Ray Fautley - WW2 Memories of a Voluntary Interceptor

My name is Raymond Francis Fautley (Ray), born 3rd May 1922 in Camberwell, London, SE5.
I became a Chartered Engineer in 1955 (was M.I.E.E. now referred to as M.I.E.T.) and have worked in the radio world all my working life.
In early 1941 I was working at Radio Transmission Equipment (part of the Philips Group) in Balham, SW London. One day at around midday I was having my lunch in the firm's canteen - and suddenly I wasn't! I was laying on top of a young lady and was covered with plaster dust, boken glass and money. The glass was from the kiosk where the young lady took payment for the lunches. Both of us appeared to be unhurt and after helping her up, I started to pick up the scattered money from all around the broken kiosk.
I was told that two draughtsmen had been killed in the Drawing Office just about 15 feet away on the other side of the canteen wall. Luckily for me, and others in the canteen, it had been a small bomb which exploded. Apparently the bomb had been dropped from an aircraft with French markings, and at that time no air raid warning had been sounded.
After continuing work until the normal finishing time, I got the tube home from Clapham to Morden (Underground - Northern Line) and then by bus to North Cheam in Surrey where I was living with my parents.
My mother took one look at me and said "Bath!" Then I did get a fright! My underclothes and my whole body was covered in dried blood - mine!
However, a warm bath (only 5 inches of water alowed in those days!)got rid of most, revealing that I had scratches all over my body, but no serious cuts. My clothes and shoes had to be thrown away as they all had small pieces of broken glass embedded in them.

Later, in July 1941, I was able to change my employer and went to work for Marconi's W.T.Co. in Hackbridge, near Mitcham in Surrey. The factory was producing radio receivers and transmitters for use in R.A.F. bomber aircraft. The receivers were known as type R1155 and the transmitters type T1154. My work was mainly on the R1155 receivers where I was an electrical tester and fault-finder. My job was to diagnose the cause of electrical faults in the receiver's cicuitry, using radio test equipment and what little radio theory I knew at that time. These faults were due either to incorrect wiring, wrong values of components fitted or badly soldered connections ('dry joints') which would easily come apart during vibration testing of the equipment.
These faults were numerous and I had a team of girls doing nothing but rectify them after I had discovered the cause of the problems. On average, some 25 sets passed through my hands each day. At that time the working day was from 8.00am to 6.00pm with a break at lunch-time. We worked a six-day week, having Saturday off one week and Sunday off the next.
For a short period I wa a member of the Home Guard (formerly known as the Local Defence Volunteers (or L.D.V.) - and many years after the war had ended - as "Dad's Army"). After a full day's work I didn't take too kindly to being marched up and down, trying to master the dreadful Sten gun (just spot-welded together!) and being shouted and screamed at by probably well-meaning NCOs. The only satisfaction I had at that time was that I was the only member of the group with a knowledge of the Morse code. However, this did not go down very well with the NCOs!
A colleague of mine at work had been an amateur radio operator before the war, and he and I often discussed radio and the use of Morse code. One day he asked me what my Morse reading speed was. "Don't know", I replied, "I've never tried to use it". So, for the next few weeks, during the lunch breaks, I had tuition in the art of reading the code and writing down text he sent to me in Morse from the daily newspaper.
Finally I could copy some 18 words per minute using block capital letters. He said that perhaps I could assist the war effort in some better way, in my spare time, rather than being a somewhat reluctant part-time soldier. "How?" I asked, but got no reply at all - except "Wait and see".
However, some time later (on one of my Saturday's off) there appeared at the front door a bowler hat, rolled up umbrella and a dark suit - a figure of authority - asking for me! My parents were agog! (what had I been up to?). In those days the front room, or parlour, was only used for special occasions and that was where we talked. First, he said, I must sign this 'bit of paper' - "The Official Secrets Act". This scared me - what had I let myself in for? Questions about where my parents and grandparents were born followed, and then I was asked about my politcal opinions. Anyway, he said nothing about where he was from -
I could only guess!
The next day (Sunday) I went to work, and of course first thing, found my radio friend and related what had happened. "That's what I expected would happen at some time" was all I got out of him. Still none the wiser! A few weeks later I received a parcel through the post which included a letter telling me that I had been accepted as a member of the Radio Security Service (RSS) and that I was now a Voluntary Interceptor (VI). My work would be General Search (GS) and I had been allocated the part of the radio spectrum between 7.0 and 7.5 Mc/s (now MHz) to monitor, listening for any Morse code signals. There were also several pads of 'SIGNALS HEARD' log sheets which had columns for writng in the date, time, frequency, callsign and any text sent from any received signals. Also, there were some pads of 'MESSAGE FORM' sheets which had provision for writing the text of the actual message intercepted (that is, received) by me.
The messages were most often in the form of five-letter groups which were obviously in some sort of code. Also in the parcel were some envelopes stamped 'SECRET' in red, other slightly larger plain envelopes, a whole sheet of postage stamps and some gummed labels printed with the address 'PO Box 25, Barnet, Herts.' That address I have never forgotten!
My listening period was usually from 8.00pm to 10.00pm for four or five nights every week, and so I told my girl friend, Barbara, that it would be best if we only met at weekends. That did not go down very well at all because I couldn't tell her why.
Even so, one Wednesday evening she called at my house with one of her girl friends, and my parents foolishly let them in.
(As an aside I must mention that my parents did not know just what I was doing - just playing with my home-built wireless set - was all they knew.)
Anyway, I was concentrating on writing down what I was receiving and then - I don't know who was most shocked - the girls or me! Well, I babbled that I was doing some tests at home for for the firm (Marconi's), but the look on their faces indicated that they didn't really believe a word of it. My girl friend clearly thought that I was a spy! Well, what could I say? Many, many years later (when Barabara was my wife) I was able to tell her what I had actually been doing.
So back to 1941. Soon I developed a routine of copying Morse code signals on the log pads; writing any coded messages (nearly always five letter groups) on the message pads; putting the logs and messages into the 'SECRET' envelope; then the 'SECRET' envelope into the larger plain envelope; sticking the 'PO Box 25, Barnet, Herts' address label on to the plain evelope; and finally the postage stamp. Ready then to be posted the next morning.
A couple of days later the log sheets would be returned to me by post
stamped with remarks such 'SUSPECT - MORE PLEASE' and sometimes with a number in red pencil like '2/23' over the call sign. Those numbers meant nothing to me at the time, but I learnt many years later that they were numbers given to services of which 'Box 25' were already aware.
As another aside, I must include my admiration for the Post Office for operating their Royal Mail Service under extremely difficult conditions. London was being bombed fairly regularly, yet the mail continued to be collected and delivered with much more accuracy and speed than we can expect today!
Again, back to the listening. During the first few weeks after I received my log pads, etc., I began to notice that there were some stations that seemed to be transmitting, using the same call signs on the same frequencies and at the operating times. One of these stations was Reuters, the press service. Machine sent Morse code at around 18 words per minute - a delight to copy! Although the service was not required (it was very well known to 'Box 25') it did provide a means of frequeny calibration for my home built receiver. (No accurate frequency by digital readout as we have today!)
There were some other stations, however, that 'Box 25' was very interested in, viz., stations using three letter callsigns (like 'DFY de GRP') that I, among many other VIs, had logged. They used Morse code abreviations that were very similar to those used by amateur radio operators, such as '73' ('best wishes') and at the end of transmission, 'GB' ('goodbye'). I (like the other VIs) only heard one end of these radio communications as the station at the other end of the link would using a different frequency. Many of the signals were very weak, fading below the noise level at times. This indicated to me that the signals were probably originating from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.
Apparently (as I learnt many years later) the 'MESSAGE FORMS', which I had filled in with the encoded letter group messages, were sent by dispatch rider from Barnet to a place called Bletchley Park, in Bucks. This was where the brilliant group of code-breakers, mathematicians and linguists decoded the intercepts provided by the VIs as well as those provided by the 'Y' services of the Army, R.N. and the R.A.F.
At Bletchley Park, the network the VIs had intercepted that had been using the three letter callsigns, was found to be that of the German Secret Service and the Gestapo, operating from Germany to the German Embassies around the world.
For many years after the war ended, the VIs (me included) were not able to disclose what they had been doing as the work was covered by the
'Official Secrets Act'. During 1979 the BBC made a half-hour television documentary programme called 'The Secret Listeners'. It was presented by the late Renee Cutforth and made by the BBC Look East team in Norwich. As I understand it, the programme was only transmitted once, by BBC2, during 1980. It was in this programme that the Voluntary Interceptors were first mentioned, and the presenter gave the viewers (including the VIs, who were as much in the dark as everybody else) a few clues as to what they had really been doing when copying down all that Morse code stuff.
I have also recently learnt that the Radio Security Service was known as MI8c, a part of MI5.
Many books and documentary programmes have appeared over the last 20 years about the work of the Bletchley Park team, and Winston Churchill said of B.P. that it was "The goose that laid the golden eggs - but never cackled". By that he meant that B.P. was so secret that nothing was known of its existence by anyone - excepting by those who worked there and a few top brass - and they never revealed anything.
The nearest that the VIs got to being discovered was in a "Daily Mirror" contribution, 'By a Special Correspondent' entitled "SPIES TAP NAZI CODE". The issue was dated Friday, February 14th, 1941 and referred to 'hush-hush' men who listened to Morse code messages. Very embarrassing for the Radio Security Service! (I have an original copy of that issue of the "Daily Mirror".)

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