Eugene Griessel wrote:
> Op Thu, 24 May 2012 08:14:55 -0500, nik Simpson <
ni...@knology.net>
> wrote:
>
>> Really interesting documentary on links between various British naval
>> airpower experts and Japan in the inter-war years. Highly
>> recommended if you can lay hands on a copy (i'm sure its available
>> as torrent by now)
>>
>> Lots of stuff I didn't know, including the inglorious fate of
>> Rutland of Jutland, and a spying scandal that pre-dates the scandals
>> of the 50s and 60s but has some major similarities.
>
> I have not seen it - but from what I've heard it's one of those ho-hum
> documentaries that tries to take well-known, but probably forgotten by
> the current generation, facts and fan them into something they were
> not by a using lot of breathless hype.
It has already been posted...BBC TV documentary:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01j73yv
It will only be viewable for the next few days for those interested.
Most of this was made public about 10 years ago. But little coverage. Lord
Sempill, a Tory party Lord, the same party as Churchill during WW2, was
saved because he was a Lord and one of the "boys". Churchill personally
saved him. Many files on Sempill have been removed from the records office.
The BBC programme shows how high ranking British spies assisted in the Pearl
Harbor attack.
One was Lord Sempill. He began aiding the Japanese during the Anglo-Japanese
alliance. He played a crucial role in building up the Japanese carrier fleet
during the 1920s and 30s. In 1939 he was working for the British admiralty.
In 1941 he reported on discussions between Roosevelt and Churchill which
showed much of the American fleet was deployed in the Atlantic and could not
respond to an attack on Pearl Harbor. Despite knowledge of his treachery
becoming known, Churchill took no action against him beyond a demotion.
The other spy was Frederick Rutland who also helped to develop the Japanese
carrier fleet. Later he moved to Hawaii where he worked for US military
companies whose secrets he sent to Tokyo. In 1941 he sent photographs of
Pearl Harbor to Japan. He was detained during the war but never prosecuted.
He committed suicide after the war.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/nov/10/richardnortontaylor
A highly decorated British flying ace spied for Japan in the years leading
up to the outbreak of the second world war, papers declassified today
reveal. Frederick Rutland, who won the Distinguished Service Order for
daring low-level attacks on German cruisers during the Battle of Jutland in
1916, was initially recruited by Japan as an adviser on naval flying
techniques.
Papers released at the Public Record Office also show Japanese naval
intelligence paid him to set up a spy base in Hawaii years before the
surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941.
Rutland first came to the notice of MI5 in 1922 when he suddenly decided to
end his glittering career and resign from the RAF. The agency received what
it called "reliable information" from a "very delicate source" - known only
as BJ - that the Japanese had secret talks with Rutland.
MI5 noted that Rutland possessed "unique knowledge of aircraft carriers and
deck landings".
GCHQ, which had already broken Japanese naval codes, intercepted a string of
communications to and from Japan's naval attache in London and naval
intelligence headquarters in Tokyo.
They paint a picture of an ineffective businessman and spy who continually
haggled over money and expenses. In the 1920s he sailed with his wife and
child to Japan where he apparently failed to land a job with Mitsubishi.
"Shinkawa" - Rutland's code name - later travelled to the US. Intriguingly,
given how the US was so surprised by Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour in
December 1941, the intercepts reveal that in 1935 Rutland told his Japanese
spymasters that "everyone" he met in America "thinks a war with Japan is
inevitable, many even say it will be their way out of a depression".
The intercepts note that Tokyo had paid Rutland to set up a "small agency in
Hawaii". A horrified MI6 - Britain's secret intelligence service which
operates abroad - discovered that Rutland had come to the attention of the
US authorities. MI6 warned of the "scandal which would be caused by the
arrest of a former Air Force officer on charges of espionage ..." MI5 made
it clear that, in its view, Rutland should be arrested.
There was no doubt that Rutland was a "paid agent of the Japanese", said a
report signed by AF Blunt - the MI5 officer Anthony Blunt, who was later
knighted for his work as surveyor of the Queen's pictures and exposed as a
Soviet agent in 1979. Rutland saved everyone's embarrassment by returning to
Britain where he was quietly interned in 1941.