The Real Spies of MI-6 | Secrets of War | Timeline

one of the great privileges of working at history here and making films together with our team at timeline is the access we get to extraordinary historical locations like this one stonehenge i'm right in the middle of the stone circle now it is an absolutely extraordinary place to visit if you want to watch the documentary like the one we're producing here go to history hit tv it's like netflix for history and if you use the code timeline when you check out you'll get a special introductory offer see you there [Music] at the beginning of world war ii germany was poised to crush great britain outgunned and outmanned the british faced certain defeat like david facing goliath the british used stealth and cunning to match the axis powers between 1940 and 1945 a small but elite organization worked from these offices at 54 broadway in london the organization was mi6 or military intelligence section 6 the foreign office to the crown in the first few months of the war mi6 was virtually all that stood between great britain and total annihilation all was going to be lost or the british were going to have to cut a deal picture the situation in june of 1940. russia was still an ally of germany so resources could flow through and from russia into germany france was out of the war spain was a fascist country that hitler had helped franco win the civil war without the united states they're in a very dire situation dire you just cannot win mi6 was joined by a web of secret agencies with names like special operations executive jabra and british security coordination they would sabotage and intimidate their enemies then manipulate their allies all as part of a secret war for survival even the president of the united states was fooled by the spy tactics of the british secret service for an organization britain depended on for its very survival in war mi6 had come a long way since the english identified a need for a formal intelligence gathering service in 1909 there was a very wide-ranging review into the failure of british intelligence and it turned out that part of the reason the failure of british intelligence was that there was no such secret service everybody believed there was a secret service but actually none existed military intelligence was needed to protect the interests of the empire the ministry of information was charged with the task of creating such a secret service mansfield smith [ __ ] was the first head of mi6 his colorful personality provided the agency with traditions that exist to this day in honor of coming the head of the british secret service has been known as c and not m as in the james bond novels and [ __ ] wrote with green ink and ever since then the only person in whitehall allowed to write in greenick is the chief of the secret service between 1909 and 1915 mansfield [ __ ] built mi6 into a top-notch spy organization during world war one the agency gathered secret information about enemy movements in europe the secret intelligence service's greatest success was an organization called white lady a group of people who monitored train movements and very straightforwardly if you can monitor and analyze the frequency and the passengers and the cargos on train journeys then you can certainly get a glimpse into an enemy order of battle into their deployments and into individual units after world war one mi6 gathered information discreetly by placing many of its agents in english passport offices throughout europe but this arrangement perfect in peacetime was disastrous when hitler began his march west when the nazis rolled through belgium holland denmark norway the passport control officers in those places of course had to be evacuated so that left the secret intelligence service largely devoid of any kind of useful source from within the reich to make matters worse mi6 kept such a low profile between wars that few in high office knew how effective and helpful the agency could be in a time of crisis had leaders like neville chamberlain known more about mi6 as world war ii began they might have known about hitler's true intentions much earlier political ignorance about the secret intelligence service is hard to exaggerate 1940 the prime minister actually employed the law privy seal to undertake a study of mi5 and sis in order to be able to understand how large these organizations were what their role functions were to fight a major world war the british secret service would need to be improved and expanded that job fell to stuart mingus november 1939 stuart mingers took over an organization that was essentially bankrupt of talent was essentially bankrupt of assets and very shortly was going to be bankrupt of establishments that it could operate from on the continent menges was a quiet taciturn man whose aristocratic pleasures provided both contacts and cover for his highly secretive life strippings was regarded by his subordinates as aloof and diffident certainly somebody to be feared but amongst his contemporaries and his club friends very few of whom were fully aware of his role as chief of the secret intelligence service he was simply regarded as another gentleman who lived a gentleman's life hunting at the weekends and living with his succession of wives and mistresses mengis inherited an organization unprepared for the rigors of war those who knew about the secret agency considered it ineffective at best incompetent at worst but mi6 had a secret weapon that showed great promise a weapon that could prove as devastating and as powerful as all the guns in europe during world war one mi6 had purchased an old bletchley park mansion 70 kilometers outside of london by the late 1930s bletchley park housed a sharp team of brilliant scholars linguists and mathematicians working in absolute secrecy to break germany's top secret military and political communications codes but code breaking alone would not be enough to win the war when winston churchill became prime minister in may of 1940 britain's secret war took an even higher priority soon mi6 and its code breakers would be joined by an elite force designed to take the battle behind the front lines and into the heart of enemy territory for britain june 1940 was perhaps the darkest time of the war as the luftwaffe unleashed and tore into bombs on british civilians hitler was planning for an imminent army invasion bombs blighted the london landscape as the country struggled for its very survival winston churchill was the man the nation turned to during the crisis churchill knew that mi6's code-breaking operation could be a decisive weapon in waging what he called total war i think that what churchill meant by total war was not just sticking to a static front this was a war that would be conducted on many fronts not the least of which would be the civilian front so it was taking the war beyond the front line and into the rear echelons into the communications lines into the local population that was virtually unheard of during the first world war churchill understood that war against a superior adversary required more than just information gathering and decryption a secret army was needed one that not only recruited the best british strategists spies and saboteurs but foreign nationals as well britain was about to create the most secret organization the world had ever seen the special operations executive or soe you may blow up the odd factory um you may derail the odd train but unless you can plug in to the indigenous resistance unless you can find men and women who are going to actually want to do something about the state of their own country form networks of agents networks of saboteurs that is the essential thing in july 1940 the soe recruited refugees coming into london from occupied european countries first they were interviewed then they were given a warning about the dangers they would face he would say look you volunteered to go back but you rise if you were doing that you're putting your life on the line i'm putting your life on the line you sure you want to go on with it which point most of them said of course they wanted to go once selected soe recruits went through extensive exhaustive training to wage secret war and inflict maximum damage on the enemy they learned about explosives communications and propaganda once the classroom training was finished recruits were sent off to a remote section of scotland people had about three weeks severe training in mountain climbing in living off the land in handling small arms in handling small boats how to get into and out of a boat without making noise important useful gift in the clear start world in scotland the recruits trained in conditions similar to their home countries well when you came up to scotland you came to to a countryside which was more like norway and you trained you felt you trained the right muscles and you felt very much at home if you were doing long hikes up in scotland you can post remote forms and the owner would be just as annoyed as you know which mountain farmer would be if you passed without saying hello and having a chat and probably a cup of tea and that sort of thing so so you felt very much at home indeed soe recruits had to face the difficult prospect that they might have to use their training in lethal force in combat it was very brutal just a couple of months before we were very peaceful young chaps back in oldest and now you have been taught how to use a fighting knife knowing where to stick it into a body sometimes you had difficulties in falling asleep at night because you were thinking what you have been taught during the day soe's early missions in the war were often plagued by failure they lacked transportation to return to the continent and were not given enough supplies no shortage of volunteers huge shortage of communications equipment and huge shortage of the means of getting the agents back into occupied europe that meant either aircraft or ships royal navy not prepared to take the risk by the end of 1941 the royal air force finally began flying soe operatives to europe at night in what became known as midnight sonata missions while soe struggled to train recruits and get them into the field the code breakers at bletchley park had finally succeeded in deciphering some key german codes to conceal the fact that a german code had been broken mengis told no one attributing the new intelligence to a fictional spy named boniface instead and so they invented a spy well-placed spy in germany and his code name was boniface and so when the distribution took place it was circulated codenamed boniface the implication was this was an excellent source but of course because sis had such a poor reputation for cultivating and recruiting good human assets in germany the military commanders took neonatals at boniface [Music] by november 1941 boniface had been scrapped and the highest british commanders were informed of mi6's breakthrough mingus had quickly turned the moribund agency around the product of its labors dubbed ultra by churchill for its ultra-secret content was proving to be an instrumental secret tool of war britain's clandestine war now had two components mi6 would intercept and decode german military communications and soe would fight behind enemy lines to organize and arm a secret army of resistance fighters in europe the two agencies had the same mission but often struggled with conflicting agenda there are two fundamental differences between mi6 and soe mi6's primary aim was to obtain intelligence from whatever sources it could but certainly part of this was sending agents into enemy territory to obtain whatever secrets they could locate on the other hand soe was to provide explosives weapons to attack communications to blow up trains even if needs be to assassinate people the one intelligence gathering requires silence quietness don't make a fuss remain undercover whereas soe was to make lao banks to create a nuisance to attack the germans as mi6 was struggling to rebuild its reputation and soe was training its operatives the british were fighting yet another secret war it was an extraordinary campaign of dirty tricks salacious deeds and exotic setups and it was being fought not against an enemy but against a potential ally while mi6 and soe were combating the germans another secret british organization the british security coordination or bsc was fighting a different enemy the enemy of american indifference [Music] the problem is that the americans don't believe that world war ii has anything to do with them a lot of americans are sympathetic towards the british but they just don't see world war ii as being their war there's a tremendous feeling of complacency a feeling that britain will make it through that the americans really don't need to do anything the americans determined to never again be pulled into the horrors of another world war past strict neutrality laws in the late 1930s these laws for bad intervention in foreign conflicts and thus presented serious problems for great britain it was very apparent to the british that they simply did not have the power to to beat the germans only if the united states could be involved in the war could britain have a chance of winning a protracted war with the germans something had to be done to influence american public opinion britain waged a bloodless war against american apathy and used secret means to do it people imagine that the best secret weapons are weapons that are used in secret but there is a weapon that is used in public that can be even more devastating and that weapon is propaganda propaganda is planned in secret but is used in public and propaganda changes the way that people think changes the way that history unfolds at rockefeller center in manhattan the british security coordination opened up offices in 1940 ostensibly to provide information about the war effort in reality the bsc was part of mi6 william stevenson was a well-connected wealthy canadian businessman and a former war hero he was recruited to run the british campaign in america stevenson is a tough ruthless businessman had been a champion boxer flyweight apparently at one time a very tough hard individual he once volunteered to kill hitler with a high-powered hunting rifle so this is a tough focused individual who wants to succeed and will do whatever it takes to win william stevenson waged an all-out war on american isolationists recruiting agents willing to use any means necessary including sex blackmail forgery deceit and if necessary murder [Music] in order to be an agent for stevenson you had to be intelligent ruthless you know one of the recruiting things was uh i cannot tell you what sort of work you might be involved in but if you join us you mustn't be afraid of forgery and you mustn't be afraid of murder meeting at popular watering halls like the stork club in manhattan stevenson the businessman and socialite used his extensive network of political social and business contacts to create an organization unparalleled in its effectiveness some u.s businessmen saw the war as a financial and political opportunity and helped stevenson in his efforts to convince americans to give aid to the british the rockefellers gave bsc a floor two floors of space basically rent free and also a supplied free space for a whole myriad of other fronts that bsc was running the privileged access didn't stop with america's pro-war financial elite stevenson had friends in even higher places the white house was very cooperative without white house cooperation there is no way that stephen stephenson's organization could have operated the united states it was operating beyond the law sometimes in direct contradiction to u.s law so without the backing of the white house j edgar hoover at the fbi would simply have not allowed an organization like this to operate in the united states just how far did the bsc go in 1998 declassified files showed how nasty things could get if you were on stevenson's hit list the files tell the story of what the bsc did to arthur vandenberg vandenberg was a senator from michigan and a prominent isolationist he was also on the appropriations committee the key position in 1941 in that year congress was about to vote on lend lease the controversial program to circumvent u.s neutrality laws and provide arms and ammunition to britain the proposed lend lease legislation was critical to britain and the bsc pulled out all the stops to influence vandenberg's vote british intelligence took advantage of senator arthur vandenberg's weakness for exotic women by sending over cynthia one of their most famous women's spies whose specialty was jumping in bed with men changing their minds stealing their codes whatever else had to be done after cynthia had finished with him vandenberg's position on european affairs had changed dramatically she shows up and changes vandenberg's mind or at least neutralizes him on lynd lease in uh in early 1941. [Music] whether vandenberg's vote was changed because of cynthia and the bsc will never be known vandenberg was a very prominent isolationist sometime in the 1940s he just suddenly turned around one day and became a prominent internationalist no one ever asked who was beside him the morning he turned around the bsc's attempt to influence american politics didn't stop in the u.s senate in 1941 the bsc targeted the most powerful political figure in america the president of the united states one of the greatest of mi6's achievements before the united states comes into the war on the 7th of december 1941 was alas to deceive the americans and in particular to deceive president franco delano roosevelt sir william stevenson little bill stevenson as he was called forged or had forged a whole series of documents which suggested that the nazis had designs on latin america the forgery department of mi6 created a map of latin america and passed it to president roosevelt this map is leaked to the head of the organization that became the oss william donovan and passed to the president with the map in hand roosevelt made an astounding speech on the radio i have in my possession a secret map made in germany by hitler's government by the planners of the new world order he goes on to explain that this map shows nazi plans for the conquest of uh latin america they have divided south america into five battle states bringing the whole continent under their domination if america was stunned the nazis were baffled but in the end no one was more surprised and angered than roosevelt himself what we have recently discovered is that roosevelt discovered in february 1942 that he had been fooled and his immediate reaction was to demand that little bill stephenson be sent home but then his advisers had second thoughts hold on a moment we are now at war with germany it would be pretty embarrassing wouldn't it to admit that that great anti-german speech that you made on the 27th of october 1941 was based on a british forgery not all of the british propaganda documents were forgeries in february 1941 pm the liberal evening newspaper in new york ran a photo story that documented startling german atrocities they were provided courtesy of the bsc these photos are very very dramatic one photo shows young men being marched through the streets presumably off to be shot there are shots of people being tied to stakes about to be executed there are shots of people apparently with hasidic beards digging their own graves very disturbing photographs how did these photographs come to find their way into the american press they came indirectly through british intelligence the cover story in the newspaper says um a german flyer liked these photos so well that he took them with him on an air raid over britain that was shot down now that is a propaganda cover story it's a nice story because it kind of turns the knife in the wound it says these are both horrible pictures and there was a german pilot who got off on this stuff and liked to carry it around with him but the real story is that british security coordination passed them in a brown envelope to an official at the british press services the british press services delivers the pictures to pm magazine and pm magazine give the pictures to the american people [Music] the photos hit home in a way that words never could [Music] while the british influenced american publications german propaganda took a more direct approach the germans used propaganda rather like an artillery an artillery barrage the germans begin sending films to latin america to show how potent the nazi war machine is to show how powerful germany is these films were beautifully made but are alarming to watch the films found a very different audience than the german filmmakers had intended british censorship in bermuda a secret operation would intercept german films they would copy these propaganda films and send them off to filmmakers in the united states the re-edited movies became an effective tool for anti-german propaganda some of these films were simply given different narration [Applause] guard particularly against this group these are the most dangerous german youth children when the nazi party came into power they know no other system than the one that poisoned their minds they're soaked in it trained to win by cheating trained to pick on the weak they've heard no free speech read no free press they were brought up on straight propaganda in addition to changing the narration footage from the intercepted films was added to allied propaganda films to enhance their shocking effect and the tender repentant sorry german people carried the torch of their culture to austria czechoslovakia poland france england norway holland denmark belgium luxembourg russia yugoslavia greece [Music] and the united states of america from 1940 to 1945 propaganda films were an important weapon in britain's secret war another method for influencing americans was to manipulate the new bellwether of public opinion the public opinion poll these polls were supposed to measure accurately what america thought but bse had operatives working inside the polling companies to influence or change the results a typical tactic was to do polls rigged polls at the conventions of national organizations the american legion the cio you do a rigged poll and then show that 70 80 percent of the rank and file was pro-british and wanted to help the british in the first 18 months of the war the bsc manipulated politicians rigged opinion polls and planted stories in major u.s newspapers it was an extremely effective campaign but it was the japanese attack on pearl harbor that finally brought america into the war [Music] now the bsc's challenge was to ensure that europe not japan was america's top priority and that her resolve didn't weaken in the difficult days ahead the bombing of pearl harbor in december 1941 brought america into the war as britain's ally it also caused the bsc led by william stevenson to shift its focus it worked hard to influence americans to ensure that defeating germany was their top priority but the black propaganda of the british secret war wasn't reserved only for americans it was also directed at the hearts and minds of the german people what the british would do was find out the names of germans who had been killed in in fighting and the addresses and then write to them saying dear frau so and so i am a friend of your husband or your son he is not dead but rather he is deserted and is now living free in canada he wants you to know that hitler is going to lose the war and because of this he's sending you a food hamper and a food hamper would arrive at the home allegedly from sons who had not been killed in combat some of the dirty tricks held the possibility of rather humorous consequences british intelligence was reading the mail that was sent from germany to latin america they had a secret way of opening envelopes and one of the things that a british censor allegedly did during the war was was this he realized that there was a german official in latin america who was corresponding with two women in berlin one was his wife one was his mistress as a prank he returned the mistresses letter into the wife's envelope and the wife's letter to the mistresses envelope we don't know what happened thereafter while the bsc fought a war of words in america and germany in britain special operations executive or soe had been training and preparing for missions into the heart of enemy territory in the first year of its existence soe grew into an elite fighting force of well-trained experts by 1942 it was ready to launch one of the most daring missions of the war the target was a power plant in waymark norway early in the war allied leaders had learned of the germans production of so-called heavy water a key component for the production of an atomic bomb many of the scientists who fled germany years before believed their countrymen were closer than any other nation to building an atomic bomb churchill and roosevelt met in america and discussed the problem and decided that we have to do something with it we have to stop the germans producing it and the only way of doing it was sabotage they decided that you can't bomb it because you will get so many civilian casualties because this is a very very narrow valley the first mission operation freshman was launched on october 18 1942. two gliders containing 40 well-armed and trained paratroopers were towed behind two bombers across the english channel [Music] of the four aircraft only one returned one of the tugs got back but the other tug and both gliders crashed killing most of the people on board those who weren't killed in the crash were massacred shortly after by the celtics giving up was not an option a new plan was designed this one using soe officers from norway jorge moroenberg was a young norwegian considered by his british superiors to be bright resourceful and brave roanberg was brought to london and asked to lead a team back to norway for a second attempt to destroy the plant roonberg learned not only why the mission was top secret but also of the danger he and his team would face well when i came down to london i was told that the germans knew the target and they were building up the defenses there the first attempt had relied upon force to achieve the objective this time the waymark plant would be taken with stealth to attack the heavily fortified plant romberg chose a small team of six norwegian operatives first they would have to find a way into the plant the building sat on top of the hill a bridge across a deep gorge offered the only access german and norwegian guards were almost always on duty though there were fewer guards at night the team waited until dark when most of the germans were asleep they descended the gorge and climbed up the ice-covered wall on the other side inside the building half the team covered the sleeping germans while roenberg snuck further into the facility [Music] we saw through a window that there was one norwegian guard in the room and we took him by surprise and he was standing with hands in the air with the guards inside the plant subdued oronberg proceeded to set his plastic explosives as he and his men worked they received an unusual request when we were doing this this this norwegian government workman suddenly broke in and said that he couldn't do anything preventing us blowing up the factory but could he have his glasses because it was so difficult to get glasses in over these days and you would think in such a situation that you would answer them your glasses but instead you dropped what you were doing you were looking around the room and you found the box for glasses and gave them to him and he said thank you very much [Music] roenberg and his men made their way out of the plant as the explosion ripped through the darkness the guard's compound was far enough away that they didn't hear the explosion at first and the men were able to get back across the gorge the next morning the germans launched a manhunt ronberg and his men escaped from waymark but the most difficult part of their journey lay ahead since no planes could land and pick them up roanberg and his team had to ski for 18 days to the safety of neutral sweden we saw quite a lot of people on the way but we suspected people seeing soldiers in norway in uniform and red weapons on the rucksacks to be germans and not norwegians and and that was true enough we met people and they certainly believed us to be germans then we got to this hospital we were asked to take off all our clothes and put them in a bunch and so we were invited into a shower and there you had two very nice swedish nurses with with a bucket of soap and a brush and started brushing from there and downwards and it was quite a reception i must say this act of sabotage by romberg and his team orchestrated by british intelligence denied the third reich a key ingredient for its atomic program had germany been the first nation to develop the atom bomb the war most certainly would have ended differently by 1943 soe had evolved into the elite fighting force its founders had envisioned soe operatives had successfully parachuted into france and other occupied countries set up supply drops and recruited resistance fighters they'd become adept at blowing up bridges stopping trains disrupting supply lines and destroying communications equipment but for all the success of britain's secret war the most important goal still remained retaking the european continent from the beginning of the war britain had been planning for the day of the invasion and secret organizations were a big part of that plan soe bsc and mi6 would all play important roles another organization was created specifically for d-day it was called the jedbras the jabras was the code name for a secret organization of trained commandos they began training almost two years before d-day soe got the word out that volunteers were needed potential recruits weren't told what the assignment would be only that it was top secret and highly dangerous i've been in three years i haven't seen a german other than a prisoner of war i hadn't heard a shot fired in anger one day on the squadron notice board appeared i noticed the effect that volunteers were sought they were prepared to undergo parachute training like well this sounded a bit exciting you didn't need to be einstein in a way to work out this was going to be a job somewhere in europe the job was one of the most extraordinary of the war secret teams of three men one from france one from england and one from america would be dropped behind enemy lines to pour fuel on the burning embers of discontent it was thought each would take with them arms for perhaps about 200 men and they would form a nucleus which would layers with the advancing armies would take care of specific targets and would provide intelligence [Music] for 18 months the jabras trained they would quietly arrive in europe as the first wave of the largest invasion in the history of war they had extensive training in munitions hand-to-hand combat communications and search and destroy missions by may 1944 they were ready for d-day in the spring of 1944 a secret team of elite commandos known as the jabras was about to be dropped behind enemy lines they would be the first wave of soldiers in the d-day invasion we were the first real paramilitary force the first of the special forces the americans have since modeled their green berets on us we were the pioneers of special forces it was one of the most dangerous jobs of the war they were aware that they would most likely face hostile interrogation and probable execution if caught and they were all given the option of taking into the field an l pill a lethal pill which would enable them to commit suicide the teams parachuted into enemy territory three days before the actual invasion once on the ground they went about the task of establishing contact with the allies and avoiding contact with the enemy if you were captured you were to say that you were a member of the allied armed forces some were captured and were shot some were imprisoned and died in prison but the line was that you were an allied soldier and the geneva convention would look after you you hoped in the event something went wrong the radio operators were trained to use secret communications to warn the commanders back home that they had been captured if you were called uh if you're being forced to send under duress uh first you you had a certain sequence of letters that you always had to put on the start of your message you missed them out people knew there was something wrong that type of thing if somebody's holding a pistol to your head you can let people know that you are sending under the arrest but the jebra teams weren't always successful in avoiding danger a few weeks after the d-day invasion sergeant ron brierley and his jebra team were on a mission when they ran into the enemy and we literally ran into a german heavy machine gun at uh raked all three three vehicles he was a good shot and uh i said janet bennett was uh was hit and the sherman was hit and two others were hit unfortunately nobody was killed we got him out of the beatles and we got in the ditch by the side of the road and somebody gave albert i'll be edition of my friendly officer a cigarette and he inhaled through the cigarette and the smoke came puffing out of his chest it was quite dramatic the jabras proved instrumental in making d-day a success disrupted the enemy and provided important information to the allies the jebras were only one part of the secret force that the allies depended on to make the invasion successful mi6 was also implementing its covert plans to keep the enemy off guard on the big day in fact one of mi6's double agents would play a vital role in deceiving the germans the man's name was juan garcia but he would go down in history as the famous double agent garbo early in the war the agency criticized for its inability to keep and recruit good agents almost let its best agent get away he then went to the germans volunteered to spy for the nazis and claimed that he would be able to get to britain he only got as far as lisbon and he started supplying information to germans which they accepted and when we finally realized that this agent was reporting on information claiming that it had come from britain that we then brought him to britain and adopted him as a double agent and he became easily the most successful double agent of the second world war to keep the germans guessing about the exact location of the invasion mi6 had garbo provide misleading information over his wireless set in the months preceding d-day mi6 had taken great pains to build garbo's credibility with the germans he was given enough information to maintain his plausibility but never enough to damage the agency or endanger lives it was a risky game but german officials trusted garbo's information completely this credibility was crucial during d-day the allies fooled the germans into believing that the invasion was coming further north and south than it really was by 1945 the british secret service had grown into a vast organizational network a well-run well-honed collection of agencies devoted to planting the seeds of enemy destruction but for all its successes mi6 and sis had also fallen prey to one of the oldest ploys of the spy profession the double agent late in 1944 and right the way through to the end of 1945 secret intelligence service was engaged in post-war planning preparing for its role in the post-war era there's a great deal of very detailed discussion about how and where sis should be deployed none of this of course was any of any remote use because the person sitting quietly acting as secretary at some of these meetings was kim philby who supplied every document and every conclusion to his civic contacts kim philby had been recruited by the soviets in the early 30s while attending cambridge university at the beginning of the war he'd been recruited by mi6 at the end of the war he was a rising star in the agency philby wasn't the only one the soviets had also successfully recruited others from cambridge it would take over two decades but a shocked nation would learn one day of the group called the cambridge five and of the damage they had done to britain's national security the soviet union has better intelligence on its allies than any power had ever had before we now know that it had kim philby um in mi6 that it had anthony blunt in mi5 that had had john cancross in the code breaking center at bletchley park as the war drew to a close it wasn't yet known how much damage had been done by the soviets to mi6 the british secret service had carried the day during the war but a crucial decision faced great britain what to do with soe at war's end the main issue in mi6 at the end of the war is whether soe its great wartime rival soa being concerned with sabotage and subversive warfare mi6 being concerned with intelligence collection whether these are going to continue into the cold war as rival organizations and the big decision made at the end of the war is that soe is rolled up and its subversive walker warfare capacity is absorbed into mi6 with the end of the soe came the end of one of the greatest and most impressive covert organizations in the history of warfare and for those who fought britain's secret war the lessons are just as important today as they were in the battlefields and behind enemy lines in the 1940s freedom and peace is not obvious you have to fight for it you have to fight for it every day more or less the british have always been good at gathering intelligence and keeping their secrets british secret services like mi6 and soe used extreme measures to triumph over fascism and secure the country's survival the truth is slowly emerging about british intelligence operations during world war ii however the exact extent of this intelligence gathering its methodology and its results will to a certain degree always remain one of the best kept secrets of war

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

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Id: _AzypL5B0I8

Length: 51min 25sec (3085 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 23 2020