大象传媒

Part One of an edited oral history interview with Mr. Dafydd A.V. Williams about his wartime experiences as a Wireless Operator initially working at Bletchley Park and subsequently undertaking various postings. The interview was conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

鈥淚 was born in Stourbridge in July 1924 which makes me 81 at the moment! I was 15 when war actually started. I remember the declaration of war in particular because I was on holiday with my parents in Aberystwyth in West Wales. And the thing I can remember about it was that when war was declared all cinemas and theatres were closed except in Cardiganshire where the Chief Constable said they could remain open and that vividly remains in my mind!

I think that I wasn鈥檛 particularly conscious of the build up of the war. At that age one wasn鈥檛 really bothered at all about it. I think I did know a little about it because my parents had been on holiday in Germany for two or three times and they had in fact told me of what was happening there. So I was aware of what was happening but it didn鈥檛 really make much impact on me.

I was at Marlborough College in Wiltshire and there were fairly big changes at school because we had to share the College with the City of London School, London and we did a kind of 鈥楥ox鈥� and 鈥楤ox鈥� operation! They had lectures in the afternoon and we did sport and vice versa. It made quite a big difference to the life of the school, yes.

Practically everyone at school would join the JTC, there was only the JTC at that time. You had to learn soldiering. The main thing on my side was that I was always interested in wireless from a very early age and through that I joined the Signal Section in the JTC and eventually progressed through it until I was in charge of running Signals at the school. I had made a 鈥榗at鈥檚 whisker鈥� radio but I also made a little portable radio which I could fit on my bike which was fairly unusual at that time! It didn鈥檛 need an aerial 鈥� it was square box and the aerial was a big coil around the outside of it.

As the war progressed I noticed that our German teacher and the French teacher and one of the History teachers had gone to work at a place called Bletchley Park. That I knew but I had read various books about intercept operations. There had been books on 鈥楻oom 40鈥� in the Royal Navy that had been published and I was aware that such operations would be happening. It didn鈥檛 need much intelligence to extrapolate to realise what was happening and that was where it was taking place.

This was boarding school and of course one just went home for ones holidays. At school I can remember when SPAM came in for the first time and things like that, certainly there wasn鈥檛 a surplus of food but you were never hungry. You did have what was known as 鈥榯uck money鈥� and you could buy eggs on crumpets which was the thing, it would be poached or fried eggs on a crumpet.

There was never any real feeling of the war even at school. Yes, the war was going on, you read the papers but there was no jingoism, there was nothing like that. One read the newspapers and listened to the News on the radio. One was aware of Dunkirk and in fact I remember that at the time of Dunkirk I had joined the LDV, the Local Defence Volunteers because I had to provide the signals for the LDV cum Home Guards at that time. We fitted a radio set to a motor bike, a man sized side car so we could go round the town. I wasn鈥檛 driving, I was operating the radio set and my friend was driving the motor bike. I can remember a particular occasion were the 鈥� I think it was probably the Home Guard by this time 鈥� wanted me to stay out all night on some exercise. The Master of the College didn鈥檛 want me to go and there was a big row as to who I should obey! Eventually the Master of the College won.

In 1942 I was 18 and by that time I had taken my 鈥楢鈥� Levels and decision time was there. It had been mooted that I might have gone to Canada on the atomic weapons programme although I didn鈥檛 know it was the atomic weapons programme at that time. I had been asked to consider whether I would go to Canada. But really what happened was that while I was on holiday, just after leaving school, there was a party at my home and in that party one of the guests was a Wing Commander and he told me that he worked at Bletchley Park. So immediately I put two and two together and said what I could do and he took my name and about a fortnight later I had a letter asking me to go to Bletchley and report!

I knew what to expect, maybe I didn鈥檛 know what to expect in detail. In fact on reporting first of all I went on to the original Army side of the Unit where it really was my Morse and technical ability that was assessed and as a result of that I was kind of passed out as an Operator Grade I was at Bletchley Park about two weeks I should also point that I was only in uniform for about two weeks whilst I was at Bletchley. When I first joined up I was in uniform at Little Horwood which was a house belonging to Gee I think, the builder, a very large house. I was just billeted in the stables that only lasted about a fortnight. And then I went to Whaddon Hall and went back into civilians and we went back to Bletchley to live.

I was sent up to the main Station at Whaddon Hall in Buckinghamshire which was responsible for secret communications between England and the various Embassies throughout the world and also the main Commanders in the Field. It was Section 8 of the Secret Intelligence Service and I was at Whaddon Hall for four to five months as it was suggested would I go on various jobs from there. I went into digs in Bletchley. A station wagon used to pick us up every day. And the thing which I remember 鈥� remember I was only 18 at the time 鈥� I was given a salary of 拢7 0s 0d a week! 拢7 0s 0d a week, free of income tax! Plus keep, plus my accommodation. Really this was a very big salary at that date for an 18 year old. At that time I was working shift operations, the Station was open for 24 hours a dayThe shift was 鈥� let me start in the morning 鈥� you had a shift from 8 o鈥檆lock to one o鈥檆lock and then you went off for the afternoon and you came back at 8 o鈥檆lock and worked through the night until 8 o鈥檆lock the next morning. Then you had thirty six hours off and worked that small afternoon shift. Then the pattern kept on repeating itself. It was quite an intensive pattern. Basically it was sending and receiving coded traffic to Embassies and the Army Command in North Africa and in Cairo. I was supposed to go to North Africa and that fell through. I was supposed to go to Spitzbergen and that fell through and then eventually I found myself sent to Madrid in Spain.

Well after four months, in about February 1943, I was told that I was being sent to Madrid in Spain and I was sent off. I remember I was given leave and a whole pile of clothing coupons to buy clothes. Yes, they told me to buy a couple of suits to fit in with the life there. I flew from Bristol, Bristol to Lisbon and then by train from Lisbon to Madrid. There was a section of the Dutch Airlines, KLM, that operated flights between Bristol and Lisbon throughout the war as both Spain the Portugal were neutral countries.

First of all because we were members of the Intelligence Service we were kept - in a sense separate from the main Embassy - and we operated from an out building in the Embassy compound. But the only people really 鈥� of course I was a very junior person being the age of 18 but the only people we came in contact with were people doing similar work. There were the Escape Organisation, MI9. This was for helping escaped Prisoners of War. Occasionally one was involved in passing messages for them. And one was aware also of the SOE people in the Embassy although we didn鈥檛 have that much contact with them. Everything was done on a need to know basis.

I lived in a pension a couple of hundred yards from the Embassy and used to live there. There were again, four of us - Intelligence people 鈥� living in the same pension. It was the Coding Section that I was with. The wireless set in the Embassy was fairly large, a non portable set, for operating the main traffic. But after about a couple of months on the main traffic work from the Embassy I was kind of allocated the job of organising the putting in of small suitcase radio sets in all the Consulates and a few private houses in the ports of Spain so that we could set up a network which would pass information on German or Italian shipping using Spanish ports. For about, well probably seven or eight months I was engaged on that work. Putting sets in, doing tests and occasionally passing some information but at that time there wasn鈥檛 very much to pass - it was really making the preparations for if it was necessary. It was an interesting job and you met interesting people. Although one had a feeling that one was doing useful work.

The radio sets were sent out from London in the 鈥楧iplomatic Bag鈥�. The method we used to operate was that occasionally I would go under non Diplomatic cover but on the whole one used to go under full Diplomatic cover with someone driving a Diplomatic car so that wouldn鈥檛 be stopped carrying somewhat incriminating equipment.

I left the equipment in different ports. In places the equipment was just left there so that it was available if something came up which required its use. Although in 1944 there were three girls sent out from England and I had to take them up and set the plans up and the equipment up and leave them to operate if necessary. They were in the North West of Spain, in the ports of Vigo, Coruna and Santander.

I was in Spain, from well it would from February 1943 until the end of September 1944. And then in the Spring and July of 1944 it was decided that they were going to make a serious attempt to stop the German iron ore trade between the North of Spain and Bordeaux. So I in fact went up to Bilbao and spent six months or five months in Bilbao, in the Consulate in Bilbao. I was just the wireless operator and the coder. In fact there was an Intelligence Officer in charge of the Operation. And then in the German Shipping Office we had a local Basque girl who was a secretary who was giving us the information of the shipping movements. And we had two local people who we were sending out to watch the port so that we could have the time that they actually left the harbour.

I was living in a pension in Madrid and I used to visit the people I was working with. In my spare time went round museums and I did a little bit of sightseeing, this sort of thing. But by this time, after a year I could speak fairly reasonable Spanish so there was no real problem in getting around.

Franco at this time was in power and really one hasn鈥檛 touched on this but they changed sides more or less. When I first went out there they were very pro German but of course when they saw that the Allies were winning the war, they changed! Of course one has the Basque problem in the North of Spain and it was very easy to get people to help the Allies who were Basque. The actual agents in general were the Basque people.

On the German iron ore trade there were three ships, three German ships which I know - the Hocheimer, the Rastenburg and Barfels - they were the names I was using in the telegrams. The idea was in fact to sink the ships or to destroy them using submarines based just outside the various harbours. And the first ship was the Hocheimer that was in fact sunk by the submarine HMS Sceptre just outside Bilbao harbour after I鈥檇 passed the information. Well, we鈥檇 been telling them, it鈥檚 getting ready, getting steam up, it鈥檚 actually going out of the harbour 鈥� that鈥檚 the sort of information which we were passing so they were in a position to position themselves.

At that time there was pretty severe Spanish censorship and I don鈥檛 think the Hocheimer鈥檚 sinking was in fact published. However, the second ship the Rastenburg, about a month and a half later, that went to a Spanish port called Castries, about 20 miles East of Bilbao where the loading tip was an open tip and the ship was open to the sea. The ship was tied up to be loaded when she was struck by torpedoes from HMS Sceptre which caused somewhat of an incident. As it was in neutral territory and I believe a couple of Spanish policemen were killed at the time so that was in the press. Anyhow one was aware of what had happened.

The third ship was the Barfels and again we鈥檇 got information which was usually loading up and was about to sail, this was from Bilbao. I remember going in, in the evening to start sending the messages and I was met and they said, 鈥楴o, don鈥檛 come in. We mustn鈥檛 do anything tonight.鈥� In fact I went, I and one of the other people there, we went round all the bars and pubs in Bilbao in the most populated places eventually getting to bed very early in the morning. And then next morning I was taken to a hotel about 20 miles from Bilbao where I stayed for about a fortnight or so and then eventually going back to Madrid. But, that at that time was as far as I knew. And then as I said I had an extraordinary coincidence later on, 40 years later when I was in Bangladesh working for the ITU (International Telecommunications Union). There was a German who was working for the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and we got talking, got friendly and he said that he been in the German Intercept Service during the war and from that I said, 鈥楬ad you ever heard me?鈥� And then he said, 鈥榃ell, where where you on the night of July 14th?鈥� And he said that he had been part of a German team sent to assassinate me!

The Germans had a large monitoring organisation, he had been in the German Monitoring Station in Brest, in Northern Western France, in Brittany. They would have spotted where we where. It鈥檚 only a guess but Bletchley Park by this time had cracked the German ABWHER codes and I imagine that they knew that this operation was in place because of the information in the codes.

Then I went back to Madrid after a fortnight. I did nothing really in Madrid for some time and then by about the end of August 1944 I was asked, well I wasn鈥檛 asked! I went on a Mission into France as a Wireless Operator for the Mission and the purpose of that Mission was to first of all find intelligence on the intention of the Spanish Republican Guards who were refugees in France And also of the French Communist Resistance because there had been rumours that they were going to take the opportunity to attack Spain or to do an incursion into Spain.鈥�

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