Great Escapes: The story of MI9’s Second World War escape and evasion maps. Barbara Bond

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       The value of printing military maps on fabric has been long recognized. This map, printed on cloth, covers part of northwestern Georgia and adjacent Alabama to the west of Atlanta. It is annotated in blue pencil in the upper margin: ‘Specimen of field maps used in Sherman’s campaigns, 1864’ (see pages 40–41).

1

       THE CREATION OF MI9

      ‘Escaping and evading are ancient arts of war.’

      (Field-Marshal Sir Gerald Templar, in the Foreword to MI9: Escape and Evasion, 1939–1945 by M. R. D. Foot and J. M. Langley)

      MI9 was created on 23 December 1939 as a new branch of British intelligence to provide escape and evasion support to captured servicemen and to airmen shot down over enemy-held territory through the course of World War II. Arguably, it was not soon enough, as, less than six months after its creation, thousands of British Service personnel found themselves captured on the beaches at Dunkirk. MI9 was established within the Directorate of Military Intelligence, which came into existence in 1939 when, with the Directorate of Military Operations, it superseded a previously combined Directorate of Military Operations and Intelligence. Five of the Military Intelligence sections, MI1 to MI5, continued their work within the new Directorate, dealing, as before, with organization, geographic, topographic, coded communication and security matters.

      The creation of MI9 stemmed from the experience of many during World War I, when military philosophy about prisoners of war underwent a sea-change. From regarding capture and captivity in enemy hands as a somewhat ignominious, even shameful and disgraceful fate, the value that escaping prisoners of war might contribute to the success of the war effort gradually came to be recognized. Men who escaped or evaded capture and returned to Britain brought back vital intelligence and boosted the morale of the Armed Services and, not least, their own families. In addition, the considerable effort required to prevent escapes from the camps deflected the enemy’s resources from front-line combat action.

      In the late 1930s, as the prospect of war became increasingly likely, proposals for the creation of a section tasked to look after the interests of British prisoners of war came from many quarters, not least from Lieutenant Colonel (later Field-Marshal) Gerald Templar who had written to the Director of Military Intelligence in September 1939. A number of conferences with those who had been prisoners of war during World War I had also been arranged by MI1, seeking to benefit from their collective experiences. The actual proposal to the Joint Intelligence Committee to create such a branch came from Sir Campbell Stuart, who chaired a War Office Committee looking at the coordination of political intelligence and military operations. There had clearly been some robust discussions, since Viscount Halifax, appointed Foreign Secretary in February 1938 by the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, had indicated in a letter dated 5 December 1939 to Sir Campbell that his preference was for the section to be under Foreign Office control, with direct Treasury funding, presumably to ensure joint control and coordination with MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Notwithstanding this high-level opposition, the creation of MI9 went ahead in the War Office and it was made responsible to the Deputy Director for Military Intelligence, initially working closely with the Admiralty and the Air Ministry. With hindsight, the later animosity and conflict between MI9 and SIS (see Chapter 9) might well have had its roots in the initial difference of opinion as to where the newly formed section should sit in the governmental hierarchy.

       Three British prisoner of war escapers who tunnelled out of Holzminden prisoner of war camp in Germany during World War I on 23 July 1918. That night twenty-nine men made good their escape, ten of whom made their way to the neutral Netherlands some 320 kilometres (200 miles) from the camp and eventually back to Britain. Left to right: Captain Caspar Kennard, Major Gray and Lieutenant Blair, all of the Royal Flying Corps.

       Sir Campbell Stuart (1885–1972), who made the initial proposal for the creation of MI9 to the Joint Intelligence Committee in 1939.

      MI9’s objectives and methods were first outlined in the ‘Conduct of Work No. 48’, issued by the Directorate of Military Intelligence on 23 December 1939. In MI9’s War Diaries (the regular record of daily, weekly or monthly activities undertaken by the War Office branches during the war), its objectives were more fully described as:

      i) To facilitate the escape of British prisoners of war, their repatriation to the United Kingdom (UK) and also to contain enemy manpower and resources in guarding the British prisoners of war and seeking to prevent their escape.

      ii) To facilitate the return to the UK of those who evaded capture in enemy occupied territory.

      iii) To collect and distribute information on escape and evasion, including research into, and the provision of, escape aids either prior to deployment or by covert despatch to prisoners of war.

      iv) To instruct service personnel in escape and evasion techniques through preliminary training, the provision of lecturers and Bulletins and to train selected individuals in the use of coded communication through letters.

      v) To maintain the morale of British prisoners of war by maintaining contact through correspondence and other means and to engage in the specific planning and execution of evasion and escape.

      vi) To collect information from British prisoners of war through maintaining contact with them during captivity and after successful repatriation and disseminate the intelligence obtained to all three Services and appropriate Government Departments.

      vii) To advise on counter-escape measures for German prisoners of war in Great Britain.

      viii) To deny related information to the enemy.

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