africa saw No. 33 Section deploy and have some good success when they captured the Italian Commission’s building. The team had been supplied with ISTD pictures, maps and models showing the terrain of the landing site in Algiers, where the Axis HQ was situated and what they might find there. Over the course of the operation the section managed to find an intact Enigma machine and over 2 tonnes of valuable documents. The Enigma machine was flown back to NID in London and then onwards to the Intelligence Service Knox (ISK) section at Bletchley Park. It was during the Tunisia campaign and the advance on Tunis that 30AU perfected some of its tactics which would later be employed in OVERLORD.
On the 31st December 1943 a meeting was held at Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ) to discuss 30AU. The minutes of this meeting highlighted the ‘future Naval, military and Air requirements of No.30 Commando.’ As described, the functions of No.30 Commando laid down in CCO’s letter CR 10513/43 dated 1st November were:
(i) The seizing of special intelligence data during the course of an operation
(ii) Before and during the first assault, to operate against enemy headquarters in order to obtain ciphers, equipment, instruments, papers or any other intelligence data of value
(iii) To undertake under-water swimming operations to obtain equipment, ciphers and intelligence data from sunken vessels
One of the main remits for 30AU was to capture German and Italian cipher material for Bletchley Park , ‘including specimens of the wheels used on the Enigma ciphering machine, particulars of the daily settings for wheels and plugs, code books and all documents relating to signals and communications.’
Around October 1943 a directive was passed in the Mediterranean theatre outlining that all captured cipher documents, signals documents, and cipher equipment were to be directed to the Army Group HQ where arrangements would be coordinated to get the material dispatched immediately to GC&CS Bletchley Park. SHAEF Command wanted this to be replicated for the forthcoming offensive in Europe and as a result issued Intelligence Directive No. 8 on the 7th May 1944 which listed a series of regulations for the handling of captured documents and signals/cipher equipment. This was subsequently followed up by more detailed instructions from 21st Army Group and headquarters ETOUSA to make sure the best use was made of these items in the field, and then a process was followed to dispatch them back as quickly as possible to Bletchley, the War Office and the SID ETOUSA Headquarters in London.
Bletchley Park set up its own room to liaise directly with 30AU, under Commander Bacon RNVR. It was vital that security was restricted to only named individuals. The majority of the unit had no idea about Bletchley Park, or its vital code work. Officers and men were not allowed to visit, have any knowledge of the work of Bletchley, or indeed the methods or machinery being used. As operations and planning for the invasion of Europe began, 30AU recruited a large number of new officers and men. They were all briefed on SIGINT, and the Enigma machine. It was also at this time that SIGINT requirements were put into the 30AU Black List for intelligence gathering, which was administered by Lt. Glanville in the NID. Security precautions were paramount for the unit and in order to preserve the work for the SIGINT community, 30AU followed a protocol:
a) No officer or OR of an IAU should be indoctrinated, although they could be briefed in the general appearance of the documents and equipment required. It is essential, however, that no-one taking part in Commando raids or front line operations should be allowed to know anything of British cryptographic methods or of the machines used.
b) No raid should be laid on for SIGINT purposes only. The scope of the objectives should always be sufficiently wide to presuppose normal operational objects.
c) All the personnel of the IAU should be thoroughly trained in conduct as prisoners of war and behaviour under interrogation.
Activities by 30AU in France shortly after D-Day indicated the value of the collaboration with Bletchley Park. A set of Germany Navy Enigma wheels was found at a Brittany radar station. At the U-Boat HQ in Paris numerous valuable cipher documents were found and on the operation in Douvres some German Airforce Enigma wheels were found with an associated cipher pad.
It was often a race. 30AU was very much part of the lead force into a Normandy town, and they needed to ascertain the targets of interest, such as the German Army HQ building in the town, where valuable intelligence might be gathered. The Germans would often have enough time to destroy what documents and cipher equipment they had, to prevent them falling into the hands of the Allies.
‘W/T and ciphering rooms were found to be located on the third floor of the villa...the Germans had obviously been at great pains to destroy everything of intelligence value. Two ciphering machines had been completely wrecked, and it is only possible to state that the scramblers in use had been ‘B’ and ‘R’ so presumably the ciphering done here, at any rate latterly, was only of the second order of secrecy. A meticulous search, however, brought to light a number of documents of (Bletchley Park) BP interest including eventually in a cavity behind a panel, three small sacks of documents which had been shredded but not cross shredded. These were sent to the UK. Presumably the high grade machines used by the (Oberkommando des Heeres)(OKH (West) had been removed by the Naval authorities at the time of their withdrawal some four days previously...’
On their assault on the German radar station at Douvres-la-Delivrande, they failed to control the facility but over time they worked their way to Cherbourg and onto Villa Maurice in Octaville where they found ‘masses of material as well as an excellent wine cellar.’ The teams spent over 2 days in this underground complex searching desks, lockers, safes and thousands of files and documents. This was the only time when a significant portion of 30AU operated together. From Cherbourg they worked in smaller parties of up to 10 men roving the British and American sectors gathering whatever secret material they could find and returning it to London.
30 Assault Unit was established from the ideas furnished from a successful German intelligence unit. The success of a small unit in WWII can be attributed to the blend of having technical and scientific staff deploying with highly trained and highly skilled commandos. 30AU was to subsequently be copied by a unit established by the Americans in the summer of 1944. This became known as TICOM (Target Intelligence Committee) which was initially intended to be a covert airborne unit to seize German signal intelligence targets identified through POW interrogations at CSDIC facilities and from ULTRA material.