Tried To Get Spy Into B.B.C.

Northern Advocate, 21 December 1945, Page 9

Tried To Get Spy Into 8.8. C.

The problem of espionage in Britain has always been not so much gathering the facts as getting them out of the country. And obviously the 8.8. C. and official transmitters offered the ideal method, writes E. H. Cookridge, of the London “Sunday Dispatch,” in another story of how Britain beat the spies. The real danger was actually not so much from a spy ready to give his life for a few seconds at the microphone. It was the possibility of an undetected enemy agent getting to the mike and using a code of apparently innocent words, music, coughs, or even voice inflections to convey information to his employers in Germany.

Smuggling an agent into the 8.8. C. was a pet plan of General Joseph von Tippelskirch, colleague of Admiral Canaris, the head of Germany’s military espionage.

Early in 1942 von Tippleskirch ordered two of his most efficient subordinates, S.S. Groupleader Schreckenberg and Nicolaus Adolf Ritter, known to the Gestapo staff in Berlin as “Dr. Renken,” to find a suitable man for smuggling into one of the exiled Allied Government offices in London, where he would have the opportunity to broadcast.

Previous attempts to smuggle in agents had failed.

AGENT CHOSEN The picture they conjured up was of a man giving day-by-day messages from a British radio station, possibly actual abuse of the Germans, but using a carefully prepared and elastic code that would enable information to be broadcast under the very eyes of the British security officials. Ritter took some months to select his man. He had decided to choose a man who could pose as a Dutch refugee. Ritter got into touch with the Gestapo chief, in Holland, S.S. General Walter Rauter, in The Hague, and asked for recommendations. In the end Johannes Marinus Dronkers was weeded out from several “possibles” and vetted by Rauter, Ritter and even von Tippleskirch himself. He was told what would be required of him, promised a fantastic reward, and dispatched to one of the Nazi espionage schools. The actual school where he “graduated” was at Mulheim, in Westphalia. Dronkers, as the Gestapo dossier stated correctly, was born on April 3, 1896, in Nigtevecht, near Utrecht. He had “knocked around” the world in the Dutch mercantile marine for many years, learned to speak quite good English, was a trained telegraphist, and knew enough about British broadcasting. RETIRED FROM SEA Just before the war he had retired from the sea and obtained a job with the Netherlands general post office. He had been a Dutch Nazi Party sympathiser and knew Adrian Mussert. This was the real Dronkers. It was Ritter’s theory that previous agents had been detected because under cross-examination they had failed to be consistent in some trifling detail and thus given the whole game away. In Dronkers’ case, therefore, the Nazis decided to stick to the facts as far as possible. He could keep his birthplace, parentage, career in the merchant service, and so on. Only his object in escaping to Britain would be faked.

Dronkers proved an ambitious and diligent pupil and “passed out” in May, 1942. All was how ready for him to visit England and earn the highest fee ever paid to a broadcaster. -In the early hours of May 18, 1942, the look-out on H.M.S. armed trawler “X,” on patrol in the Channel some 30 miles from land, saw a small yacht flying the Dutch flag. The yacht caused no particular excitement, for in those days the Royal Navy was almost daily picking up men who had escaped from the Continent, i NOT SUSPECTED The trawler altered course and came up to the yacht, which was in some difficulties in the rough seas. A solitary man on her deck excitedly waved a small flag. A boat was lowered and the man brought aboard. He said that he had left the little port of Hellevoet-Sluis on May 16, having got the yacht from a Dutch patriot, and had been tossed about for 48 hours before sighting the British trawler. He explained that he was a member of the resistance movement and hoped to get work with the Dutch Government in London.

Tearing open the seams of his sou’wester, he brought out some papers and displayed a letter from Utrecht

headquarters of the resistance movement, confirming that he had taken part in the underground fight against the Nazis, had been arrested by the Gestapo, and managed to escape.

The letter recommended him to the British and Dutch authorities because his life would be in danger if he were again caught by the Germans. Dronkers was put ashore at Harwich and interviewed by intelligence officers. They found no reason to suspect him. But, as in every case where a refugee had crossed the Channel, the counter-espionage organisation began an investigation of the, story down to the minutest detail. UNDER GUARD Dronkers was taken under guard to London and put through a “grilling” by officials of the Dutch security service. They were satisfied and believed his papers genuine. The signature of the leader of the Dutch resistance movement in Utrecht was checked and found correct, so masterly- had it been forged. He' was told that he had been “okayed” and the Dutch authorities provided a home for him. Only a few days later Dronkers stood before the microphone of Radio Orange, the transmitter sponsored by the Dutch Government at the 8.8. C

In his hand he had messages of greetings he had written to his former comrades in Holland—or that was what they appeared to be, in the messages were cunningly inserted code words. They would be taken down by German monitors, recording every word of every broadcast throughout the 24hours. In a matter of hours thev would be in the hands of Nazi spychief Ritter, who would rush to his bosses with the good news

He made his broadcast without the slightest indication of the suppressed excitement that possessed him. He ended with “Good Morning,” and turned away from the microphone Then his face fell.

STERN-FACED MEN Instead of the smilin p to congratulate him on his successful debut at Radio Orange, he saw three stern-faced men. They told him dryly and without drama that it would be necessary to detain him. He was charged with espionage. He had not even the satisfaction of knowing that he had got one message over to his employers. To his fear that the espionage charge might be proved was added the humiliation of learning that the microphone into which he had been speaking was connected, not to a transmitter, but simply to the room where intelligence officers had been standing watching him. What flaw in Dronker’s perfect story gave him away so that he was ’ allowed to “broadcast” simply to con' vict himself? It would be dramatic to be able to say it was some brilliant piece of detection, some insignificant clue. But true life is not like fiction. In fact the only mistake that Dronkers made was to be in too much of a hurry. He was just that shade overanxious to get official employment, just that tiny bit too emphatic about his qualifications to broadcast. It aroused suspicion. DREAM ENDED At his trial, held in camera at the Old Bailey in London on November 13, 1942, he admitted that his instructions were particularly to get information about our naval movements in connection with British and American preparations for the invasion of Europe, then still in the early stages. Like the other 18 German spies executed during the war, Dronkers had a trial fully in accordance with the high standards of British justice. He appeared before Mr. Justice Wrottesley, and a jury found him guilty. He was sentenced to death, and an appeal largely on the ground that he was “forced” to serve the Germans, was dismissed after being heard at the Court of Criminal Appeal on December 14, 1942. A fortnight later a miserable man, crying and begging for mercy, took the few steps between the death cell and the gallows at Wandsworth Prison. Thus ended the life of a man who fancied he had become a “master spy.’ and Admiral Canaris’s dream of getting his intelligence from British breadcasting stations.