VETS | Spy Museum and the O.S.S.

Montreal, 1948. Front row L to R: John, Spike
(O.S.S.), Liz, Hilda, Sheila. Back row,
L to R: Olga, Randal, Brigid. 

August 15, 2017 – The role and successes of individual American spies in World War II could not be discussed for decades after the war.

These intelligence workers were gagged when the war was over and they returned to civilian life.

1. Malcolm Nance

A member of the board of the expanding Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., Malcolm Nance, was visiting East Hampton, N.Y. over the weekend to promote his books – Hacking ISIS and The Plot to Hack America (both New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2017).

Malcolm is interested in the stories of spies from a family perspective and is seeking memorabilia related to them fro the museum He spoke with Michael and me about our fathers' work in espionage.

This post is about these two Americans in Europe during the war doing intelligence work, how their children came to find out what their fathers did, and the connection between them.

2. E. R. (Spike) Marlin, Dublin and London

My Dad, E. R. "Spike" Marlin took a competitive exam to work in  FDR's government in 1933 and was one of about 300 who was awarded a position, out of thousands who applied. His first job was at the Farm Credit Administration under Henry Morgenthau, Jr. – before Morgenthau succeeded William H. Woodin as Secretary of the Treasury.

L to R: Michael Collins and Malcolm Nance.
Photo by JT Marlin.

When Germany began invading its neighbors, my Dad was recruited by the O.S.S. to go to the Republic of Ireland under the light cover of an assignment in the U.S. Mission to Ireland (i.e., the 26 southern counties making up the Irish Free State or Éire).

Spike's primary qualifications were that he had (1) already established a decade-long U.S. Government service record in Washington, D.C. and (2) as a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin he  knew many residents of Éire.

The United States recognized the Irish Free State in 1924, after various legislative processes established partition between the six counties that make up Northern Ireland and the 26 that make up the Irish Free State. The United States did not send a full Ambassador to Éire until 1950. From 1940 to 1947 the U.S. "Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary" (shortened in practice to "Minister") was David Gray, Jr. (1870-1968), a novelist and playwright whose two main qualifications were that he (1) was married to Eleanor Roosevelt's aunt and close confidante Maude Hall Gray (1877-1952) and that he (2) had spent a lot of time in Cork writing a book and enjoying the excellent local hunting and fishing. Gray, who was 70, told his predecessor he wanted the post (http://bit.ly/2uYmwN3) and it was offered to Gray when the previous incumbent returned home.

Gray was unique as a U.S. envoy in that he was actively hostile to its leader, Éamon de Valera. As an opponent of the neutrality of the Éire government, Gray accused the Irish Free State of cooperation with the Nazi Axis. O.S.S. chief "Wild Bill" Donovan was sympathetic to the Éire government's need to maintain its neutrality given the recent history of partition, and wanted to find out whether Éire was cooperating fully with British intelligence. My father, reporting to Francis Pickens Miller in London, collected evidence that showed that the Éire government was working closely with British intelligence. Both the presence of the O.S.S. and my Dad's success in collecting the information that Donovan expected him to find were thorns in Gray's side.

Eventually, having done his work, Spike was reassigned to O.S.S. in London and a new spy was recruited who was not assigned to the U.S. mission and had the cover (revealed in a book Spies in Ireland) of a movie producer. I have spoken with the author.

After the war was over and the O.S.S. was disbanded, Spike was sent to San Francisco as a Budget Bureau representative to the formation of the U.N. He was seconded to the Provisional International Civil Aviation Organization (PICAO) as Secretary and headed the secretariat for the creation of the ICAO in Chicago. FDR in January 1939 ramped up his interest in manufacturing airplanes and that year he showed his interest in aviation by making Orville Wright's birthday on August 19 (this coming Saturday) as National Aviation Day. Spike then joined the United Nations and became Director of Technical Assistance for the ICAO in Montreal. He spent the next two decades working for the U.N., ending as the highest-ranking American at the UNHCR in Geneva under Ambassador Félix Schnyder (who was the High Commissioner in 1960-65) and Sadruddin Khan. Spike then served in the State Department for three years in 1964-67 when I was working across the road for the Federal Reserve Board.

I didn't discover that my Dad had been in the O.S.S. until the 1970s, when a Ph.D. student contacted me with questions.

Sgt. Tom Collins

3. Tom Collins, Bletchley Park

My neighbor Michael Collins didn't find out that his father Tom was in the cryptography area until the end of the last century.

Sgt. Tom Collins was selected at 19 years of age to accompany the American Dragon 1 cryptographic machine, essentially an early computer.

His primary qualification is that in his civilian life before his war service, he was a telephone installer for Western Electric and would understand the wiring protocols for the machine that the company developed with U.S. cryptographers to crack the German code. He accompanied the Dragon 1 to Bletchley Park and spent year at the Park assisting British cryptographers under Turing with the maintenance of the Dragon 1.

References

1. Malcolm Nance: Hackers and MICE
2. E. R. (Spike) Marlin: Origins of the O.S.S., Post at ICAO
3. Tom Collins and his work in Bletchley:  CRYPTOGRAPHY | Americans at Bletchley Park . VET STORIES | Tom Collins, 1921-2011 .  BLETCHLEY | U.S. Contribution to British Cryptography . VETS | The Funeral of Tom Collins
4. Spy Museum: Spies' Choices

CRYPTOGRAPHY | Americans at Bletchley Park

We have just heard that General Dwight Eisenhower expressed his deep gratitude to the Bletchley Park codebreakers soon after the Nazis surrendered. The letter has been kept under wraps all these 70 years.

It might be a good time for Bletchley Park to acknowledge more completely the role of Americans in assisting with their work. I am thinking of the shipment of the Dragon 1 computer to Bletchley, for example. My neighbor Capt. Tom Collins was selected from his life's work with Western Electric and given special training to accompany the computer. He spent a year helping the Bletchley team make use of it.  James Brady wrote in Forbes Magazine how proud Tom was of his wartime role.

The full story of the use of the American code-breaking equipment has not been told.

WW2 | Bletchley Park's U.S. (AT&T) Component

The late Sgt. Tom Collins, aka "Sam Scram", who was 
the only person to accompany the Dragon 1 computer 
to Bletchley Park in 1944-45. Photo by JT Marlin, 2010.

At the BookExpo America in New York City this week I picked up a book by William Bynum called A Little History of Science (Yale University Press, 2012).  It has nearly two pages on the use of computers in World War II, notably at Bletchley Park in England.

I have been comparing these pages with what I remember of The Imitation Game and two YouTube videos I just watched on how the German Enigma and Lorenz computers worked and how their codes were broken.

The Enigma worked on a 25-letter alphabet, whereas the Lorenz cryptography machine worked with the 32-character Baudot code. Hitler deliberately used the different Lorenz encryption for his top command.

The Bletchley group first cracked the Enigma code on July 9, 1941. But the sheer volume of messages required them to be constantly seeking more mechanicals ways of processing the coded messages that they received.

The report presented in A Little History of Science is consistent with the YouTube stories in giving virtually all the credit to the Bombe and Colossus machines - the Mark I and finally the Mark II, of which there were ten at Bletchley by 1944.

These machines worked through the Tunny machine (see p. 609 of the book to which a link is shown) to decrypt German messages.

The second YouTube video cited above ("How their codes were broken") references Bell Labs, which until the 1940s was in New York City; it later moved to New Jersey. Bell Labs was at the ] time a division of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary. Researchers working at Bell Labs are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, information theory, the UNIX operating system, and several popular programming languages - C, S and C++. Eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work at Bell Labs.

The late Tom Collins (nicknamed "Sam Scram" at Bletchey after a popular radio character) of Springs, N.Y., worked for Western Electric, and personally accompanied the Dragon 1 cryptography machine to Bletchley during World War II.  I am wondering where the Dragon 1 and Dragon 2 (both of which he worked on) fit into Bletchley's history. Was the Dragon 1 generated by Bell Labs and then transferred to Chicago for operation? Just wondering.

Here are the top six links I got typing Tom's name and "Bletchley" into a Google search:

1. Sgt. Tom Collins at Bletchley - Warriors-Families

warriors-families.blogspot.com/.../a-veterans-story-sgt-tom-collins-at.htm... Jun 9, 2013 

2. T Collins Bletchley Park - BOISSEVAIN NEWS USA

www.boissevain.us/timetravel/tcollinsbletchleypark.html Sgt. Collins brought the Dragon 1 

Cryptography Machine to Bletchley Park, 

3. Newmanry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newmanry The Newmanry was a section at Bletchley Park... Middlesbrough; Tom Collins; Barbara Cooper, Ealing;...

4. Breaking Teleprinter Ciphers at Bletchley Park: An edition ...

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1119061628

Colin Burke, Pam Camp, Ray Chase, Tom Collins, David DeGeorge, Gina Douglas and John Parmenter, Ralph Erskine, Frederika and Stephen Freer, David ...

5. 'Taps' In A Small Town - Forbes

www.forbes.com/.../james-brady-on-media-cx_jb_0601memday.h... 
Forbes. Jun 1, 2006 - Tom Collins, 84, marches in his old soldier suit. ... but during the war, he was one of the few Yanks at Bletchley Park, where the British code ...

6. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park

https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0192801325

F. H. Hinsley, ‎Alan Stripp - 2001 - ‎History. 'Sam Scram', see Collins...

OBIT | Nov. 12–Mavis Lever Batey, Codebreaker

Mavis Lever Batey, 1921-2013 (Photo by Daily Telegraph).

Nov. 12, 2013–Mavis Lever Batey died today at 92 years of age. Her knowledge of German from her studies at University College, London, was put to use during World War II to help break German codes based on their Enigma cryptography machine. (This post is based on Daily Telegraph and NY Times obits and on interviews with two people with Bletchley ties.)

She is given major credit for British naval dominance over the Axis when information from the code-breakers at Bletchley Park (aka Station X or Ultra) enabled the Navy to identify the size and coordinates of Italian ships. The British sought out and sank three heavy Italian cruisers and two destroyers. For the rest of the war the stunned Italians stayed clear of the British Navy.

Sir Francis Harry Hinsley, the official historian of British intelligence during World War II, has said that Bletchley Park's work shortened the war by two or more years.

Mavis worked for Dillwyn Knox, known as Dilly. She married another code breaker, Keith Batey, in 1942. After World War  II he became the CFO of Oxford University. He died in 2010. She wrote books about Dilly and Ian Fleming (From Bletchley with Love) at Bletchley, and about the gardens of Oxford.

(Update, May 21, 2014: I just found out that one of Ian Fleming's models for James Bond was Sir William Stephenson, the wartime intelligence liaison between Churchill and FDR; his code name was "Intrepid".  A plaque in honor of "Intrepid" has been posted on the 36th Floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where Sir William had his office.  Other models for Bond reportedly were Fleming's brother, Peter, who had been involved in behind-the-lines operations in Norway and Greece during the war, Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, Patrick Dalzel-Job and Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale. A TV miniseries, "Fleming", is out this year.)

The 2001 movie Enigma starring Kate Winslet is at least party based on Mavis Batey's wartime experience, although Ms. Batey complained that the women code breakers looked too scruffy in the movie.

Bletchley Park employed 12,000 people, including some Americans. The story of "Sam Scram" -- Tom Collins, who died on May 18, 2012, is told in a post on this site on June 9, 2013.

Bletchley Park's significance in WW2 would be hard to overstate.

• Station X was where Alan Turing devised a way to break the Enigma code.
• It was where the world's first computer, Colossus, was built.
• It was where the battle of the Atlantic was won.
• It saved many lives and shortened the war. 

It is a building of such significance, but the secrecy that protected Bletchley Park throughout the war and for 30 years after it led to the site becoming forgotten. Bletchley Park Director Simon Greenish said:

When you look at Hut 6, which is where the Bletchley story really started with the deciphering of Enigma codes, it's in quite a bad state. The floor has almost completely gone and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that my garden shed is probably stronger than some of these huts.

Once the home of financier Sir Herbert Leon, Bletchley was taken over during the war for use by the Government Code and Cypher School. After 1945, the site was used by the Post Office and other government bodies until 1991. At that point, the Bletchley Park Trust was established to maintain the site as a museum and Milton Keynes Borough Council declared most of the estate a conservation area.

Greenish believes the huge public support, as shown by rising visitor numbers and online petitions, will help Bletchley Park receive the funds it deserves.

VET STORY 1 | Sgt. Tom Collins at Bletchley Park (Comment, Jan. 2, 2015)

Sgt. Tom Collins of East Hampton, NY, in his
proudly worn VFW jacket and his Bletchley
 Park cap, inscribed with his WW2 nickname,
"Sam Scram". Photo by JTMarlin.

Sgt. Thomas L. Collins, a lifetime resident of East Hampton, served in 1944-1945 in England. Not until 2010 did he receive official recognition of his contribution to the World War II effort.

He was honored by both the British and the American Governments in that year, just before he died. Sgt. Collins was the sole technician to bring the top-secret Dragon 1 Cryptography Machine to Bletchley Park (the other two people in the plane were the pilots), Britain's cryptography center.

He trained British cryptographers and technicians how to use the Dragon 1, and stayed to take care of it and make sure it did its cryptographic job. Since his mission was top secret, he couldn't talk about it until the 1990s. 

Left side of Sgt. Tom Collins's cap
and jacket. Photo by JTMarlin.

Now Bletchley Park is a public museum and Tom was able to talk about his mission - and be honored for it:

• In July 2009, he was awarded a UK Certificate of Appreciation and Medal for his participation in the important Bletchley Park cryptography program. The medal and certificate arrived in March 2010.
• Less than two months later, on the Friday before Memorial Day 2010, Congressman Timothy Bishop of New York's First District read into the Congressional Record a tribute to Sergeant Collins. It is reproduced below.
• His role is fully described and appreciated in a 2015 book (p. 609) about the cryptography machines at Bletchley.

The "Sam Scram" nickname that Sgt. Collins's colleagues at Bletchley Park gave him came from an American character by that name on a popular wartime radio show.

Congressman Bishop's tribute was well-timed, as Sgt. Collins had the opportunity to be honored by his hometown Legion and VFW Post at the 2011 Memorial Day services.

Cong Record May 28, 2010

Award by British PM Gordon Brown, 2009. Photo by JT Marlin.

Sgt. Tom Collins, aka "Sam Scram". Photo by JT Marlin.

He did not live to see the next Memorial Day, 2011. He died of a heart attack on May 18 at his home on Springs Fireplace Road in East Hampton. He was remembered on Memorial Day 2011 by the Legion and the VFW.

The East Hampton Star obituary included the following:

Thomas Loudon Collins, a lifelong resident of East Hampton who was credited with helping to decode 143 Nazi messages during World War II, died of a heart attack on May 18 at home on Springs-Fireplace Road in Springs. He was 89 years old.

Representative Tim Bishop commended Mr. Collins’s wartime service on the floor of the House of Representatives last May, noting that he had received a medal and certificate of recognition from the British government for his service as a cryptologist.

Medal as Presented in Box. Photo by
JT Marlin. 

Mr. Collins, who was trained as a cryptologist by the Army, was chosen to escort the Allies’ most advanced code-breaking machine, the Dragon, to the cryptography center at Bletchley Park in England. He subsequently was credited with designing the machine’s successor, which is said to have hastened the defeat of the Third Reich.

“So secret was his work, his invaluable contributions were not recognized and made public until the 1990s,” Mr. Bishop said. His remarks were entered into the Congressional Record.

After the war, Mr. Collins went to work for the Western Electric Company, retaining the position for almost 44 years. He also worked as a supervisor for Trees Inc. from 1983 to 1990.

Medal from the British Prime Minister to Sgt. Collins. honoring his hitherto-secret contribution to the Second World War.  Photo by JTMarlin.

Medal from the British Prime Minister to Sgt. Collins. honoring his hitherto-secret contribution to the Second World War.  Photo by JTMarlin.

Mr. Collins was born on June 28, 1921, to Frank deMar Collins and the former Nina Hulse. He grew up here and graduated from East Hampton High School. He was married to Anne E. Miller, who survives. The couple had three sons, Capt. Thomas L. Collins II, Michael deMar Collins, and Stephen T. Collins, all of whom survive. He also is survived by six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

In his spare time, Mr. Collins enjoyed hunting and fishing and barbershop singing. He was a member of the V.F.W., which honored him with a salute last Thursday, the Cryptographic Society, and the Springs Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Tony Larson and the Rev. George Wilson officiated at a funeral service at the church on Saturday. Burial followed at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton.

             References:
             East Hampton Star, Obituary, May 26, 2011; Time Traveler site, Bletchley Park page; 
             www.Boissevain.us site, Tom Collins Honors page; 
             Congressman Tim Bishop's speech on the floor of the House, June 9, 2010, 
             ...and as printed in the Congressional Record, html version and pdf version. 
            (A pre-print of the Congressional Record was presented to Sgt. Collins at a ceremony in Springs.
            It was read out after the Memorial Day parade in East Hampton.) 

Sgt. Tom Collins's Reminiscences. Comment (January 2, 2015) The new movie, The Imitation Game, puts the  focus of the Bletchley work on Alan Turing. It is easy to forget all the people who played a part in the success of the effort. One of them was Tom Collins.	Bletchley Park Cryptography Center
	Sgt. Thomas L. Collins in uniform.