Only one word can describe Alan Turnbull's "SECRET BASES" (which aren't really secret ergo no breach of security occurs) but his painstaking research has produced an absolutely formidable collection.
The Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), based at Vauxhall Cross in London, is primarily responsible for gathering intelligence outside the UK in support of the government's security, defence, foreign and economic policies. John Scarlett is responsible for the work of SIS, for which the Foreign Secretary is accountable in Parliament.
The origins of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) are to be found in the Foreign Section of the Secret Service Bureau, established by the Committee of Imperial Defence in October 1909. SIS operates world-wide to collect secret foreign intelligence in support of the British Government's policies and objectives.
The official website of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) - or MI6 as it it sometimes called - tells how Britain's secret service, SIS provides the British Government with a global covert capability to promote and defend the national security and economic well-being of the United Kingdom.
Regional instability, terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and illegal narcotics are among the major challenges of the 21st century. SIS assists the government to meet these challenges. To do this effectively SIS must protect the secrets of its sources and methods. This factor is reflected in the website.
The Security Service (MI5), based at Thames House in London, is the UK's security intelligence Agency, responsible for protecting the UK, its citizens and interests, at home and overseas, against the major covertly organised threats to national security. These include terrorism, espionage and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The Service also support the police and other law enforcement agencies in preventing and detecting serious crime. In addition it provides security advice to a range of other organisations, helping them reduce their vulnerability to the threats.
Eliza Manningham-Buller is responsible for the work of the Security Service, for which the Home Secretary has Parliamentary accountability.
The official website of the UK Security Service (MI5)
provides information on the current major threats to UK security and practical advice to help businesses and organisations to protect against them.
Within the ever-growing WW2 PEOPLE'S WAR website of the BBC there is inevitably coverage of matters relating to Special Operations and Intelligence and many stories including:
And no less than 47,000 personal stories to wade through at the BBC archives to say nothing of extracts from hundreds of books again courtesy of the BBC and the many authors.
CIA WORLD FACTBOOK The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been collecting and evaluating information on foreign countries since 1947. Now the CIA has agreed to make this information available to the world. Just choose a country from a menu of 262 countries and the CIA will give you several pages (United Kingdom has eleven) of detailed information. At the beginning you are supplied with a map and flag. The rest of the information is listed under: 'Geography'; 'People'; 'Government'; 'Economy'; 'Transportation'; 'Communications' and 'Defence'. The section on Geography includes location, co-ordinates, area, land boundaries, coastline, climate, terrain, natural resources, land use, irrigated land and environment. Constantly updated this is one of the most important educational sites on the Internet.The International Spy Museum is the only public museum in the world solely dedicated to the tradecraft, history, and contemporary role of espionage. The Museum's permanent exhibition presents the tradecraft of espionage through the stories of individuals and their missions, tools and techniques. Exhibits feature the largest collection of international espionage artefacts ever placed on public display -- many for the first time. These artefacts, combined with historic photographs, state-of-the-art audio visual programs, computer interactive displays and special effects, reveal the strategies and techniques of the men and women behind some of the most secret espionage missions in world history!
The International Spy Museum is located at 800 F Street, NW in Washington, DC’s historic Pennsylvania Quarter neighbourhood. It is within 4 blocks of the National Mall, directly across the street from the National Portrait Gallery, steps away from the MCI Center, and within one block of FBI headquarters. The Gallery Place/Chinatown Metrorail Station is within a block of the Museum Complex.
A useful archived Press Release.
The Website entitled 64 Baker Street and SOE is also in a similar field and a visit is quite interesting.
The Carpetbaggers' Archives had much to do with SOE Agents of course and their website is worth a visit.
There is much to be read of the activities of Arthur Christie, (who served with SOE) and allied matters at the very comprehensive website of his son Maurice A. Christie.
Published (by Viking at £19.99)) early in 2004 "THE NEXT MOON: the Remarkable True Story of a British Agent Behind the Lines in Wartime France" is as long as its title suggests - some 320 pages - and is by André Hue and Ewen Southby-Tailyour. It tells in graphic detail the story of André Hue from his survival following a French passenger liner striking a German mine in June 1940 and his determination escape to Britain and how he did so and became an SOE Officer. Many adventures in this role and his deep involvement in clandestine operations prove to be an absorbing story - written with the aid of Southby-Tailyour himself a miltary historian.
SOE as a website is informative and it regularly appears now in publications, television and new books as more and more of its wartime activities are revealed - e.g.
"SECRET AGENT: The True Story of the Special Operations Executive" by David Stafford published by BBC Worldwide at £16.99 ISBN 0-563-53734-5. It contains 254 pages and is the book of the September series Secret Agent shown on BBC television in four parts. The author is a former diplomat who writes authoritatively on matters of Intelligence. The book contains many personal accounts from those who served in SOE.
SPECIAL FORCES too appear on the Internet.
Inveraray & District Local History Society - the book 'Roll of Honour' marking the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War 2 is the first publication of the Inveraray Local History Workshop. The book is now out of print and the authors are pleased that it now be made available here on the Web and as a taster you can continue to read about how after the fall of France in 1940, the Prime Minister began planning the Invasion of Europe and realising that troops had to be specially trained for invasion by sea, admiral Keyes began the search for a suitable place to train Commandos and crews together. The choice eventually fell on Inveraray, and on the 15th October 1940 ViceAdmiral Theodore Hallet RN assumed command of No. 1 Combined Operations Invasion Training Centre. Suddenly this quiet little town on the west coast of Scotland found itself playing an important part in the war against Germany.
Commando troops who were later to take part in many raids on enemy territory, had their first training here. They arrived in the late autumn in troopships which anchored off the Creags. Among the officers was Captain Randolph Churchill, son of the Prime Minister.
On the 27th June 1941, the Right Honourable Winston Spencer Churchill, MY, Prime Minister and War Leader, visited the Inveraray Training Area.
In the Autumn of 1941 His Majesty King George VI visited the Inveraray Training Area. On arrival, he was received at the pierhead by His Grace the Duke of Argyll, Lord Lieutenant.
Norwegian troops undergoing training were visited by H.M. King Haakon of Norway and H.H. the Crown Prince Olaf, who spent two days and nights in the town.
Lord Louis Mountbatten succeeded Lord Keyes as Head of Combined Operations, and in that capacity visited lnveraray
American, Canadian, Free French, Poles and Russians were also trained at lnveraray.
Loch Fyne Hotel was HQ for Combined Ops Training, visited by Churchill, de Gaulle, Eisenhower and others.
Commando Country EXHIBITION is on at the National War Museum [Scotland], Edinburgh Castle until 25 February 2008 and looks at how remote properties in the Scottish highlands were transformed during the Second World War into special training centres to teach new tactics such as sabotage, close combat and outdoor survival.
The exhibition also looks at the schools set up to train the Special Operations Executive (SOE), officers who carried out the highly dangerous work of supporting and organising resistance movements in enemy-occupied countries. The SOE schools were situated in the Arisaig and Morar area of the West Highlands.
Visit:
http://www.nms.ac.uk/commandocountry_1.aspx
One of our most famous Agents, Violette Szabo GC, has her own Museum at Wormelow and the same is covered on our Museums Page but you can visit the dedicated website created by our Webmaster G3NVK for more information, pictures and links.
SOE HEROES HONOURED - in a ceremony at Traigh House Major General Antonin Petrak MBE MC unveiled a plaque as a perpetual memorial to those (including Violette Szabo) who trained and were taught in the Arisaig and Morar area. The full speech, colour photographs and a detailed article appear in Vol.8 ISSUE 9 - July 2002 issue of WEST WORDNo Resistance to a French Invasion
Between 20th and 22nd of April 2004 Arisaig was visited by a French film crew making a documentary about the British connection with the French Resistance during World War 2. The team consisted of Jean-Marie Barrère (Director), Stéphanie Lataste (Assistant Director), Didier Colin (Cameraman) and Thierry Culnaert (Sound-recordist). They were accompanied by David Harrison from Lancashire who has researched the subject and has compiled a booklet about this area's significant involvement. The full story is on the WEST WORD website in their issue of May 2004
The New SOE book -
74 pages, laminated covers, comb-bound. Author: David Harrison is on sale at the Land, Sea and Islands Centre or by mail order price £10 (+ £2 P&P). Cheques should be made payable to 'Land, Sea and Islands Centre'
"The Arisaig area played an important part in the para-military training of about 3000 secret agents. The vicinity was ideal as there was only one road to seal off, there was railway access and it was remote and a long way from Germany. The locals had to have passes for movement into or out of the protected area. The agents spent 4 - 5 weeks at one of several houses that were requisitioned by the War Office including Arisaig House, Meoble Lodge, Traigh House, Rhubana Lodge, Inverie House, Garramor, Camusdarach and Glasnacardoch. The agents then went to Ringway (Manchester) for parachute training before being split between either wireless training at Thame Park in Oxfordshire or learning to be an organiser or courier at Beaulieu House in Hampshire. Finally, the agents were parachuted into enemy territory on moonlit nights from Tempsford airfield in Bedfordshire or landed by Lysander from Tangmere in Sussex."
Our Museums Page (accessed from item 7 on the Home Page Index) thoroughly covers BLETCHLEY PARK in all its well-deserved glory but you can take a short cut from here. Also there is a BLETCHLEY PARK GROUPS web site which is separate from the main BP one.
The Radio Security Service - Voluntary Interceptors (The "Secret Listeners").
The one thing Bletchley Park could not decode were the signals that it did not receive: within these pages you will find text and and information on the World War II British Radio Security Service. These are the people that provided the raw signal information to Bletchley Park (BP) in order that it could do the decoding work for which it is famous. The 'Radio Security Service' - RSS - and 'Special Communications Unit' - SCU.
Tom Perera (W1TP) has produced an ENIGMA CD containing a complete, detailed history with over 1000 photographs, 6 Enigma and German radio books. It also includes a very authentic Enigma Simulator complete program. The cost of the CD is $15 plus $5 postage. It can be obtained from Artifax Books whose address can be obtained by clicking on the top link in Tom Perera's museum at http://w1tp.com/enigma
Visit the Garats Hay Internet Site [the home of the 'Y' (Wireless Intercept) Services] which has much to commend it..............
............and of course BEAUMANOR is not to be missed by those in the know!..................
and join the two at Beaumanor & Garats HaY Amateur Radio Society
SPECIAL COMMUNICATIONS UNIT. At the beginning of WWII, MI6 set up a section to look after radio communications. This "Special Communications Unit" was run by Brigadier Richard Gambier-Parry. It was based in the village of Whaddon. Headquartered at Whaddon Hall the SCU consisted of SCU 1, which was actually in Whaddon and SCU 3, which was based in nearby Horwood. These pages describe SCU activities as well as giving a flavour of the people involved.
Not to be confused with NASA is America's giant NSA - the NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY - an organisation akin to (and, thanks to the Communications Intelligence Agreement 1946 between the UK and the US, certainly working hand-in-glove with) Britain's GCHQ as well as with the parallels in Canada's CSE (Communications Security Establishment), Australia's DSD (Defence Signals Directorate) and New Zealand's GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau) is claimed as the largest and most technical of the US Intelligence Agencies.
The UKs main sites apart from GCHQ itself in Gloucestershire (currently being replaced by a £3300m establishment at Benhall, near Cheltenham) are RAF Fylingdales, near Whitby and Menwith Hill, near Harrogate. Another satellite site is at Morwenstow, near Bude. NSA is revealing in its historical archive covering, inter alia, intelligence gathering from WWII, the Cold War period and the Cuban missile crises.
The activities of all these agencies form the subject of a recent new book and another to be released shortly - see our Books area for more detail.
Although severe critics describe the site as “tedious and unimaginative” and smacking of bureaucracy, the presence of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) is appealing to many in this world of continued belligerence and hostilities. The pages are linked to all the expected other Organisations, including the UK Ministry of Defence, the Council of Europe, the European Union, and the Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers,. You have the opportunity “To receive on a regular basis all the latest news from NATO, as well as other NATO Agencies and Commands, or information on NATO's scientific and environmental programmes, please subscribe to one of our e-mailing lists, free of charge” - there are pages on OPERATION Allied Force, OPERATION Joint Guardian, and a complete archive of all official documents and general and specific NATO publications together with a considerable database of information. The updating is extremely well maintained.
The Centre for the History of Defence Electronics (CHiDE) was established in 1995 at Bournemouth University and is the United Kingdom's pioneer in the use of advanced electronics and information technology to promote the public understanding of the history of electronics. Concentration is on radar, sonar, communications and electronic counter-measures.
Just a few of the items available at the Intelligence Resource Program of THE FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS Web site are: