Secret Pigeon Service

Leopold had come to the throne in 1934 when his father died in a mountaineering accident. His reign would prove troubled and started darkly. A year after coming to the throne, Leopold was driving in Switzerland when he lost control of his car and it crashed, killing his wife Queen Astrid. By that time, his old friend Keyes had retired as an admiral and been elected to Parliament in Britain. A buccaneering character, although not necessarily of the highest intellect, Keyes had long been a close friend of Churchill, one of his allies who warned of the dangers of appeasing Nazi Germany.

On 7 May 1940, Keyes played a leading role in the unseating of Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister when he stood up in the House of Commons, wearing his uniform with six rows of medals, and launched a passionate denunciation of the government’s ineptitude. Three days later, on 10 May, Belgium was attacked without warning at dawn. The country had desperately clung to its neutrality in the hope it might offer protection. But this proved a false hope. Its armies were poorly prepared for the onslaught of the formidable German war machine. That morning Keyes received a telephone message summoning him to see Churchill. At that moment Churchill was still First Lord of the Admiralty, but by the end of the day, with Neville Chamberlain ousted from Downing Street, he would be Prime Minister.

Churchill told Keyes to put on his uniform and fly to Belgium to act as his special representative to the King. Keyes had already made a number of visits in recent months on behalf of the government to take advantage of his friendship with Leopold (who was also commander in chief of the Belgian army). By 3.30 that afternoon Keyes was flying out of Hendon to Amiens, escorted by three RAF Hurricanes. That night he drove to a blacked-out Brussels, passing lorries and buses full of troops from the British Expeditionary Force, who were suddenly in a precarious position as the German military tore through the country at frightening speed.

Keyes saw the King the next morning at an old moated fort twenty miles outside the capital. Leopold was not yet forty, with a gentle face and curly hair. Nothing had prepared him for what his country was now going through and his ability to lead his nation would be sorely tested. The shell-shocked King told Keyes that as the invasion began a hundred German troops had landed atop a fort and placed bombs down ventilators, putting it out of action, whilst all but seven Belgian aircraft had been destroyed by German attacks on the country’s aerodromes. Much to Britain’s annoyance, the King had clung too long to the false hope of neutrality; now he pleaded for British air support to avoid what he called ‘an absolute debacle’. But Britain’s military leadership was also in chaos and coordination with the French and Belgian armies was abysmal.

Initially, the British Expeditionary Force advanced. The Times correspondent in Belgium travelling with the BEF (a certain Kim Philby) told a colleague ‘it went too damn well’. The reason was that Hitler was trying to draw the British army into a trap.

Over the next two weeks, Keyes’s telegrams back to Churchill, who was by now Prime Minister, carried increasingly dire news. The Germans were moving fast – so fast that the MI6 station in Brussels lurched from complacency to panic and had to burn its papers in a furnace and hurl its teleprinter out of the window to ensure nothing was captured, while MI6 officers took turns to guard the office with a long-barrelled Luger pistol. The Germans strafed military and civilians alike as they fled the cities by road and rail. Suddenly, the British force realized they risked being trapped and began to make a desperate retreat under pressure; London was initially less than honest with the Belgians after the decision was made for the BEF to abandon the country, using the Belgian army as cover while they headed towards the coast. They made their way, amidst scenes of chaos and confusion, for Dunkirk where hundreds of boats, including the ‘little ships’, a flotilla of fishing vessels, pleasure craft and lifeboats, waited to ferry them back over the Channel.

But where did the mysterious chaplain come in? Raskin’s royal connection dated back to the First World War. He had played music in a convent whose services were attended by Queen Elizabeth and had been introduced to her. After the Queen’s husband, King Albert, died in 1934, she became Queen Mother to King Leopold. She had arrived with the King at the castle of Wijnendale on 24 May. She asked her chamberlain, Comte de Grunne, to organize mass to be celebrated in the private chapel.

Raskin was acting as chaplain to soldiers in nearby Torhout and was asked to come to the royal court as personal chaplain to the royal family. For the next few days, he would be picked up by car and taken to see them. The journey for Raskin on Sunday, 26 May had been perilous as the Germans bombed the roads from the air, leaving craters and burning vehicles. Raskin took confession from the royal family and held a heavy, solemn mass at 10 a.m. by the Baroque altar under the domed vault of the chapel, which was located in the castle’s highest tower. His words and the singing of the congregation must have been spirited to overcome the sound of enemy aircraft flying overhead. Afterwards, Raskin spoke to the King at length, one to one. Leopold looked and sounded like a man not quite able to cope with the huge burden that lay upon his shoulders. He asked for the priest’s prayers as he agonized over the decision of whether to stay in a country that was collapsing or flee to Britain.

Raskin was a decade older than the monarch, and sought to stiffen the resolve of a man who seemed to struggle with the burden of kingship. He stressed to Leopold the tight bond between faith, the nation and the monarchy, in which the priest himself fervently believed. Raskin said he was sure the nation would support the King. The monarch should face the plans God had for him with patience and confidence. As he finished speaking, the King, trembling slightly, clasped Raskin’s two hands. ‘Chaplain, I understand. I understand,’ he said.

The day Admiral Keyes had met Raskin was the darkest. Everyone knew the end for Belgium was nigh. Churchill was desperate for the King to flee to Britain and not make any kind of deal with Hitler. The question for Leopold was whether he should lead an army in exile or stay with his people. He wanted to emulate his father, who had won support by remaining. But he did not understand this was a different war. His ministers either fled or wanted to leave, and were angry as he indicated he would stay. They were to arrive in London in dribs and drabs, but the bad blood from those days in May and the legacy of the choices each individual made would bedevil Belgium for years to come.

At 6 a.m. on 27 May, Keyes received a telegram from King George VI of England to pass on to his fellow monarch, asking him to reconsider his plans to stay. ‘I do not feel that Your Majesty is called upon to make the sacrifice which you contemplate,’ one king wrote to another. It went on to argue that the risk of being taken prisoner by the Germans and depriving his people of a leader was too great. Keyes gave the message to Leopold, who took it to his bedroom to read with Elizabeth. Leopold’s view was that he had no choice. ‘I feel my duty impels me to share the fate of my army and to remain with my people. To act otherwise would amount to desertion,’ he replied.

A photograph – taken by the Comte de Grunne – shows the scene on the morning of 27 May. Outside the castle among the trees stand four figures in military uniforms, talking in two pairs. On one side is Keyes, standing with the King’s aide-de-camp. On the other side King Leopold is talking to his chaplain, Joseph Raskin. The dark looks on all their faces make clear that they all know the end is at hand. This was the moment referred to by Raskin in the Leopold Vindictive message. He knew Keyes would remember it.

Keyes telephoned Churchill that day to give him the news of the King’s decision, adding that the Belgians would not last much longer. At five that afternoon, the King told Keyes his army had collapsed and he was surrendering. Churchill made clear that a new Belgian government would be formed in exile to disassociate itself from the King and his decision to make peace.

By 8 p.m. Keyes knew he had to move fast to avoid his own capture. As his convoy crossed the country, German parachutists landed around them and opened fire. Keyes made one last plea for the King to leave with him. His decision to stay would prove to be a fateful one for the monarch and for his country. Leopold would now never be a unifying figure. At 10 p.m., Keyes left on a road crowded with refugees. By 1 a.m., he was at the coast and found a fishing boat with two sleeping men on board. With some persuasion (which involved rifles and the promise of money on arrival) he was soon sailing back to England, where by the following morning he was at 10 Downing Street to report the King’s decision to an ‘indignant’ Churchill.

Churchill later claimed wrongly in Parliament that the surrender had exposed the British flank, when in fact the Belgian army’s resistance had protected the British Expeditionary Force as it was evacuated from Dunkirk. But the public needed a scapegoat for the disaster and the Belgian king served the purpose. The British press poured vitriol on the King for what they said was a surrender without warning. Keyes himself sued the Daily Mirror for saying he had been ‘bowing on Brussels carpets in a rat king’s palace’.

The day Keyes had met the chaplain was the day Belgium was lost. In their short time together, a bond may have been forged between the Belgian priest and the British admiral – perhaps over the fact both had spent time in China before war. Raskin the following day had taken a bike from Lichtervelde and ridden in turn to Torhout and then to Bruges. In Bruges he went to the school house of Hector Joye’s wife, which had become a field hospital, and met with the wounded. ‘German troops in the city, sad rainy day,’ he wrote.

The link to Keyes also explains the mystery of the codename taken by the spy network. Leopold was clearly a reference to King Leopold of Belgium. But Vindictive? It was a tribute to Keyes himself. In 1918, as commander of the Dover Patrol, Keyes had been given the mission of blocking the ports of Zeebrugge and Ostend. Ostend proved a challenge until Keyes sent an ageing cruiser with orders for its crew to sink the ship in the harbour entrance. That ship was the Vindictive. Now Raskin had named his spy network in honour of his own king and a British admiral.

For MI14(d), the link to Keyes served to emphasize their new-found source’s credibility. ‘Confirmation of the value and accuracy of message No 37 has been obtained from the GOC [General Officer Commanding] Belgian Army in the UK and Admiral Keyes has assisted in assessing the sender’s bona fides,’ the team recorded.

There is one odd fact though. Nowhere is the name Joseph Raskin recorded. Had Keyes recalled meeting the chaplain but not remembered his name? Or did MI14 want to keep the name of their new agent secret? Either way, it was by the name Leopold Vindictive that the spy network would be known in London.

When Rex Pearson saw the original message 37, he marvelled at the way in which the author had crammed so much into such a small space. For a man who had fought to create Columba, it must have been a moment of validation against all those who had been sceptical of using pigeons. The intelligence from Leopold Vindictive rapidly made its way around Whitehall. In July, 174 pigeons had been released in five operations, but the information they gathered had revealed only limited details of troop movements and concentrations and confirmed one or two weapons dumps previously reported by human sources. Without Leopold Vindictive it would have been a pretty poor return. But its report was of a different class, as was clear even to the sceptics of Columba.

Naval Intelligence had been pretty dismissive of Columba until it saw Leopold Vindictive’s message. The Admiralty said it was a ‘particularly good report’ for its ‘wealth of detail’. Two MI6 reports had suggested the possibility that the Germans might have a naval headquarters, but there had been no confirmation until Leopold Vindictive drew attention to the chateau near Bruges and for the first time revealed its role in invasion plans. ‘Having seen such a detailed report as No. 37 it is clear that action should be taken’ in the event of an invasion, Naval Intelligence noted. Further photographic reconnaissance was ordered on the sites mentioned in the report.

There had been questions about Columba and its value. Was the bizarre scheme really going to work? Message 37 put those concerns to bed. Keep it going, but under regular review, was the order from the top of Military Intelligence. Columba offered speed and relevance. It is not hard to imagine that for Claude Dansey at MI6, whose service had been one of the sceptics, there was a touch of jealousy that this strange sideshow had suddenly delivered results that gained the appreciation of the rest of Whitehall whilst he still struggled to rebuild his European networks. One of the many secrets that Dansey was keeping was just how little real intelligence his own agents had so far delivered.

Something else happened to message 37. It was shown to Churchill himself. Why? Churchill loved intelligence and asked to see fresh Enigma decrypts from Bletchley every day to help him guide the war. Significant as the specific details of the intelligence in message 37 were, though, there was no reason he needed to know the exact location of a particular ammunition dump, or even a naval headquarters. The real reason was different. The message from Leopold Vindictive represented much more than just a collection of useful facts. It represented the spirit of resistance, confirming to Britain’s spies and leaders in that troubled hour, when they still feared invasion and when defeat seemed possible – perhaps even likely – that some of those living under the tyranny of Nazi occupation in Europe were willing to risk their lives to help. It was a sign of a spirit that Churchill hoped to inspire in the British people should the disaster of invasion ever befall them; a sign that out there in Europe were people who wanted to work with Britain and who stood ready should Britain be able to return to the continent to drive the Nazis back. All that was required now was for the two sides who needed each other so much to be able to communicate. A humble Ipswich pigeon had made that possible. Both sides were determined that this should be just the beginning. So now the question was, could they manage to get back in touch with the bearded chaplain?