John K R Frey, MI 1c Intelligence

[RussT]

2 hours ago, Matmu said:

His son was called Rudolph too but as he was born in 1919 he would have been a bit too young to vote!

Is this his son on the 1939 Register - as a Crane Driver living at 19 Margaret Street, Liverpool?

FMP has it indexed as an 1879 birth but I would read it as 19 (as in 1919).

Russ

 

[Matmu]

1 hour ago, RussT said:

Is this his son on the 1939 Register - as a Crane Drive living at 19 Margaret Street, Liverpool?

FMP has it indexed as an 1879 birth but I would read it as 19 (as in 1919).

Russ

 

Yes Russ I would say it was. I haven’t seen that. What’s FMP please?

[RussT]

4 minutes ago, Matmu said:

What’s FMP please?

Find My Past - another one of those family research sites like Ancestry.

Regards

Russ

[Matmu]

4 minutes ago, RussT said:

Find My Past - another one of those family research sites like Ancestry.

Regards

Russ

Ok Cheers Russ

[TEW]

WO329/2631. The 14/15 Star roll. Ancestry page 297 is quite clearly headed Roll number; Intell/1c with Frey on page 6 as per MIC (Ancestry page 303).

Given the context of the reference on the MIC IE. under the TP/104 B81 reference for the BWM & Victory it's surprising that Intell/1c was ever seen as being a unit.

I think this was brought up on page two and subsequently repeated.

TEW

[QUEX]

1 hour ago, TEW said:

WO329/2631. The 14/15 Star roll. Ancestry page 297 is quite clearly headed Roll number; Intell/1c with Frey on page 6 as per MIC (Ancestry page 303).

Given the context of the reference on the MIC IE. under the TP/104 B81 reference for the BWM & Victory it's surprising that Intell/1c was ever seen as being a unit.

I think this was brought up on page two and subsequently repeated.

TEW

Correctomundo.  Frey served in the KLR, the RE as an Interpreter Operator, and then the Int Corps in BAOR. 1c here is a reference to a medal roll.  He did not/not serve in MI1c - which was the indeed the forerunner of SIS. 

[Matmu]

On 15/02/2022 at 01:23, QUEX said:

Correctomundo.  Frey served in the KLR, the RE as an Interpreter Operator, and then the Int Corps in BAOR. 1c here is a reference to a medal roll.  He did not/not serve in MI1c - which was the indeed the forerunner of SIS. 

Great, thanks for the info!

[green_acorn]

On 11/02/2022 at 22:39, corisande said:

Thanks Charlie

Have a look at. Its part of Military Intelligence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Intelligence_Service

I will try to get back to this later !

Matmu,

Ignore {First Royal Engineer (Signals Service)] I eventually added what I was going to write here at the end.

Be careful directly using the Wikipedia War Office functional organisation for lower headquarters.  I would add that the Wikipedia structure description is somewhat incomplete. MI 1c, below the War Office, was more correctly the staff who supervised and managed Contreespionage (now Counterintelligence) and espionage (Human Intelligence) activity within their Area of Responsibility. This included a number of officers, often drawn from within units of the BEF, appointed in various towns and ports as well as the Intelligence Police/Intelligence Corps Police each Army and Corps eventually had, the essential skill for the majority, if not all, of these personnel was language skills, with many being multilingual in the target languages of French, Flemish and German.  They weren't the Secret Intelligence Service or the Security Service which were both established prior to the war.  

If espionage operations were required in occupied or enemy territory they were, with very few exceptions, conducted by officers of the SIS and controlled by the SIS stations at either Folkestone or The Hague.  The exception being the intelligence operation developed and run by Major Bruce, the GHQ BEF Intelligence Liaison Officer to the French HQ, from his office on the Rue de Roche, Paris.  It has been quite a few years since I read the Secrets of Rue de Roche written by the Majors daughter-in-law, but one day Major Bruce was at Gar de Nord (?) railway station, monitoring/screening the passengers who had arrived on a refugees/evacuees train from Belgium/Luxembourg.  Major Bruce recruited a woman on the train who would be going back to her home in Luxembourg, ands convinced GHQ BEF, who convinced the War Office and the SIS, to give exceptional approval for this train spotting operation in Luxembourg to be run from Paris, with communication through Switzerland in 1917/1918  Why? Probably because the SIS did not have any agent network in that area.

Finally, you may like to contact the Military Intelligence Museum at Chicksands.  I am sure they will be able to give you more information, if they don't have him on their database, at the very least they would be keen to know about him.  You should also contact the Royal Engineers Museum and Archive down in Kent to follow up his service in the Royal Engineers (Signals Service) as an Interpreter Operator.  Finally you should also find a book about the history of WW1 Signals in the British Army, which briefly describes the Interpreter Operators role.

Cheers,

Chris

Edited 2 August , 2022 by green_acorn
See correction and explanation on first line

[Terry_Reeves]

The trade of Interpreter Operator was introduced in 1917 as part of a HQ Corps Signal Company, reduced to 3 1918. Priestley's The Signal Service in the European War of 1914 to 1918 (1921) pp 110-111, notes the following:

"The general use of the listening set for overhearing enemy conversation led to the creation of an entirely new Army trade - that of interpreter operator. With each listening post, special interpreters were employed to record the fragments of German conversations heard. At first these men men were collected from here. there and everywhere amongst the infantry, but after this source of supply gave out, specially enlisted men were enlisted. In either case the first step in their training was to teach them enough knowledge of Morse to enable them to pick up enemy signals buzzed by the comparatively slow regimental signaller. . A curious instance of the alteration in detail which was constantly exercising the minds of the Signal Service is afforded by the fact, when the use of power buzzers by the Germans became general in 1917, the interpreter operators had to be withdrawn for further training or even be replaced by men of better qualifications as Morse operators."

TR

 

 

 

 

[Matmu]

On 02/08/2022 at 14:33, green_acorn said:

Matmu,

Ignore {First Royal Engineer (Signals Service)] I eventually added what I was going to write here at the end.

Be careful directly using the Wikipedia War Office functional organisation for lower headquarters.  I would add that the Wikipedia structure description is somewhat incomplete. MI 1c, below the War Office, was more correctly the staff who supervised and managed Contreespionage (now Counterintelligence) and espionage (Human Intelligence) activity within their Area of Responsibility. This included a number of officers, often drawn from within units of the BEF, appointed in various towns and ports as well as the Intelligence Police/Intelligence Corps Police each Army and Corps eventually had, the essential skill for the majority, if not all, of these personnel was language skills, with many being multilingual in the target languages of French, Flemish and German.  They weren't the Secret Intelligence Service or the Security Service which were both established prior to the war.  

If espionage operations were required in occupied or enemy territory they were, with very few exceptions, conducted by officers of the SIS and controlled by the SIS stations at either Folkestone or The Hague.  The exception being the intelligence operation developed and run by Major Bruce, the GHQ BEF Intelligence Liaison Officer to the French HQ, from his office on the Rue de Roche, Paris.  It has been quite a few years since I read the Secrets of Rue de Roche written by the Majors daughter-in-law, but one day Major Bruce was at Gar de Nord (?) railway station, monitoring/screening the passengers who had arrived on a refugees/evacuees train from Belgium/Luxembourg.  Major Bruce recruited a woman on the train who would be going back to her home in Luxembourg, ands convinced GHQ BEF, who convinced the War Office and the SIS, to give exceptional approval for this train spotting operation in Luxembourg to be run from Paris, with communication through Switzerland in 1917/1918  Why? Probably because the SIS did not have any agent network in that area.

Finally, you may like to contact the Military Intelligence Museum at Chicksands.  I am sure they will be able to give you more information, if they don't have him on their database, at the very least they would be keen to know about him.  You should also contact the Royal Engineers Museum and Archive down in Kent to follow up his service in the Royal Engineers (Signals Service) as an Interpreter Operator.  Finally you should also find a book about the history of WW1 Signals in the British Army, which briefly describes the Interpreter Operators role.

Cheers,

Chris

Thats great. Thank you so much Chris. 

[Matmu]

On 02/08/2022 at 15:34, Terry_Reeves said:

The trade of Interpreter Operator was introduced in 1917 as part of a HQ Corps Signal Company, reduced to 3 1918. Priestley's The Signal Service in the European War of 1914 to 1918 (1921) pp 110-111, notes the following:

"The general use of the listening set for overhearing enemy conversation led to the creation of an entirely new Army trade - that of interpreter operator. With each listening post, special interpreters were employed to record the fragments of German conversations heard. At first these men men were collected from here. there and everywhere amongst the infantry, but after this source of supply gave out, specially enlisted men were enlisted. In either case the first step in their training was to teach them enough knowledge of Morse to enable them to pick up enemy signals buzzed by the comparatively slow regimental signaller. . A curious instance of the alteration in detail which was constantly exercising the minds of the Signal Service is afforded by the fact, when the use of power buzzers by the Germans became general in 1917, the interpreter operators had to be withdrawn for further training or even be replaced by men of better qualifications as Morse operators."

TR

 

 

 

 

It’s fascinating stuff. Thanks Terry. I’ll try to look into that a bit more if I can. 
cheers

[Matmu]

Have just found him on the GCHQ list of interpreter operators 1916 - 1918! 
Im so pleased to find some official info about him. Does anyone think GCHQ might be able to give me any more Info about him? Thanks all for your help. 

[Matmu]

15 minutes ago, Matmu said:

Have just found him on the GCHQ list of interpreter operators 1916 - 1918! 
Im so pleased to find some official info about him. Does anyone think GCHQ might be able to give me any more Info about him? Thanks all for your help. 

 

[QUEX]

6 hours ago, Matmu said:

Have just found him on the GCHQ list of interpreter operators 1916 - 1918! 
Im so pleased to find some official info about him. Does anyone think GCHQ might be able to give me any more Info about him? Thanks all for your help. 

Very unlikely. The list on the GCHQ website is reproduced from the second of two articles on Interpreter Operators published in Journal of Intelligence History:

Full article: British signals intelligence in the trenches, 1915–1918: part 1, listening sets (tandfonline.com)

Full article: British signals intelligence in the trenches, 1915–1918: part 2, interpreter operators (tandfonline.com)

[Matmu]

1 hour ago, QUEX said:

Very unlikely. The list on the GCHQ website is reproduced from the second of two articles on Interpreter Operators published in Journal of Intelligence History:

Full article: British signals intelligence in the trenches, 1915–1918: part 1, listening sets (tandfonline.com)

Full article: British signals intelligence in the trenches, 1915–1918: part 2, interpreter operators (tandfonline.com)

Yes I found those articles. Thanks Quex. Might try their authors for some ideas of where to look next. 
Cheers

[green_acorn]

On 04/08/2022 at 13:37, Matmu said:

Yes I found those articles. Thanks Quex. Might try their authors for some ideas of where to look next. 
Cheers

You should make an appointment to visit the Royal Engineers Museum, Library and Archive at Gillingham, Kent https://www.re-museum.co.uk.  Until 1920, Signals was a Royal Engineers (Service) and their museum and archive holds records of the RE Signal Service (Rather than the Royal Signals Museum, though the RSigs may have some information that has been donated to them https://www.royalsignalsmuseum.co.uk).  

Cheers,

Chris

[Matmu]

10 minutes ago, green_acorn said:

You should make an appointment to visit the Royal Engineers Museum, Library and Archive at Gillingham, Kent https://www.re-museum.co.uk.  Until 1920, Signals was a Royal Engineers (Service) and their museum and archive holds records of the RE Signal Service (Rather than the Royal Signals Museum, though the RSigs may have some information that has been donated to them https://www.royalsignalsmuseum.co.uk).  

Cheers,

Chris

Hi Chris, 

Thank you very much for the tip. Next time I’m in the UK I’ll give that a try. 

 

cheers

 

Matthew