‘Constituting a Problem in Themselves’: Countering Covert Chinese Activity in India: The Life and Death of the Chinese Intelligence Section, 1944–46

ABSTRACT

This article explores the actions taken to address the issue of covert Chinese activities in India during the Second World War identified by Force 136, the Far East incarnation of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), which resulted in the creation of the Chinese Intelligence Section (CIS) in early 1945. It considers this development within the wider context of security intelligence in relation to British India, which has been the subject of increased academic study in recent years as a result of the increased availability of relevant archival material. The need for CIS to be established draws attention to the parameters within which the various intelligence and security agencies operated, their attention focused primarily upon clearly identifiable threats to British rule, particularly nationalism and communism. The issue of covert Chinese activity in India did not fit easily within this framework; the manner in which SOE’s concerns were ultimately addressed illustrates how the prevailing colonial security mindset shaped the conceptual horizons of security intelligence activity.

KEYWORDS:

• Security intelligence
• surveillance
• special operations
• Second World War
• imperial security

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Jim Beach, Dr Dan Lomas and Professor Philip Murphy for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. Errors remain the responsibility of the author.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence.

2. French, Liberty or Death, xxii; entry for ‘L/PJ/12: Public and Judicial department (Separate) Files, 1913-1947’, British Library Paper Catalogue.

3. O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire.

4. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm; Walton, Empire of Secrets.

5. Walton and Andrew, ‘Still the “Missing Dimension”’, 81.

6. McGarr, ‘“A Serious Menace to Security”’, 441–69.

7. French, Liberty or Death, 9.

8. Walton, Empire of Secrets, 24, 17, 131.

9. Aldrich, ‘Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service’, 184.

10. Oxfeld, ‘India’, 344.

11. Bayly and Harper, Forgotten Armies, 196.

12. CIW took responsibility for ‘the Chinese aspect of Indian internal security’. Aldrich, Intelligence and the War, 152. Based in Calcutta, CIW was headed by a former medical missionary, Lt Colonel George Fox-Holmes. Fox-Holmes issued regular intelligence summaries, derived primarily from intercepted postal communication, divided into ‘Information’, ‘Security’ and ‘Commercial’ concerns. Little further is known about the organisation on account of a dearth of archival material, although examples of its reports can be found in FO371/41680, WO208/2888, WO208/422 and WO 208/325, The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA).

13. See, for example, ‘Survey No.10 of 1939’, L/P&J/12/506, British Library (hereafter BL); ‘Survey No.13 of 1941 for the week ending 29th March, 1941’, L/P&J/12/508, BL.

14. ‘Survey No.30 of 1941 for the week ending 02.08.41’, L/P&J/12/508, BL.

15. ‘Survey No.41 of 1941 for the week ending 25.10.41’, L/P&J/12/508, BL.

16. ‘Survey No.3 of 1943 for the week ending 23.1.43’, L/P&J/12/511, BL.

17. ‘Survey No. 18 of 1943 for the week ending 08.04.43’, L/P&J/12/511, BL.

18. India: Security Report No.1, 14 June 1944, HS8/872, TNA. Intelligence was communicated to China ‘by various underground means’. Sir Denys highlighted the role played by Chinese consulates as ‘the main collecting centres’. Shortly after Guild and Sir Denys had discussed the problem, the Bureau issued a report which highlighted a number of known instances of Chinese intelligence gathering in India. See ‘Survey of foreign intelligence activities directed against India security: Use of Chinese officials for the Collection of Intelligence’, 24 July 1944, L/P&S/12/2324, BL.

19. French, Liberty or Death, 136; Fenby, Generalissimo, 372–73.

20. ‘War Cabinet Report for the Month of August 1942 for the Dominions, India, Burma and the Colonies and Mandated Territories’, CAB 68/9/43, TNA.

21. ‘War Cabinet Report for the Month of November 1942 for the Dominions, India, Burma and the Colonies and Mandated Territories’, CAB 68/9/43, TNA.

22. Viceroy to secretary of state, 2 Oct. 1942, cited in Bayly and Harper, Forgotten Armies, 197.

23. ‘Survey No. 29, Week ending 26.07.41.’, L/P&J/12/508, BL.

24. Ibid.

25. ‘Survey No. 19 of 1942 for the week ending 16.5.42’, ‘Survey No. 31 of 1942 for the week ending 22.8.42’, L/P&J/12/510, BL.

26. ‘Survey No.31 of 1942 for the week ending 22.8.42’, L/P&J/12/510, BL.

27. For a general history of SOE, see Foot, SOE.

28. While the official historian of SOE in the Far East dates this name to 16 March 1944, he notes that Mackenzie ‘adopted the new designation only after his headquarters moved from Meerut in India to Kandy in Ceylon on 16 December’. Cruickshank, SOE in the Far East, 83. For purposes of clarity, the India Mission will be referred to as Force 136 throughout.

29. In the absence of a dedicated security section, the Mission’s Finance and Administration Section dealt with general security matters, while the operational country sections dealt with their own operational security needs as necessary. History of the Security Section—Indian Mission, 1, HS7/116, TNA.

30. See Murphy, Security and Special Operations, 68–73; SOE War Diary: India and the Far East, April–July 1944, 651, HS7/261, TNA. An advertising executive and businessman during the inter-war years, Guild had spent the early years of the war employed by MI5. Upon joining SOE in January 1944, he spent some weeks at both SOE headquarters and a number of the organisation’s outstations, assimilating ‘the SOE set up’ before leaving for India on 14 March. Section Head’s Report (New Arrival), 30 March 1944, HS9/633/3, TNA; SOE War Diary: India and the Far East, January–March 1944, 560, HS7/260, TNA.

31. Summary Sheet, HS9/633/3, TNA.

32. India: Security Report No.1, 14 June 1944, HS8/872, TNA.

33. Ibid.

34. The Mission was spread over a vast geographical area, which necessitated the division of Guild’s section into five areas ‘for the purposes of security control’. This meant that ‘the discussion of secret matters’ over the telephone was unavoidable, resulting in efforts to develop ‘an internal cypher system whereby certain categories of words (operational) were encyphered and inserted into the conversation’. India: Security Report No.1, 14 June 1944, HS8/872, TNA. A further problem derived from a lack of availability of field security officers (FSOs) fluent in the required languages, which resulted in the role of field security in India inevitably being more limited than that carried out by FSOs in the UK, where they accompanied recruits on their training courses, reporting back to SOE’s Security Section in London on their ‘security mindedness’. For more on the role of FSO’s in relation to SOE training, see Murphy, Security and Special Operations, ch. 3.

35. Alongside a significant number of French agents and ‘relatively small’ numbers of other ethnic groups. The internal ‘History of the Security Section’ suggests an even greater figure for Chinese recruits at the time of Guild’s arrival, noting that ‘[a] large percentage of the agents employed by the Mission were Chinese recruited through various agencies in China and, at the time of the formation of the Security Section, three agents in every four under training were Chinese’. History of the Security Section—Indian Mission, 11, HS7/116, TNA.

36. The Mission’s gratitude—along with a desire to make a good impression upon its benefactors—is clearly evident from surviving file material. When the arrival of the first group of 18 Chinese recruits to be trained for work in Burma (code-named ‘Pandas’) was imminent, a note to the commandant of the training school emphasised the significance of the development: ‘The agents are the first to be supplied to us by the Chinese National Gvt … it is most important for our future relations with CHUNGKING that these men should receive the very best training and treatment that we can offer’. Chang Shen Report, 19 Sept. 1943, HS1/29, TNA. Despite such early enthusiasm, the results ultimately proved disappointing; the Burma Country Section history noted that ‘[i]n September 1943, after very prolonged and high level negotiations, we were supplied by the Chinese D.M.I. with 18 Chinese agents. They were all supposed to know Burma and Burmese. In fact a number of them did not. They received a careful and comprehensive training but this served to cast considerable doubts on their suitability as agents and to cut a long story short, all but seven were finally returned to China.’ Burma Country Section General History 1941–1945, ch. 4, 2, HS7/104, TNA.

37. Referred to interchangeably in UK archival sources as ‘Tai Li’ (using the Wade-Giles system) or ‘Dai Li’ (pinyin system), for the purposes of consistency the pinyin system is used throughout this article. For further details on the origins and development of MSB, and its place within the wider Nationalist Chinese intelligence service, see Wakeman Jr., Spymaster. For further information on literature dealing with Chinese intelligence, see Chambers, ‘Past and Present State of Chinese Intelligence Historiography’.

38. India: Security Report No.1, 14 June 1944, HS8/872, TNA.

39. ‘Report to the Director of Special Operations, Mediterranean Area, from Deputy to Head of the Division of Intelligence, Security, Liaison and Personal Services, S.O.E., H.Q., London’, 28 March 1944, HS8/846, TNA.

40. AD.4 to D/Fin, 8 Nov. 1944, HS1/181, TNA.

41. India: Security Report No.1, 14 June 1944, HS8/872, TNA.

42. AD.4 to D/Fin, 8 Nov. 1944, HS1/181, TNA.

43. India: Security Report No.1, 14 June 1944, HS8/872, TNA.

44. Cipher telegram from Delhi (From Security), 7 Nov. 1944, HS1/181, TNA. IPI was formed in 1909, when Major John Arnold Wallinger, a senior officer in the Indian police, was seconded to the India Office in order to monitor the activities of Indian nationalists in Europe. Following the outbreak of the First World War, he was joined by Philip Vickery, also on secondment from the Indian police, who went on to become head of IPI in 1926, a position he held until the organisation was fused with the Security Service. For more details on the work of IPI, see O’Malley, Ireland, India and Empire.

45. Cipher telegram from Delhi (From Security), 7 Nov. 1944, HS1/181, TNA.

46. That the plan had lost the attention of SOE headquarters in London is suggested by a note from SOE’s director of intelligence and security, Archie Boyle, written in October: ‘I have heard from AD/4 that Mr. Bamford of the I.P.I. wishes to see Lt. Col. Guild in connection with “his Chinese scheme”, whatever that may be.’ A/CD to D/CE, 26 Oct. 1944, HS8/888, TNA.

47. Senter to Robertson, 10 Aug. 1944, HS8/888, TNA.

48. Robertson to Senter, 19 Aug. 1944, HS8/888, TNA.

49. Robertson to Park, 21 Nov. 1944, HS8/888, TNA. Force 136 was not alone in its collaboration with Dai Li. The British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6) also worked with the Nationalist Chinese intelligence service; prior to his replacement in early 1943, Major J. H. Green, who ran the SIS station in Singapore (relocated to Calcutta in January 1942), had ‘established a relationship with George Yeh, local representative of the Nationalist Chinese Kuomintang’s intelligence service’. As part of their collaborative efforts, Yeh provided Green with 20 potential agents who were taken to India and ‘carefully trained for specific work in parts of Malaya, Siam and Indo-China’. Jeffery, MI6, 582. SOE’s American counterpart, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) also collaborated with Dai Li. For further information on this relationship, see Yu, OSS in China.

50. AD.4 to D/FIN, 8 Nov. 1944, HS1/181, TNA.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. A/CD to CD, 27 Nov. 1945, HS1/181, TNA; A.D.4. to D/CE.G (AD4/2825), 2 April 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

54. Mackenzie to Boyle, 5 Dec. 1944, HS9/192/1, TNA.

55. Ibid.

56. Shai, ‘Britain, China and the End of Empire’, 291; D/CE.G to AD.4, 8 Dec. 1944, HS8/888, TNA. Progress was held up by a disagreement over what qualities the candidate required—specifically whether it was necessary that they should be expert in double-agent work—along with more mundane matters. On 9 December, Sheridan noted: ‘This matter has now got into a thorough muddle, not, I think, through your fault or mine, but because of Bamford of I.P.I. butting in when he was asked not to do so, but to go in consert [sic] with us; and partly because of Guild’s illness at a time when had he been fit he would have been tying these matters up with I.P.I. and other people in England’. A.D.4. to D/CE.G, 9 Dec. 1944, HS8/888, TNA.

57. Summary sheet, HS9/192/1, TNA; Wasserstein, Secret War in Shanghai, 159.

58. Liddell Diary, 24 Jan. 1946, KV4/467, TNA.

59. [Name redacted, Broadway] to Boyle, 12 Dec. 1944, HS9/192/1, TNA.

60. Cipher telegram from New York, For ACD For Security Executive From Security Division, 20 Dec. 1944, HS1/181, TNA; Cipher telegram from New York, From G for A/CD and AD4, 21 Dec. 1944, HS1/181, TNA.

61. Cipher telegram from Delhi, 29 Jan. 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

62. Vickery to Sheridan, 13 March 1945, HS1/181, TNA.

63. ‘Memorandum of Meeting held at the Office of the Commissioner of Police, Calcutta, 24th Feb ’45’, HS1/181, TNA. The meeting was also attended by two Force 136 security officers, Captain Tolson of Security Control, Calcutta (who, while working under Rae, was also DIB’s agent), and Sir Denys.

64. ‘Memorandum of Meeting’, HS1/181, TNA.

65. Ibid.

66. The cut out was Captain N. Tolson, deputy commissioner of police in charge of security control in Calcutta.

67. On the copy of the minutes released to the National Archives, Point (a) has been marked with a large pencilled cross.

68. A/CD to AD/P, 19 March 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

69. A/CD to B/B.100 through AD, 24 March 1945, HS9/192/1, TNA.

70. Guild to Commander, 18 Aug. 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

71. Ibid.

72. Ibid. SOE regarded Smith as ‘not a man of the same outstanding character and experience as Sir Denys’. Force 136 considered Sir Denys’s retirement to be ‘a great loss, because he took a particular personal interest in us from the very outset … we always felt we could rely on him to adjust any difficulties which might arise and help us in any manner that was possible’. GSO1 (S) HQ Force 136 to A/CD through D/CE, 19 April 1945, HS9/192/1, TNA.

73. Bourne to Guild, 7 Aug. 1945, HS8/888, TNA. The agents were described as Burma Chinese, Calcutta/Burma Chinese, Malay Chinese and Hong Kong Chinese, the sub-agents both as Calcutta Chinese. Bourne noted that there had been ‘every difficulty’ in arranging the arrival of Benenden, a Shanghai Chinese (‘whose father is number two in the Ching Peng’).

74. Bourne to Guild, 7 Aug. 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

75. The French Concession had actually supported the activities of a ‘key Green Gang figure’, who also served as head of their Chinese detective squad. Bickers, Empire Made Me, 116.

76. For further information, see Wasserstein, Secret War in Shanghai, 7–8, 25.

77. Bickers, Empire Made Me, 59.

78. Ibid., 72. See also Bickers, ‘Who were the Shanghai Municipal Police?’, 174.

79. Bourne to Guild, 7 Aug. 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

80. Ibid.

81. Murphy, ‘Intelligence and Decolonization’, 103.

82. Bourne to Guild, 7 Aug. 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

83. D/Fin to A/D, 27 Sept. 1945, HS8/888, TNA.

84. AD6 to A/CD, 20 Sept. 1945, HS1/181, TNA.

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid.

87. A/CD to AD/6, 24 Sept 1945, HS8/888, TNA. In August 1945 SIS had found itself ‘left with a sprawling deployment in India and China, generally geared to supporting the military needs of Mountbatten’s strategy for the war against Japan … SIS’s stations had been positioned more to support the military campaign in Burma and the recovery of Malaya than to gather longer-term intelligence required to support a re-established British presence in the region’. Jeffery, MI6, 697.

88. Cipher telegram to Meerut, CD to B/B.900, 28 Dec. 1945, HS9/192/1, TNA.

89. While he still believed that SOE was ‘under a moral obligation to retain Bristol for unexpired portion of two years’, Smith had contacted IPI ‘recommending that Bristol’s organisation should continue for the unexpired period under existing terms of financial responsibility modified only by DIB’s acceptance of responsibility for payment of agents as distinct from Bristol’s salary and allowances’. To Anstey, this appeared the ‘best possible solution … hope you will agree to its adoption’. Cipher telegram from Meerut to London: BB900 to A/CD, 29 Dec. 1945, HS9/192/1, TNA.

90. B/B.3 to C.D. via A.D., 2 Jan. 1946, HS1/181, TNA. Beyond the date, the correspondents’ details and the scribbled note, the entire content of the letter has been redacted prior to release.

91. Summary Sheet, HS9/192/1, TNA.

92. Liddell Diary, 24 Jan. 1946, KV4/467, TNA.

93. Ibid.

94. Ibid.

95. While the SIFE post went to Major Malcolm Johnston, Bourne’s SOE personnel file blandly records that on 23 March 1946 he was ‘Posted to M.I.5 for Special duties’. Liddell Diary, 7 Feb. 1946, KV4/467, TNA; Summary Sheet, HS9/192/1, TNA. Liddell’s next reference to Bourne followed the ‘frightful blow’ that Johnston had been killed in an air crash in February 1947. As thoughts turned to a possible successor, he recorded: ‘Bourne is out as he is in hospital with Malaria and it not likely to be fit enough to carry on.’ Liddell Diary, 27 Feb. 1947, KV4/468, TNA.

96. Much of the detail of the origin and development of the liaison post was recorded by Liddell in his diary. See entries for 7, 9, 14 Aug. and 21 Nov. 1946, KV4/467, TNA; entries for 21 Nov. 1946 and 13 Jan. 1947, KV4/468, TNA.

97. ‘Confidential Annex: Visit of Captain Liddell, Security Service, to Far East and Middle East’, CAB159/1, TNA.

98. Liddell Diary, 30 June 1947, KV4/469, TNA.

99. Liddell Diary, 2 July 1947, KV4/469, TNA.

100. Liddell Diary, 17 July 1947, KV4/469, TNA.

101. Liddell Diary, 29 July 1947, KV4/469, TNA.

102. Liddell Diary, 20 Oct. 1947, KV4/469, TNA.

103. Liddell Diary, 5 Dec. 1947, KV4/469, TNA. Back in London in April 1948, Bourne visited Liddell, who recorded that he was ‘leaving for Canada … I have undertaken to write to Wood to see if there is any way in which he can help the R.C.M.P.’ Liddell Diary, 5 April 1948, KV4/470, TNA. Bickers notes that ‘Canada’s Mounted Police absorbed Commissioner Bourne’. Bickers, Empire Made Me, 322.

104. ‘Assessment of the Value of S.I.F.E. and D.S.O. Points in the Far East’ undated, KV4/422, TNA.

105. As Christopher Andrew notes in the authorised history of the Security Service, ‘The files of SLO reports from New Delhi, as from most of the Empire and Commonwealth, were, alas, later destroyed because of shortage of space in the Security Service Archives’. Andrew, The Defence of the Realm, 936, n.1.

106. Nye to Commissioner-General for the United Kingdom in South East Asia, 5 Feb. 1949, DO133/16, TNA; ‘Likely Effects of Communist Successes in China’, 20 Dec. 1948, DO133/16, TNA.

107. Menon to Nye, 12 Jan. 1949, DO133/16, TNA.

108. Walton and Andrew. ‘Still the “Missing Dimension”’, 81.