5 September 2005 releases: Cases of general interest
German camouflage for sabotage equipment
File ref KV 4/283-285
These files draw together a number of records from different cases.
They show how German secret agents in the Second World War used an ingenious range of methods to disguise explosive devices as everyday items. They intended to use these devices to commit sabotage.
The disguised items included:
Bombs disguised as:
- a tea canteen
- a can of peas
- a suitcase
- a mess tin
- a can of motor oil
- a Thermos flask
- lumps of coal
- a booby-trapped attaché case
- a car battery
- a can of cleaning polish
- firelighters
- throat pastilles
- a tin of cassoulet
- a tin of Smedley's English red dessert plums
- a grinding stone
- a belt
- the heels and soles of a boot
- a bolt-head
- a tin of chub in tomato sauce
- a tin of Australian fruit salad.
Detonators disguised as:
- a pen and pencil set
- a torch battery
- shaving soap and a shaving brush
- a tin of talcum powder
- a clothes brush
- toilet soap.
A fuse hidden in a leather belt.
A hand grenade disguised as a slab of chocolate.
The files show that there were many parallels between British and German sabotage efforts. Britain's Special Operations Executive invented a variety of similarly ingenious weapons, detailed in a series of files released to the National Archives in October 1999. These included Chianti bottles half-filled with explosives and topped up with wine, bombs disguised as sugar beet or cow dung, and even exploding rats.
Double Agent "Elvira Chaudoir", code name BRONX
File ref KV 2/2098r
Elvira Chaudoir, code name BRONX, was the daughter of a South American diplomat working in Vichy France. She had lived in London from 1939 and she was given a secret mission by the British when she visited her parents in July 1942.
During this visit a member of German intelligence approached her. She was recruited as an agent to pass information on British industrial affairs after her return to the UK. She reported these contacts to the British authorities who, after some consideration, decided to use her as a double agent, using the secret writing method taught by her German handler.
She went on to pass information to the Germans, including some related to Operation FORTITUDE, the D-Day deception operation. Her contribution is credited with having played a part in delaying the transfer of German reinforcements from southwest France to Normandy.
Still trusted by the Germans, she was asked after D-Day to report on further expected Allied invasions.
The Chaudoir file gives the full details of her wartime activities. It describes the first time that she came to Security Service attention, when she was reported as having been heard speaking about being trained as a secret agent. It goes on to detail her first mission to Vichy France and the suspicions held by the Security Service. Her eventual recruitment as a double agent is documented, along with the messages that she sent. The file also records her financial dealings with both the British and German intelligence agencies.
