Spy Gadgets Of The Shadow War | Secrets of War (WWII Documentary) | Timeline

it's the summer of 1940 France has capitulated the evacuation of the British army from Dunkirk has left in question the fate of the only country standing in the way of total Nazi domination of Europe even if Britain could resist a cross-channel invasion it would take a long time to build up a force capable of taking on the seemingly invincible Germans but there were measures which could be put into effect reasonably soon such as establishing small units which could collect information and engage in sabotage against some German occupation forces on the continent actually the use of so-called irregular forces had long been anticipated in the years following the first world war indigenous guerrilla movements had challenged British colonial rule in Afghanistan and Iraq on the European continent anti-bolshevik activity in Germany and the eastern border areas had introduced unorthodox counter-revolutionary methods so the British had double experience of both encouraging irregular forces and in combating irregular forces so that certainly the creation of irregular military units was not surprising I think there's also the sense that they believe that Nazism was in itself unorthodox in warfare in July 1940 clandestine departments of the British Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office were merged to create what became known as the Special Operations Executive or the SOE beso ease primary objective in the summer of writing was to do anything to return on a German invasion of this country parallel to this objective of course was to help the people of Europe in their time of oppression but I think Churchill and the cabinet were men great realists and it was absolutely essential that anything that was going to make a German soldier guard a railway line rather than get on an evasion barge was the primary concern the SOE recruited volunteers often civilian refugees from occupied Europe the new organization aroused suspicion among the more conservative members of the government especially distasteful was the SOS policy of combining irregular warfare sabotage and subversion with more conventional forms of intelligence but it was the very absence of convention that so energized the organization it's very interesting that even an old Tory like Churchill believed that there was gonna be resistance created on the continent it was gonna have to come from labor not from the established middle classes and so that tipped it in a way that was unorthodox from the beginning whatever they did in the United States President Franklin Roosevelt was trying to prepare the country for a war he increasingly regarded as inevitable he has to continuously try to convince the American people that despite all appearances cont to the contrary Germany hasn't won the war [Applause] since his election to office in 1933 Roosevelt had asked a close friend William Donovan to undertake a number of delicate foreign missions on behalf of the United States government Donovan had earned them the medal of honor in France for gallantry in action he's larger than life he's a Wall Streeter was part of a little funny informal intelligence service who operates by calling up the president telling about things they picked up here and there so there's a kind of intelligence operation operating out of the White House already in the summer of 1940 Donovan visited England shown secret locations from which the British were carrying the fight back to occupied Europe [Music] and their big job was to try to prove to Donovan then Britain was stronger than it looked after the fall friends that's the game and SOE was a wonder they took him out the demonstrations and heard guys blowing up tanks and jumping over walls and letting off smoke and doing all us you know all that wild stuff and he was after all a frontline combat soldier from the first world war and of course he ate up Donovan's reports strengthened Roosevelt's conviction that Britain could and must be saved in July 1941 a new agency was formed to plan and coordinate trend destined activities in Europe within a year following the attack on Pearl Harbor the new organization would be called the Office of Strategic Services it's chief for his 58 year-old William Donovan [Music] for the time the United States entered the war the SOE had established some sixty training camps throughout the world including sts-103 the so called Camp X located on a north shore of Lake Ontario in Canada it was here that the first OSS class was trained by the SOE and the techniques of unconventional warfare so they were learning the same skills clandestine communication how do you use Morse code also they were learning cover how do you effectively operate in a hostile environment how do you recruit agents so it was a complete spy school and was actually the first school for secret agents probably ever established in the North American continent in March 1942 a new instructor arrived at Camp X Captain William Fairburn known as fearless Dan and the Shanghai bustard he became a legendary figure to practitioners of clandestine operations Fairburn is seen here in this once top-secret OSS film although he was masked for wartime security there is no disguising what became known as the fair burn technique a furball had been a policeman at Shanghai and had therefore as I said got his hands a bit dirty and he had made a study of Far Eastern combat but also had to make a study of firearms techniques and therefore had evolved into big arguably the world's expert on these types of combat because of him being this crusty well-traveled former policeman he he went down very very well with the Americans anymore [Music] what a difference it makes doesn't it it's one thing to fire the target that can't shoot back and it's another thing to hear those bullets whizzing by your ears he would always end his lecture with the same statement at the end kick him in the testicles no matter what the technique there was always a coup de Gras a final blow the concept of street fighting often epitomized the unconventional warrior in this world of the shadow warfare that was being espoused in spreading from both America in England the Englishman single-handedly developed the concept of instinctive pistol shooting on your toes [Music] the Fairburn method of killing could also involve the use of ancient techniques William Fairburn advised the SOE into the techniques for utilizing a garage and the design was to come up quietly from the Sentry from the rear take the device in your hands and if you come up behind the Sentry quickly loop it around their neck and put your knee into their back and pull back as you tighten in doing this you had the Sentry off-balance you were tightening you'd cut off the blood to the brain you'd cut off the air there arteries were being cut at the same time they were off balance and it was a very effective technique that was known as the fair Birdman Fairburn was deadly with a knife his name is associated with what would become the signature weapon of the SOE and the OSS prior to the Fairburn development most knives used by military or in combat were often bayonets or utilitarian knives also used to open c-ration cans Fairburn saw the knife should be something differently he wanted a weapon that was useful for both penetration as well as for slashing the triangular shape of the blade gave it rigidity in the ability to power through clothing it became a piece that instilled confidence in the user it reminded the bearer of the you lead organization to which they belonged and it became a badge of distinction that especially in the late war period was worn with pride [Music] the global conflict that began in 1939 took on the mantle of total war obliterating any distinction between combatants and non-combatants to this end the SOE and the OSS sought the means to democratize the conflict to make operatives out of simple peasants and college intellectuals this small booklet printed in six different languages enabled any literate man or woman with access to explosives or weaponry to become a saboteur [Music] soé who has a very modern organization it's a lot of its concepts are very modern and it's also important to remember that it's it's was derived from a major nation state at a time of great panic and great crisis and therefore I think it's might be contentious but it's my opinion that SOE was if you like the founding father of modern terrorism by 1942 the Allies were on the offensive against the axis military machine as the scope of clandestine operations widened so did the need for equipment [Music] most of the weapons distributed to resistance in guerrilla groups by the SOE and the OSS were conventional rifles pistols and submachine guns but there were other highly specialized devices as well getting the instruments of sabotage and destruction past enemy checkpoints was always dangerous so size and conceal ability were fundamental concerns there so we actually had a special section called a camouflage section one of the things that it actually did was to produce a petrol cam that hid a limpet mine in it the actual cam will carry some petrol in it and so we're if anybody worth checking the contents of it they could stick a probe down through the opening of the petrol cannon had she come up with some real petrol [Music] transportation was a primary target for sabotage and could have repercussions far beyond the immediate disruption caused by a well-placed explosive they could not only damage the railroads interdict the supply lines but they could also cause the Germans they could force them to pull troops from the front lines to begin guarding these supply lines basically every Bridge every tunnel in stretches of railroad lines had to be guarded against saboteurs blowing up sections of track was relatively easy but to effect an actual derailment required finesse if the charges were too close together the heavy wheels of the train would just pass over the gaps and amazingly bounce back onto the track explosives had to be staggered on opposite sides of the tracks in just the right way for this SOE sent in standard charges which could put in store and then when the right time came off the rail where saboteurs would go place this on the railway line put on the on the delay fuses and bingo one of the other fuses that they use was a something called a fog signal igniter [Music] you wanted to destroy the track while the train was on top of this so the British the SOE developed the fog signal the actual fog signal was a small percussion cap device used to warn the engineer of impending fog or of an obstruction ahead when paired with primer cord and explosives it became a means of not only blowing up enemy tracks but a D railing a train as well tunnels were especially rich targets for sabotage a derailment within the confines of a mountain tunnel would disrupt train traffic for a much longer period of time the problem for the OSS was to get an explosive charge to detonate at the right time the solution was called a mole a remote sensor that triggered an explosive charge when plunged into sudden darkness [Music] the photoelectric I had been adjusted so that once it was placed in position on a train and the explosives were hidden if the train was out in the open and it simply went from daylight to nighttime the gradual change in light would not cause it to explode however if it went from a bright light to pitch-black and remained for a few seconds it would sense that this is a tunnel and it would explode [Music] industrial plants and power grids were other important targets the SOE needed a ready-made explosive that an operative could easily position one such device was a package of plastic explosive called the clam it had some magnets underneath so this meant that it could be placed underneath a metal table behind a radiator the time pencil would offer a delayed means of initiating the explosives many of the devices used in the shadow war were not new at all but lifted from the pages of history exploding coal was used as far back as the American Civil War the concept was simple but effective introduced a camouflaged explosive charge into a coal bin and wait for the results historically looking back there are reasons to believe that within the United States there were explosions in boilers on the East Coast that can now only be explained by the fact that the Germans had somehow introduced their own versions of explosive coal into American coal dumps internal combustion engines offered the most opportunities for sabotage because of their numbers the objective was to disable or destroy the engine while the vehicle was on the road away from the motor pool or repair facilities the Firefly was a small incendiary device that was dropped into a vehicle's gasoline filler port [Music] it would later detonate and rupture the gas tank depending on the temperature of the gasoline between two and seven hours later there would be a delayed release of the igniter and it would cause the TNT to go off the hotter the gasoline the less time the operator had another means of attacking small engines was by contaminating the oil supply the OSS keeping - it's sabotage doctrine needed three things concealability effectiveness and time delay so the OSS turned to Standard Oil and asked them to check two hundred and fifty various chemicals to see which one would be effective they finally came upon something known as cashew nut shell oil they mix this together and came up with a gritty substance that was the most effective contaminant they had seen in tests the mixture effectively destroyed the inside of engines after being driven between 30 to 50 miles perfect for effective sabotage now the problem was how to package and conceal the material someone had the idea to just use a standard rubber prophylactic that was commonly available in issued to the troops is your weapon it's called cackle Lou comes in a box of five looks like something else and it was one of the most effective sabotage devices that was developed and interestingly had a long and effective use in the post-war as well the SOE and the OSS as well as the Germans developed a number of different tools to sabotage parked aircraft but the OSS needed in keeping with its philosophy of maximum disruption or something that could be placed on board and detonated after takeoff destroying not only the airplane but its crew and passengers as well the answer was a pound of plastic explosive made it with a simple barometric trigger set to go off at 1500 feet it was called the anima meter if placed correctly inside a wheel well or near the tail section the results were always fatal clandestine and partisan operations frequently involved sneaking onto enemy encampments or stalking sentries there were evil looking devices that had an almost medieval quality a modified 45 caliber pistol that silently released an aerodynamic Dart so-called thumb knives razor-sharp that could be concealed in an agent's lab pail or sleeve even a throw away single-shot 45 caliber pistol officially called The Liberator but more commonly referred to as the Woolworth gun because of its inexpensive cost as SOE got bigger that she began to produce its own factories as well of its own research and development organization these were based around a town called well in north of London and therefore the names of the actual tools and gadgets that were being produced to her given though the prefix well so a silenced pistol was called a well-wrought the well rod was a specially built single-shot pistol with the detachable silencer the handles doubled as a magazine holding between six and eight rounds depending on the ammunition either 32 caliber or 9 millimeter and was accurate to 30 yards it was easily hidden and could even pass as a bicycle pump when disassembled [Music] this weapon which most closely approached the clandestine operatives ideal of concealability lethality and silence remained in service well into the post-war years three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans so it was only fitting that the SOE and the OSS were prepared to function in the aquatic element from inserting and extracting agents in the dead of night to reconnaissance and demolition in enemy-held ports some of the shadow wars most secret gadget ori was developed for clandestine operations in the sea in the Bahamas where a special OSS maritime unit conducted its underwater training team members with exceptional swimming ability were instructed in the use of the lambertsen underwater rebreathing apparatus unlike contemporary scuba gear it did not leave a telltale trail of air bubbles Lambertson units were used on missions to penetrate enemy harbours and plant underwater explosives on ships hulls the most commonly used underwater explosive device was the limpet mine [Music] you had to have a way to effectively get a watertight explosive hold it close to the ship and ignite an explosion so they devised the limpet mine the center portion is two and a half pounds of high explosive that's watertight on the outside our six magnets now they're individually mounted in rubber so that they could conform to the hull of a ship even if there's barnacles on it with two and a half pounds of explosive snug against the hall once it goes off the incompressibility of water will focus the entire explosion into the hall and this is designed to produce a whole roughly 25 square feet in size beneath the waterline the limpet mine was most effectively used against merchant vessels one SOE operation in the straits of Singapore sank 39,000 tons of Japanese shipping in 1943 [Music] modern-day derivatives of the limpid are still used by naval special warfare units the key to attacking enemy shipping was access to harbors and ports the SOE and the OSS experimented with several techniques early in the war standard-issue rubber rafts and wooden kayaks were pressed into use kayaks similar to these were successfully used by SOE to attack German shipping in Bordeaux Harbor in 1942 but the OSS wanted a more effective means of delivering a limpet mine they borrowed from the SOE a curious invention that bore a strong resemblance to an underwater canoe it was called the sleeping duty the sleeping beauty was the smallest operational submarine in World War two and it was technically known as a motorised submersible canoe it also has another distinction it was the only submarine up until that time that had ever been designed exclusively by and for an intelligence service sleeping beauty weighed 650 pounds had a maximum dive depth of 50 feet and could be manually paddled or driven by its silent onboard electric motor it had a range of 12 miles and a speed of four and a half knots if slowed down to three knots its reign is increased to 40 miles it was never intended to go from England to the target but they had modified submarines so that they could put the Sleeping Beauty's inside take them within five or ten miles of the coastline and then allowed the sleeping beauty to travel under its own power it had an internal 24 volt battery that provided the energy to the target the small craft had no onboard means of navigation except for a rudimentary aircraft type compass a technique called porpoising was developed whereby the operator would surface visually sight the target or take a compass reading submerge travel a few hundred yards and resurface this routine was repeated all the way to the target and once they reached the shoreline or once they were beneath the ship the target they could very simply either park the submarine on the bottom or maybe even reach neutral buoyancy and just have it hover then they would get out swim to their target put on a limpet mine on the side of the ship get back in the submarine and leave the harbor for all its technological elegance Sleeping Beauty was deployed operationally less than five times during the war the properties of buoyancy and compressed air were applied to another tool of the shadow war a submersible raft used for concealing up to 400 pounds of supplies in up to 60 feet of water it was called Davey's Locker they caught on the idea of having a raft that had an internal air supply the operator would swim out to it swim down and turn an air valve which would change the buoyancy if you made it buit it would rise to the service you could take supplies on take them off if you wanted to sink it again change the air and it would slowly drift to the bottom and you could repeat this cycle six to ten times Davey's Locker was never designed to be a boat once launched from a submarine or surface ship it could be maneuvered to a hidden location near the shore where it would spend most of the time underwater it remains one of the most ingenious methods ever devised for supplying clandestine operations a particularly elaborate scheme for attacking enemy shipping was the so-called Campbell missile it was in effect a 30-foot long remotely operated seagoing projectile the experimental craft could be camouflaged to take the shape of any number of small indigenous watercraft to facilitate infiltration into enemy-held ports and shipping lanes [Music] the heart of the guidance system was a combination of onboard radio receiver in television transmitter images aimed over the bow of the missile were broadcast to a control aircraft the airborne operator could radio direction and speed commands from a distance of up to 85 miles the missile could attain a speed of 35 knots with his gasoline engine but to aid in deception the characteristic chugging of a fishing boat diesel engine was pre-recorded and broadcast along with synchronized puffs of smoke the hull space could accommodate 5,000 pounds of high explosives in a variety of configurations ranging from torpedo type warheads to depth charges triggered to detonate underneath the target [Music] the Campbell missile with its mix of low and high technologies 300 mile range and powerful explosive charge was a precursor to later generations of cruise missiles and smart weapons [Music] advances in radio technology and electronics revolutionized communications during the Second World War this was especially important to practitioners of unconventional warfare who were frequently solitary souls operating behind enemy lines even in the enemy's midst the availability of secret lightweight and reliable radios was a significant factor in the pitched battles of the shadow war graer telegraphy or Morse code was the normal mode of communication until relatively late in the war it was less susceptible to distortion and atmospheric conditions than voiced communication initially the shortage of trained wireless operators in Britain forced the SOE to use the radio networks of mi6 the British Secret Intelligence Service but from June 1942 onwards the SOE was allowed to make its own radios use its own codes and have its own radio networks and home stations at its peak the SOE used 1,500 wireless operators listening round-the-clock for messages coming in from almost 500 SOE transmitters in Europe in fact by 1944 there were so many secret radio networks agents had to follow strict operating schedules the proliferation of radios was largely due to transceiver sets becoming smaller and more concealable one of the most effective was easily transportable and designed to fit inside a typical piece of European luggage the type a mark 3 was the smallest operational suitcase set that was produced in either England or in the United States during World War two and the original specifications call for the set to only be able to communicate using Mars code for 500 miles but in practice the set was so well designed that with a proper aerial it could communicate for a thousand miles or even more as German Direction finding techniques became more sophisticated radio security became an overriding concern of clandestine operations under no circumstance was an agent to be on the air for more than five minutes and the total length of transmissions could not exceed 20 minutes in any one day elaborate methods of screening and identifying agents transmissions were developed [Music] so they introduced an operational technique that said in your transmissions you will omit a word or a letter or you'll do something in your first message that is incorrect but being incorrect it tells us that you are you and you are not operating under the control of the enemy it's called a safety check and this was a standard part of communication protocol with all operatives going into the field another means of positively identifying incoming radio traffic was to have pre-recorded examples of each agent Morse code technique because individual technique was as recognizable as a fingerprint clandestine communications were encoded by various means a small portable cipher machine called the M 209 was used by the OSS encryption of a message was done by manually setting the six rotors or wheels the operator would write out the message that he wanted to send he would then take each letter dial it in the Machine turn the lever and it would print the encrypted letter on this piece of tape once that had been done completely the tape would be given to a radio operator who would transmit it in Morse code now on the other end they would receive the encrypted message they would hand it to a cipher specialist who had the identical piece of equipment who would enter the in ciphered message doing this same process in Reverse but when it printed out it would be in clear text effective communication was important in other more subtle ways much of the emphasis of unconventional warfare involved with the OSS termed morale operations disseminating so-called black propaganda misinformation to demoralize the enemy and reduce his combat effectiveness in Burma where OSS detachment 101 had organized kitchen mountain tribes against the Japanese a regiment of enemy troops was the target of a special mo operation the Japanese Army thought under a strict code of no surrender a document purportedly from the Japanese regional commander but in reality forged by the OSS stated that under certain conditions surrender was not dishonorable the dissemination of the forgery resulted in defections and in erosion of Japanese morale from Britain and North Africa black radio stations directed a steady stream of propaganda into occupied Europe and the German heartland during the Italian campaign the OSS edited a Daily News leaflet designed to sow discontent among German troops delivering the propaganda with precision required placing the documents inside special artillery shells British Major was very upset every time fired leaflets Morris instead of high-explosive he made no effort to hide the fact that he thought this was sheer nonsense the next day when I came back to fire some more I'd found a convert I've rarely seen anyone more enthusiastic the reason was very simple about an hour after I left the battery position a German prisoner with one of them our leaflets in his hand came forward to surrender this German said that the argument of the leaflet persuaded him to come over he told precise positions for German mortars three days we try to get those mortars they killed a hundred odd British boys we silas them in a matter of minutes morale operations in World War two though difficult to quantify by conventional standards were certainly a valuable asset to the Allied theater commanders the power of words and images had laid the foundations for modern psychological warfare and broadened the scope of the shadow war across the globe whenever clandestine operations compromised enemy effectiveness the airplane was as essential as the radio in the waging of unconventional warfare in Asia tiny liaison planes operated behind the lines putting down onto minuscule jungle clearings and dirt roads that were otherwise inaccessible personnel were brought in and he wounded were flown out it's no wonder they were nicknamed Burma butterflies by their OSS pilots [Music] but it was the ubiquitous c-47 Dakota that assumed a major role for resupplying OSS operations [Music] in Brittany Lysander provided valuable service to the SOE making runs into occupied France under the cover of darkness the small aircraft was limited however in range and cargo capacity [Applause] though the lies and a pilot's landing in enemy territory dropping landing agents picking up others and bringing them back home to safety is a very glamorous and romantic image the bulk of SOS work was done by parachute operations flown by first two engine bombers and then subsequently by four-engine bombers that were travelling as far away as eastern Poland and Norway and down into the Balkans and southern France and so on the availability of long-range aircraft provided field agents with another breakthrough voice communication the British developed s phone was a battery-powered ultra-high frequency radio telephone the agent on the ground had to face the oncoming aircraft but the signal was difficult to monitor by the enemy [Music] by the end of 1944 the OSS had developed its own ground-to-air radio telephone for agents penetrating the German homeland Joan Elinor consisted of a small handheld receiver transmitter for the agent on the ground and a receiver and wire recorder mounted inside an aircraft flying at altitude it worked on this same principle as the s phone but the agents transceiver was much smaller under 7 inches long and weighed just 3/4 of a pound Joan Elinor gave the OSS a great advantage the handler would circle in an airplane at a predetermined time perhaps even out of visual sight but the operative on the ground could talk into the Joan Ellen or in communicate with the handler in the air this was a psychological boost to the agent as well as the handler and the handler could often determine elements of the agent's psychological profile how was the person holding up under stress were they about to crack things that wouldn't be apparent in a coded message another SOE developed instrument the Eureka Rebecca was a homing beacon designed for pinpointing aerial resupply targets the French Resistance avoided using it because the ground-based half of the system was too bulky and almost impossible to explain in the event of his search [Music] the homing beacon was used in paratroop operations and adapted by the OSS for blind bombing of hidden or camouflaged to targets [Music] a most unusual aircraft related development to the OSS was a special harness to pluck a man off the ground by low-flying aircraft the project carried the rather mundane name of ground-to-air transfer but there was nothing ordinary about the procedure the harness was not for the faint of heart [Music] to a clandestine operative or aircrew member down behind enemy lines it could mean the difference between capture and and escape the techniques of resupplying agents for partisan groups were improved throughout the war special types of parachute containers were being dropped some with metal ones others that were plywood that could be broken up into little separate carrying compartments these could actually be ordered over the wireless links specifically saying we would like an explosives container rather than our arms container or you could even break it up into smaller units than that the level of sophistication that developed by the end of the war was was very very pronounced [Music] Air Transport was the key element to the most demanding supply effort of the shadow war Operation carpetbagger the arming of French resistant groups in preparation for the Normandy invasion [Music] [Music] b-24s of the 479th bomb group dropped more than a thousand OSS personnel into France to the airmen they were known simply as Joe's close to five thousand containers packed with arms explosives and radio equipment were pushed out into the night sky the supply missions exacted a heavy price 25 b-24s were lost along with 208 men [Music] the carpetbagger did succeed but the time the Allied invasion took place on June 6 local resistance groups had been organized and armed they went on to play an important role in the liberation of their homeland the Allied victory in 1945 spelled the end of the SOE and the OSS but an ironic legacy of that war has been the global reimagines of unconventional conflict and Wars of national liberation just rather sad that SOE couldn't close the box couldn't close Pandora's box and the idea and the efficacy of clandestine warfare of guerrilla warfare was shown to all concerned I think it's fair to say that in some respects we're still seeing the ramifications of that today [Music] you [Music]

Channel: undefined

Views: 303,373

Rating: 4.7633753 out of 5

Keywords: History, Full Documentary, Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, BBC documentary, Channel 4 documentary, history documentary, documentary history, world war 2 documentary, world war ii, bbc history, history channel documentary, adolf hitler, wwii documentary, spies in the revolutionary war, secrets of war, spy gadgets in real life, spy gadgets, war spies, history of the world, world war 2, spy weapon stereotypes

Id: nujg07ayYUs

Length: 49min 20sec (2960 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019