MI8

MI8, or "Military Intelligence, Department 8", was the cover designation for the Radio Security Service (RSS), a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was a British signals intelligence group in World War II.

History

At the start of World War II, Vernon Kell, the head of MI5, introduced a contingency plan to deal with the problem of illicit radio transmissions. A new body was created, the Radio Security Service (RSS), headed by Major J.P.G. Worlledge, who until 1927 had commanded a Wireless Company in Palestine. Worlledge's brief was to "intercept, locate and close down illicit wireless stations operated either by enemy agents in Great Britain or by other persons not being licensed to do so under Defence Regulations, 1939". As a security precaution, the RSS was given the cover designation of MI8(c).

Worlledge selected Majors Sclater and Cole-Adams as his assistants and Walter Gill as his chief traffic analyst. The task of developing a comprehensive listening organization was given to Ralph Mansfield, 4th Baron Sandhurst, an enthusiastic amateur radio operator who had served with the Royal Engineers Signal Service during World War I, and had been commissioned as a Major in the Royal Corps of Signals in 1939.

Sandhurst was given an office in the Security Service's temporary accommodation in Wormwood Scrubs prison and as a first step approached the President of the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB), Arthur Watts, who had served as an analyst in Room 40 during World War I following the loss of a leg at Gallipoli. Watts recommended that Sandhurst recruit the entire RSGB Council, who in turn began to recruit their members as Voluntary Interceptors (VIs). Radio amateurs were considered ideal for such work because they were widely distributed across the United Kingdom.

The VIs were mostly working men of non-military age, working in their own time and using their own equipment (naturally their transmitters had been impounded on the outbreak of war, but their receivers were not). They were ordered to ignore commercial and military traffic and to concentrate on more elusive transmissions. Each VI was given a minimum number of intercepts to make each month, which if reached gave them exemption from other duties, such as fire watching. Many VIs were issued with a special DR12 identity card, which allowed them to enter premises from which they suspected unauthorized signals were being transmitted.

RSS also established a series of Radio Direction Finding stations in the far corners of the British Isles in order to identify the locations of the transmissions they were intercepting.

The recruitment of Voluntary Intercepters (VIs) was slow since they had to be skilled, discreet, and dedicated, but within three months 50 VIs were at work and identified over 600 transmitters - all firmly on the other side of the English Channel. It became apparent that there were no enemy agents transmitting from the UK - in fact, all German agents entering the UK were promptly captured and either interned or "turned" to operate as double agents under the supervision of the "XX Committee". In some cases, a British operator took over their transmissions and was accepted by the Germans as one of their agents.

Move to Arkley

Initially the messages logged by the VIs were sent to Wormwood Scrubs, but as the volume became so great, and Wormwood began to suffer German air attacks, the decision was made to seek larger premises. Arkley View, a large country house near the village of Arkley, in the London Borough of Barnet, had already been requisitioned as an intercept station, and it was decided to move to this locale, which was given the cryptic postal address of Box 25, Barnet.

There a staff of analysts and cryptographers began their duties and by May 1940 it was clear that RSS's initial mission - to locate enemy agents in the UK - was complete.

MI6 takeover

RSS had in effect become the civilian counterpart of the military's "Y Service" intercept network. By mid-1941 up to 10,000 logs (message sheets) a day were sent to Arkley before being forwarded to the code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park. The success of the RSS, and the fact that some of its personnel had managed to decode some Abwehr cyphers ahead of Bletchley, meant that control of the organization was transferred to MI6 in May 1941 after some conflict over exactly which department should control it.

The new controller of RSS was Lieutenant-Colonel E.F. Maltby, and from 1942 Lt. Col. Kenneth Morton Evans was appointed Deputy Controller. Well-financed, and equipped with a new central radio station at Hanslope Park in Buckinghamshire (designated Special Communications Unit No.3 or SCU3), it became the communication and interception service of MI6 which previously had possessed no such capability. The Abwehr was now monitored round the clock and the volume and regularity of the material obtained enabled Bletchley to achieve one of its great triumphs in December 1941, when the Abwehr's Enigma cypher, giving enormous insight into German intelligence operations.

At its peak in 1943-1944 RSS employed - apart from VIs - more than 1,500 personnel, most of whom had been amateur radio operators. Over half of these worked as interceptors while a further number investigated the numerous enemy radio networks. This revealed important information, even when it was not possible to decode messages. Few transmissions by secret agents of German Intelligence evaded RSS' notice and changes in procedure, which the Germans used for security, were in many cases identified before the enemy had become familiar with them.

Following the end of the war RSS was absorbed by the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

Wilton Scheme

The "Wilton Scheme" was operated briefly from March to May 1945. It was feared that British Prisoners of War might be used as hostages by the Germans, and attempts were made to make radio contact with the prisoners to get information about such a situation if it developed. In various POW camps, radio amateurs and signals officers had constructed radio receivers and in some cases transmitters (kept for emergency use). They had been kept informed of the war news. However, no contact was made.

ee also

* GCHQ
* MI5
* MI6

Notes

References

*cite web | last = Forbes | first = Andy | authorlink = | coauthors = | title = VIs - The Voluntary Interceptors | work = | publisher = www.64-baker-street.org | date = | url = http://www.64-baker-street.org/organisations/orgs_the_v_i_s.html | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2008-08-20

Further reading

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