The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz by Erik Larson Page B
Authors: Erik Larson
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preparation, Jones had contacted a friend and colleague, Group Captain Samuel Denys Felkin, in charge of interrogating Luftwaffe crew members. Jones knew that bombers shot down in recent days had yielded new prisoners for interrogation, so he had asked Felkin to include questions focused specifically on beam-guidance technology.
Felkin did so, but the direct questions yielded nothing new. Felkin, however, had developed an effective new way of harvesting intelligence from prisoners. After an interrogation session, he would reunite the subject with his fellow airmen, then eavesdrop via hidden microphones as they discussed the interview and the questions asked. Felkin returned one of the new prisoners to his cell and listened in as he told a cellmate that no matter how hard the RAF looked, they would never find “the equipment.”
Which, of course, piqued Jones’s curiosity. The prisoner’s remark provided oblique confirmation that Jones was on the right track. It also suggested that the device might in fact be hidden in plain sight.
Jones immediately requested a copy of a technical report made after British investigators had examined a bomber shot down the previous fall, the same kind of bomber in which the prisoner had flown. Jones focused on its radio equipment. One instrument caught his attention: a device identified in the report as a blind-landing receiver. This in itself was not surprising, since all German bombers were equipped with standard Lorenz landing systems. The report showed that the equipment had been closely examined by an engineer at the Royal Aircraft Factory, an experimental aviation unit.
Jones called him.
“Tell me,” he said, “is there anything unusual about the blind landing receiver?”
The engineer said no, then qualified his answer. “But now you mention it,” he said, “it is much more sensitive than they would ever need for blind landing.”
The device could be tuned to particular frequencies, which, Jones reasoned, must be the ranges at which the new beam system operated—provided, of course, that his hunch was correct.
As inclined as Lindemann was to stand his ground, he was also receptive to cool scientific logic. It was one thing to listen to a twenty-eight-year-old scientist propose the existence of a secret new German guidance technology, working from a few pieces of circumstantial evidence, but quite another to see in clear, hard numbers the calculations of a leading expert purporting to prove that the underlying radio physics could permit the creation of such a system. And the new evidence Jones had collected was compelling.
Lindemann now recognized that if the Luftwaffe had managed to harness this new technology, it was indeed a fearsome development. Jones believed the beam could place an aircraft within four hundred yards of a target, a startling degree of precision.
Leveraging the power of his direct connection to Churchill, Lindemann that day composed an urgent minute for delivery direct to the prime minister. It was this intimate Rasputin-like link that raised so much suspicion and jealousy among Lindemann’s peers. With his exalted new mandate, anything and everything now came within his purview. He could probe the most remote corners of government and question whatever he wished, even propose new weapons and weigh in on military strategy and, in so doing, upset the lives of bureaucrats both lofty and low. “He was as obstinate as a mule, and unwilling to admit that there was any problem under the sun which he was not qualified to solve,” recalled Pug Ismay. “He would write a memorandum on high strategy on one day, and a thesis on egg production on the next.” Notes and minutes flew from Lindemann’s office—more than 250 by year’s end—on such diverse subjects as nitroglycerin, timber supplies, and secret anti-aircraft weapons. These often prompted Churchill to demand some new action from his various ministers, thereby disrupting their already pressured
Felkin did so, but the direct questions yielded nothing new. Felkin, however, had developed an effective new way of harvesting intelligence from prisoners. After an interrogation session, he would reunite the subject with his fellow airmen, then eavesdrop via hidden microphones as they discussed the interview and the questions asked. Felkin returned one of the new prisoners to his cell and listened in as he told a cellmate that no matter how hard the RAF looked, they would never find “the equipment.”
Which, of course, piqued Jones’s curiosity. The prisoner’s remark provided oblique confirmation that Jones was on the right track. It also suggested that the device might in fact be hidden in plain sight.
Jones immediately requested a copy of a technical report made after British investigators had examined a bomber shot down the previous fall, the same kind of bomber in which the prisoner had flown. Jones focused on its radio equipment. One instrument caught his attention: a device identified in the report as a blind-landing receiver. This in itself was not surprising, since all German bombers were equipped with standard Lorenz landing systems. The report showed that the equipment had been closely examined by an engineer at the Royal Aircraft Factory, an experimental aviation unit.
Jones called him.
“Tell me,” he said, “is there anything unusual about the blind landing receiver?”
The engineer said no, then qualified his answer. “But now you mention it,” he said, “it is much more sensitive than they would ever need for blind landing.”
The device could be tuned to particular frequencies, which, Jones reasoned, must be the ranges at which the new beam system operated—provided, of course, that his hunch was correct.
As inclined as Lindemann was to stand his ground, he was also receptive to cool scientific logic. It was one thing to listen to a twenty-eight-year-old scientist propose the existence of a secret new German guidance technology, working from a few pieces of circumstantial evidence, but quite another to see in clear, hard numbers the calculations of a leading expert purporting to prove that the underlying radio physics could permit the creation of such a system. And the new evidence Jones had collected was compelling.
Lindemann now recognized that if the Luftwaffe had managed to harness this new technology, it was indeed a fearsome development. Jones believed the beam could place an aircraft within four hundred yards of a target, a startling degree of precision.
Leveraging the power of his direct connection to Churchill, Lindemann that day composed an urgent minute for delivery direct to the prime minister. It was this intimate Rasputin-like link that raised so much suspicion and jealousy among Lindemann’s peers. With his exalted new mandate, anything and everything now came within his purview. He could probe the most remote corners of government and question whatever he wished, even propose new weapons and weigh in on military strategy and, in so doing, upset the lives of bureaucrats both lofty and low. “He was as obstinate as a mule, and unwilling to admit that there was any problem under the sun which he was not qualified to solve,” recalled Pug Ismay. “He would write a memorandum on high strategy on one day, and a thesis on egg production on the next.” Notes and minutes flew from Lindemann’s office—more than 250 by year’s end—on such diverse subjects as nitroglycerin, timber supplies, and secret anti-aircraft weapons. These often prompted Churchill to demand some new action from his various ministers, thereby disrupting their already pressured
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