Lord Haw-Haw had help?

[blue up]

I'm reading a bundle of WW2 books on the 8th Airforce in the UK at the moment. Several of them mention the disconcerting radio messages being sent from Germany by Lord haw-haw etc. giving a 'hearty welcome' to crew arriving from the US and giving the registration and the names etc of the crew.
Was anyone ever found to be the source of this info? Was it spies residing in the UK, spies within the US who were able to access the scheduling data or was it never discovered?

[XV490]

I wonder if the RAF were targeted in this way as much as the USAAF.

There's some more about Haw-Haw on PPRuNe here (http://www.pprune.org/aviation-history-nostalgia/343243-lord-haw-haw-officers-mess-clock-myth.html).

[old,not bold]

German intelligence was very good. They used a mixture of sources, including publications such as newsletters, and had been collecting it all from well before 1939.

Once war was declared they relied on low-level human int sources as much as anything else; what went up on squadron notice boards was an easy target for example.

My father was shot down in 1943 and interrogated at length on his way to SL III. As soon as he produced his name, rank and number they confronted him with a complete record of his RAF career from 1937, postings, types, even assessments. They asked about a crash in Rhodesia (as it was) in a Harvard when he was instructing there in 1942. They knew the number of his Lanc, which by the time he got on the ground was in a zillion pieces around the countryside. They knew his target for the night he was shot down.

They produced all this stuff bit by bit; the idea was to start getting him to respond because they knew it all anyway. But of course what they knew was a mass of unimportant detail, with no information about the future. Last night's targets, for example, were hardly a secret! The crews were warned about this tactic, and most did not succumb to it and give away real secrets.

[blue up]

IIRC, there was a 1940s film along those lines. Can't recall the title.

[Brewster Buffalo]

he main interrogation centre for aircrew shot down was Dulag Luft - below an extract found on the web about their sources - Probably the most successful approach was the nice guy approach. The interrogators approached the POW armed with an enormous amount of information gleaned from hometown newspapers, documents found in bombers shot down, and other sources. The American press supplied Auswertestelle West with an enormous amount of information. The interrogator would talk to the airman about when he graduated from pilot training or gunnery school, combat awards. friends and associates, and many other subjects printed as news. The object was to convince the flyer that there was no need for him to be stubborn for they already knew all about him . If the interrogator was able to get the POW to relax and engage in a casual conversation, there was a possibility that he would inadvertently confirm some bit of information.
http://adomainofheroes.homestead.com/tp.gifAAF Intelligence found that officers were more informative: "Officers were usually more informative than enlisted men. This was not only because they knew more but also, according to German interrogators, because they were more susceptible to flatters and responded more wholeheartedly to equal-basis treatment. Enlisted men were thought to be greater realists about interrogation...." Furthermore, the POWs that gave "only name, rank and serial number (and gave it in a polite and military manner), had the shortest stay, almost without exception, at Dulag Luft." [Headquarters AAF Intelligence Summery, 15 Aug. 1945, 45-14, pps 3-4, 142.034-1, 15 Jan - Aug 1945, Air Force Research Center, Maxwell Field, Al.]

[Dan Winterland]

The fim Twelve O'clock High featured a scene where the American Bomb Group was single out by Lard Haw Haw by name.

The WW2 German interrogation technique of gentle co-ertion is generally considered to be one of the most effective ever. It had also been used to some effect by the Argentinians and the Iraqis since, but the Iraqis did also resort to torture at the same time.

[Brian Abraham]

Saw a doco some time ago of the British subtlety. Senior German captives were housed in a country estate and supplied with a some what lavish life style considering the deprivations of the general populace (fine dining, drink, waiters etc). House was festooned with bugs and much intelligence gained and had a large role to play in the Enigma story.

[XV490]

Blame the spotters. As a boy, Mighty Eighth author Roger Freeman was interrogated by the RAF and had his notebooks taken away (see story here (http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/oldstuff/2004/freeman/freeman.htm)).

Britain's army of schoolboy spotters could have given the Germans a treasure trove of intelligence on aircraft deployments! Not that I'm suggesting any ever did...

[mr fish]

i suppose the "softly softly" tactic is the best approch.
but (in the case of iraq), i would'nt discount the sound of a
MAKITA HAMMER DRILL being warmed up in the next cell adding to the "atmosphere", just in case like!!!

[David Layne]

Old not bold wrote.........

"My father was shot down in 1943 and interrogated at length on his way to SL III. As soon as he produced his name, rank and number they confronted him with a complete record of his RAF career from 1937, postings, types, even assessments. They asked about a crash in Rhodesia (as it was) in a Harvard when he was instructing there in 1942. They knew the number of his Lanc, which by the time he got on the ground was in a zillion pieces around the countryside. They knew his target for the night he was shot down.

They produced all this stuff bit by bit; the idea was to start getting him to respond because they knew it all anyway. But of course what they knew was a mass of unimportant detail, with no information about the future. Last night's targets, for example, were hardly a secret! The crews were warned about this tactic, and most did not succumb to it and give away real secrets."


My father was shot down in 1943 and experienced the same kind of treatment at Dulug Luft. He was imprisoned naked in a cold cell and told he was to be shot.

He was also interviewed by a renegade R.A.F. flyer who was a Welshman named Raymond Hughes. Hughes was representing himself as a member of the Red Cross and attempted to get prisoners to fill out a bogus Red Cross forms.

More on Hughes can be found here.

BBC News | WALES | The story of Hitler's Welshman (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/697258.stm)

Raymond Davies Hughes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_David_Hughes)

[Mr_Grubby]

Lord Haw Haw was William Joyce.

He was born in New York in 1906. His father was Irish, his mother English. At the age of three the family moved to Ireland.

At the end of the war he was captured by British troops on the Danish, German border trying to escape. He was posing as a school teacher.

Returned to England he was tried for his activities during the war and was sentenced to death.

He was hung at Wandsworth Prison on 3rd January 1946.

C.

[Brewster Buffalo]

You wonder what the value of the intelligence gathered was considering the rank of the POWs.

Although on the Allied side regarding the X-Gerat blind bombing system...

British intelligence at the Air Ministry, led by R V Jones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Victor_Jones), were aware of the system initially because a downed German bomber's Lorenz system was analysed and seen to be far too sensitive to be a mere landing aid. Also secretly recorded transcripts from German POW pilots indicated this may have been a bomb aiming aid. IIRC the Germans used to gauge whether an air raid was likely on the amount of radio and radar testing that went on at the English air bases which they were able to monitor.

[denis555]

One story made me smile apparently the BBC reported a German raid that had dropped bombs in "South East London and at random in Kent".

German radio then reported that their air force had " conducted a succesful attack in South East London and the village of Random in Kent"

...or is this another myth? ( I do hope not):)

[chevvron]

The contry estate mentioned in post 7 was Latimer House near my home town of Chesham, Bucks; interrogation was carried out at another place near Barnes (forget the name)
There was an excellent feature on this subject in 'After the Battle' magazine about 10 years ago.
Latimer became Joint Services Staff College (JSSC) after the war and was disposed of by MOD in the late '60s or early 70s when JSSC moved to Greenwich. My next door neighbour in Chesham was a mess steward at Latimer until its closure.