chapter1 methodology

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The original aim of this dissertation was to take the critical method

of the historian learnt for the MA in Historical Research and see if there

was any comparison with - if it existed - the critical attitude of the political

and military consumers of ‘air intelligence’ on the Luftwaffe. In other

words, it was to investigate how they interpreted these reports in terms of

intelligence matters, i.e., what these reports meant; what problems they

believed they faced when reading them; how they accounted for these

problems, and how they attempted to overcome them. When consulting the

relevant documentation in the Public Record Office (PRO) the thesis had

to change its emphasis to a strategy of indirect analysis. Why?

The Archival Nature of Intelligence Files in the PRO

(a) “Closed” Files and Papers

Many records of the intelligence services (the secret and, to a lesser

extent, the military) from the pre-war era are - in 1993 - still not released

for consultation by the public. It is difficult to assess with any degree of

accuracy how many papers from files, and how many files themselves,

have been withheld. In some files there are “weeder’s” cards to indicate

that papers have been retained by departments for up to 75 years,1 but

many papers have “disappeared” (i.e. have been wilfully destroyed) from

the files before they were released into the hands of the “weeders.” This

can be adduced by comparing the remarks on papers in the minute sheets

with the actual contents of the files themselves.2 Many became part of

department archives under special arrangements. The Green List , an index

containing details of papers that were held by the Foreign Office, offers a

1 D. Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence: The Foreign Office, the SIS and Security

before the Second World War”, in The Missing Dimension: Governments and

Intelligence Communities in the Twentieth Century by C. Andrew and D. Dilks (eds.),

(Basingstoke, 1984), p.102; See Appendix A for a copy of a “weeder’s” card from

CAB 56/3 (the Joint Intelligence sub-Committee).2 See the various files of AIR 40 the Air Intelligence Directorate; Dilks,

“Flashes of Intelligence”, p.104

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guide as to the extent of papers retained, though the exact proportion of

released files and papers to those kept behind has to be one of guess-work.

In many of the PRO indexes, e.g. WO 190, there are sheets telling the

researcher that “files xxx to xxxx are closed for 75 years” so that he or she

may know that a certain number of files are retained. Unfortunately they

do not indicate, above and beyond the class description of the index, the

general contents of these files, nor the amount of papers in them. But, as

David Dilks points out, many of the files believed to be withheld probably

do not exist, not because they have been destroyed, but because much

discussion of intelligence matters was probably conducted during private

conversations.3

However, those that are “open” present problems all of their own for the researcher wishing to assess the critical attitude of British

intelligence.

(b) ‘Open’ Files and Papers

The main problem that hampers the historian is the lack of access to

the original reports obtained and submitted by field agents, military and air

attaches. In many cases the dispatches of the military and air attaches are

open to historians, but they have no way of knowing whether the

dispatches were summaries made from mental notes of observations and

conversations, or whether they were summarised with the “raw material”

close at hand. Therefore, we cannot be sure how much of the report was a

faithful summary of the original information, and how much was filtered

through the subjective interpretations of the assessor. We also do not

know how much was ‘tidied’ up by removing elements of the reports

which did not fit into place.

The historian is also not told by the documentation about the

specific intelligence gathering operations of the SIS, the GC&CS, the

3 Dilks, “Flashes of Intelligence”, p.102




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names of individual SIS officers or agents, nor the names of foreign

individuals recruited since “Care was taken not to give away tricks on

file”.4 As the historian does not know what these ‘tricks’ were - except in

the most general sense (see below p.6) - it is difficult to determine how

efficient these ‘tricks’ were. Therefore, any analysis of British

Intelligence’s critical attitude in this area of intelligence has to be another

guess.

The task of the historian is further constrained by the fact that

he/she does not know whether those who were entitled to receive

intelligence (on an intra- and inter-departmental basis) had access to the

originals or to the summaries. He/she also does not know the frequencywith which they received them. Historians can only make informed

guesses through comments on what minute sheets exist. Many WO 190

files consulted for this dissertation had no minute sheets attached, which

hampered any investigation into attitudes to intelligence by an analysis of

the distribution of who could see them. Historians also have to make

guesses about the possible incorporation of intelligence into papers

produced by individuals, departments, and committees that were

(nominally) entitled to have such source material, though many papers

produced contain references only to the previous paper issued on the

subject discussed. Historians are hampered in some respects by the fact

that there was no central machinery for the collection, collation and

analysis of intelligence in this period despite the attempts to set-up such an

organisation in the inter-war period.5 The minutes of committee meetings,

such as the CID, which utilised reports based upon intelligence, offer

some, if meagre, palliative relief.

4 Ibid.5 F.H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its

Influence on Strategy and Operations: Volume I (London, 1979), pp.5, 35-43




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However, this situation is not as difficult as its first seems. As stated

before, after “weeding” there are few intelligence reports left for the

historian to use. When one considers how understaffed and underfunded

British secret and military intelligence really was in the 1930s,6 the level of

activity was probably not as great as the researcher with no experience of

intelligence papers believes before embarking on research. Therefore, the

gaps in papers and files are not the yawning chasm that they sometimes

appear, especially when one remembers that German secrecy on

rearmament made the acquisition of intelligence even more difficult.

A Methodological Solution(a) In Theory

Therefore, as most files that are locked away were written under the

auspices of the SIS, the historian, in his attempt to assess the quality and

examination of British military intelligence on the Luftwaffe, has little

choice but to resort to the strategy of indirect analysis. This comprises two

approaches.

Firstly, the historian can use the various Air Ministry files on the

Luftwaffe.7 These were released in 1972, with the other service

intelligence records, under the “Thirty Year Rule” and were done so

because they were almost wholly compiled by non-secret (SIS) means, and

are far less “weeded”. Christopher Andrew has pointed out that there

remains doubt as to the interpretation of the “Thirty Year Rule”. Some

files have been “weeded” - in particular those of the AID,8 and many are

still retained, especially those of the Admiralty. However, there should be

6 W.K. Wark, The Ultimate Enemy, pp.11, 21; W. Laqueur, World of Secrets,

p.2057 AIR 2/1353 - AIR 2/1356; AIR 40/2101- AIR40/21028 C. Andrew, “Whitehall, Washington and the Intelligence Services”,

International Affairs (iii), Volume 53, 1977, note 20, p.399




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enough for a dissertation on intelligence, both on the reports themselves

and on the attitude towards method.9

Secondly, the historian can resort to an analysis of reports, papers,

meetings, and minutes of those committees that had access to intelligence

reports, or to papers based on such sources.10 These include the CID,

DRC, JIC, the Cabinet, and its various committees. The papers of, and

those presented to, these committees should, not only offer evidence of a

wide circulation of intelligence outside the military services, but also

opinions towards intelligence which are in themselves useful, for not only

assessing attitudes per se, but for any comparison between those of the

military leadership and those of the civilian decision-makers.

A Methodological Solution

(b) In Practice

Using the aforementioned solution, it was relatively easy to find

documentation on the Luftwaffe. However, the documentation was not

adequate enough for the original aims of the dissertation. To put it simply,

there was a very noticeable lack of almost any consideration of intelligence

at both civilian and military level. The AID-IIC papers presented to the

CID are a case in point. “The assessments by the IIC ... were almost

always approved by the CID without discussion of matters of

substance”.11 When discussion did occur it was concerned with

information received since the paper's compilation on the increasing

expansion of the German aircraft industry.

9 For reports, vide supra, note 6; for method, AID and Treasury

correspondence, AIR 2/1688, and AID comments AIR 40 ibid.10 See CID minutes and memoranda, CAB 2/6 -CAB 2/8 and CAB 4/22 -CAB

4/26 respectively; Cabinet minutes and memoranda, CAB 23 and CAB 24 respectively;

DRC, CAB 16/109 -CAB 16/11111 Hinsley, British Intelligence, p.33




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towards intelligence. This, however, did not constitute enough to satisfy

the requirements of the dissertation, nor its aims. The main bulk of

research and writing had to be done on the basis of an indirect analysis. It

was indirect in the sense that it examined “negative” evidence, i.e. what

did not exist. This meant drawing conclusions from: the overall lack of

discussion; the failure to increase intelligence funding; the failure to use

certain specialist forms of intelligence gathering; the failure to challenge

assumptions and ‘calculations’ on the effects of strategic bombing, and

Germany’s capability to launch such an offensive; and, the failure to be

(generally) more open minded about the Luftwaffe despite admissions that

the quality and quantity was not as good as desired.How these problems, and the attempted solutions, were ‘resolved’

is detailed below.

The Structure of the Research Chapters

The research chapters on the expansion of the Luftwaffe consist

almost solely of primary sources. The main ‘core’ are the various papers

and memos which provided information on the expansion of the Luftwaffe.

When it was possible, information and opinion from different institutions

and groups has been incorporated. It has to be mentioned that not every

paper circulated provoked opinion, comments, or controversy, given the

prevailing assumptions on the nature of the Luftwaffe. Attempts have been

made, when and where it was possible, to show Air Ministry responses to

criticism. However, the Air Ministry did not always do so. This lack of

response to papers and to criticism is the reason why, in certain parts, the

research chapters appear to “jump” from one paper to another for no

apparent reason.

The research chapter on the strategic orientation of the Luftwaffe is

different. It does not only consist of primary sources. COS, Air Ministry,

and Cabinet Committee papers, were used to show the fear of a




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‘knock-out blow’, but this consensus was so strongly held that there are no

papers produced at that level which expressed a difference of opinion.

However, there were intelligence reports which contradicted this picture,

but they were not acknowledged by the Air Ministry. They have been

included. The chapter also includes sections on other sources of

intelligence that the Air Ministry could have accessed for its appreciations.

These sections are based on “official histories”, as they had unlimited

access to all intelligence documentation, and on secondary studies, by

professional historians, who have painstakingly reconstructed histories of

covert intelligence sources from fragmentary scraps of information in

various archives around the country.The memoirs of intelligence officers have been avoided.

Theoretically they could have helped, but as the contents of intelligence

memoirs are restricted by the Official Secrets Act, it is difficult to cross

check the ‘almost too good to be true’ reminiscences with documentation

in the PRO, if it has not been released. The most interesting memoirs, by

the SIS’s liaison officer with the AID,15 contains tantalising hints of a

difference of opinion, but supporting evidence is not in the PRO as he was

an employee of the SIS.16

The Structure of Other Chapters

The Introduction is mainly concerned with historical background, a

definition of strategic bombing, a definition of intelligence, and a brief

description of the various British Intelligence bodies relevant to this

dissertation.

The chapter on the Luftwaffe written from secondary historical

studies follows the research chapters. It was originally intended to be

placed before them but this was decided against. Stylistically it seems

15 F.W. Winterbotham, The Nazi Connection (London, 1978)16 Ibid., pp.3, 94-96, 98-99




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