I’m delighted to welcome Deborah Swift and her new book, The Shadow Network, to the blog, with WW2 German and Irish Saboteurs.
The Shadow Network: WW2 German and Irish Saboteurs
The radio signal for the ‘fake news’ radio stations that feature in The Shadow Network needed to be strong enough to appear as though it came from Germany, and had to be more powerful than anything that was then available.
By coincidence, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) had created two high-powered radio transmitters which could not be used in the US, because of a change in American law. The RCA were eager to sell them to Britain. So Harold Robin, a Foreign Office radio engineer, saw their potential, and travelled to America to examine them, and then worked to improve them. He adapted a transmitter so it was able to move frequency in a fraction of a second, at the flick of a switch.
The powerful ex-RCA transmitter, eventually installed in Sussex, England, was named Aspidistra, referencing the popular Gracie Fields song ‘The Biggest Aspidistra in the World’, in which an Aspidistra houseplant grows until it ‘nearly reached the sky’.
In fact, most of the technology was buried underground at the site at Crowborough in Sussex, though its antennae were visible – three guyed masts, each 110 metres tall, directing the signal broadly to the east. The Art Deco–style transmitter building was housed in an underground shelter which had to be excavated by the Canadian army troops who were stationed nearby.
As far as I know there was never any attempt to sabotage or bomb the Aspidistratransmitter, though I enjoyed making it a possible target for a German agent and saboteur. However, German agents were sent into Britain to sabotage British targets – mainly military, industrial, and transport facilities. Their aim was to create maximum disruption, and to lower the morale of British civilians.
Inefficient Saboteurs
In reality, the German spies were less efficient than my fictional Brendan – the German spies had poor English-language skills and little knowledge of British customs. One German spy was arrested after trying to order a pint of cider at ten in the morning, as he didn’t know that landlords weren’t allowed to serve alcohol before lunchtime. Two other agents were stopped because they were cycling on the wrong side of the road. The twelve spies we know of who landed in Britain as part of the so-called Operation Lena in September 1940 were nearly all captured.
The German war machine was generally very efficient, so it remains a mystery why these men were not better trained. For this reason, I chose to link my saboteur to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), and the Coventry IRA bomb. It is a little-known fact that the IRA and the Nazi regime were in collaboration during the war.
Irish Saboteurs
At lunchtime on 25 August 1939 an unknown bomb-maker cycled into the city of Coventry in England with a five-pound bomb in his bicycle basket. The device, wrapped in brown paper and with an alarm clock timer, was left outside Astley’s shop where it exploded fifty minutes later, killing five people and injuring seventy, and causing devastation to the surrounding buildings. For a while, the authorities and the public were wary of anyone Irish, but because of close ties to Ireland this vigilance soon waned.
The Coventry plot was linked to three other ‘bicycle bomb’ plots in London which were part of a concerted campaign by the IRA. The S-Plan (Sabotage Campaign or England Campaign) was a campaign conducted by members of the IRA to protest against control of Northern Ireland by the British.
Nazi links to the IRA
The Nazis made links with the IRA as far back as 1936, when IRA member Sean Russell sought German support for IRA activities and engaged in talks with the German Foreign Office, regarding IRA–German cooperation. When war was declared, the Germans saw the IRA as a useful ally should the Wehrmacht invade Britain. However the IRA saw Germany only as a stepping stone to a united Ireland, and these two motivations were not easily aligned. The IRA’s collaboration with the Nazis against Great Britain made the ideal background for me to construct the character of Brendan Murphy, the agent charged with sabotaging the Aspidistra radio mast.
Listen to a podcast about German agents trying to blow up Britain.
Here’s the blurb
One woman must sacrifice everything to uncover the truth in this enthralling historical novel, inspired by the true World War Two campaign Radio Aspidistra…
England, 1942: Having fled Germany after her father was captured by the Nazis, Lilli Bergen is desperate to do something pro-active for the Allies. So when she’s approached by the Political Warfare Executive, Lilli jumps at the chance. She’s recruited as a singer for a radio station broadcasting propaganda to German soldiers – a shadow network.
But Lilli’s world is flipped upside down when her ex-boyfriend, Bren Murphy, appears at her workplace; the very man she thinks betrayed her father to the Nazis. Lilli always thought Bren was a Nazi sympathiser – so what is he doing in England supposedly working against the Germans?
Lilli knows Bren is up to something, and must put aside a blossoming new relationship in order to discover the truth. Can Lilli expose him, before it’s too late? Set in the fascinating world of wartime radio, don’t miss The Shadow Network, a heart-stopping novel of betrayal, treachery, and courage against the odds.
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Meet the Author
Deborah Swift is the English author of eighteen historical novels, including Millennium Award winner Past Encounters, and The Lady’s Slipper, shortlisted for the Impress Prize.
Her most recent books are the Renaissance trilogy based around the life of the poisoner Giulia Tofana, The Poison Keeper and its sequels, one of which won the Coffee Pot Book Club Gold Medal. Recently she has completed a secret agent series set in WW2, the first in the series being The Silk Code. Deborah used to work as a set and costume designer for theatre and TV and enjoys the research aspect of creating historical fiction, something she loved doing as a scenographer. She likes to write about extraordinary characters set against the background of real historical events. Deborah lives in North Lancashire on the edge of the Lake District, an area made famous by the Romantic Poets such as Wordsworth and Coleridge.
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