DRAMAS OF THE WHISPERING WIRES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23269, 11 February 1939, Page 13 (Supplement)

DRAMAS OF THE WHISPERING WIRES

ON the fourth day of August, 1914, behind a wide desk in a sound-proof office in the 'Admiralty building, sat Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, grave-faced chief of the Department of Naval Intelligence. Before him on the wall were '• pinned huge coloured maps showing the geographical position of every cable in the world. Two years before, in secret conference ,rith the chiefs of British cable com- / panies, Admiral Hall had evolved a scheme whereby, in the event of war, all German cables could be cut within a few hours. Now the hour to strike had come. ' from the Admiralty radio room urgent messages crackled out to two lonely cable ships cruising thousands of miles apart; the one in sun-soaked Pacific waters, the other heaving and tossing jn mid-Atlantic. "Stand by for sealed orders." And jhen, "Act according to Plan Four." Some months previously sealed envelopes inscribed "O.H.M.S. Strictly confidential. Plan Four. To be opened only on Admiralty Instructions," had been issued to the masters of all British cable ships. These envelopes contained instructions to cut the German cables, and by the evening of August 4 the two ship's were speeding full steam ahead on their mission.

High up in Marconi House was a little room, the door of which was always kept locked.. Not more than 20 people knew what was behind that door. Every man who entered the room was sworn to secrecy.

It was Britain*!! "radio stethescope," a highly sensitive listening post that overheard every enemy radio signal, from the beginning of hostilities until the last shot was fired.

Expert Marconi operators, men whose character and ability were beyond question, worked there in , unceasing shifts day and night for more than four years. The room was equipped with several of the raost powerful and modern wireless receiving sets in tho world, and as one man put down his head phones another took his place. Later thei enemy introduced mechanical radio transmitters which spluttered messages over the air at phenomenal speeds. It was impossible to take these by hand, but Maxconi House's room of secrets was equal to the emergency. High-speed phonographs recorded every signal in wax, and these records, slowed down, we:re decoded at leisure. The most active of the German radio stations were P.O.Z. in Berlin and the gigantic! Radio - Nauen transmitter about twenty miles outside the capital. This station, one of bearded old Von Tirpitz'iS pet ideas, had been built just before the war at a cost of £500,000. It was Jfrom here that the strident code signal flashed thß_.news that war had been declared to every German ship on the high seas, ordering the merchantmen to seek saifety in neutral ports until warships could be sent to convoy them home.

Within twenty-four hours the cable running from Vigo to the United States bad been picked up near tho Azores. It came slithering snake-like over the ship's side, and in less than an hour, put and tapped, it was spilling enemy secrets into the headphones of the cable ship operator. These messages were too important to risk transmission to London by radio, and a British destroyer was sent racing out to the lonely cable ship. She picked up the messages, swung about and, belching black smoke from squat funnels, tore back to Portsmouth at breakneck speed. At the same time the German Tokio'Frisco cable was being severed and tapped, leaving only one other, the vital direct line from Emden to New JTork. ' '

But, in spite oi ! the secrecy surrounding thei construction of Radio-Nauen, Admiral Hall ha,d every detail of its power and wavelength in his possession long before that first dramatic broadcast, and at Marconi House his operators picked up ifche "War Declared!" warnings to German shipping all over the world.

The Admiralty decided on a daring plan in connection with this. Heavily escorted by lean grey warships, two cable boats slipped dowh the Channel and out into the Atlantic. One picked up the enemy cable just off the rocky Cornish coast and towed it into Penzance; the other, severing the American end, spliced on three hundred miles of new cable and towed it into Halifax, Nova Scotia. .'ilt was all done so swiftly that the cable, which had cost Germany many millions to lay, was operating for Britain ' before they realised that it had been, commandeered. With all her cables cut Germany was left with radio as her only means of communication, and once again, thanks to Admiral Hall's foresight, not a single "dot" or "dash" flashed over the ether from enemy wireless stations *"as missed.

Every important message was, of course, broadcast in elaborate code, but never once during the war did the enemy find one sufficiently intricate to baffle Britain's team of expert code solutiorists for long. The German codes were changed every twenty-four hours, but between midnight, when ;Lhe change was made, and sis: o'clock ithu following morning the Cocle Room never failed to produce the key whirh mndi' every message an open boo'.;. They worked La constant touch with the locked room on the top floor. Immediately the first message of the day in the new code was received it was duplicated, and each of the twelve experts cm the code staff was given a copy.' Every man had! a big blackboard and they worked on an elaborate system of checking and ciross-checkmg, swiftly,

Navy's Intelligence System

By RICHARD NORTON

BURIED fathoms deep beneath the restless waves of the seven seas, girdling the world like giant snakes, run the international cables. The tidings they carry to-night make the newspaper headlines of to-morrow. Sometimes they hum with coded secrets that may rock a throne or start a war, sometimes with the stark horror of plague or earthquake, flood or famine, /klong them and from towering wireless masts the gossip of the world buzzes and crackles. Their story is that of the secrets behind wars, revolutions and world-shaking disasters.

patiently, untiringly, until they- obtained the key. If German 'planes had ever succeeded in dropping a bomb on that quiet room where the twelve men wrestled with a confused tang!.* of letters and figures it would have been a greater blow to Britain than the loss of a battalion of soldiers.

Some of the greatest secrets of the war were discovered there. There was that day; for instance, when an innu-cent-looking cable from South Africa started a thrilling h,unt for £.'1,000,000 worth of German gold which ma.v still lie buried in a jungle swamp. From the Capetown cable station one morning came a copy of a divorted message which had aroused suspicion there.

On the face of it this message appeared* to bo a commonplace business communication from a Boer farmer to a merchant in tho Dutch East Indies.

But the Boer farmer was suspected of acting as a German spy, and the East Indian trader was aiso tho German Vice-Consul, and so to the Code Room in Marconi House camo a copy of tho cable for expert examination. A few hours later an Admiralty official went into Admiral Hall's office. Before his chief ho laid the real text of that innocent-looking message: It read: "From the General Officer commanding, Cameroons, to Degruyter, Surabaya—Advise G. 14 Admiralty through Hague gold deposits awaiting shipment. Need Naval assistance. Danger falling enemy hands." For some time there had been rumours of a huge store of bullion valued at more than £3,000,000 which the enemy were anxious to smuggle from German West Africa back to the Fatherland H.M.S. Cumberland was off the West African coast, acting as escort to the little cable ship Transmitter working on a job which had nothing to do with hidden gold. The enemy had a £1,000,000 radio station in the Cameroons, tho largest and most powerful in Africa, which for a long time had been jamming reception on British ships over a wide area.

Charts had revealed the existence of an old disused cable on the sea-bed near this spot which might be repaired and employed to counteract the jamming from the German transmitter. The Transmitter had fished this up from the bottom and put it in working order so that direct communication could be established to and from Duala in British territory when her escort ship's radio picked up the Admiralty's dramatic instructions. In a few minutes the Cumberland's commander was giving rapid orders from the bridge. Below decks her fires were being banked high to force eyerj' inch of pressure from the boilers, and a ripple of excitement ran through the crew as arms and ammunition were served out to the landing party. They were going into action —and after a £3,000.000 prize! With two white plumes of foam mounting high on her bows the war-

ship swept toward Swakopmund, the German stronghold to the north of Walvis Bay. But when she arrived and her anchor went rattling down through the crystalbluo tropic water it was too late. , j Swakopmund had already fallen and tho Germans had retreated inland. There was nothing to greet the landing party of bluejackets but the smouldr enng ruins of the magnificent millionpound radio station which the enemy had blown up before they quitted. Of the gold thero was no sign, and to this day the secret of its whereabouts is still Germany's.

for when she turned her blunt nose south. Across Switzerland, the blue waters of the Mediterranean and the sands of, the Sahara she droned, on the most hazardous'flight ever attempted by an airship. Her goal, more than three thousand; miles away, was the Oameroona; the object of the trip to retrieve the fortune that had been left behind in the jungle. • .....

But misfortune overtook the Zeppelin. Long before sho reached the equator, and with more than half the journey still remaining, she ran into fierce tropical storms. The gale toyed with her like a shuttlecock while torrential rains beat her down almost on to the dark jungle tree-tops. Miles off her course, the airship struggled on, while frantic radio-mes-sages were exchanged with Berlin until at last the order was given to turn back and make for home.

Sho limped slowly back to the Friedrichshafen base in forlorn contrast to the rapturous homecoming that would have marked her return had she recovered the missing gold. But the treasure remained unclaimed in the jungle, and some say that Germany still waits patiently in the hope that Damaraland with its £3,000,000 nest egg may once again become her property! The secret of that hidden treasure might never have been known to England but for the suspicions of the South African cable chief who sent that Boer farmer's message to London for the twelve code experts to unravel.*

It is more than probable that the £3,000,000 treasure still lies hidden in Damaraland deep in tho heart of some tropical thicket in which it was concealed more than twenty years ago.

One thing is certain. The gold was not smuggled out of Africa in that hurried retreat from the coast. Proof that the bullion had been left behind came many months later, when a giant Zeppelin set out from Friedrichshafen on a mysterious mission. The big airship's destination was such a well-guarded secret that even the crew did not know where she was bound

To them it was just another job of work, only one of the many dramas in which they played a part during those momentous war years.