Free Snow by Madoc Roberts Page A

operator, Maurice Burton, reported that he had made his way to Owens’ flat carrying the key to the radio room which he kept so as to prevent S NOW from making unauthorised contact with Germany. On his arrival at 9.35 p.m. he had seen a car draw up outside the house and three men and a girl alight. He recognised two of them as Owens and Lily, but the identities of the other men were unknown to him. Accordingly, he had made his way to a nearby subway and telephoned Robertson, but while there, he had noticed a girl hanging about, and became aware that he was also being followed by a man. Robertson told Burton that the car was probably a police surveillance vehicle so, reassured, he had made his way back to the flat. As he returned he had made a note of the girl who was still hanging about and described her as fairly thickset, short, aged about 25–30, wearing a dark blue felt hat and dark coat.
    Back at the flat Burton discovered that Owens’ companions had indeed been Special Branch detectives, and was informed that the man trailing him was one of their colleagues who had been told to follow anyone acting suspiciously in the vicinity. By the time all this muddle had been clarified there had been only ten minutes left in which to prepare the equipment, so there had been a great rush to get the transmitter ready and it was only just in time that the message had been sent, using the CONGRATULATIONS keyword, which had read: LEAVING FOR WALES. WILL RADIO ON FRIDAY NIGHT AT 12. SEEING WW. PLEASE REPLY. The signal had been acknowledged, and the reply was: NEED MILITARY AND GENERAL NEWS URGENTLY DAILY. Owens then sent the weather report, and Hamburg terminated the exchange of signals with ‘Goodnight, old boy’.
    This near fiasco, in the minutes leading up to an important transmission, had occurred because MI5 and Special Branch had failed to coordinate their activities, and the result was a large shiny car parked outside the house and seven people present during the vital transmission. The MI5 report on the incident noted that ‘the good lady in the flat opposite did in fact put herhead out of the door to see who all the people were going up and down her back stairs.’ Accordingly, it was decided that in future only the minimum possible number of people should be seen entering and leaving Owens’ flat.
    To develop the link to the Abwehr further, MI5 told Owens to study a map of Wales and mark the likely places where arms might be delivered by U-boat. Owens explained that the Germans would make their first attempt once they were sure that conditions in the Bristol Channel were not too dangerous, and the landing would then happen somewhere between Penmaen in Oxwich Bay and Rhossili Bay, north of Worms Head. The Abwehr’s objective was the sabotage of ammunition dumps and the steel works at Briton Ferry, near Port Talbot, and if this attempt failed the secondary task was to go further up the coast to Linney Head and sabotage military positions and supplies in Pembroke Dock and the Milford Haven seaplane base where there were believed to be large fuel stocks.
    Owens then turned his attention to the Welsh Nationalist who would accompany him on his next trip to see Dr Rantzau. Insisting that the nominee should be able to speak German because he did not, and therefore was unable to understand Rantzau when he addressed his staff, Owens stressed that whoever MI5 picked should be able to ‘look, speak and act like a Welshman, and should at least have a slight smattering of the Welsh language.’ He had already ascertained through experiment that the Germans had no knowledge of the Welsh language, but they knew what it sounded like and would not be easily taken in by an imposter. To meet these requirements Scotland Yard suggested that a Special Branch officer who looked Welsh and spoke fluent German could go along, but it was considered unlikely that the detective would be able to learn enough Welsh in the fortnight available.
    Owens