SURREY'S ONGOING EXPERIENCE OF SPIES AND ASSASSINS OVER THE PAST CENTURY

Harry Palmer in The Ipress File (or rather Michael Caine in an early role)

 Alexander Perepilichnyy

 

Jozef Gabčík

 Jan Kubis

Surrey folk are probably no more suspicious of espionage than anyone else but the past century has seen various times of heightened awareness here. As the actor Michael Caine is one of Leatherhead's best known current residents it made sense for LORRAINE SPINDLER to begin her February talk to a packed house at the Letherhead Institute on spies and assassins in our midst, with a picture of him starring as fictional spy Harry Palmer in the film of Len Deighton's book, The Ipcress File.

But, as she said, truth is stranger than fiction.

In November 2012 a Russian migrant named Alexander Perepilichnyy suddenly  collapsed and died while out jogging with his dog at St George’s Hill near his £3 million home in Weybridge. Aged just 44 he was previously healthy but had taken out a £3.5 million life insurance policy.

A heart attack was blamed but it emerged that he had been on a Kremlin hit list and had refused to return to Russia. At the time of his death he had been helping investment firm Hermitage Capital Management uncover a £150 million Russian money-laundering operation. Among various lawsuits in which he had been involved was one brought by a company of which former KGB agent Dmitry Kovtun was a director. Kovtun, who met the ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko only hours before he was poisoned in London, was later himself hospitalised with radiation poisoning in Moscow. Mr Perepilichnyy was clearly no friend of President Vladimir Putin but was he also working for MI5 and MI6?

All very mirky but Surrey residents are still little affected normally by the dubious activities of emigré Russians. That was not the case for much of the first half of the 20th century when Germany posed a more direct threat.

Before World War 1 there was genuine fear of a German invasion. Britain was defended by the Royal Navy but what if the Kaiser's people managed to break  through and take whatever they wanted from comfortable Surrey? Spy mania meant some Surrey residents were convinced the Germans would poison their water. The diplomat, flying buff, wireless pioneer and writer William Le Queux secured a phenomenal bestseller with his anti-German invasion fantasy The Invasion of 1910, published in 1906. Erskine Childers' The Riddle of the Sands was also hugely popular. The war itself of course blocked any actual invasion but still brought untold suffering and loss for Surrey families along with the rest of the country.  

Twenty years later members of the Hitler Youth cycled around England including Surrey and were taught beforehand how to spy on the terrain, taking river measurements and so on. News of the horrors inflicted on Jewish communities even before World War 2 showed what the Germans were capable of if given an opportunity.

In 1938 following Chamberlain's treaty with Hitler, the Czech government-in-exile settled in Putney and after war broke out organised the Czechoslovak National Liberation Committee, later moving to Buckinghamshire. Two young Czech soldiers in exile, Josef and Jan, came to Headley in November 1941 wanting to work for the Allies. Locals still recall widespread speaking of Czech in the village but few people knew there was a Special Operations Executive training centre there as well as a prisoner of war camp for German officers.

Villa Bellasis at Headley trained Czech paratroopers. 1st Lt Rudolf Hrubec organised a graduate course for sabotage groups. Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis were there to improve their skills in motorised vehicles, Morse Code and orientation in unknown territory. They practised shooting with pistols and machine guns and throwing hand grenades. In December 1941 the RAF dropped the two paratroopers inside occupied Czechoslovakia where they contacted the local resistance. Lt Hrubec was later killed when his plane crashed in Italy. His whole family had been executed by the Nazis in 1942. Today Bellasis House survives as home to the Waite family which still has connections to the family of Winston Churchill.

In an interview with Lorraine, Edna Touzel of Banstead said everything had been  absolutely hush hush. She remembered walking in the countryside one day near Headley and meeting two unfamiliar middle aged women. They had asked if it had been quiet last night and had she had a good night's sleep. She had refused to answer as the women might have been spies. Her suspicions had proved well founded. German radio equipment was afterwards found dumped in a water storage system in Leatherhead.

The war diary of the Royal Canadian Engineers working on Headley Heath in November 1942 quotes the commanding officer: 'Everyone .. will make a definite rule NOT to mention any phase of their work to any person, or to discuss any place of their work with another member of staff when there is any possibility to being overheard.' So what was being kept secret and why was it so important?

Canadian involvement in the war was extensive and the country's forces were based in Surrey for much of the time. Two Canadian divisions organised and trained at the start came to be based here, 23,000 Canadians in all, most based at Aldershot. A New Zealand force joined them. In 1940 a new 7th Corps came into existence headquartered at Headley Court. Heated flight suits used by airmen on D-Day were also secretly produced in Banstead

Espionage in Surrey didn't end with World War 2. During the Cold War too there were clearly some things going on under the radar. Another interviewee told Lorraine about an event in the 1960s at Guildford Police Station.  

He said: 'There was some excitement when watchers from MI5 moved into the front downstairs office. They were there for many days waiting, playing cards, drinking my tea and no doubt eating the McVities. What they were up to I had no idea. One day I was in the front office when a caller came and asked for something using a box number of which I had become aware but which bemused the station officer. I took the visitor across the yard and he obviously thought I knew something of what was going on. "It will happen today and we will be gone," he said. Sometime later the phone rang, the office emptied and they never returned. Years later I read that an RAF warrant officer was spying for the Russians and he made a dead letter drop in Guildford at about that time.'