Snow (33 page)

B
ASED ON THE
word CONGRATULATIONS, each letter was assigned a number which, in this case was, 3,9,7,4,11,1,13,15,6,2,14,5,10,8,12. The numbers were determined by where the letters come in the alphabet.

A grid was then drawn, comprising of fifteen squares wide (the fifteen letters of CONGRATULATIONS) and twelve squares deep. Blank spaces were then placed in the grid. The first was placed arbitrarily, in this case on the fifth square of the top row. The next blank was placed six squares later, then the next seven squares later and so on. The grid was then turned upside down and the same procedure followed. The message was then written in the grid but not on the blanks which would later be filled in with random
letters
. The letters of the message were written downwards starting in the row that coincides with the date of the month. If the date was higher than the fifteen columns then fifteen was subtracted from the date and that column was used. The resulting string of letters was then broken up into blocks of five letters and transmitted. As this was intended to be a daily code the date and time of each message was also transmitted. Again this was done by assigning numbers to the word CONGRATULATIONS but this time recurring numbers were not used. This time C was 1 O was 2, etcetera, with I and S both being given the number 0. Therefore a time of 21.21 would be sent as OCOC. The date was sent in the same way, which was then followed by the number of letters in the message.

T
HE MAIN SOURCES
used in this work are the records of the British
Security
Service (MI5) held by the National Archives at Kew in London. The KV2 series are personal files (PF series) and cover a period from 1913 to 1979. The documents that cover the S
NOW
case are the first in a subseries within KV2 titled Double Agent Operations, they are KV2/444–453. There are also documents that cover Gwilym Williams, KV2/468; C
HARLIE
KV2/454; and Celery KV2/674. There are also files on S
UMMER
KV2/60 and T
ATE
KV2/61 and 62.

In a subseries of KV2 entitled German Intelligence Officers are files on Nikolaus Ritter KV2/85-88 and Erwin Lahousen KV2/173.

The source of much of the information about Arthur Owens’ later life comes from interviews carried out in Ireland with his son Graham White, his wife Norma and their son Paul. Graham also has a recorded interview with his mother Hilda who married Arthur shortly after his release from internment. Graham also provided many photographs of his father in later life and a copy of the original
John Bull
magazine about J
OHNNY
, written by Charles Wighton and Gunter Peis and published on 26 October 1957. This article later became the basis of their book
Hitler’s Spies and Saboteurs
which was published in January 1958. These are the first works to mention J
OHNNY
and they are based on the diaries of Erwin Lahousen who was of course the victim of false information provided to the Germans by J
OHNNY
under the guidance of MI5.

A valuable source of the German point of view is Nikolaus Ritter’s
Deckname Dr. Rantzau: Die Aufzeichnungen des Nikolaus Ritter, Offizier im Geheimen Nachrichtendienst
published in 1972. Ritter’s autobiography offers a picture of his understanding of the Abwehr’s relationship with the German agent they codenamed J
OHNNY
.

J. C. Masterman’s
The Double Cross System of the war of 1939–1945
gives an overview of the whole system and how it developed during the period that Arthur Owens was active. This was the first work to reveal the
activities
of the double-cross system and the extent to which MI5 had outwitted the Abwehr and was in fact running the system of German agents in Great Britain.

Both volumes of
The Guy Liddell Diaries
are an invaluable source of the day-to-day events and thoughts of someone at the heart of the double-cross system. Being diaries dictated each evening, they were not subject to revision in the same way that a resumé of the MI5 files might be, and as such reveal the ad hoc way that the double-cross system developed in the early years of the war.

Ladislas Farago’s
The Game of Foxes
gives a colourful version of the events surrounding the double-cross system and paints a gaudy picture of agent S
NOW
. His book is responsible for many of the myths surrounding Arthur Owens. Farago seems to have picked up on some of the details from German sources and filled them out in his own flamboyant style. For all this, his work is one of the first attempts to make sense of the double-cross system and it must be remembered that it was written before any files were released into the public domain by the British government.

Further information about Owens’ later life came from his eldest son Robert’s wife Jenny Owens. It was she who provided access to Robert’s copy of Farago’s book with the notes that he had made in the margins. Jenny Owens also made available a copy of Robert’s letter to Edward Heath and the photographs of Lily Bade and her baby.

For a Hollywood film star, information about Patricia Owens is very hard to come by so it was necessary to turn to several sources. The most direct source is her son Adam Nathanson who also provided family photographs of her. His story of how she coped with the family secret is both remarkable and touching. Tom Weaver’s interview with Patricia Owens which appears in his book
Monsters, Mutants and Heavenly Creatures
is the only account of her life in Patricia’s own words of any substantial length. Diane Kachmar and David Goudsward’s
The Fly at Fifty
is the closest thing to a biography of Patricia, and Diane also provided access to contemporary newspaper reports about Patricia during her time as a Hollywood film actress.

Further information about Lily Bade came from her daughter Jean Louise Pascoe (née Deadman, née Owens).

Information about Gwilym Williams came from the Personnel Files of the Swansea Constabulary D/D Con/S9/5107 which are held at the West
Galmorgan
Archive and from his great-nephew Ceri Price who has researched the family history.