Review: MI9: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in World War Two – by Helen Fry

I randomly found this book on the shelves of Caldicot library. I read a lot of books on U.K. Intelligence services: MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. During the war…. Mt grandfather (GaGa) was in 618 Squadron RAF and 143 Coastal Command. He didn’t really speak to me much about World War 2 itself until quite late on in his life. Typical of an Armed Forces Officer, though, he kept a pristine home and in part of this home, in his back garden, where he had erected a wigwam, at the top of his garden, lay a treasure trove of WW2 memorabilia. The lost fascinating of items to me as a kid were all his ‘secret’ gadgets. He had all these sort of special James Bond Q-like military aids, secret maps, secret compartments. The most fascinating of all his possessions for me was his ‘trick’ compass which was a normal RAF uniform button, which unscrewed to reveal a miniature, fully-working compass. Whenever I visited him I forced him to show me it God knows how many times – with the full story of how, if he was shot down by the Luftwaffe, behind enemy lines, this little compass would help him to escape and evade capture and get home safe and sound. Of course, he was lucky and although he saw a lot of action, he never got downed in Nazi Occupied Europe or in the later stages of the war in Japanese held South East Asia. He always mentioned this secret intelligence service MI9 which was much more powerful and effective and secret than MI5 or MI6 or any others and was the ‘real’ secret’ service but that you wouldn’t read about them in any newspapers etc. I didn’t really pay much attention, just enjoyed the idea of British ingenuity and secret gadgets. Old Gaga retained a fascinat6ion with all gadgets for the rest of his life, and any Xmas or Birthday presents usually involved some sort of novelty gadget style fun toy that would keep him amused for a bit.

Fast forward to the actual book review now. I have read this and appreciate that MI9 did exist ad that everything he said was basically completely true and indeed the book documents the full lists of gadgets handed out to RAF pilots and others who faced the potential of capture on foreign shores. Indeed James Bond, creator Sir Ian Fleming was connected to MI9 along other (less fêted) famous espionage figures such as Kim Philby. MI9 were the par excellence intelligence service of World War 2 for Britain – It encompassed Room 900 and also IS9. Their mission was focussed on ‘Escape and Evasion’. Whereas services such as SOE, MI6 and GCHQ (Bletchley Park – Alan Turing, Enigma Code, computers etc) did exist and indeed were often established due to WW2, MI9 was so clandestine that very little information has ever been released and much is still locked away in the archives. This book therefore was well-researched. It does tell the most remarkable tales, one of the most exciting collection of narratives I have encountered in studying WW2 history.

MI9 did indeed liaise and work with the collaboration of the other intelligence agencies, although frictions andEscape andEvasion, rivalries did exist. We look at its formation at the start of the book.

It was created specifically to deal with the issue of servicemen who were ‘behind enemy lines’. In addition to ‘Escape and Evasion ‘ which was the main goal, it also was a direct intelligence-gathering operation with any repatriated personnel being debriefed for vital intelligence about enemy movements and other critical information related to the enemy and the situation of other allies in hostile territory. They set up training programmes for all personnel such as RAF pilots, and D-Day Landing soldiers, who were at risk of enemy capture.

The book contains lots of detail of the escape routes set up, often run by families of resistance Europeans, many young women, who were dissatisfied with Nazi occupation and felt compelled to actively engage the enemy by assisting allied servicemen in any way possible, often very much putting their own lives and the lives of their families and loved ones directly on the line. Indeed if an allied soldier was caught by the Nazis he would often be interred in a POW camp but as unpleasant as the experience was, he would survive. The brave European citizens risking all for the ‘rat-lines’ would have no such luxury. If they were betrayed or captured by the Nazis they were simply shot – Indeed for every successful repatriation, there was an estimated one dead European civilian in the analysis of post war statistics. These people often did it all at their own expense and it is to the credit of I9 that as the war ended and in the aftermath one of the main mission focuses was to provide good financial renumeration for these European heroes and heroines..  The Comet Line was probably the most famous of the escape routes and an obvious lead character was the remarkable young Dédée. Rat Lines were operational in Paris, in Belgium, in Holland, in Italy and indeed in Germany itself and also in South East Asia, in the jungles where the attitude to prisoners by Japanese soldiers was entirely different and Pyrenees and Alpine mountain passes were replaced by tropical rainforest jungle. We hear of the Naga Queen in the Naga Hills of Burma.

Famous stories such as ‘Escape from Colditz’ were based on reality as indeed was ‘Escape to Victory’. I was amazed at the ingenuity of prisoner escapes and just how well organized and versatile and creative the allied POWs were. They used to get smuggled board games from home sent in, secretly containing all the necessary gadgets and escape materials.

MI9 was disbanded after World War 2 and to my knowledge doesn’t exist today. It makes James Bond even look dull. It is such an exciting really war time adventure story and the truth is we are probably only just scraping the surface of the reality of what actually happened in MI9. It’s like ‘Allo Allo’ just without the faux-pas comedy and some real bravery and action. In an age of #brexit it is worth noting just how much the Europeans put on the line for our troops and the real heros of the story are not the POWs or the MI9 officers, but the simple young women and families who went that extra mile to defeat Nazism and win World War 2 for the allied cause.

#centuryofgaga My grandad was Flight Lieutenant William Gordon Gerrard (26.05.1923-14.02.2015). sadly he didn’t make it to celebrate his 100^th Birthday (today: 26.05.2023) but I’m most certainly raising a glass to him up in the surly bonds, and this book review is part of the tribute I pay to him to continue his legacy and that of his fellow patriotic countrymen who served us so well during World War 2 and who must be pretty thin on the ground nowadays as we lose aa wise generation who understood what a a genuine global conflagration consisted of.  In this tense hostile global atmosphere where it’s pretty much boiling over militarily into World War 3, it makes the study of the history of the previous world wars that much a critical pursuit or paramount importance and therefore I’d encourage you to go out and read Helen Fry’s book on MI9, perhaps.

Review: Defending The Realm – MI5 and The Shayler Affair – by Mark Hollingsworth and Nick Fielding

This is just another one of the many books I’ve read on the security services / spies / intelligence agencies in general. I guess I have a morbid fascination. Non-fiction throws up some pretty weird stuff – Life itself is a lot stranger than fiction. This tale from a turncoat ex MI5 employee David Shayler, comes from a time of great change in the world, Security Services in general and it interests me in particular as I was living down in London at that specific time and had what I believe to be my own brush with Shayler’s employers. It was at a time (in history) when people still bought and read daily newspapers and not just get all their news information off Donald Trump’s twitter feed. I can distinctly remember all the controversial headlines about the whole affair.

The book is written by some Daily Mail journalists, a sort of hive for some of the smelliest sort of flies that the tabloid journalist industry attracts so automatically I was on my guard as to the agenda and the sort of bias, provocation, and fascist ideology of the book. Also, let’s get one thing straight. David Shayler is not a hero like they might try to portray him as, he’s not even an anti-hero. He’s just a sort of bo standard below-average MI5 officer, a disgruntled employee, a whistleblower. He knows what he’s signed up to by applying for the job in the first place, by successfully passing the vetting and by being offered a position. I think the Official Secrets Act as much as anyone may find it repulsive and disagree with it is pretty clear and explicit in what it states. Basically Shayler is a criminal and this book is evidence of his crime. He’s broken the Official Secrets Act, he’s also clearly committed treason and although he perhaps lacks the glamour of those that have gone before him such a Kim Philby, he’s certainly nothing more than traitor scum acting against the interests of this country which is exactly what MI5 or their employees are not supposed to be doing. Mi5 is their to protect the nation and yes, the job is difficult but I think the outset that Shayler has failed totally to appreciate the patriotic element of the work. It may have changed since the cold War and be [perhaps a little more boring, but it will adapt like many other industries and indeed since the time of publication MI5 has adapted, facing a new enemy is Islamic terror and the end of the Cold War has proven only really to be a brief ceasefire as the Russians are now back on the scene added to which a growing threat from China makes MI5 an even more critiical organization in the contemporary (and future) world.

I hold the whole message that Shayler and the writers are trying to present as completely invalid and very easy to discount. Zero sympathy for him. Nobody should be reading his revelations. Yes maybe a private letter to the MI5 boss would have been OK. But selling your story to the Daily Mail and anyone else with a chequebook? At least Kim Philby was sort of driven by ideology and is therefore it’s much more easy to identify with him. Shayler just basically wanted a nice comfy hug payout so he didn’t have to worry about his mortgage. Selfish capitalist. Thatcherist, blinkered self-aggrandisement and totally free of ethics and morality. About as close as we get to James Bond his little escape to France where his greed catches up with him and he eventually gets raided and arrested by the French authorities He was probably given a nice comfie bed and a constant supply of fresh croissants out there, just in case and It wasn’t corruption or anything like injustice. He was a serious wanted criminal and that is what INTERPOL etc is set up to sort out. Cheered me up when he finally got to Belmarsh. I’m tempted to look up his wiki but to see where he is now but it will just annoy me further.

He’s an anonymous dot in a big blob and the secrecy of the work, yes it’s underpaid, difficult and the whole system and organization is frankly sh*t but so is everything else in #brokenbritain and has been for a long time. It’s reality. You don’t get to cut corners in life. Just a buy a lottery ticket like anyone else – I’m glad the sort of celebrity tabloid culture has removed a lot of power from the redtops with their lottery payout bribes to corrupt people and deliver huge sales. The British Press is by far the biggest threat to National Security we have. Greed and capitalism has turned them into the most sinister devious body of enemies ever produced on this island. They will stop at nothing to subvert Britain, the Commonwealth or the Empire. Just examining a tiny of fraction of Prince Harry’s valiant quest against them seeking justice is total proof of their treachery. Shame Murdoch didn’t holiday with Maxwell and the rest really as Davy Jones’ locker seems the best place for them all.

Well, looking directly at the book, Shayler claims MI5 cocked up IRA city of London attacks, He claims through word-of-mouth secondary information about an assassination plot by the British government on Colonel Gaddafi – Yes, well, Mr Shayler, Gadaffi (now dead of course), may have certain human rights etc but after Lockerbie he’s pretty much clear as an enemy of the British people and State. That’s who MI5 and MI6 and GCHQ are supposed to be targeting really. I was gutted that you didn’t take the offer by the Libyan intelligence service to clear off to Tripoli, would have made a much more exciting tale, one way or the other.

It’s no recruitment manual for MI5, further justification that the actual job is absolutely nothing at all like a James Bond film. The appendix 2 of Shayler’s recommendations for organizational change, probably the most boring tract of text I’ve ever read, but is great in clarifying just what a hideous corporate body of bureaucratic bungling the MI5 security service is. I can see why MI5 officers can be so deadly effective and dangerous if they are spending 23 and half hours chained up to a desk under a pile of paperwork and government forms then I guess that for the half hour allocated break where they get to do the glamorous work in high speed car chases, staking the State’s budget on roulette spins and copping off with foreign birds etc, they are going to be so angry and wound up and pissed off that they’ll pretty much take out all their frustrations on any target and cause serious destructive damage.

Some of the revelations were significant like how much financial wastage there is. An example is the £25 million spent on an amateur computer system that didn’t work and that they had to go out and buy an off the shelf version of Microsoft Windows 95 to sort out the IT in this critical department of National Security shows clearly that mismanagement is very possible and real.

I think that it does clarify the need for change and that there are serious inadequacies and probably worse than a standard government civil service department I think that we could maybe look to other countries and the way they handle their intelligence services. The CIA and Mossad, for example, are vastly different. In many ways they have more liberty and power and more open and more effective. Our secrecy laws are a bit archaic. There is most certainly a lack of balances and checks in place for our intelligence services that would limit abuses, enable necessary change and improve efficiency and productivity and better achieve the desired goal of national security. I think that for this country James Bond is quite a double-edged sword. Whereas on the one hand it is a very positive and successful (fictional) brand, I would argue it is the very epitome of global espionage propaganda achievement, par excellence. Equally it is quite old now and it must entangle the intelligence services in manacles really and be very frustrating. Deception works to a point but needs to be balanced a bit with reality, openness and honesty.

I think looking back that even though it was pretty damned boring, that Dame Stella Rimington, as head of MI5 who released a boo, that this book was actually a watershed moment and an historic change in methodology for MI5. Yes, Ok we end up with the sort of Shayler trash a s a result. But is signals that change is happening.

I feel like a nosey idiot myself for contributing to the obvious treason of Shayler et all by purchasing the book. But it is an interesting read and I think might, if used properly, be useful to enact change. It must be a very popular text out in the Kremlin in Moscow or Pyongyang or Beijing or the Afghan Cave complex. It demonstrates weakness to our enemies, possible exploits and perhaps encourages hostile attacks on out nation. But it’s subject an idiot who I highly doubt had much access at all to any form of high-level security information. Vetting system is broken obviously. What to do about it aside from the recommended changes – well, really push the death penalty for treason to properly discourage future Shaylers – Hanging, drawing and quartering must have a value aside from public entertainment. I discount most of the so-called scandal and I’m pretty confident that although there have been mishaps and errors that MI5 in fact do actually run an effective security service with regard to domestic issues. The lack of serious security incidents on British soil is testament to their work being efficient.

Review: A Spy Among Friends – Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal – by Ben Macintyre

Telling the remarkable story of Kim Philby, who was probably the most effective spy in history, this book reads fast and furiously, a real page-turner. The book focuses on the dramatic relationship between two friends, both rising stars in the world of British espionage, Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby. The intrigue of Philby is that he was working for the Soviet Union after being drawn to communism through his time at Cambridge University, from where a ring of five key defectors were recruited. Philby managed to infiltrate MI6 at a top level, ultimately serving as the liaison officer between US and UK secret services in Washington DC. He had access to information from leading CIA agents such as James Angleton and through his public schoolboy charm he was adept at getting colleagues to drunkenly reveal all their secrets, secrets that he discretely passed to the KGB centre in Moscow, from where he took his orders. Even after the fall of fellow Cambridge conspirators, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, Philby managed to shake the tale of a particularly suspicious MI5 and continued to operate in the clandestine world of espionage. His ultimate confrontation with best friend Elliott, after the game was finally up, left the door open for him to finally defect to a relatively anonymous retirement in Moscow. He chose political ideology over loyalty to friends and the story of Kim Philby is one of ultimate treachery. In his wake he left much damage and must have throughout the Cold War caused the death of hundreds, even thousands of people who were involved in Western operations. The book tells a most exciting tale and its global spanning and most exceptional debauchery and intrigue make it a real life James Bond adventure. Certainly worth a read and proof that real life is often stranger than fiction. Five star rating.

Review: Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5

Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5 by Stella Rimington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I can remember the media furore when this book was first published though it’s taken me some time to get around to reading it. Stella Rimington was certainly a woman who achieved a lot for the fairer sex, in becoming the first female head of such an important government department. Her views are quite pro-feminist throughout yet she is not overly patronising. I was expecting the book to be full of details on covert missions yet James Bond it ain’t. I think Stella depicts life in the security services in a very humble, human way. She is just a down to earth single mother, trying to raise children as a single mother, who through circumstance, happens to work for the much romanticised MI5. I think her ideas on public perception of the security services must be one-of-a-kind. Not only was she the first female head, but she was the first publicly declared head, in an age of aggressive media, in a period of massive political change (end of Cold War, rise of terrorism). Her views seem well-balanced and although some of the anecdotes are really way out of this world (the visit to Russia, for example), much of what she has to say could apply to any ambitious career woman’s life. It’s a good tale, and although I was initially disappointed with the lack of revelation, I came to grow to enjoy Stella Rimington’s insight into life and through that her telling of her life story.

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