The Decline in Anglo-Soviet Relations during the Second World War: The British Foreign Office, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Special Operations Executive’s dealings with the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD)

By Bernard O'Connor

Britain allied with Russia and France during the First World War but the October Revolution in 1917, the Russian Civil War and the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922 led to a decline in diplomatic relations. Although the Soviet Union was allowed an embassy in London in 1924, the British Embassy in Moscow did not open until 1929.
The economic depression during the 1930s was accompanied with widespread political disagreements. Left-wing opposition to right-wing policies led to demonstrations, strikes and in some cases violence. The more conservative political parties viewed the Communist Party as a threat. Although some countries made membership of a communist party illegal, the British conservative government instructed its Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to collect information about its membership and activities and to identify and potentially defuse threats.
Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938 led Joseph Stalin to offer to move Soviet military forces to the German border to support France and Britain. As it would entail movement through Poland, the offer was refused. Fearing a Russian attack, Hitler ordered Joachim Ribbentrop, his Foreign Secretary, to meet Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Secretary, and negotiate a ten-year peace deal with the Soviet Union. It included a secret agreement to divide Eastern Europe between them.
Having invaded Norway, the Low Countries and France in June 1940, the German armed forces failed to invade Britain. Winston Churchill ordered the creation of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a subversive intelligence organisation with a mission ‘to set Europe ablaze by sabotage.’
In June 1941 Hitler reneged on his agreement with the Soviet Union and ordered Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of Russia. This prompted urgent meetings between Britain and the Soviet Union which led to a top-secret agreement between the two countries and their intelligence services having to collaborate for the first time.
Bernard O’Connor’s ‘The decline of Anglo-Soviet Relations during the Second World War’ is a documentary history which uses previously classified files in the British National Archives and other sources to investigate the collaboration between the British Foreign Office, SIS and SOE with the Soviet intelligence service, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781447899884

Book preview

The decline in Anglo-Soviet relations during the Second World War:

The British Foreign Office, the Secret Intelligence Service and the Special Operations Executive’s dealings with the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD)

Bernard O’Connor

Copyright

All rights reserved.

ISBN:  978-1-4478-9988-4

Attempts have been made to locate, contact and acknowledge copyright holders of quotes and illustrations used in my work. They have all been credited within the text and/or in the bibliography. Much appreciation is given to those who have agreed that I include their work. Any copyright owners who are not properly identified and acknowledged, get in touch so that I may make any necessary corrections. Any suggested additions/deletions will be welcome for subsequent editions.

Small parts of this book may be reproduced in similar academic works providing due acknowledgement is given in the introduction and within the text.

Bernard O’Connor

[e-mail]

Contents Page

Foreword

Codes and Symbols used by SOE’s Russian Section and the Foreign Office

Introduction: The Foreign Office, SIS, MI5 and SOE

SOE’s Russian Section and the NKVD

SOE, NKVD and Operation PICKAXE

SOE, NKVD and Bhagat Ram in India and Afghanistan

SOE and NKVD and Operation MAMBA in France and Germany

SOE and NKVD in Eastern Europe

Operation UNTHINKABLE

Conclusion

Bibliography

Foreword

I used to live near RAF Tempsford, a disused airfield on the border between Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire, about fifty miles north of London and half way between Cambridge and Bedford. I researched the airfield’s history and discovered that it played a vital role during the Second World War. From March 1942, it served as the base for 138 and 161 Special Duties Squadrons which were engaged in flying out supplies to be parachuted to the resistance movements in enemy-occupied Western Europe. They also parachuted secret agents from numerous Allied countries behind enemy lines and picked up agents and people considered VIPs from France and brought them back to Britain.

The organisation responsible for supplying the resistance movements and selecting, training, equipping, financing, briefing and arranging the infiltration and exfiltration of agents for their missions was the Special Operations Executive (SOE). As well as being parachuted or landed by plane into enemy-occupied territory, some were landed by motorboat, fishing boat and submarine and others went overland.

As some of the agents received military and civilian decorations for their work in enemy-occupied Europe, newspaper articles, autobiographies and biographies were published and films made about their exploits but these tended to be the stories of British and American agents, and generally the more attractive. In the years immediately after the war, the Official Secrets Acts meant that not all the details could be published. The Intelligence Services did not want the names of some of their officers or some politically sensitive details mentioned.

My research revealed that over 80 women were infiltrated including American, Australian, Belgian, British, Dutch, Estonian, French, Mauritian, Polish, Swiss, Russian and an Indian-Russian. Having published accounts of their wartime experiences, I went on to research the stories of men and women, particularly those from other countries whose stories in all likelihood would never be told. Having published an account of the 34 Soviet agents infiltrated by the British as part of a secret agreement between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party and Premier of the USSR. I went on to research and write about Britain’s sabotage training school and the successes and failures of its ‘graduates’.

I was contacted in 2018 by a Russian journalist and historian who was researching the head of NKVD, the Soviet People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs during the Second World War, for a TV documentary. I spent a day with him and his cameraman at RAF Tempsford, showing them the barn at Gibraltar Farm where the Soviet agents were kitted out prior to their flight, the memorial in Tempsford to all the women infiltrated by the British and copies of contemporary documents obtained from the National Archives in Kew. This led to a Russian TV news report seen by over ten million viewers and an invitation to Moscow to present my findings to the Russian Intelligence Service, government officials, diplomats, historians and journalists. The Russian Foreign Office then released files from the Communist International and captured Gestapo documents about these Soviet agents which allowed an updated, two volume account of their stories.

I was invited to give a presentation on SOE and NKVD’s liaison in Afghanistan during the war and another on SOE and the Arctic Convoys to Murmansk and Archangel [Arkhangelsk) but Covid led to the cancellation of both conferences. During the pandemic, I published an account of espionage in Afghanistan and went on to investigate and publish an account of Soviet soldiers who, captured by the Germans on the Eastern Front, were forced to work for the Wehrmacht, the German army, on the Western Front. When some surrendered to the French resistance and others were captured by British and American troops, their anti-Nazi sentiments led to some being recruited and trained for special missions in France and Germany. When SOE asked NKVD for their assistance, it was refused. Stalin had ordered all Red Army soldiers to fight to the last bullet. Anyone who surrendered was considered a traitor. The Soviet representative in London complained to the British Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden, who forbade SOE from infiltrating Soviet prisoners and ordered their repatriation to the USSR where they faced imprisonment or execution.

‘The Decline in Anglo-Soviet relations during the Second World War’ is a documentary history which uses recently released SOE and Foreign Office correspondence, autobiographies of SOE’s Russian Section officers and other sources to provide the British account of the declining relationship between Britain and the Soviet Union’s intelligence services during the Second World War.

I apologise for any typographical errors in names and places. The original writers of the correspondence were not always good spellers. Some telegrams and copies of wireless transmissions have ‘gp. undec.’ in brackets. Due to atmospheric conditions and wireless telegraphists’ errors, some groups of letters were undecipherable. Text in square brackets is my additional explanatory detail.

I also apologise to readers with a military background. The ranks included in the text were those mentioned in the documents. For example, some people referred to as Captains are not credited with having been promoted to Majors later in the war.

I need to acknowledge the staff at the National Archives in Kew for cataloguing and making available their files through their online catalogue. Stephen Kippax very kindly provided access to some of the SOE and Foreign Office files and Fred Judge, senior archivist at Chicksands Military Intelligence Museum, supplied the fruits of his research with the SOE register. Both helped by supplying answers to my queries, as did Russian historian Sergey Brilev, German historian Michael Heim and Polish historian, Waldemar Grabowski. I also need to acknowledge the research undertaken by Christian Jennings, and others who shed light on the changing relationship between Britain and the Soviet Union.

Codes and Symbols used by SOE’s Russian Section and the Foreign Office

30      SOE code for USSR

95-land      SIS code for USSR

AD      Taylor, Col. George, Director of SOE’s Overseas Groups and Missions, Chief of Staff

AD/E      Mockler-Ferryman, Brig. Eric, Head of SOE’s London Group

AD/H      Keswick, Lt Col. David, Director of SOE’s Mediterranean group

AFHQ      Allied Forces Headquarters

AL      Kempthorne, Capt JP, Air Liaison

AMO       Capt. John Kempthorne, Conducting officer and officer at MASSINGHAM

AMX      Sherren, Capt EH, London liaison with MASSINGHAM

CD      Sir Frank Nelson, Head of SOE 1940 - 1942

CD      Sir Charles Hambro, April 1942 – Sept 1943

CD      Gubbins, Maj. Gen. Colin, Sept 1943 – Jan 1946

D/Air       Redding, Wing Cmdr. SE, Air Ministry

D/CE      Roche, Lt Col the Hon Thomas, Head of SOE’s Security Section

D/HT      Talbot Rice, Lt Col Balkan Section of the Foreign Office

DIB       Delhi Intelligence Bureau

D/NAVY Jennings, Cmdr. A, Admiralty

D/PLANS Barry, Col. Richard, Head of the SOE’s Future Planning,

DP      Russian Section

D/P      Wiskeman, George, First Head of Russian Section, transferred to Scandinavia Section c.Aug 1941

D/P      Hill, George, Head of Russian Section Aug – Sept 1941

D/P       Seddon, Maj. Harold, Head of Russian Section, Sept 1941 until May 1944

D/P       Manderstam, ‘Len’, West Africa, Spanish then Russian Section. Head from May to Nov 1944 then moved to X/PLANS

D/P      Graham, Capt. George, Head from Nov 1944 to end of war

D/P.1      Milnes-Gaskell, Maj. CT, Berkeley Court,

D/P.100 Hill, George, Sabotage instructor at Brickendonbury c.1939 – Aug 1941, then Russian Section

D/P.100      Hingley, Capt. RF, Russian Section

D/P.1000      Walshe, 2Lt Maurice O’Connell, Russian Section

D/P.101      Hill, Major (later Brigadier) George, Head of SAM Mission Moscow Sept 41 – May 1945

D/P.102      Truszkowski, Maj Richard, Later ‘Truscoe’ wireless operator, Moscow Sep 41 – Oct 42; M Section, Maryland; Bari, Italy, then in Germany

D/P.103      Graham, 2Lt George, SAM Mission

D/P.104       Milnes-Gaskell, Maj CT, SAM mission in Moscow, killed in plane crash 5 Nov 43

D/P.105       Darton, Capt James ‘Jimmy’ Harwood, NKVD Liaison Oct 41-Sep 42, then with SAM Mission Moscow till Aug 43, then London Office, then Maryland with X section HS9/294/9

D/P.106      McLaughlin, Capt. AL, SAM Mission

D/P.107      Wild, Capt Wilfred Sykes, SAM Mission

D/P.2      Darton, Capt James Harwood, Russian Section

D/P.200      Monk, Mr BB, Russian Section

D/P.3      Walshe, Maurice, Russian Section

D/P.36      Killick, Major, J.D., conducting officer

D/P.4       McLaughlin, Capt. AL, Russian Section

D/P.49       Neverovski, Capt. Dimitri. Transferred from RF July 44

D/P.400      Gardiner, 2Lt C, Russian Section

D/P.5      Saunders, Maj. EK, Russian Section

D/P.57      Dawson, Lt. Peter, Russian Section

D/P.500      Hingley, Capt RF, Russian Section

D/P.6      Wild, Capt Wilfred Sykes, Russian Section

D/P.600       Morgan, Capt, W.S. Russian Section

D/P.700      Seddon, Maj. AD, Russian Section

D/P.800      Connor, Lt L, Russian Section

D/P.900      Chaplin, Mr MR, Russian Section

D/PC      Cecil Barclay, SIS representative sent to Moscow in 1943

D/PD      Balfour, Mr J, Moscow

D/PH      Hingley, Capt RF, Russian Section

D/PM      Monk. Mr BB, Russian Section

D/PN      Hackett, Maj John Whittingham, ‘Hackett (Propaganda) School’

D/PR.1      Chichaev, Lt Col Ivan, NKVD Soviet Liaison London

D/PR.2       Toropchenko, fnu, NKVD Soviet Liaison London

D/PR.3       Graur, Andrei, NKVD Soviet Liaison in London then Moscow

D/PR.4      Yashin, Capt, fnu NKVD Soviet Liaison London

D/PR.5      Krassowski, Mr KK, NKVD Soviet Liaison London

DR      Brook, Robin, SOE’s Director of Operations to France and the Low Countries

FSP      Field Security Police

IPI      Indian Political Intelligence Division

ISLD      Inter-Services Liaison Department, cover name for the SIS

J      Italy

J      Roseberry, Lt Col. J, Head of J Section for Italy, Sicily, Sardinia and Switzerland

JZ      Gibraltar

NCO      Non Commissioned Officer

SIM       Servizio Informazioni Militare, Italian military intelligence service

SIS      Secret Intelligence Service

W.20      Manderstam, Major Len, Russian Section

X      SOE’s German and Austria Section

X      Thornley, Lt Col. Ronald, Head of German and Austrian Section

X.A.2      Darton, Capt. James, MASSINGHAM

YMCA      SIS slang for NKVD

ZP      Foreign Office

Introduction: The Foreign Office, SIS, MI5 and SOE

Given the distance between London and Moscow, about 1800 miles (2880 km), and the huge size of the Soviet Union most British people knew very little about the country and its people. During the 20th century, some may have read travellers’ tales and newspaper articles about Russia and the Soviet Union. More would have heard or seen the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Pathé news reports, but few would have questioned what they read or heard.

Britain and Russia have had diplomatic ties since 1553 when envoys attended each country’s royal court. They became formal allies during the Napoleonic wars in the early-19th century, enemies in the Crimean War in the 1850s and rivals during the ‘Great Game’ or ‘Bolshaya Igra’, the political and diplomatic confrontation between the British Empire and the Russian Empire of Afghanistan and neighbouring territories in Central and Southern Asia in the latter half of the 19th century. Britain’s Foreign Office, the India Office and the military feared that Russia planned to invade India, the ‘crown jewel’ of the British Empire, and sought to influence or control the countries on India’s borders. Russia feared Britain wanted to expand their empire to the north, territory they wanted to influence and control.

Antagonism between Russia and Britain was reduced with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention in 1907 which led to the formation of the Triple Entente, an alliance between Britain, Russia and France. During the First World War, Tsarist Russian troops fought against the Central Powers but the October Revolution in 1917, the Russian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922 brought a change in British policy, capitalist opposition to a communist state-led economy.

Despite their economic and political differences, both countries recognised the need to establish diplomatic ties. From 1924, Soviet representatives took over Chesham House, the imperial embassy in London. The British, the first major country to recognise the Soviet Union, opened its embassy in Boloto, opposite the Kremlin in Moscow in 1929. The following year, the Soviet Embassy in London moved to Kensington Palace Gardens in Belgravia, now the Russian Embassy.

Attached to Britain’s embassies were Military, Naval, Air and other attachés who liaised with their counterparts and acquired detailed knowledge of their host’s military capabilities, economic activities, politics and social life. Amongst the diplomatic staff were passport control officers, ostensibly to facilitate visas and oversee immigration but amongst them were agents employed by Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). They used it as a cover to collect economic, political and social intelligence, information which was collated and analysed to generate reports that were used to provide the Foreign Office with up-to-date accounts of the situation in the host country. This was used by the Foreign Secretary to advise the Government’s security, defence, foreign and economic policies, and in time of war, the War Office.

SIS, known today as MI6, was often referred to by SOE officers as ‘C’. The letter C was for Control. Its head, Stewart Menzies, was also known as ‘C’. Britain also had MI5, a military intelligence organisation responsible for protecting the country, its citizens, business and commercial interests at home and overseas against threats to national security. Whilst SIS was under the control of the Foreign Office, MI5 was under the control of the Home Secretary. (https://www.mi5.gov.uk/faq) SIS’s headquarters before the war were in 54 Broadway, Westminster. MI5’s headquarters were in Thames House, Millbank, London.

Following the Russian Revolution there was an exodus of ‘White Russians’, those aristocrats, landed gentry, wealthy landowners, industrialists and others who opposed land and property confiscation, and, fearing execution during the ‘Red Terror’, sought sanctuary for themselves and their families in capitalist Europe, North America and Asia. Some went on to help promote anti-communist policies. The predominantly right-wing British media portrayed the USSR as a threat to Western democracy.

During the 1920s and 30s, the ‘Great Depression’ led left-wing groups in Western Europe and elsewhere to call for radical political and economic changes. Right-wing groups called for the strengthening of forces to maintain the economic and political status quo [existing situation] and opposed left-wing challenges. In some countries, communist parties were made illegal. SIS agents infiltrated the British communist party.

Demonstrations, verbal and physical assault, persecution and murder were common but in some countries with right-wing governments, the state ordered arrests, imprisonment, torture and execution.  Whilst some left-wing activists fled persecution to other European countries, Canada and the United States, the USSR offered employment and accommodation to all members of their country’s communist party.

Both MI5 and MI6 were engaged in collecting intelligence about extreme left- and right-wing groups which were prepared to use violence to achieve their political aims. The rise of right-wing Fascist dictators like Benito Mussolini, Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler in the 1930s coincided with increased military expenditure and rearmament, not just across Western Europe but also in the Soviet Union. Fearing Nazi expansion, the Soviet Union signed treaties with France and Czechoslovakia and the Communist International, a Soviet-controlled organization of non-Russians set up in 1919 to encourage world communism, provided military support for the Republicans against Franco’s German-supported Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. The conflict was reported to the British public by Kim Philby, a correspondent for The Times newspaper and SIS agent.

During the 1930s, whilst Stalin increased the size of the Red Army and its military equipment, his purges of who he considered were not true communists, reduced the number of its experienced officers.

In March 1938, Adolf Hitler, the leader of the ruling National Socialist German Workers (NAZI) party in Germany, ordered the annexation of Austria. This led the following month to the Britain, the Soviet Union and France forming an alliance to defend Poland from a possible German invasion.

A picture containing water, sky, outdoor, river Description automatically generated

British Embassy in Moscow between 1929 and 2000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,_Moscow#/media/File:Wiki_sofiyskaya_14.jpg)

A large white house with trees in front of it Description automatically generated with low confidence

Soviet embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, Belgravia, London, from 1930 (https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/kensington-palace-gardens-tops-list-of-britain-s-priciest-streets-109837)

Picture

SIS’s London headquarters at 54 Broadway, Westminster (https://www.cbgarobson.com/news/50-broadway)

View of Thames House from Millbank.

MI5 headquarters from 1934 was in Thames House, Millbank. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_House#/media/File:View_of_Thames_House_ from_Millbank.jpg)

Intelligence archive: MI6 planned black ops sabotage behind Iron Curtain

Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies, Head of SIS (MI6)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10074104/Intelligence-archive-MI6-planned-black-ops-sabotage-behind-Iron-Curtain.html)

Image result for valentine vivian

Colonel Valentine Vivian, Deputy Head of SIS, formerly

Head of Counter-Intelligence (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine_Vivian)

Image result for sir david petrie

Sir David Petrie, Head of MI5

(https://spartacus-educational.com/SSpetrieD.jpg)

Image result for guy liddell

Guy Liddell, Head of MI5’s Counter Intelligence Section

(http://www.specialforcesroh.com/gallery.php?do=gallery_image&id=7174&gal=gallery&type=full)

A picture containing text, electronics, display, person Description automatically generated

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, his Foreign Secretary in 1943 (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Winston_Churchill%2C_Anthony_Eden%2C_Sillery%2C_1943.jpg)

Sir Alexander Cadogan

Sir Alexander Cadogan, Head of the Foreign Office

(https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/news/2016/feb/9/alexander-cadogan-papers/)

Dumbarton Oaks Conference : News Photo

Peter Loxley, Cadogan’s Private Secretary, in 1944

(Life Picture Gallery, Getty images)

The Munich Agreement in September resulted in Germany taking over the German-speaking Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia.

In August the following year, Stalin offered Britain and France to move 120 armoured divisions, each of about 19,000 troops, 16 cavalry divisions, 5,000 heavy artillery pieces, 5,500 fighter aircraft and bombers to Germany’s border. As this meant Soviet forces would have to move through Poland, the offer was rejected. (Holdsworth, Nick, ‘Stalin planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed to it,’ Daily Telegraph, 18 October 2008)

Not wanting an attack by the Soviet Union, Hitler sent Joachim von Ribbentrop, Germany’s Foreign Minister, to Moscow to liaise with Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister. They negotiated a ten-year non-aggression pact signed on 23 August in which the USSR and Germany agreed not to go to war with each other and to divide Northern and Eastern Europe between them. The USSR agreed to supply Germany with hundreds of thousands of tons of grain, cereals and minerals in exchange for advanced industrial and military supplies and technology. The agreement also included a secret protocol, not made public until the downfall of the USSR in 1989, which allowed. Germany to occupy western Poland and the Soviet Union to occupy eastern Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, territories both countries had lost during the First World War. On 1 September, a week after signing the pact, Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland.

Members of the Polish government, sections of the armed forces, industrialists and others fled to Britain. Despite Britain declaring war on Germany on 3 September, Stalin sent the Red Army into Poland on 17 September. On 28 September, Ribbentrop and Molotov signed the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty and a week later Poland was under German and Soviet control. Soviet troops established military bases in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and on 20 November, Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland.

Fearing SIS headquarters would be a target of the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force, Menzies purchased Bletchley Park, a large, secluded mansion with extensive grounds about an hour’s drive northwest of London, where SIS’s new agents were to be trained. However, when war started, the Government’s Code and Cypher Section took over Bletchley and a similar large property with secluded grounds was requisitioned, Brickendonbury Manor, outside Hertford, about half an hour’s drive northeast of London. MI5 officer Guy Burgess, the school’s second-in command, jokingly suggested it should be called ‘Guy Fawkes’ College’. Kim Philby, his Cambridge University friend and fellow MI5 officer, drew up the agents’ training syllabus. MI5’s headquarters were transferred from Thames House to Wormwood Scrubs, a high security prison.

Following the German military occupation of Czechoslovakia, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France, many royal families, government officials, diplomatic staff, military personnel and members of the business communities as well as almost 340,000 troops belonging to the Allied Expeditionary Forces were forced to evacuate.

The British Foreign Office, formed in 1782 and administered from 1854 by the Colonial Office, had its headquarters at King Charles Street. Westminster. Conservative MP Anthony Eden was Foreign Secretary until resigning in 1938 over Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement with Hitler. When war started in September 1939, he was appointed Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs and when