Major C H Regnart - from high flying Intelligence Officer to exile on

[corisande]

[EDIT]In view of the progress that I have been able to make as this thread has been in operation, I have altered my original post to reflect where I am now and what I am looking for. [/EDIT]

I cannot understand what this RMLI major was doing for the whole of WW1. He was a very senior Intelligence man in the founding of what became MI6, and was running a major spy operation in Belgium in 1914. Suddenly he appears to have been posted to Loch Ewe, a remote Scottish base for the whole of WW1

Keith Jeffries monster book "MI6" has a number of references to Regnart which end with 1914 mentions

There were two main [spy] networks based in Belgium. The first was run by Roy Regnart in Brussels and concentrated on the eastern frontier with Germany, the ‘Maastricht appendix’ (that part of the Netherlands which protruded south into Belgium and through which the strategists thought a German attack might come), and up into the Netherlands to Venlo and Nijmegen. From here he aimed to watch German ‘military centres’ such as Cologne, Münster and Oldenburg.

I have more substantial quotes on his service in Naval Intelligence and more on his whole life - click this link

Two pages on his record are devoted to his war service and say

He was MID for "valuable services rendered during the war"

He had been in Naval Intelligence for about 8 years up to 1914

Can anyone shine any light on his wartime career. He ended up committing suicide in 1921 in Ireland after leaving the RMLI..

[michaeldr]

Rather than Ireland, this may be of Scotland (?) There is a couple of paragraphs in Blumberg's 'Sea Soldiers' which links two of the names above

see page 254

“AULTBEA

In the early days of the war, it was found necessary to establish a small base on the west coast of Scotland for various purposes; Aultbea being selected. HMS Illustrious landed her Royal Marine officer Captain C H Regnart RMLI (retd), with two NCOs, one marine gunner, RMA, and eight privates, RMLI (reservists), and some 12-pounder guns, to form a small battery to guard the entrance to the loch.

When HMS Illustrious left, a reinforcement of two NCOs and 19 privates from Chatham were sent up and the battery was properly organised. This small party maintained their lonely and monotonous duties throughout the war, gradually improving their organisation and accommodation. The battery was under the control of the Senior Naval Officer as it was required for Naval purposes, and had to be organised quickly as an 'Advanced Base.'”

Does the officer's name fit?

[corisande]

Thanks for that

Yes that is him. I have a fairly full write up click link for notes on Major Regnart.

His whole service record which ison this link click. It really does not make sense to me. He retires at the age of 35 as a RMLI Captain and gets a gratuity of £1600. He then gets recalled for the war and seems to spend his whole war on "Loch Erne". I could find no Naval Base in Ireland, though he is back in Ireland in 1921 with ADRIC for a few months before he blows his brains out.

I suppose I would have expected him to have been in Naval Intelligence in WW1. My supposition on Ireland was because he ended up in ADRIC.

That is certainly him in Scotland, and I will add it to that linked page

[michaeldr]

Poor chap

This may just be a case of being in the wrong place (or wrong ship) at the wrong time

Note that Blumberg describes the battery life at Aultbea as 'lonely and monotonous'

Perhaps it played on his mind?

[corisande]

Yes

I just put a map on my link - schsssh that was remote. And for the whole war !!

Either the Navy wanted him out of the way for whatever reason, or there was something going on there that I don't understand.

"it was found necessary to establish a small base on the west coast of Scotland for various purposes"

Anyone any idea what the purpose of the base was. One would have thought it normal to rotate a CO out of there after a couple of years!

[EDIT]I have edited the title of the thread to alter it to reflect the info on Scotland. [/EDIT]

[corisande]

Having now got more background on Regnart, the mystery certainly deepens. In 1914 Regnart was one of Britains highest ranking Intelligence offers in Europe

If you look at my link now - click- you can see that he was Cummings preferred man for big intelligence jobs. In fact one sees his resignation from the Marines was part of securing a high level job in Intelligence

The disagreement over Regnart’s appointment illustrates both Cumming’s increasing confidence in his own judgment and a preparedness not to defer automatically to higher authority, as well as a shrewd appreciation of the variable range of personalities he had to deal with in intelligence work.Over the first half of 1914 Cumming seems to have spent most of his time working on the deployment of agents along Germany’s western frontier, intended both to give early warning of a German attack and to provide the basis for intelligence reporting after war had started. There were two main networks based in Belgium. The first was run by Roy Regnart in Brussels and concentrated on the eastern frontier with Germany, the ‘Maastricht appendix’ (that part of the Netherlands which protruded south into Belgium and through which the strategists thought a German attack might come), and up into the Netherlands to Venlo and Nijmegen. From here he aimed to watch German ‘military centres’ such as Cologne, Münster and Oldenburg.

He was a man who spoke many languages, and it would seem unlikely that he was a few months later abandoned to command a few guns on a remote base on Loch Ewe base

Having read that lot, my feeling is probably that he was involved in Intelligence work in Ireland when with the ADRIC, probably under Basil Thompson

But first I need to establish what he really was doing at Loch Ewe.

[michaeldr]

I think that there is something missing here.

Surely he cannot have spent the whole war in Scotland and still qualified for the 1914-1915 Star?

[corisande]

Surely he cannot have spent the whole war in Scotland and still qualified for the 1914-1915 Star?

Yes that is a very good point, I had missed the implications of that

[bill24chev]

I think that there is something missing here.

Surely he cannot have spent the whole war in Scotland and still qualified for the 1914-1915 Star?

Would he have qualified for 1914-15 star as a member of HMS Illustrious prior to landing in Scotland?

Was he still on the strength of Illustrious whilst detatched to the shore?

[michaeldr]

Would he have qualified for 1914-15 star as a member of HMS Illustrious prior to landing in Scotland?

Was he still on the strength of Illustrious whilst detatched to the shore?

This is beyond my technical competence

However he left Illustrious' books on 17 November 1914

ie. earlier than the cut-off date for the 1914 Star (22/23 Nov 1914)

So I do not think that his service on that ship would have qualified him for the next one; the 1914-15 Star

What does his MIC say? Or indeed the Medal Roll itself?

[bill24chev]

I am no expert but i thought the 1914 Star was only awarded for service in F&F upto end of 1st Ypres and 14-15 star if serving overseas or aboard ship in 1914 and 15.

[corisande]

Naval minutiae are beyond my competence too. FWIW the entry is

The other thing I noticed in his record is

1918 Sep 18. Inspected and reported on by "F Learmonth D.R.D". I take this to be (at that time) Capt Frederick Charles Learmonth RN, Director of Fixed Defences

Directorate of Fixed Defences itself seems a bit of an obscure part of the navy, there are very few references to its work in WW1 nor to what Learmonth was doing there.

[corisande]

Amazing what one can uncover in research - nothing to do with WW1 but Loch Ewe is a nuc. sub staging point today - click for Google map centred on installation

From www.secret-bases.co.uk

If you travel up to the far northern highlands of Scotland, you'll stumble across a NATO submarine base at Loch Ewe , just south of the tiny village of Aultbea. Loch Ewe, being a deep sea loch, enables submarines to approach the jetty without breaking the water surface too soon.

The jetty at Aultbea is designated a "Z-berth" and these are dotted all around the coast of the UK, to allow Britain's nuclear submarines to return home temporarily for servicing. There's even a Z-berth situated in the middle of Loch Ewe itself, marked by a buoy but not marked on any OS maps! Presumably, one hopes, it is marked on Royal Navy charts!...

The NATO Loch Ewe site at Aultbea and the neighbouring Naval Boom Defence Depot at Mellon Charles , have military significance dating back to WWII. The location of the Boom Defence Depot marks the start of the original protective netting which guarded the entrance to the loch. Nowadays, the Mellon Charles site is rumoured to be involved in the disposal of waste nuclear material from submarines returning from their tour of duty.

Part of the Loch Ewe submarine base is designated a POL Depot - Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants. The depot provides essential maintenance facilities for visiting warships....

And a cluster of photos of what remains of the gun mounts and boom defence site at Mount Charles are click here and click here

[michaeldr]

I am no expert but i thought the 1914 Star was only awarded for service in F&F upto end of 1st Ypres and 14-15 star if serving overseas or aboard ship in 1914 and 15.

Bill,

You may well be correct

[as was I when I referred to my 'technical (in)competence' in matters of medals]

Apologies to all if this has proved to be a Red Herring

Michael

[corisande]

I have altered my OP to reflect where this thread has led me to with the life of Regnant.

Having found his high flying pre-war career in espionage, it now seems even more unlikely that he was posted to Loch Ewe for the entire war. Even his record during WW1 notes his languages - Russian, French, German, Italian and Spanish

[Staffsyeoman]

Given that those operating under the auspices of MI were doing so in secrecy, it is counter-intuitive that a widely read record (or at least, widely read by those lacking adequate clearances) would detail secret work. Members of the Service are not publicly avowed for obvious reasons (Keith Jeffrey's book is a major exception), so I don't buy that he spent four years manning boom defences, either. It must be a 'cover' designation.

[corisande]

it is counter-intuitive that a widely read record (or at least, widely read by those lacking adequate clearances) would detail secret work.

I don't buy that he spent four years manning boom defences, either.

I agree entirely - I have spent more time than most on researching Intelligence work (in Ireland during War of Independence)

However what I have found is that there is usually a chink somewhere in a story that enables one to make some progress.

What I am trying to find now is the chink in Regnant's case I accept it will be difficult - it always is.

[bushfighter]

Stick with it Corisande - this is going to be a good tale!

Harry

[corisande]

With espionage it is always difficult to know whether one is being paranoid and seeing them everywhere in Ireland.

I started looking at Regnant, because a Major in the RMLI in the ADRIC (Auxiliaries in Ireland to you) seemed a bit odd, particularly as he shot himself a few months after joining ADRIC.

When I got his service record it seems "odd" in being sent to a remote sea loch for the whole war without being relieved. Hence my OP here

Then I got the MI6 mentions, and the plot deepened

My guess now, and I have nothing to back it up, is that he was being used in Europe somewhere, perhaps Russia, with his linguistic abilities, rather than in London, where his presence would presumably have been noted.

[centurion]

Loch Ewe did have a top secret role in WW1 being involved in the development of magnetic indicator loops for submarine detection. These first proved their effectiveness by detecting a U boat at Scapa Flow in 1918 and are today a very important element in a number of countries anti submarine defences (especially those of the USA). They were a RN invention and their development during WW1 was regarded as very secret indeed.

[corisande]

Thanks. Do you have any more on that, or point me at any references.

Regnart does not appear to have had a scientific background, but it is certainly worth my while exploring what was going on with magnetic loop detection here.

[centurion]

Thanks. Do you have any more on that, or point me at any references.

Regnart does not appear to have had a scientific background, but it is certainly worth my while exploring what was going on with magnetic loop detection here.

Try the Gairloch and District Heritage Society

I wasn't suggesting that he was involved in the development but might have been responsible for it's security together with a general counter espionage for the Highlands covering Scapa and Ewe (which was designated as an alternative anchorage for the Fleet)

[corisande]

Thanks, I will have a go at that

Loch Ewe seems to have been quite a busy place in WW2, but very difficult to get many references in WW1

Regnart's forte seems to have been languages, so I assume that he probably went elsewhere for the war, but as he was well known to the Germans, was left on the books at Loch Ewe.

If that were true, will only be by a fluke or from a descendant that I will find what he actually was up to in WW1.

Certainly Intelligence in Ireland was stressful, and a disproportionately high number committed suicide there, as Regnart did.

[centurion]

In 1914 Jellico was concerned that Scapa Flow might become untenable in the face of concentrated U boat attacks (he had received reports that greatly exaggerated their range, speed when submerged and time they could remain submerged). So he looked for a more easily defensible anchorage and chose Loch Ewe. As a result planning and actual preparations began to make Loch Ewe the Fleet's new home. For a while, until it was realised that Scapa Flow was not about to become U boat heaven, Loch Ewe was not some distant exile but potentially a very important place indeed.

[corisande]

I have been looking for a chink that might let me see what he was up to in WW1. And not getting too far, perhaps one of the 3 officers who reported on him towards the end of the war might ring a bell with readers here. I have found very little

1. 1918 Sep 18. Inspected and reported on by "F Learmonth D.R.D". I take this to be (at that time) Capt Frederick Charles Learmonth RN, Director of Fixed Defences. A man who has little in the record for this part of his career.

Learmonth's obit

2. 1918 Oct 4 Reported on by difficult to read "Capt W A Boye (?)" and "Capt H Alston"

The first says "Recommended in due course. This officer has been in charge of the Fort ? ? and has shown great consideration for the marines under him by his attention to their comfort and welfare. Capt W A Boye RN

I cannot make out who he is, a blow does not seem to help as definition goes. I cannot find a Capt Boye RN

3 And the last name on the above report excerpt which says "Russian, German, French and Spanish" and "Recommended in due course. He has performed his duties to my entire satisfaction. and signed by Capt H G Alston RN.

Alston himself is a bit opaque, he was recalled from retirement for WW1, and went into Admiralty Trade Division. He was appointed C.B. - Commander of Order of Bath in 31 May 1918 for his war service. I could find little else about his war service. I assume from the CB that whatever he did was reasonably important.