THE INVISIBLE WAR: THE UNTOLD
SECRET STORY OF NUMBER ONE
CANADIAN SPECIAL WIRELESS
GROUP, by Gil Murray, The Dundurn
Group, Toronto, 2001, pp. 297, $24.99
In 1944, just over 300 Canadian soldiers were sent to Australia on a Top Secret intelligence mission which has largely remained untold until now. They were members of Number One Canadian Special Wireless Group (1CSWG) and their job was to collect signals intelligence for use in the fight against the Japanese. ICSWG stayed in Australia until 1946 before being repatriated.
The first real acknowledgment of what these mostly young men accomplished did not occur until July, 2001. At that time a plaque honouring their achievements was unveiled at Leitrim near Ottawa on a little known military installation which is still, today, the headquarters of the Armed Forces signals operations.
The mission of the 1CSWG was judged so sensitive that upon return to Canada, after the end of the war, the members were dramatically warned not to reveal anything about their mission for thirty years. Most of the soldiers were barely over twenty at the time but abided by their promise for more than half a century.
Gil Murray was one of the youngest members of 1CSWG. He eventually became a journalist and some years ago began to collect details of his youthful adventure from the recollections of his colleagues. This book is the story of a young man’s great adventure. That it involved a highly secret tale of intrigue only adds to its charm and readability.
What Murray sets out to describe is the human story which accompanied the adventures of some 300 young men sent to the northern reaches of Australia to set up a secret listening post against the Japanese Empire, which still posed a threat to Australia. Nearly a million Japanese troops were lodged on the 2,000-mile chain of islands making up the Dutch East Indies and they posed a real and viable threat.
Murray’s focus on the human dimension of the men of 1CSWG is both the strength and weakness of the book. Murray tells a very human tale, often funny, sometimes sad, but always interesting. The author seems concerned about his promise of secrecy made so many years before because the weakness of the book lies in the paucity of details of interest to the historian who might wish to reconstruct the story of 1CSWG.
The first two chapters are probably the strongest for the historian trying to understand the mission and challenges of 1CSWG. But the level of historical detail is often cursory, and sometimes not quite correct, as when the author incorrectly cites the initials of Herbert O. Yardley, a famous early cryptographer with a significant tie to Canada’s own early SIGINT activities (which Murray overlooks). It requires a full reading of the book to extract all the details to piece together the story of 1CSWG. It is well worth the challenge and one benefits from reading an interesting story plainly told.
Murray has made a significant contribution to Canadian history by piecing together the first-person human story of 1CSWG. And his book will likely be the only one written by any of the participants, given that all are in the twilight of their lives and have remained silent on the subject of their youthful adventures for a half century.
It is regrettable that Murray chose not to delve into greater details of the origins, mandate, and accomplishments of 1CSWG — although one must be grateful for his recording of the human drama which accompanied the story.
Although the story of 1CSWG has not been recorded in detail elsewhere there have long been many hints about its existence. And sometimes the story was almost told. C. P. Stacey’s The Canadian Army, 1939-1945, published in 1948, is the ’bible’ of Canadian World War II military history. In this official history Stacey is explicit in stating the purpose of 1CSWG, writing that it “did useful work in intercepting enemy wireless messages” (Stacey 292). When he wrote his Six Years of War in 1955, the adventures of 1CSWG had become a line simply stating that the unit had been sent to Australia, without mentioning why (Stacey 510).
Both Stacey books were written in the early part of the Cold War when details of intelligence activities were not revealed. According to those who know, the 1948 book contains the reference to “intercepting enemy wireless messages” because the editors (censors) did not catch it. They did catch the second reference in 1955 but could not make 1CSWG entirely go away and instead selected an acknowledgment which said nothing.
Some details of 1CSWG can also be found in S.R. Elliott’s Scarlet to Green, the story of Canada’s military intelligence. Writing many years later than Stacey, Elliott is more forthcoming and was able to use archival material which had been declassified in the interim. In fact, the story of 1CSWG is available at National Archives Canada if one has patience and an idea of where to look. It is a very interesting story which might one day be told to build on what Gil Murray has made available.
These additional details of the misadventures surrounding other historical references to 1CSWG are not presented to detract from Murray’s fine book but only to add to the mystery and to aid anyone in tracing the story of 1CSWG. Murray writes sympathetically, with an understanding of the people in his story. He has carefully drawn on the recollections of his colleagues to reveal as true a portrait of ICSWG as is possible from the perspective of a half century later. He has done it with charm, humour, and clear sympathy for the human side of the drama. Mostly, he has been able to capture the wide-eyed wonder of his own youthful self in presenting this story of a young man on the adventure of a lifetime.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 19, No. 3 (2002-2003) — Fall/Winter 2002/2003 // Automne/Hiver 2002/2003, pp. 22–24. Read the rest of this issue →
