Frank Foley, a British secret agent operating in Nazi Germany, saved many Jewish people from the holocaust. In the British National Archives, I found an unusual encryption method that was (probably) used by one of his men.

In the British National Archives, I recently found a note dated 1943 (reference number: KV-2-2424_071) starting with the following sentence: “I have obtained a translation of a plain language code to be used by one of Foley’s characters in Loanda.”

Foley-Note

The note was included in a file containing secret service material. A three-page description of the “plain language code” (I would call it an encryption method) was attached to it. It’s a quite unusual cipher, as we will see.

 

Frank Foley

Before I took a closer look at this encryption method, I wanted to know who “Foley” was. As no first name is mentioned in the note, I looked for a person named Foley, who played a role in WW2 and had some relationship with the British secret service. In fact, I found one on Wikipedia: Frank Foley (1884-1958), a British intelligence officer. I don’t know if he’s really the person mentioned in the note, but at least, he’s a good fit.

Foley

Frank Foley is a notable person. In the years before World War 2 he worked in Nazi Germany. Officially acting as a diplomat, his real job was that of a spy. Besides collecting intelligence about the Germans, his clandestine activities included the support of Jewish people, many of which managed to escape the Nazis because of Foley’s help. Foley is therefore sometimes referred to a s the British Oscar Schindler.

With the start of World War 2 Foley had to leave Germany, but he kept on working for the British secret service. He coordinated British espionage activities in Germany and was involved in the detection of German spies, some of which were recruited as double agents.

In the note, “one of Foley’s characters in Loanda” is mentioned. Who was this person? Loanda (today usually spelled “Luanda”) is the capital of Angola. During World War 2, Angola was a Portuguese colony. The Portuguese remained neutral in World War 2, which didn’t keep them from selling war-relevant goods to both sides of the conflict. As a neutral country close to the Atlantic Ocean, Portugal was an interesting place for the secret services of different nations. For instance, locations in Portugal could be used as unsuspicious relay stations for transporting secret goods and intelligence information. It is well possible that one of the spies working for Frank Foley stayed in Angola.

 

The cipher

Let’s now look at the encryption method used by one of Foley’s men. It is basically a three-page collection of codewords with their cleartext meanings (reference numbers: KV-2-2424_072 / _073 / _074). All the codewords are taken from the Spanish language, but their code translations have got nothing to do with their Spanish meanings. In many cases, not the word itself is relevant, but only the word ending (e.g. “iga” for North West or “ar” for South West).

Foley-1

A code like this works quite well when it is used for telegrams. A sentence like PILAR VALENCIA FUNTE DOLARES looks like a short telegram message written in Spanish. The content doesn’t make much sense, but this didn’t necessarily rise suspicion, as it was quite normal to omit words and to use code expressions in a telegram, in order to keep it short.

Foley-2

The vocabulary of the code mainly consists of military expressions (gun, tank, troup, …). Some of the words refer to British airplanes (Spitfire, Boston Bomber, Wellington Bomber). This suggests that the code was created for a (German?) spy, who gathered intelligence about British military activities. Maybe this German spy became a double agent after the British had detected him. The code description given here is probably not the original one. The original explanation might well have been in German.

Foley-3

If a reader can find out more about the background of this encryption method, I would be very interested to learn.

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Further reading: A German spy message from World War 2

Kommentare (7)

  1. #1 Thomas
    13. Dezember 2016

    @Klaus
    The code doesn’t mimic Spanish, but Portuguese (the messages were to be sent from Angola).

    I think there is no doubt that the memorandum refers to Frank Foley who run a vas network of double agents during WW II. The best known case seems to be that of Juan Pujol Garcia – fascinating story about deception methods of British intelligence services:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa?wprov=sfla1

  2. #2 Robert
    13. Dezember 2016

    Frank Foley gehört zu den echten Helden des 2. Weltkrieges.
    Aber irgendentwas bleibt unklar. Das Foto von ihm zeigt einen Deutschen, der Name ist typisch Irisch.
    Wie kommt ein Deutscher zu einem irischen Namen?
    Seine Verschlüsselungsmethode ist einfach und leicht zu merken.

  3. #3 Thomas
    13. Dezember 2016

    @Robert
    Wie kommst du darauf, das das Foto einen Deutschen zeigt?

  4. #4 Robert
    13. Dezember 2016

    Thomas,
    das Foto zeigt einen deutsch Germanen (biologisch gesehen). Das ist nie ein Engländer noch ein Ire.
    Irgend etwas stimmt nicht. Entweder ist das Foto falsch oder der Name.

  5. #5 Robert
    13. Dezember 2016

    Thomas,
    auch der Knoten des Schlips ist kein Windsor Knoten sondern ein Deutscher Knoten.

  6. #6 Piper
    14. Dezember 2016

    Umm.. erstens sind Teile der Engländer Deutsche (Angeln und Sachsen), zweitens.. google doch mal nach dem Namen, du wirst überrascht sein, besonders bei der Bildersuche 🙂

  7. #7 Robert
    14. Dezember 2016

    Piper,
    ich habe schon gegoogelt.
    Ganz spontan, wenn mir in Irland ein Mann mit diesem deutschen Aussehen gesagt hätte, er hieße Frank Foley, dann hätte ich auf eine deutsche Mutter und einen irischen Vater getippt. Name und Aussehen passen nicht zusammen. Wenn er Spion war, dann hätte man auch nicht diese Kombination gewählt.
    Das ist natürlich alles nur Spekulation.
    Die Tatsache, dass er vornehmlich Juden gerettet hat, könnte auch bedeuten, dass die Mutter Jüdin war.
    (Noch spekulativer)
    Bei den Intelligence Sevices braucht man bekanntlich Phantasie.