Polskie Wojskowe Warsztaty Radiowe (PWW)
Introduction
On arrival in Britain, the Polish armed forces brought with them technicians in radio telegraphy as well as mathematicians who specialised in cryptography. Their initial base was barrack huts located near Gordon Avenue and later Wykeham House. The cryptologists were moved from Stanmore to a station at ‘The Arches’, Felden near Boxmoor in the Hemel Hempstead area after 21st June 1943 (Bennett, 2005). The Polish Radio Intelligence Company was commanded by Capt. Kazimierz Zieliński. Based at the station were the crypto-analysts Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski who had a key role in breaking the enigma codes.
The factory at Stanmore specialised in producing equipment for high-speed transmissions capable of sending 100 groups in two seconds. This technological breakthrough arose from research initially conducted at the Polish Military Research Bureau based in Mill Hill, London until 1942 when it was transferred to Stanmore (TNA/ HS7-184). The operation was supervised by the RSS or Radio Security Service that covered all Allied usage of Radio Communications (TNA/ HW 34/21). Earlier in the war, the training of radio specialists was a limiting factor since the training facility in Glasgow (Intelligence Officers School) had limited capacity for courses and students that not only hampered the Polish II Bureau, but also SIS (Peploński and Suchcitz, 2005).
The Operation:
Wykeham House on Gordon Avenue, was commanded by Col. Tadeusz Lisicki where ciphers to the Polish underground and the manufacturing of radios such as the BP-3 and AP-5 that had been developed by Tadeusz Heftman. Born in 1906 in Sosnowiec in southern Poland, he had studied at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology and was a pioneer of amateur radio. Over 1,000 radios of different variants were manufactured and used by British military intelligence, SIS, SOE and the AK with many dropped to the French Resistance. They also worked closely with SOE and its specialist section called European Polish Minorities (EU/ P) who had agents in France and the Balkans. The Poles were receiving intelligence through ‘Continental Action’ and operations in France through ADJUDICATE and Operation MONIKA. The repatriation of conscripted Poles into the Wehrmacht from the Balkans also proved valuable in intelligence gathering with the operations working out of Bari in Italy.
Although there was a degree of autonomy covering ciphers and radio traffic, the site and its manufacturing was supervised by the RSS (Radio Security Services) who also asked the station to manufacture radios to specific designs for various intelligence and military units.
Wykeham House was also the home of Radio ‘Marta’ an unofficial radio station manned by four operators and two cryptologists. The official status resulted from a report by Lt-Col. Ignacy Kazimierz Banach covering the scope of radio intelligence and technical information held by the Soviets and given to MI8 (Maresch, 2005). British Intelligence were so impressed with the quality of their work that their own radio intelligence section remained limited to naval and air force intercepts.
After June 1941 the decoding of Soviet ciphers was taken over by the Polish monitoring section in Stanmore (Ciechanowski, 2005) when Col. Banach approached the British with details of Soviet radio networks and cyphers with an official visit from personnel from Bletchley (Bennett, 2005).
The facility at Stanmore made a major contribution to intelligence gathering and radio intercepts that helped the Allies win. The manufacturing base provided high quality, robust radio sets that is often overlooked in Poland’s contribution to the Allied efforts and should be given a greater status in history.
Source: TNA/HS4-144
Other Radio Stations
Polish Counter intelligence used radio stations that also played a leading part. The BBC Polish section regularly broadcast bulletins (Nowak, 1983). Radio Swit was encouraged by SOE’s Polish section (E/UP) to broadcast bulletins on sabotage operations as long as no one was endangered (TNA/ HS4-167). Swit (Dawn) broadcasted on 31 metre band between 8am to 7pm via a powerful transmitter purportedly in Europe whereas in fact it was in Britain, a ship off the coast of East Anglia (Davies, 2003). The signature tune was “Bartoszu, Bartoszu, Don’ Lose Hope” played on a block flute by Marek Chciuk-Celt (Celt, 2013). To provide a degree of authenticity, the AK would provide ‘local’ news and events to enrage the Germans.
Radio Wawa (slang for Warsaw) was based at Fawley Court near Henley and used coded messages within open messages to communicate to various groups in the underground army (Davies, 2003) and were different in approach to the messages sent to the French partisans, for example.
The BBC’s Polish section began broadcasting on 7th September 1939 and started bulletins with “Tu mówi Londyn” by Józef Opieński (Bretan, 2022). A small team of journalists worked closely with the government-in-exile and SOE to broadcast on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 20.30 and provided a vital link to the Allies and more importantly the government-in-exile (Moriss, 2015). Despite time limited broadcasts, it became a symbol of resistance even though listening to the BBC or radio Swit and Wawa was punishable by death (Davies, 2003).
As part of the disinformation campaign operation MARTINI was to broadcast ‘news’ into Germany. The eastern zone was covered by the AK and the western zone would be covered by Wojskowa Organizacja Propagandy Dywersyjnejwhich was attached to VI Bureau, with centres in France and Switzerland (TNA/ HS4-170) with the material being agreed on by SOE and the Polish General Staff based in the Rubens Hotel in London and in consultation with Britain’s P.W.E. Diversionary propaganda was also broadcasted from Turkey into central Europe and the Balkans with the similar content to destabilise the German troops in the occupied countries.
In 1945, to counteract Soviet propaganda broadcasted over Soviet controlled Polish radio, two radio stations were set up.
Radio Wolność (Freedom)
Test transmissions were scheduled for 29th or 30th April 1945. The broadcasts were scheduled for 7.30 to 9.30 and 14.30 to 17.00 (TNA/ HS4-145).
Radio-telephony Station Wyzwolnie (Liberation)
Their test transmission was scheduled for the 17th or 18th March 1945 at 15.00 on frequency 8860kc, 18.00 hours on 6550kc (playing La Serenade Beniamino Gigli) and 21.00 hours on 4885 kc (playing Minuet in A Major by Luigi Boccherini). Maj. M. Pickles of the Polish Country Section of SOE was extremely interested in these broadcasts and raised the matter that he had not been advised by the Ministry of Interior (MON) on 2nd May 1945 (TNA/ HS4-145) that these broadcasts were going ahead. There is very little information on these stations that were probably replaced by Radio Free Europe broadcasting out of Munich from 1950. If anyone has information relating to these stations and willing to share, we would deeply appreciate it.
SOE placed great value in the subversive or propaganda value of the radio stations (R.U’s) with Britain’s P.W.E ‘guiding’ the timing and content of broadcasts. The value was held in high esteem in Germany, France and the Balkans that had greater value than in occupied countries in eastern and Central Europe (TNA/ HS4-143).
Selected References:
Bennett, G. (2005) “Polish-British Intelligence Cooperation”, in Sterling, T; Nałecz, D and Dubicki, T (Eds) “The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee Vol.1”, Valentine Mitchel, UK, Ch15.
Bretan, J (2022) “This is London: The Wartime Story of the BBC Polish Section”, https://culture.pl/en/article/this-is-london-the-wartime-story-of-the-bbc-polish-section
Celt, M. (2013) “Parachuting into Poland, 1944”, McFarland & Co, USA.
Ciechanowski, J. (2005) “British Special Services”, in Sterling, T; Nałecz, D and Dubicki, T (Eds) “The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee Vol.1”, Valentine Mitchel, UK, Ch13.
Davies, N. (2003) “Rising’ 44: The Battle for Warsaw”, Macmillan, UK.
Maresch, E. (2005) “Polish Radio Intelligence Service and Sigint”, in Sterling, T; Nałecz, D and Dubicki, T (Eds) “The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee Vol.1”, Valentine Mitchel, UK, Ch47.
Nowak, J. (1983) “Courier from Warsaw”, Wayne State University Press, USA.
Peploński, A and Suchcitz, A (2005) “Organisation and Operations of the II Bureau, of the Polish General Staff”, in Sterling, T; Nałecz, D and Dubicki, T (Eds) “The Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee Vol.1”, Valentine Mitchel, UK, Ch9.
Additional References:
Korbonski, S. (2004) Fighting Warsaw – Story of the Polish Underground State 1939-1945”, Hippocrene Books, USA.
Latawski, P. (2023) “Aspects of the Polish Staff of the Commander-in-Chief’s
Relations with the British War Office: Planning for the Post-War
Polish Army, 1943-1945 (Relacje Sztabu Naczelnego Wodza z brytyjskim Ministerstwem Wojny w latach 1943-1945 w zakresie planowania rozbudowy powojennego Wojska Polskiego”, Studia i Materiały Centralnej Biblioteki Wojskowej im. Marszałka Józefa Piłsudskiego, No. 1, No. 19, pp. 273-280.
Moriss, A. (2015) “The BBC Polish Service during the Second World War”, Media History, Vol. 21, No. 4, pp.1-5.
Selected Websites:
https://www.sppw1944.org/index.html?/powstanie/powstanie_radio_eng.html – radio stations Burza and Blyskawicabroadcasting news via London BBC’s Polish Section.
