Beschreibung:

An important senior MI5 officer’s Great War O.B.E. group of six awarded to Colonel J. P. G. Worlledge, Royal Signals, late Royal Engineers, who was appointed Controller of the MI5’s top secret Radio Security Service (R.S.S.) on the renewal of hostilities in 1939, his brief to ‘intercept, locate and close down illicit wireless stations operated by enemy spies in Great Britain’: he and his team of experts subsequently obtained early and vital intelligence in respect of Abwehr transmissions - surpassing the high standards of fellow ‘boffins’ at Bletchley Park and incurring the wrath of MI6 The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military Division) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1919; 1914-15 Star (Capt. J. P. G. Worlledge, R.E.); British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Lt. Col. J. P. G. Worlledge); Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937, mounted court-style as worn, together with a set of related miniature dress medals, generally good very fine (6) £1600-1800 Footnote O.B.E. London Gazette 3 June 1919. John Percy Gannons Worlledge, who was born in September 1887, was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in July 1907. Advanced to Captain shortly after the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he served in France and Flanders in August-October 1915, December 1916, May 1917 and August 1917-October 1918; so, too, in South Russia in the period March-October 1919. He was awarded the O.B.E. and twice mentioned in despatches (London Gazettes 5 July 1919 and 16 July 1920, refer). With his wide experience of R.E. wireless companies, Worlledge became a key figure in the newly established Corps of Signals - afterwards the Royal Signals - in the 1920s. Advanced to Major in June 1921, he commanded a wireless company in Palestine and, having then attained the rank of Colonel in February 1932, he was serving as a Member of the R.E. & Signals Board on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939. MI5: Controller of the Radio Security Service 1939-41 At the start of the war, Vernon Kell, the head of MI5, introduced a contingency plan to deal with the problem of illicit radio transmissions. A new body was created, the Radio Security Service (RSS), and Worlledge was appointed C.O. and Controller. His brief was to ‘intercept, locate and close down illicit wireless stations operated either by enemy agents in Great Britain or by other persons not being licensed to do so under Defence Regulations, 1939’. As a security precaution, RSS was given the cover designation of MI8(c). Worlledge immediately set about assembling his team of experts, recruiting members by word-of-mouth invitation only, selecting individuals with a keen grasp of Morse Code, language and cryptology. He choose Major Sclater and Major Cole-Adams as his assistants and appointed Oxford University lecturer, and his former Great War wireless colleague, Walter Gill, together with Oxford research fellow, Hugh Trevor-Roper, as chief intercept analysts. Working alongside them in Wormwood Scrubs was MI5’s John Masterman and T.A. Robertson who ran the double agent XX System. Gill used the codes already found by Agent SNOW (Arthur Owens) as the basis for decrypting incoming agent traffic. RSS received intercepted signals from a variety of sources including the Post Office which caught unlicensed radio transmissions from three receiving stations in the furthermost corners of the U.K. At first, there was a failure to find any signals emanating from German spies in Britain. This led Gill to look at the problem the other way around and try to find the transmissions from the Abwehr Secret Service in Germany: ‘If the agent can hear Germany’s replies,’ he reasoned, ‘so might we.’ Hugh Trevor-Roper was instrumental in this as he was a noted mathematician and fluent in German. By intercepting such communications, RSS was straying beyond its remit, but it passed this signal traffic to the Government Code & Cypher School (GC. & CS), who had