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Explosive Rats

I know you’re thinking this blog might be a continuation of our story about Parisian rats (read Paris Therapy Rats here) but it’s not. The rats in this blog post are far deadlier than those running around Paris. I introduced you to Duško Popov in a previous blog (read The Double Cross System here). Double agent Popov was likely the model for Ian Fleming’s fictional character, James Bond. Today, you’ll learn about the secret group set up by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and run by movie film and art directors. As you’ll see, the Camouflage Section might just be the model Fleming used for Q Branch.

One of the Camouflage Section’s spy workrooms. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). National History Museum - London.
One of the Camouflage Section’s spy workrooms. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). National History Museum – London.

Did You Know?

Did you know that a professional baseball player was a spy? Most of us are familiar with the war efforts of players like Ted Williams but I’ll bet you don’t know the real story of Moe Berg (1902-1972), a catcher who played for the White Sox, Indians, Red Sox, and finally, the Washington Senators. He retired from baseball in 1939 after a career which saw him bat .243 as a reserve player ⏤ hardly an Allstar performance. Yet, in 1934, Moe traveled to Japan on an All-Star team which included Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Lefty Gomez. Why would they include a reserve player on a team like this? It was because Moe spoke fluent Japanese and he was a government spy. For most of the trip, he slipped away to take movies and pictures of Tokyo which were used eight years later for the preparation of the Doolittle bombing raid on Tokyo. It also marked Moe’s entrance into the world of espionage. He joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942 and was given covert assignments such as traveling around Europe assessing Germany’s progress in developing the atomic bomb. The purpose of one trip to Italy was to attend a lecture given by Werner Heisenberg, the German scientist in charge of the bomb development. Moe’s instructions included being given the “green light” to assassinate Heisenberg if Moe felt the Germans were close to producing a bomb. They were not and Heisenberg’s life was spared. Moe was awarded the American Medal of Freedom, but he turned it down. After his death, Moe’s sister accepted the medal on his behalf.


Special Operations Executive 

The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was officially formed on 22 July 1940 when Winston Churchill ordered Hugh Dalton to “set Europe ablaze.” Churchill loved the idea of spies, espionage, and guerilla warfare. At the time, the British military leaders were against it as it represented irregular warfare tactics, but Churchill knew that undercover covert operations within the occupied countries would be necessary to accomplish the Allied goals, including the eventual invasion of Europe. Each occupied country was represented by a separate SOE department ⏤ France was represented by “F Section.” Approximately 13,000 people worked for the SOE, of which 3,200 or 25% were women. Most of the agents were people who had been driven out of their countries and could blend in easily with the locals. Although the SOE was headquartered at 64 Baker Street, hundreds of properties were requisitioned throughout England and Scotland for training its agents in hand-to-hand combat, parachuting, demolition techniques, commando tactics, and radio-related skills. Read More Explosive Rats

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Unit 387 & Hillsdale College

Today we’re going to introduce you to a brilliant woman whose contributions in both world wars of the twentieth-century ensured Allied victories. After World War II, her efforts were shoved aside, and others took the credit while her extraordinary skills were, and this is putting it mildly, underutilized. However, in today’s world when we bemoan the lack of women in the field of writing code, a century ago, Elizebeth Smith Friedman was a ground-breaking cryptanalyst or, codebreaker. In other words, she did the complete opposite of writing code ⏤she broke it.

Elizebeth Smith Friedman, US cryptanalyst. Photo by U.S. Government (date unknown). NSA. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Elizebeth Smith Friedman, US cryptanalyst. Photo by U.S. Government (date unknown). NSA. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.

Did You Know?

Did you know that the Japanese had an encryption machine similar to the Nazi’s enigma machine? The Allies called it the “Purple Encryption Machine.” After the Japanese learned that the Americans had broken their code in 1936, they developed a new system to encipher their messages. The Japanese called their new machine the “97 Alphabetical Typewriter” or, better known to the American spy organizations as “Purple.” It was made up of two typewriters with an electrical rotor system and a 25-character alphabetic switchboard. The machine was actually an improvement over the Nazi enigma machine. Without going into a lot of technical stuff (because I don’t understand it), suffice it to say, “Purple” was extremely difficult to crack. The U.S. Army hired William Friedman in 1939 to break the “Purple” code. It took Friedman and his team almost three years to fully decipher “Purple.” In the process, Friedman had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized. Despite never having seen an actual “Purple” machine, Friedman’s team was able to reconstruct one and produced eight functional replicas. Two years into the war, the Allies were able to track the Japanese navy’s movements as well as other military communications. Friedman had cracked enough of the “Purple” code by 1941 to learn the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, this knowledge was never used.

Fragment of an original Japanese Type 97 “Purple” cipher machine. Photo by United States Air Force (2007). National Museum. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
Fragment of an original Japanese Type 97 “Purple” cipher machine. Photo by United States Air Force (2007). National Museum. PD-U.S. Government. Wikimedia Commons.
William Friedman in front of an AT&T cipher machine. Photo by anonymous (c. 1919). PD-Published prior to 1924. Wikimedia Commons.
William Friedman in front of an AT&T cipher machine. Photo by anonymous (c. 1919). PD-Published prior to 1924. Wikimedia Commons.

Let’s Meet Elizebeth Smith Friedman

Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of the George C. Marshall Foundation, Lexington, Virginia.
Elizebeth Smith Friedman. Photo by anonymous (date unknown). Courtesy of the George C. Marshall Foundation, Lexington, Virginia.

Elizebeth Smith (1892-1980) was one of ten children born into an Indiana Quaker family. She attended Wooster College (Ohio) but transferred to Hillsdale College (Michigan) in 1913. Elizebeth joined the Pi Beta Phi (“Pi Phi”) sorority and graduated in 1915 with a degree in English literature (a favorite author was Shakespeare). After moving back to her parent’s home and a stint in the public-school system, Elizebeth was asked to join Riverbank Laboratories which was owned by Colonel George Fabyan (1867-1936). It seems the Colonel Fabyan and Elizebeth shared a common interest in Shakespeare and he wanted her to help prove his theory that Sir Francis Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays. Read More Unit 387 & Hillsdale College