WW2 Clandestine Radio Operations

[VA3KOT John]

I came across a fascinating account of operating equipment, procedures and propagation between the Allied base radio stations in England and resistance fighters in France during World War 2.

Using low powered suitcase rigs and severely compromised wire antennas, resistance wireless operators had to send and receive vital traffic while at risk of being detected and apprehended by the enemy. Radio experts had only rudimentary knowledge of ionospheric skywave propagation yet managed to work out a set of frequencies to use at different times of day between operators just across the English Channel in Calais and hundreds of miles away in Marseille.

One thing that stood out for me was the system of variable 3-letter callsigns designed to confuse the enemy, yet still identify exactly which station was calling or being called.

I can't attach the article because the file size is too large for this forum so I have provided a link to the original source which was published by QRPARCI this morning. If you share my passion for WW2 radio operations or you have a general interest in propagation studies, you will enjoy reading it.

https://www.ab4oj.com/dl/misc/b2_rb0809.pdf

[VE3WI Dave]

Fascinating.  Thanks for posting the link.

The book "The Secret Wireless War" gives a detailed history of British covert communication in WW II.  The author is Geoffrey Pidgeon, who as a teenager was a radio technician in MI6 during the war, along with his dad.

I have a copy.  After we can move around again, I'd be happy to loan it to any member who's interested.  Or, you can buy it from amazon.ca, $29.70 CDN (a real bargain - at the ARRL store it's $39.95 US + $35.00 US shipping!!)

73
Dave, VE3WI

[VA3KOT John]

Fascinating.  Thanks for posting the link.

The book "The Secret Wireless War" gives a detailed history of British covert communication in WW II.  The author is Geoffrey Pidgeon, who as a teenager was a radio technician in MI6 during the war, along with his dad.

I have a copy.  After we can move around again, I'd be happy to loan it to any member who's interested.  Or, you can buy it from amazon.ca, $29.70 CDN (a real bargain - at the ARRL store it's $39.95 US + $35.00 US shipping!!)

73
Dave, VE3WI

Thank you Dave! I have ordered The Secret Wireless War from Amazon.

[Ve3dgy]

Thanks gents, very interesting. I used to live in Ajax and there was a WW II radio station called Hydra at the secret spy training facility between Ajax and Whitby on the lake. It was called Camp X and is in the book “A Man Called Intrepid”. They had tall towers and dipoles to communicate with England and their operatives in Europe. I had a chance to snoop around there before they built a huge distribution warehouse over it. There is a memorial there and used to be a museum at the Oshawa airport. William Stevensom was a Canadian and key in the spy war effort with the Bletchley Enigma decoding effort in England. He helped Bill Stevenson(different guy)start the OSS after the war. Interesting stuff.

[VE3WI Dave]

I spent a lot of time in the Pickering area when I was working for OPG.  I always wanted to visit that Camp X memorial but never got around to it.

Interesting trivia about Stephenson & Camp X:

When Igor Gouzenko tried to defect in Ottawa in 1945, Mackenzie King was terrified of offending the Soviets and wanted to give him back to them.  William Stephenson happened to be in Ottawa and heard about Gouzenko.  He convinced King to allow Gouzenko to defect & had him taken to Camp X for safekeeping.  Documents stolen from the Soviet embassy by Gouzenko revealed much about the scope of Soviet spy networks in Canada & US.

73
Dave, VE3WI