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Trawlers: 'Liaison Officer' was MI6 Man

Never assume there are no surprises left in the case of the Gaul. Everyone -- but everyone -- assumed that Commander J G Brookes was the Hull branch of UK Naval Intelligence. Everyone except Naval Intelligence, that is. It knew all along that he really worked for MI6 but, for 25 years, chose not to put the record straight. Why has it done so now?

Naval Intelligence (NI) and MI6 (officially known as the Secret Intelligence Service) are not interchangeable. NI, as you would expect, is concerned with the gathering and analysis of any information about the naval activities of potential enemies. It would be expected to employ a variety of ways of doing this, including the use of trawler crews to monitor the movements of Soviet nuclear missile submarines through the Barents Sea. Indeed it could be argued that if it didn’t use trawlermen in this way, it was not doing its job properly.

"I spied for my country for fourteen years," one trawler skipper told OffMSG, "and I’m proud of it." That is why the people of Hull were right to disbelieve early official denials of such activity.

But MI6 is a different kettle of fish. The Secret Intelligence Service is primarily concerned with human intelligence (HUMINT) and draws its raw information (and assessments of that information) from a network of legal and illegal agents throughout the world. It is concerned with everything; politics and economics are as high on its agenda as matters of a military nature. But it is more concerned with strategic matters than with day-to-day, bread-and-butter intelligence, the kind of activity described by Commander Clark in his carefully-worded Statement.

Why was Brookes working for MI6? When he retired from the Royal Navy in 1960 it might have been necessary from an administrative viewpoint to ‘park’ him somewhere. He needed to be paid every month and he needed somewhere to send his expenses claims. Someone had to pay the office rent and pick up the telephone bill. But MI6 would be the last place to which you would go for a service like that. The most obvious solution would have been for Brookes to continue as a civilian employee of the Ministry of Defence. The MOD has many civilian employees, many of them ex-servicemen, and Brookes could have become one of them

There has to be something more to it than that. Until now, it was known that MI6 played a minor rôle in intelligence gathering off the North Cape. It supplied ‘specialist equipment’ such as cameras and radios. But it didn’t need Brookes on the payroll for that to happen.

In his Statement (paragraph 10), Commander Clark describes Brookes as an ‘intelligence liaison officer in Hull with the crews of fishing trawlers’. But who was at the controlling end of the chain of command in which Brookes formed the middle link? To suggest naval intelligence would be logical. But, surely, Brookes reported to MI6? Is it possible that he sent reports of Soviet submarine sail numbers to MI6 at Century House in South London? But what on earth would it do with such low-level operational information? Pass it on to naval intelligence on his behalf?

A further anomaly is raised by the Statement. Paragraph 6 makes it clear that the Ministry of Defence would have us believe that intelligence gathering by trawlers stopped in 1967. In which case, what was Commander Brookes doing in Hull between that date and his death in January 1971?

So why has the MOD decided, finally, to ‘out’ Brookes as an MI6 officer? Could it be that Naval Intelligence wants to distance itself from his activities? That would assume he’d been up to no good. Now that matters have reached the stage of making statements to the High Court, it may have felt that its options had run out.

None of this makes any sense – not unless there was more going on around the North Cape than we have been told about. And that wouldn’t come as any big surprise.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION

ADMIRALTY COURT

In the Matter of the Re-opened Formal Investigation

Under the Merchant Shipping Act

MV Gaul

STATEMENT OF CDR T H V CLARK

1. I, Timothy Hubert Vian Clark, a Commander in the Royal Navy serving in the Defence Intelligence Staff, make this statement on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). The information given in this statement has been obtained from MOD records. I have no knowledge of any records that may be held by any other departments.

2. I am aware that questions have been raised in this investigation concerning the use of fishing trawlers and some of their companies in intelligence gathering activities during the period of the Cold War and in particular whether the Gaul (or Ranger Castor) as she was previously known) or any of her crew were involved. I make this statement to try to assist the Court on these matters.

3. I attach at Annex A a 1998 Paper called "Use of Trawlers for Intelligence Gathering during the Cold War" that is lodged in the House of Commons library. I am satisfied from my examination of MOD records that this Paper is an accurate summary of the use of trawlers in intelligence gathering at that time. I would refer to paragraph 9 of the Paper where it states,

"There are no records whatsoever to suggest that the MV GAUL (or MV RANGER CASTOR as previously named) had ever been involved in [passive listening or the recovery of Soviet hardware]."

4. I am aware that there have been allegations in newspapers, namely the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail of 7 August 1998 that members of the crew of the MV Gaul may have been involved in intelligence gathering. A retired trawler skipper was quoted as saying that Skipper Nellist and Mate Spurgeon had been involved in intelligence gathering in 1968 and 1972 and that Spurgeon had been on board MV INVINCIBLE during a hardware recovery operation in 1972.

5. Nevertheless, I can confirm from the MOD records that I have examined, that no record is held which indicates that any member of the crew of the MV Gaul was, or had been, engaged in intelligence activities for the Royal Navy.

6. As referred to in the above Paper, some trawlers were used for the gathering of low level intelligence such as the reporting of sightings of Soviet ships and aircraft. Between the early 1950’s and 1967, specialist personnel had on occasions been carried on board trawlers for passive listening while the vessels went about their normal business. Towards the end of this period such ad hoc collection had been superseded by dedicated operations using chartered vessels, but it is apparent that all such activity had ceased by 1967.

7. I can confirm that MV Gaul (previously Ranger Castor) was not used for any chartered intelligence collection mission. There is no mention of her in either guise in existing MOD records of intelligence operations involving trawlers.

8. Junior Royal Navy officers did embark on trawlers as part of a liaison scheme as referred to in the above Paper. To quote from the Paper again at paragraph 9,

"It is not possible to confirm one way or the other whether junior RN officers may have embarked on [MV Gaul] as part of the liaison scheme, as records of particular embarkations do not exist. However, records do suggest that the scheme was not widely used between 1969 and 1974, with only 10 junior officers going to sea in trawlers. The chance that one of these may have been on the GAUL on any voyage previous to that in February 1974 is considered remote. No RN personnel were on board the GAUL during its last voyage…"

As stated above, my examination of MOD records shows that the Paper is an accurate summary of that intelligence gathering.

9. Skippers, radio officers and mates of trawlers were involved in the low level observation and photography of Soviet vessels and aircraft and passive listening. This was on both a voluntary and an opportunity basis. General records and press cuttings on file indicate that some 30 to 40 skippers were involved in the 1960’s when this activity was at its peak. No records of trawler personnel involved in this activity exist in MOD files. It cannot be stated with absolute certainty that none of the crew of the MV Gaul had been briefed on intelligence collection or issued with photographic or radio equipment during the 12 months before the loss of the MV Gaul. However, this type of intelligence gathering declined in the early 1970’s. I have seen nothing to indicate that the crew of the MV Gaul were involved in this type of activity.

10. I have seen in MOD records reference to a Commander Brookes as an intelligence liaison officer in Hull with the crews of fishing trawlers. He retired from the Royal Navy in 1960 and I understand that from then until his death in January 1971 he was a member of the Secret Intelligence Services (SIS). It is apparent that other intelligence organisations were also involved in intelligence gathering in the Barents Sea area in the 1960s.

11. I can state that, from my examination of MOD records, there is no information to show that the MV Gaul or any member of her crew was involved in doing anything, or not doing anything, on the last voyage that could have contributed directly or indirectly to her loss.

12. I am aware that a cable, or what appears to be a cable, has been identified on the sea floor close to the wreck of the MV Gaul. It has been alleged that this may be a SOSUS cable laid for the detection of submarines. I can confirm that it is not because I have consulted other MOD staff who have access to such information.

13. I would draw to the attention of the Court that I make this statement based on my examination of records now held by the MOD Defence Intelligence Staff. I believe that some records of a general nature have been destroyed over the years by the MOD in accordance with the guidance on destruction and retention of files that was current at the time. I attach Annex B a copy of the "Instructions for Record Reviewers" of March 1992 and an extract from the MOD Manual, "Getting it Done". I am not responsible for records keeping at MOD and cannot comment further on those documents or MOD policy in this area.

Signed by Timothy Hubert Vian Clark

Date 2 June 2000