This article first appeared in the author’s local parish magazine Focus (May 2023 edition)
As I explained in my first article, the Whaddon Web was the tapestry of the many Second World War radio transmitting and receiving sites which were put up and controlled by MI6 from Whaddon Hall. It was the voice and ears of the secret service’s wartime work.
That story is but part of a greater tale – a tale of skulduggery and spies, high drama and world-changing science; all happening in a titanic struggle between good and evil when old powers fell and new ones arose. But this was not spy-fiction; all of it was true, verifiable; though much of it is now forgotten. It happened right here – all around where we live.
Building the backbone
The boss at Whaddon Hall, Richard Gambier Parry, had been poached by MI6 from his job as the British Sales Manager for an American radio company, Philco. After he left, he went back and poached most of the other staff (Philco were very nice about it). They worked from Whaddon with feverish speed to put up masts at numerous sites to serve MI6’s seven main customers.
The world of North Bucks at the outbreak of the Second World War was vastly different than it is today. It was then a deeply rural area; where electricity had only recently been introduced; indeed many of the farms and hamlets had no electricity, mains drainage or mains water.
Erection crews travelled from Whaddon, surveying, requisitioning and putting up sites on hills for many miles around. As the map at the top of this blog shows, there were more than 20 sites. To put up the masts, Whaddon had a ‘small but merry’ group of aerial riggers run by an Australian Army soldier, Sergeant Ernie ‘Digger’ Buick. He was described (by an engineer, Major Robin Adie) as:
‘A remarkable man although his language, parliamentary and otherwise was fairly extensive …they would set off in the morning, winter or summer, rain or shine… how they put up with his language I don’t know.’
The masts were put on top of just about all of the surrounding hills. The flat lands of East Anglia start not far from Whaddon; so reception was generally good. There were many Royal Corps of Signals troops. The early masts were wood: two pine trees lashed together to make 140 foot masts with climbing ‘steps’ nailed in and lashed to wires in foundation concrete blocks. If that sounds dangerous, it was; as the graves of those who died on the job attest.
Although just about in living memory, this was a time when the modern world was only beginning. The transmitting stations were run from chargeable batteries and lit by hurricane lamps.
Royal Corps of Signals grave (Whaddon graveyard)
One wonders what the old gaffers in the smoke-filled bars of the Shoulder of Mutton or the Lowndes Arms muttered to each other about the mass of incoming soldiery as they supped their war time week beer; what they thought of the great transporters brushing the elms on muddy country roads which were more used to horses and cows. But then, most of them would have fought in a World War themselves; many of them still carried wounds; all of them mourned brothers, sons or friends lost in that conflict. The past is indeed another country.
Whaddon and the radio war
The transmitters at Whaddon itself were used to communicate with Allied commanders in the field. Their customers were the top brass, such as Generals Montgomery and Patton; and their messages affected the war – such as when they told Montgomery at El Alamein (in Africa) that his German opponents were down to a few tanks; and Patton in Normandy that his enemy were immobile as they had no fuel. Whaddon housed more than one aerial site; one of them on the ridge above the church where the unfortunate signalman lies buried. This exposed site – which is appropriately called Windy Ridge - has been used for centuries; it still has the base-mound of a windmill on it. Here was the largest of all the stations – with four shifts, each of around twenty extremely good operators. A Signals ‘Jimmy’ cap badge has been found by a metal detectorist there.
‘Jimmy’ - the rather racy badge of the R.C.Signals
But sending information to generals was only part of Whaddon’s work. Keeping it secret was at least as important; for the information they were passing on was courtesy of Bletchley Park; and had their enemies known their codes were being broken, they would have changed them.
To cope with the non-broadcasting part of his radio duties, Gambier-Parry had two satellite camps built in Little Horwood. Each had a guardroom, fencing, armed guards, work space and accommodation. For this was high security. Here radios were manufactured for spies and saboteurs, and communication vehicles for the generals were fitted with radios. It is in one of the huts used for this purpose that Great Horwood’s parish magazine, Focus, is printed.
Radios for the generals
The cars that MI6 used as radio command posts were, to begin with, a fleet of camouflaged Packards.
For Whaddon’s radio work, Gambier-Parry recruited the very best signallers and Morse code operators; both civilian and military. The cream of the crop. I want to talk especially about one of them, Edgar Harrison. Edgar was a signaller whose life was spun in a new direction by Whaddon and the war. His experiences were so extraordinary that a book has been written about him. Of all the people of Whaddon, 'Pop' Gambier–Parry included, I think he is the only one who has been the subject of a personal biography.
A 1941 Packard
People for the generals – Moscow 1940. Edgar Harrison
Harrison was a Caerphilly lad, the eighth of ten children. He joined the army at the age of 14. He was a corporal in The Royal Corps of Signals when he was poached by Gambier–Parry for Whaddon Hall. Edgar began his time at Whaddon at Little Horwood, fitting radios into the Packards which were to have been used as command posts behind the lines in the then–likely event of German invasion (a subject I will explore in more detail in a future article). The Packard was roomy. The rear was stripped out and turned into a three man radio room – with a transmitter and a receiver. After Whaddon/Little Horwood, Edgar Harrison was sent abroad, to pass Ultra (the name used for MI6’s secret traffic) to generals in the field. He was to take part in six retreats and become Winston Churchill’s Ultra wireless operator. Had he been American, Edgar’s life would probably have provided material for many a Hollywood epic. His first posting – and retreat – was from Norway. Then he was sent to Brussels – and retreated via Dunkirk. Then he retreated from Greece. Then he retreated from Crete.
Edgar Harrison
In 1941, he was directly involved in combatting the German invasion of Russia. When Hitler unleashed his troops on Russia, in June 1941, Britain very quickly began shipping tanks there; and Edgar went with them. British tanks were a factor in Hitler’s first land defeat – the battle for the defence of Moscow in the winter of 1941. Hitler got close to taking the Russian capital; his troops actually penetrated the greater Moscow area and could see the spires of the Kremlin through field glasses. It has been said that up to a quarter of the tanks that broke that attack were British (with Russian crews) – and I explain in my book The Intelligence Zone - why I find that figure credible. The British tanks were particularly valuable as, unlike the Russian tanks, they had radios – and could therefore fight in a co-ordinated manner and not be picked off piece-meal by the German attackers. Edgar Harrison was the man who was in charge of fitting those radios. While he was at it, he also fitted radios from Whaddon into Russian tanks; and trained their fitters and crews; making a co-ordinated defence possible.
The Nazis had already suffered one defeat in the air (the battle of Britain) and one at sea (the sinking of the Bismarck). These were both strongly linked to activities in the Intelligence Zone. Now, at Moscow, British technology also contributed to the first defeat of the German armies. Thus was democracy preserved from Nazism; the most vicious and racist creed ever devised by man. Instead of blue plaques being scattered like confetti across our area, there are huts used by small companies and unremarked grave stones in country churches.
I wonder if, as he fitted the radios in the Russian winter, Edgar Harrison thought with nostalgia about his home in Caerphilly – or indeed dreamed about nipping down to the Shoulder of Mutton at Little Horwood for a pint and a game of darts. If so, he would have shared the bar with Poles, Canadians and probably other nationalities; one of many uprooted people scattered to the Intelligence Zone by the war; who did their mite to shape the history of the world.
Signaller’s local – a perfect English pub, then and now (and my bike!)
In my next article, I will move on to Whaddon’s spy sites; and talk about the greatest of the French resistance heroines; and her visit to our very own parish.
©Alan Biggins May 2023
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