Snow (31 page)

The final snag that delayed their release was the imminence of the D-Day landings, for there were those who considered that the prospect of the pair being at large and uncontrolled at a time of such importance was highly undesirable. It was thought to be risky to release one without the other and, as they had both been in detention for quite some time, it was felt that it would not do too much harm for them to remain in custody for a few months longer.

The conduit to the enemy provided by double agents, of course, was the principal method of conveying strategic deception to the enemy, and several were employed in support of Fortitude, a sophisticated campaign designed to mislead the Germans into the belief that the invasion was likely to occur in the Pas-de-Calais region. B
RUTUS
, T
ATE
, B
RONX
and, most importantly, G
ARBO
were all engaged in a coordinated effort to persuade the enemy that the Allies would take the shortest route across the Channel, and once the landings had begun in Normandy the objective was to characterise the operation as a diversionary feint in preparation for the major assault further north. Having S
NOW
on the loose at such a sensitive moment was considered inadvisable. The
irony of the situation would probably have been lost on Arthur Owens, the man who was responsible for the genesis of the double-cross system, because he had little idea of how MI5’s system had developed in his absence.

While still in prison, anxiously awaiting news of his release, Owens learned of the German rockets falling on London and recalled some information which he felt might be useful. He offered a report about the enemy weapons and was interviewed on the subject on 23 July 1944.

Between the time that he had first mentioned the rockets and the time he was interviewed, Owens had remembered an incident from his visit to Hamburg before the war. The Doctor had been visited by four scientists and had to go away with three of them urgently, to witness some important tests of a new invention. The fourth scientist had stayed in Hamburg with Owens and this gave him the chance to question the scientist about the tests. The scientist informed Owens that the new invention was a concentration of lethal acid vapour. The vapour was highly corrosive and could melt away the flesh of the sheep on which it was tested and could also disintegrate metal. Owens had realised that if the Germans could find a way of combining this vapour with the rocket then they would have at their disposal a weapon which could change the course of the war.

When challenged, Owens explained that he had never thought to
mention
this exchange with the German scientist before because he had thought that the idea was too fantastic, but now he was worried that there might be some truth in what he had heard.

Owens was finally released from Dartmoor on 31 August 1944 and escorted to London by John Marriott. As he had nowhere to live and no job, MI5 offered assistance until he could establish himself. His identity card and ration book had been taken from him on his admission to
Stafford
prison and the authorities at Dartmoor seemed to know nothing about their whereabouts. On receiving the few possessions he did have, Marriott observed that Owens had £2.10s and therefore decided not to help him out financially. The two men did not have much to say to each other on the trip back to London and Owens’ first concern was his son, but Marriott said nothing as he did not know when he was to be released. When Owens asked about the whereabouts of Lily and their daughter Jean, Marriott told him that he had no idea where they were.

Robertson had hoped that Owens would settle back into a normal civilian life and find himself a job. However, as 1944 turned into 1945 the feeling was that he was not really trying to find employment and was happy to live
off the state. Owens was nearly fifty years old and had not actually held down a proper job for years, and Robertson realised that this probably made him unemployable ‘except in the one job of which he has any recent experience, namely as an agent and for this he is for a variety of reasons no longer
suitable
.’ Accordingly, Robertson decided that if Owens was to fend for himself it was only right that he should be paid a lump sum. Robertson calculated that total expenditure on the S
NOW
case amounted to less than £4,000, and that while it was unknown precisely how much Owens had kept for himself, he definitely had passed on £13,850. This meant that alongside the
considerable
intelligence benefits and the genesis of the double-cross system itself, Owens had made a very substantial profit for MI5. In these circumstances Robertson recommended a payment of £500 as a goodwill gesture and that Owens should be told that he was now on his own. It was also pointed out to him that he should not reveal the nature of his war work and that he should not consider writing his memoirs or he might find himself falling foul of the Official Secrets Act which he would now be required to sign.

Evidently Owens had not expected the money and expressed his gratitude, saying that he had been treated fairly and generously. On his MI5 receipt Owens wrote: ‘I have received this day a cheque for £500. I have no claim of any kind against those paying me this money.’ After receiving his final payment and his warning from MI5 about the Official Secrets Act, Owens began a new life in the Norwood area of London, falling back on his skills as a chemist and inventor. On 14 May 1945 Owens applied for a patent for a quick-drying adhesive that could be used in the production of lampshades or hats. This innovation was an improvement on stitching and offered the ability to bond fabrics almost invisibly. He took on premises in Hoddesdon in order to pursue this business and the company had some initial success and even supplied lampshades for the royal yacht.

S
OON AFTER THE
German surrender, British counter-intelligence
personnel
began screening captured Abwehr staff officers. Those thought to have information about spies in Britain were detained either at Bad
Nenndorf
, or taken to Camp 020 at Ham Common for detailed interrogation. One such officer was Nikolaus Ritter who, during his time in charge of the Abwehr in Hamburg, had used the alias Dr Rantzau. He was questioned first by MI5’s John Vesey, and then by John Gwyer. MI5’s objective was to learn from Ritter all he knew about J
OHNNY
, without disclosing that actually Owens had been under British control. Ritter’s version of the case, offered at the end of May 1946, was astounding because, according to Gwyer, Ritter claimed that after the Lisbon mission in March 1941 he had realised Owens was under British control.

In 1941 the double-cross system was teetering on the edge of destruction and all the benefits gained later could have been lost. A collapse would have been due to the same man who had been responsible for the system’s genesis: Arthur Owens. Due to his central role in the early days of the system Owens was intimately linked to the most important agents that MI5 relied on as the backbone of the organisation. Owens was also essential to Ritter’s network in Britain but by the end of 1941 he knew that J
OHNNY
had been
compromised
, yet he did nothing about it. His reasons were complex and involve his own personality, his political position and the historical circumstances in which he found himself.

The Allied security agencies had accumulated a considerable dossier on Ritter, which involved great successes and spectacular failures. His most notable success came when one of his spies in America acquired the design for the top secret Norden bomb-sight. His biggest failure was the FBI’s
infiltration
of his spy-ring in America which had many parallels with Britain’s double-cross system. This FBI operation culminated in the arrest of
thirty-three 
of his spies in America. However, little was known about Ritter after he left the Abwehr and was posted to the frontline. He served in Libya with the Afrika Korps as an intelligence officer on Erwin Rommel’s staff, and then commanded a battalion in Sicily, and upon his return to Germany was placed in charge of the air defences of Hanover, a post from which he was dismissed after the last Allied saturation bombing. Apparently, just before the air-raid, Ritter had misread the radar returns and had stood down the city’s anti-aircraft batteries.

When questioned about Owens, Ritter acknowledged having run him under the alias Johnny O’Brien after he had volunteered his services to the German embassy in Brussels in 1936. Thereafter Owens had been handled by Hans Dierks, and had only come under his direct supervision in March 1937. Known as J
OHNNY
or ‘Der Kleiner’, he was given the number 3504 and was described as: 5’6’; very slender and wiry; between thirty and forty years of age; thin face, short nose, thin lips, light eyes, pale complexion, thick dark brown hair parted on the left. Clean-shaven. Spoke uneducated English with a Welsh accent. Very highly strung and jumpy. Heavy cigarette smoker. Drinks beer. Very partial to women. Dresses plainly.

When questioned by John Vesey, Ritter denied any knowledge of the agent destined for Manchester, or the South African or the source of the infra-red information, insisting that he had not arranged those operations. He said that even before their encounter in Lisbon he had lost faith in J
OHNNY
because of the North Sea incident, and he had found the ease with which Owens was able to travel to Portugal suspicious. According to Vesey, Ritter had been informed of his transfer away from the Abwehr before he travelled to Lisbon, and therefore had rather lost interest in Owens and was only really interested in his legacy, and ensuring that any bad news about the case would only emerge long after his departure from the organisation.

Ritter confirmed to Vesey that Owens had suspected that Ritter knew he was working for the British. Ritter also stated that he thought Dicketts was a British agent who was trying to penetrate Owens’ network. Under
interrogation
in Hamburg, Dicketts had admitted that he was a British agent and had offered his services to Germany. Ritter had accepted in order to save the case from complete collapse, rather than because of any belief in Dicketts. He also asserted that he had only given Owens between £300 and £400 in cash, and expressed surprise when informed that Owens had been carrying £10,000 when he returned to Britain. Ritter speculated that this money may have come from the Abstelle in Lisbon without his knowledge.

Vesey’s report documented that Ritter had supervised J
OHNNY
’s training in wireless procedures, code systems, microphotography, meteorological observation, aircraft recognition, and airfield description, while Hauptman Rudolf of the Abwehr’s
Kriegsorganisation Spanien
had taught him sabotage. Before the war J
OHNNY
had been paid £20 a month, plus bonuses of £10 to £20 for good work, as well as his expenses. After the war had started he received larger bonuses of £200 twice in Belgium, the sum of £200 twice in Lisbon, and a last payment of £800 in Lisbon. Apparently the Abwehr had intended to drop money near Bristol, a plan that had been abandoned when J
OHNNY
had said he could come to Lisbon. His letters to Hellmut Timm, the director of SOCONAF in Antwerp, sometimes contained messages written in invisible ink, and during the war Ritter said that Owens had sometimes received letters through an Abwehr cover address unknown to MI5.

And as for the vexed question of Owens’ true motivation and loyalty, according to Ritter, Owens had told him that ‘he was a true Welshman and as such had no sympathy with the English’. The origin of his beef with England was also tied in to his grudge against the government, blaming them for the loss of a large private yacht which he had inherited from his father. Allegedly the authorities, had refused him a large sum of money for an invention which had been put to military use in the First World War.

U
PON HIS RELEASE
from prison Owens had abandoned Jessie, and Lily had disappeared, but before long he had taken up with Hilda White, a woman who lived in Dollis Hill and worked for the Post Office, perhaps at the top secret Post Office Research Station nearby. The couple set up home together in Great Amwell in Hertfordshire where they rented a house for £5 a week, and he adopted Hilda’s surname White. He would later explain that Hilda had been married to Frank White, a builder from Crystal Palace, but this relationship had ended and her husband would not give her a divorce. Although they may not have married, Arthur formalised his change of name by deed poll on 2 October 1946, and their son Graham was born on 15 November 1946 in Streatham.

Nothing, of course, was known of S
NOW
’s extraordinary career as a double agent until a
John Bull
scoop, which had been based on the wartime diaries of Colonel Erwin Lahousen, a senior Abwehr officer who had revealed the existence of J
OHNNY
, a master spy in London. These diaries, made public after Lahousen’s death in 1955, then became the basis of a book,
Hitler’s Spies and Saboteurs
by Gunter Peis and Charles Wighton, published in 1958.

A well-known newspaperman based in Munich, Peis spent years
cultivating
Abwehr retirees; combined with Wighton’s research in England, and clues gleaned from Lahousen’s dairies, they produced a book which lifted the veil of secrecy surrounding S
NOW
, speculating that he might have been recruited by one of four German agents who had been active in Wales before the war. The first of these was Heinrich Kuenemann, the managing director of an engineering firm, who had worked for Reinhard Heydrich’s Sicherheitsdienst and had lived in Marlborough Road, Cardiff. He had fled just before the war. The second was Professor Friedrich Schoberth, a visiting lecturer at Cardiff University. There was also Franz Richter, the manager of an enamel company who had also left the country, and Dr Walter Reinhard, described as a spy in North Wales, who had been expelled in 1939.

Peis and Wighton asserted that, whoever had recruited him, Owens was soon in touch with Reinhold and Co. of Gerhoffstrasse, Hamburg, which was the cover-name for Nikolaus Ritter’s import-export company. As a test, J
OHNNY
had been paid to report on the Woolwich Arsenal, a site the
Germans
already knew about.

According to Peis and Wighton, J
OHNNY
was to prove himself an
exceptional
agent and the Doctor had soon come to rely on him as his master spy in England. J
OHNNY
even became close friends with Ritter and his wife, and frequently visited their home where J
OHNNY
would sing Welsh songs to entertain them.

In recounting Ritter’s memory of his first encounter with C
ELERY
, the meeting in Lisbon that had caused MI5 so much concern, the book
supported
Owens’ claim that he had been confronted by Ritter with his
suspicion
that he was working for the British Security Service. As we know, MI5 had decided to put an end to Owens’ career as a double agent on the basis that this had
not
happened.

Some years after the publication of Ritter’s memoirs, and his death, his son-in-law, Colonel Manfred Blume, claimed that Ritter had deliberately misled his post-war MI5 interrogator, John Gwyer, because of the
consequences
for him if his time with the Abwehr was deemed to be a success. He was already in detention and feared that the British might prosecute him as a war criminal. ‘This was not the time to reveal the truth nor his achievements’, Blume stated.

Blume’s defence of his father-in-law leaves open the extent to which Ritter duped Gwyer, and because his memoirs omit any reference to a British deception scheme, it is hard to assess where the truth lies. Certainly Ritter must have learned eventually that Caroli and Schmidt, codenamed S
UMMER
and T
ATE
respectively, had survived the war by becoming double agents for MI5. However, he must have also guessed that if Owens had been playing a double game from the outset then C
HARLIE
, B
ISCUIT
and G.W. must also have been working under MI5’s control. If G.W. was compromised, then it followed that all his contacts at the Spanish embassy must have been
contaminated
too, and the overall picture, from Ritter’s perspective, must have been bleak indeed, and might explain his motives for keeping the secret of the British double-agent programme from his superiors.

There are other possibilities for Ritter’s behaviour. Prior to the Lisbon mission Ritter had just been given a new appointment and there is always the possibility that his mind may not have been entirely focused on his old
department. Arthur Owens had been Ritter’s main agent in Britain for many years and had been introduced to his wife. Mrs Ritter had even given him baby clothes to take to Lisbon for Owens to take back to Lily. To distrust Owens was to distrust his own judgement so it is not impossible that Ritter let his feelings cloud his analysis of J
OHNNY
.

If Ritter were acting in fear of what might happen to him if the collapse of his system became known, then this speaks to the success of the British operation. The double-cross system did not emerge fully formed; it evolved gradually in response to the feedback that MI5 got from agents like Arthur Owens. MI5 simply outwitted the Abwehr. The success of the system may have had something to do with a flawed German system in which officers feared failure more than they valued success, but this would not in itself have guaranteed the triumph of the double-cross system. Rather, this was due to a superior structure – and the development of that structure would not have been possible without S
NOW
.

Owens’ older son, Robert, was released from prison after D-Day, married in Norwood on 21 October 1944 and worked as an engineer in the Baglan Bay steel works in South Wales. Also an inventor, he would develop a device that acted as an automatic tourniquet for use in medical operations. After his death in 1981 his possessions included correspondence dated 23 June 1972 from Prime Minister Edward Heath’s private office at 10 Downing Street, apparently written in response to earlier correspondence in which Robert had attempted to restore his father’s reputation:

Evidently Robert had initiated the correspondence after Ladislas Farago’s
The Game of Foxes
had been released in the United States in 1971, containing an account of the double-cross system with many references to S
NOW
. Robert’s sister Patricia, then living in America, had sent a copy to Robert who had been horrified by the accusations laid against his father and had annotated the relevant passages. On one page he had noted that Sam McCarthy, the double agent codenamed B
ISCUIT
, had been arrested in East Grinstead in 1951 and charged with embezzlement.

Patricia Owens took the first step on the path to fulfilling her dream of becoming an actress when, aged fourteen, she was admitted to the Central School of Dramatic Arts in London. She won her first acting role after working for several months as a prompter, scene shifter, furniture and sign painter. She met Eric L’Epine Smith, a casting director from Warner
Brothers
Studio at Teddington, who suggested a screen test. As her relations with her mother were poor she took a test as Trilby to another actor’s Svengali, and was offered a year’s contract by Gainsborough Studios.

In 1943 she made her first film,
Miss London Ltd
, directed by Val Guest and starring the British comedian Arthur Askey. Thereafter she was often asked to play Americans because of the Canadian accent she had acquired.

The film for which Patricia is best remembered is the 1958 science fiction classic and cult film
The Fly
in which she plays the wife of a scientist who invents a matter transmitter, but things go wrong when he gets entangled with a fly as he tries out his machine. The film also stars Vincent Price as the scientist’s brother, but it is Owens’ depiction of inner turmoil thar is the emotional epicentre of the film, as she struggles to come to terms with the horror of her husband’s dilemma and the terrible fate that awaits him.

In the 1970s her mind turned once again to her father, from whom she had been estranged for so many years, and she returned to England with her son to find his grave but, despite her best efforts, she could find no record of him. She never spoke about her father, and her son Adam only started to hear about his grandfather’s secret career when he was twelve. His
recollection
is that Patricia completely denied the interpretation of Owens’ activities contained in Ladislas Farago’s
The Game of Foxes
.

Patricia Owens developed cancer and died in Lancaster, California aged seventy-five on 31 August 2000. Her son Adam believes that the stress of
keeping the family secret took a toll and holds the opinion that Arthur Owens made her feel that it was her responsibility to keep his secrets. She was made to believe that if she told anyone about her father’s situation it could lead to his death. Adam says: ‘So here’s a girl who loved her father so much that she took his secrets to her grave.’

Each member of Arthur Owens’ family lived with a mystery in their lives, each of them knew a part of the story but none of them had the full picture. The only person who knew the full story was Owens himself, but even he paid a price in his later years for having taken the gamble of entering the perilous world of espionage.

The reason that none of his family could find Arthur Owens was because after the war Owens used the considerable skills he had learned during his period as a double agent to disappear.

Owens’ first post-war money-making scheme was a fuel additive developed with his son Robert which they called Wenite, a combination of the names Owens and White. It failed to catch on, and Owens fell on hard times.

In March 1948 Arthur White – as he then was – asked his son Robert if he could borrow £5 and without any explanation suddenly moved his new family to the Republic of Ireland.

After a few days in Rosslare, they found lodgings in Kilrane where Owens worked as a self-employed chemist, making soap which he sold in Wexford. Later the family moved to Wexford permanently and rented a property in Barrack Street before Owens found a shop on Commercial Quay. Here Arthur found a use for the skills he picked up during the war and established a business repairing radios and selling batteries. As a sideline he bought beef dripping and Sloane Liniment which he mixed together and sold under the name Zing Salve.

During his time in Wexford Arthur used to attend Sinn Fein meetings. Even though the speeches were often in Gaelic, which Arthur did not
understand
, he would always clap enthusiastically when they were over.

On 9 September 1948 Arthur White received a letter from Jorgen
Borreson
who had been in Dartmoor with him. The letter appears to be in response to earlier correspondence which might have predated the move to Ireland and this may go some way towards explaining the haste with which he left England. It is not impossible that he was concerned that his
wartime activities might one day catch up with him in the form of a bullet. After all, Owens had made enemies on both sides and he knew that in time they might come to learn how he had endangered their lives. In the letter Borreson sends his regards and explains that he had been moving around since the end of the war because it had become impossible for him to live in Denmark. The reason for this was that Borreson had been arrested on his return to Denmark and accused of being a spy. He had employed a good lawyer and evaded any punishment. He was however re-interned until 1947. His letter then goes on to say:

He identified his current alias as ‘Jorgen Heidinger’ and remarked ‘I was glad to have your news, thus seeing that nobody has cut your throat.’ Borreson ended the letter with: ‘I suppose you are having a good time in Ireland. Perhaps you are writing your memoirs. Now let me hear how you are getting along.’

Arthur Owens did not talk much about his wartime experiences but before she died, Hilda told her son Graham that his father was the Arthur Owens who was the subject of a newspaper article, ‘Hitler’s Spies in Britain’ written by Gunter Peis and Charles Wighton.

Hilda also took Graham to see
The Fly
starring Patricia Owens, whom Hilda revealed was his sister.

To Graham, his father was a rather ordinary, pleasant, gentle man who only ever walloped him once with a newspaper when he had been irritating. One of Arthur’s hobbies was photography and he enjoyed developing his own pictures, but drinking appears to have been his main pastime. In
Wexford
, they lived only a few doors away from the local pub, The Keyhole, and Arthur was a regular there. His friends would frequently have to help him back at night because he was unable to walk but he was never reported to be violent when he had had too much to drink; he just became very talkative.