This receiver was built for the American domestic market and was shipped over to the UK by the Americans for use by the listening service that Winston Churchill's friend had suggested. At first, this enabled trained operators to eavesdrop on the German domestic radio broadcasts. This developed into a very sophisticated and highly trained listening service, which was later taken over and run by the BBC but in the early days of the war, no such organisation was in place.
Later we added BFO (beat frequency oscillator) units to these radios to enable us to receive Morse code on either CW or MCW (Modulated Continuous Wave). CW (Continuous Wave) signals have to be combined with the signal from a BFO to produce the clear pitch note that we could read in our headphones and write down on our pads. These were standard Army Royal Signal Company pads, on which we hastily scribbled down the message. In theory, if one missed part of the message, the other operators had the missing parts. This was no streamlined system like that used by the Naval Operators who could send and receive 22 WPM messages quite easily and write or type them down.
It was often rumoured that A R Knipe was, at one time, a Navel Intelligence Officer with the theory that a spy never retired and could be called upon to be brought back into active service (to be 'woken up'). It was an easy task to convert myself, as I was already a short wave listener and had built a straight four-valve short wave receiver from bits and bobs scrounged from the engineers in WDU. One night, when A R Knipe came into my room, I was actually listening to the BBC overseas service beamed to America.
Editors note: It has recently been discovered that Eric Cole was associated with a retired Lt. Cdr. R.N. by the name of M.J.W. Ellingworth who was given command of 'Y' (listening) stations at Chatham and Beaumanor Park as a Col Royal Signals. As a result of this, A.R. Knipe was allegedly recruited from the Admiralty Wireless Naval Department Chatham.
He is known to have developed a special short wave band radio and later got a chap called George Hart to do modifications to the R1155 and the Embassy 10 waveband Radio for use by 'Y' stations who in the early days of the war faced a shortage until Hallicrafter radios became available.
The program, if I remember correctly, was called 'The London Family', a program about the ups and downs of a typical London working class family living in the Capital during the Blitz. During the conversation, Mr. Knipe ask me if I would rather be listening to much more important broadcasts and help the War Office with the country's fight against the Germans and I agreed at once. As Tubby shared the room with me, Mr Knipe had to also talk round Tubby who, at the time, was rather more interested in a certain farmer's daughter than helping to beat the Germans. Tubby, always being a sort of 'Cloak & Dagger' character, eventually took to the idea and the Priory Listening post was established, not that we were the only ones in the house doing this secret listening work. I was told (but never really had any proof) that Mrs Millward, the Priory Domestic Manager, was also a 'listener' and I recalled afterwards seeing a small American built portable radio in her room one day when I went along to see her. I spotted this interesting object at once and she told me that it was her husband's but as they were in the process of divorcing it had never been collected.
Spot Frequency Listening
My opinion is that Mr. Knipe was obviously put in the Priory to develop a cell of useful listeners which first started with copying random number groups but then changed to spot-frequency listening. With the problems of drift etc., it was not often that we found the station that we were supposed to be listening to. Very often, we did not receive the signals intended for us and afterward found out that we were only a few among many, listening on the same frequencies.
Mr Knipe used to come to our room and give us a small slip of paper with a number written on it. If the number read 6750, just the four digits, then this meant the frequency was 6.750 megacycles (which would now be referred to as 6750 kilohertz). In those days, the tuning scale was always calibrated in either kilocycles or megacycles and most of the signals we received were between 5 & 8 megacycles. I think that one receiver we had, was an American Army type, which had adjustable tuning scale stops. These could set the tuning range and sometimes you had to search between these stops for the call sign you were expecting to hear. Stations usually transmitted a continuous note for a short period and you set this frequency roughly between the two stops. At a given time, you waited, headphones in place, pencil and pad ready (the golden rule was to have three more ready sharpened pencils in case you broke the lead in your excitement).
On one visit to TRE Malvern with Jack Gard during the war, I happened to catch a glimpse through an open door of an operator sitting with headphones on in front of a typewriter and I was very fascinated to watch him (or her – I can't remember) type out the coded groups as they came in from a station somewhere in occupied Europe. The messages were always in groups of four to six letters or numbers, known as alphanumeric code groups.
I spent many hours of my spare time (and that was not a lot in wartime) listening. There were many German programs in English, directed to our forces, telling them what parts of London had been bombed and all designed to upset the morale of our forces far from their homes and families. The British forces networks, of course, broadcast actual members of the families to counteract these claims, with the families telling their men-folk how many German bombers the RAF had shot down that particular night, so it was also a propaganda war as well.
I remember in 1944, some European stations, which were believed at the time to be coming from Holland, were saying how good it was to be living under the German occupation. The Germans had suddenly decided to let these stations broadcast but unfortunately for them, the British and Americans very quickly set up jammers on these stations due to the activities of the network of UK Listening stations.
Postscript
I was told, just after I returned to Southend in 1945 that 'The Listening Service' was originally only operated by a few very trusted Radio Amateurs, who were mostly recruited from the Civil Service and Navy Reserve organisations so I guess I was part of an elite team.
After the war Mr. Knipe also returned to Southend and was allocated an office in the R&D laboratory as a senior electromechanical engineer and it is believed that he retired in 1957 or 1958.
By this time he was a "Senior Executive" grade employee but regarded by many of the young engineers as a rather eccentric character who came to work on a rather ancient bicycle and dressed in a manner better befitting a cleaner or labourer than a Senior Executive.
There was a well remembered incident when Mr Knipe was stopped by a Security Guard at the gate when leaving and was found to have a fuse in his pocket. Security often ran random searches of employees and probably picked on Arthur Knipe because of his unprepossessing appearance. Not knowing of Arthur's very senior position and standing within the Company, the Security Guard reported him for "attempting to steal Company property". Arthur was, of course, very incensed and complained to the very highest level of management, Eric Cole himself. Needless to say, the matter was promptly forgotten!
Mr. Knipe was obviously connected with the Southend and District Radio Society at some stage since he donated a trophy, known as the Knipe Cup, to be presented to the junior member (under 21) judged to have produced the best piece of home built radio equipment at the annual construction competition. Tony Wadsworth won the trophy several times and still has the related commemorative shields.
