The Nazis prisoners bugged by Germans

A secret listener at Trent Park, one of a team of about 100 German men

Thousands of German POWs held captive in England during World War II were bugged by "secret listeners" who were themselves German, working for the British. Historian Helen Fry and one of the last surviving listeners explain how the prisoners were lulled into divulging secrets of the Nazi war machine.

One group of German generals captured during World War II thought they had hit the jackpot.

Held in a stately home, they were allowed to keep personal servants, drink wine and eat good food.

As a result they boasted of how stupid the British were, and one even wrote to his family to wish that they could join him at his prison, as he rated it so highly.

But what the prisoners did not know was that British intelligence had bugged every part of their accommodation, from lampshades and plant pots right down to the billiards table around which they relaxed on lazy days.

They were gleaning information about the psyche of the Nazi military from the idle gossip flowing between the prisoners.

ritz Lustig spent many hours secretly listening to Germans POWs

Carefully listening in on their conversations were fellow Germans of Jewish origin who had fled from the Nazis.

The bugged prisoners were kept in three locations - Latimer House near Amersham, Wilton Park near Beaconsfield, both in Buckinghamshire, and Trent Park near Cockfosters in north London. The first two held captured U-Boat submarine crews and Luftwaffe pilots, who were bugged for a week or two before being moved on to conventional captivity.

The generals, whose numbers eventually reached a peak of 59 as the war progressed, resided in Trent Park until the war ended.

Hidden nearby in each of the three stately-homes-turned-prisons were the pro-British Germans, listening in a place known as the "M room" - the "m" stood for microphoned - where "secret listeners" were glued to the bugging devices.

Historian Helen Fry, who has written a book called The M Room: Secret Listeners who bugged the Nazis., says the information gleaned by the eavesdropping of the German generals was vitally important to the war effort - so much so that it was given an unlimited budget by the government.

Trent Park was home to 59 German generals during World War II

 

She believes what was learned by the M room operations was as significant as the code-breaking work being done at Bletchley Park.

"British intelligence got the most amazing stuff in bugging the conversations. Churchill said of Trent Park that it afforded a unique insight into the psyche of the enemy. It enabled us to understand the mind-set of the enemy as well as learn military secrets.

"If it wasn't for this bugging operation, we may well have not won the war."

Mrs Fry said the conversation transcripts, which numbered more than 100,000, provided the British with "most of what we knew" about Germany's military capability, its weaponry and its new development of technology during the war.

Through intelligence pieced together from prisoner conversations, the British were able to identify and heavily bomb a V2 rocket site in May 1943 at Peenemunde on the northern coast of Germany, which was preparing to launch deadly rockets at Britain. 

Bugging technology in WWII

Crucially, she adds, the bugging was the first time the British overheard admissions that the German army had taken part in the atrocities and mass killing of Jews and were guilty of war crimes.

"The army had always denied it and that was believed for the last 65 years. What the transcripts show us now is that the German army - with the SS - was complicit in war crimes," she says.

Apart from comfortable living arrangements, the Trent Park generals enjoyed such luxuries as garden parties hosted by Colonel Thomas Kendrick, the MI6 officer who oversaw the entire bugging operation and who later received an OBE for his efforts.

The high-ranking guests chatted away at such events in their native language, unaware that Col Kendrick himself spoke German and that such entertainment was being provided so as to relax them in captivity, making them so unguarded as to spill secrets - which they did.

Mrs Fry also says Winston Churchill was outraged when he learned the generals had been bussed into the lavish Simpson's-in-the-Strand in central London for lunch. He ordered what he called "the pampering of the generals" to be stopped.

But spoiling the generals and boosting their egos was providing so much useful information that the British intelligence officers decided to carry on, and simply stopped telling Churchill about it.

"The generals felt they were being treated according to their status." Mrs Fry said. "One of them wrote home to his family and said 'I really wish you could be here, it's wonderful - but without the barbed wire'.

"They had a British welfare officer who once a week would go into London and buy them shaving cream or socks or whatever they wanted. He was called Lord Aberfeldy but he wasn't a peer at all - he was an intelligence officer.

"But the British thought the generals would be flattered by being looked after by a lord."

Some of the captured German generals are seen here at Trent Park

There are thought to be only two "secret listeners" left alive from an original group of about 100. One of them is Fritz Lustig, 93, who lives in Muswell Hill, north London.

Although born in Berlin and baptised a Protestant, his family had Jewish members and so in the eyes of the Nazis he was "not Aryan enough" and left for England in April 1939.

Eager to help fight the Nazis, he eventually joined the British army's Royal Pioneer Corps and, as he was able to speak English, was later invited to become a secret listener at Latimer House and Wilton Park.

Mr Lustig and other secret listeners were told on their first day by Col Kendrick that "what you will be doing here is more important than firing a gun in action".

"Morale was high among us," Mr Lustig says, "particularly if we had been able to gather something important. Emotionally, we were completely detached from the people we listened to."

He says he can no longer recall prisoner conversations, but does remember marking a transcript with "atrocity" in a red pen at one point.

"We listeners didn't feel that the prisoners were our fellow countrymen any more. We knew of all the horrible things that were happening in eastern Europe, with the killing of Jews, and we knew that would have happened to us if we had stayed in Germany.

"We felt no guilt - on the contrary, we felt proud to be able to contribute to the British war effort. I'm proud of what we did."

Lens-less camera emerges from metamaterials work

Collision avoidance systems could emerge from the lens-less imaging research

Cheap sensors that help cars avoid collisions could emerge from research into a lens-less imaging system.

US scientists have used metamaterials to build the imaging system, which samples infra-red and microwave light.

Metamaterials are materials that have properties purposefully designed rather than determined by their chemistry.

The sensor also compresses the images it captures in contrast to current compression systems, which only squash images after they are taken.

Small sensor

Most imaging systems, such as those found in digital cameras, use a lens to focus a scene on a sensor studded with millions of tiny sensors. More sensors means more detail is captured and, generally, produces a higher resolution image.

The imaging system developed by graduate student John Hunt and colleagues at Duke University in North Carolina has no lens and instead combines a metamaterial mask or aperture and complicated mathematics to generate an image of a scene.

The aperture is used to focus different wavelengths of light in different parts of a scene onto a detector. The different frequencies in the scene are sampled sequentially.

This sampling helped to work out the distribution and mix of light wavelengths and their relative intensities found in a scene, said Mr Hunt.

"Then we use some very elegant maths which was developed in computational imaging to turn that data into a 2D picture," he told the Science podcast. The wavelength sampling was done electronically so happens very fast, he added.

Cheap, small, portable

Currently the imaging system could capture about 10 images per second, he said. In addition, the imaging system compressed the information as it was gathered. Most other image compression systems, such as the widely used Jpeg format, are applied after an image has been snapped.

While imaging systems that capture infra-red and microwave wavelengths already existed, said Mr Hunt, they were typically expensive, bulky or complicated to build.

By contrast, the Duke imaging system used a thin strip of metamaterial mated with some electronics and processing software. Although it did not yet work with visible wavelengths of light, Mr Hunt said it could lead to a range of cheap, small, portable sensors that could find a role in many different fields.

"You could build an imager into the body of a car to do collision-avoidance imaging," he said, "or you could have a cheap handheld device to look through walls for wires and pipes."

A research paper detailing the work has appeared in the journal Science.

Whatever happened to Pluto?

We all remember being taught about the nine planets when we were at school. In recent years, things have changed and there are now only eight, writes space scientist Dr Lucie Green.

It seems that reality TV shows are not the only places you can vote things out - Pluto was kicked out of the planet club in 2006 because of a vote.

It ended up being a case of "last in, first out". Pluto was the last planet discovered, because it was too small and too far away to be seen without the aid of a telescope.

Pluto is six billion km from the Sun - that's 40 times the Earth's distance from the Sun. It took until 1930 for Pluto to be found and even then its discovery was almost an accident.

Dirty icebergs

• Pluto was a planet for 76 years until it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006
• Pluto's existence was first predicted by Percival Lowell in 1915 and was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930
• Pluto is now thought to be an object in the Kuiper Belt, a disc-shaped area of icy, dark objects beyond Neptune

• "A faint black dot" - watch how Pluto was first discovered
• Diamond crystals and balls of gas - a quick guide to the Solar System

For several decades it had been believed by some people that a 'Planet X' was orbiting beyond Uranus and Neptune and was causing slight changes to the motions of these planets.

In fact, Pluto isn't large enough or in the right orbit to do this, but a search of the skies for Planet X by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Arizona led to the discovery of a tiny spot of light that moved against the background stars.

He realised that this tiny spot was an object which was orbiting the Sun and it was announced that a new planet had been discovered.

Planets are not the only things in our Solar System, various groups of objects orbit the Sun. But the main group is the planets, bodies of rock or gas that orbit the Sun.

Then there are the moons orbiting these planets. Earth has just one moon whereas the king of the planets, Jupiter, has over 60. It turns out that even Pluto has three.

In addition to the planets and their moons we have a group of objects called asteroids. These are smallish lumps of rock and metal, most of which orbit the Sun at a distance between that of Mars and Jupiter.

Finally there are the comets, dirty icebergs that orbit at vast distances, perhaps 50,000 times further from the Sun than the Earth is. Asteroids are thought to be remnants of a planet that was unable to fully form and comets are thought to be leftovers of the formation of the Solar System itself.

But the search for objects at the edge of the Solar System continued after the discovery of Pluto.

The search has been fruitful - many hundreds of small objects have been found beyond the orbit of Neptune and in 2003 an object was found that is more massive than Pluto and has a moon of its own. A new planet.

The possibility of discovering more objects of this size quickly became apparent and if Pluto was classified as a planet, then so should all these new objects.

Things were going to get out of hand. It was time to take a step back and think about what we actually mean by a planet and whether Pluto and the other similar objects should have planetary standing.

This task fell to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) - the organization that represents astronomers and astronomical research, and has the responsibility for overseeing how objects are named.

A Planet Definition Committee was formed and members of the IAU debated and discussed until an agreement was reached about what a planet should be defined as.

Demoted

It was decided that it was not good enough for an object to simply orbit the Sun, have enough mass for its own gravity to shape it into a rigid, nearly round object, and have its own moons.

To be a planet an object also has to have sucked up all the other material around it. All other eight planets have swept their orbit around the Sun clean from other objects. Pluto however, lives in a belt of other similar-sized objects.

FIND OUT MORE

A vote was taken at the closing ceremony of the IAU's General Assembly on 24 August 2006 and the fate of Pluto was sealed. Pluto, surrounded by hundreds of other objects orbiting beyond Neptune, was to be demoted from a planet to a new category of objects in the Solar System - a dwarf planet.

One of my colleagues was amongst the voters and I remember him commenting that it made him feel like a controller of the Universe.

I attended the IAU General Assembly in 2012 where once again, at the closing ceremony, a vote was taken, but this time on the definition of the Astronomical Unit - the distance between the Sun and the Earth which is a standard measurement in astronomy.

It was voted that the Astronomical Unit be defined by the exact distance of 149,597,870,700m rather than a value which varied dependant on the mass of the Sun which is very slowly changing over time.

So, the IAU has clear definitions of how objects in our Solar System should be classified. Even though this is necessary, it is slightly artificial to think of discrete types, giving an arbitrary cut-off due to distance from the Sun or nature of the orbit.

Better perhaps to have a spectrum of objects where when one type ends and other begins. For example, in recent years astronomers have found objects that seem to look like both asteroids and comets.

What next?

Because it hasn't yet been visited by a spacecraft, we still have no detailed view of what Pluto is like. A Nasa mission is on its way though - New Horizons was launched in 2006 and will arrive in 2015.

It is interesting to reflect that upon launch New Horizons' target was a planet, but upon arrival it won't be.

The classification of Pluto isn't important though. What is important is that it is part of our culture and symbolises our desire to understand the Universe on our doorstep - it's a Solar System object that we need to learn more about.

Going paperless 'would save NHS billions'

ealth Secretary Jeremy Hunt wants the NHS to be paperless by 2018 - a move a report says could help save the health service billions of pounds a year. 

In a speech, Mr Hunt will say a first step is to give people online access to their health records by March 2015.

And by April 2018, any crucial health information should be available to staff at the touch of a button.

PwC suggests a potential £4.4bn could be put back into the NHS with better use of information and technology.

This information technology revolution has been long in the offing.

It was Mr Hunt's predecessor Andrew Lansley who first pledged in 2010 to start an information revolution to ensure patients could use the web to report their experiences, rate NHS organisations and access their records so there would be "no decision about me, without me".

A couple of years on and progress has been patchy, with some parts of the NHS offering a big digital presence and others lagging.

Previous attempts to transform NHS information technology have run into trouble. Labour's scheme, Connecting for Health, allowed X-rays and scans to be stored and sent electronically.

But other parts of the programme - launched in 2002 - became mired in technical problems and contractual wrangling and the national programme has effectively been disbanded and local parts of the health service asked to proceed with upgrading IT systems.

Priorities

In a speech to think tank Policy Exchange, Mr Hunt will say hospitals should plan to make information digitally and securely available by 2014-15.

This will means that different professionals involved in one person's care can start to share information safely on their treatment.

"We need to learn those lessons - and in particular avoid the pitfalls of a hugely complex, centrally specified approach. Only with world-class information systems will the NHS deliver world-class care," he will say.

Mr Hunts comments come as a report by PwC suggests a potential £4.4bn could be put back into the NHS by using better use of information and technology.

Using electronic prescribing and electronic patient records would also give staff more time to spend with patients.

The John Taylor Hospice near Birmingham found that using laptops more than doubled the amount of time clinicians could spend with patients.

Labour says the public will struggle to understand why the government is making information technology a priority at a time when NHS spending has been cut.

Labour's shadow health minister, Jamie Reed, said: "As winter bites, the NHS is facing its toughest time of the year and the government has left it unprepared.

"Patients are waiting too long in A&E and being treated in under-staffed hospitals - they will not thank him for making this a priority. He should sort out the bread and butter issues first."

Phone bill warning to parents over mobile app charges

Anger over huge phone bills caused by purchases made within mobile applications has grown.

Regulator PhonepayPlus has noted a 300% increase in complaints from consumers faced with an unexpectedly large phone bill.

Many apps can be downloaded for free, but users are then encouraged to buy extra items.

Other free apps contained malware that tricked users into running up bills, the regulator added.

Children's "naivety" on social media was also causing concern among parents, PhonepayPlus said.

The regulator said it was working with Facebook to make sure rogue offers and promotions were removed from the site as quickly as possible.

In most mobile app stores, it is free games that make their way to the top of the most downloaded charts, so many games makers have opted for the in-app sales business model.

Burning holes

Many titles, such as the massively popular Angry Birds, give players the chance to progress more quickly in the game by spending small amounts of money.

PhonepayPlus said its figures suggested that two in three 11- to 16-year-olds had downloaded their own apps.

The regulator warned that parents could see bills of "hundreds or even thousands of pounds" as a result of these in-app purchases.

In one of the more extreme cases, it was reported that children had downloaded counterfeit versions of games from Google's Android app store.

These games were infected with malware which, whenever opened, billed £15 to the user's phone bill without their knowledge.

PhonepayPlus' chief executive Paul Whiteing said parents must be vigilant.

"Connected devices will define the age in which today's children live and we are determined to ensure that they can receive the benefits while being protected from the risks," he said.

"Smartphones in children's pockets can burn holes in parents' wallets, so we are working with partners across industry and other agencies to prevent this.

"This is a real challenge for parents and for us as a regulator, but this plan meets that challenge head on."

Helicopter crashes in Vauxhall, central London

 At least two people have died after a helicopter hit the top of a crane and crashed into the ground in a ball of flames at the peak of rush-hour in Vauxhall, south London today.

Two people died at the scene with another two injured people rushed to St Thomas’ Hospital, police and ambulance said.

Witnesses reported seeing a “massive ball of flames” and a deafening "explosion" after the helicopter crashed into the ground, raining debris throughout the area.

It hit a crane in Vauxhall, south London, sending screaming residents, commuters and construction workers running "for their lives".

There is no suggestion it is terrorism, police said. The crash site is located close to MI6's main building.

Witnesses suggested that the helicopter, which is reported to just be carrying the pilot, had plunged more than 60 storeys to the ground as the crane remained precarious.

It then hit two cars, which have been left abandoned and charred amid reports one driver was trapped. Firefighters were able to rescue him from his car before he was rushed to hospital.

The crane was on top of a building called The Tower, in the St George Wharf development, and is billed to be one of Europe's tallest residential towers.

Amid a massive rescue operation, a plume of smoke was seen billowing into the sky above the area.

While it appears there were foggy conditions, the building has been under construction for some time.

There were suggestions that the helicopter, was flying low throughout the area, which is in one of the busiest parts of the capital.

The Agusta 109 civilian helicopter apparently hit the crane on top of a building, Scotland Yard said. 

The crash has caused travel chaos as roads were shut and the local bus station was closed. Local gridlock meant that emergency services struggled to get through.

Fire and rescue services said they were taking "lots of emergency calls" as eyewitnesses described seeing grey smoke towering into the sky, close to Battersea Bridge, in Vauxhall.

More than 60 firefighters and eight fire engines are tackling the blaze.

 

Pictures showed plumes of black smoke billowing into air after the crash, which occurred near Vauxhaull Bus station.

Roads have been closed as emergency services scrambled to the scene.

A witness, Aaron Cane, told BBC Radio Five Live: "I heard a big crash and I looked up.

“There was a massive ball of flames. It is chaos. I just saw the helicopter hit the floor.”

A resident in a nearby building, who only gave his name as Colin, said: "I was having breakfast... when I heard a loud explosion. I looked out the window and there was a massive plume of smoke.

"It had hit the tower and continued flying down. When I heard the explosion I was not that concerned as there building happening all the time. But when I saw the smoke I didn't know what to think."

Another witness Quinn Murray, added: "The helicopter hit the top of the crane and then came down. I saw smoke and fire. I am completely shocked."

  

Another commuter described seeing a "large plume of dark grey smoke" as she crossed Battersea Bridge at around 8am.

She said: "I was coming across the bridge and basically I could see a few cyclists on the bridge looking towards the water.

"I looked over to see what they were looking at and could see a pall of grey smoke coming from the south side.

"You could see a large plume of dark grey smoke."

Paul Ferguson, who was working in an office near the incident, said: "There was a flash and the helicopter plunged to the ground. It exploded and you can imagine the smoke coming out of it.

"It was probably heading from the nearby heliport. It may be that on this misty morning the lights on nearby St George's Tower weren't on and it moved and clipped the edge of the crane and lost control."

 

Another eyewitness Chris Matthison told the BBC: "There was some damage to the crane. It's possible the crane is lying across Nine Elms road.

"The top of the nearest building is steeped in mist and difficult to see."

He added: "I heard a very unusual dull thud, then there was silence. The silence really took my imagination. Emergency services responded very quickly."

Erin Rogers was waiting at a bus stop outside Vauxhall station.

He added: "It was a bit surreal actually. I just had a coffee in my hand, I looked up, heard a bang and saw bits of crane debris falling to the floor.

"Then the helicopter was in flames. The rest of the people at the bus station were looking on going 'What was that?'.

"It's something I will never forget for a long time."

As rush-hour traffic built up, the A3036 Wandsworth Road in Vauxhall was closed in both directions between Vauxhall Cross and the Lansdowne Way junction.

Transport for London said buses in the Vauxhall area were subject to diversion and delays due to the incident. People were advised to avoid the area and seek alternative routes.

The First Capital Connect train company warned its passengers to expect travel difficulties in the Vauxhall area, although its services were not affected.

A Met police spokesman said: "Police were alerted at approx. 08.00hrs on Wednesday 16 January re. an incident at Wandsworth Road SW8.

"At this early stage it appears a helicopter was in collision with a crane on top of a building.

"Met officers, the ambulance service and the London Fire Brigade have attended."

He added: It is too early at this stage to confirm any casualties.

"We will confirm further details on the incident as soon as possible."

Flying conditions this morning were reflected in the fact that London City Airport in Docklands had delays due to poor visibility.

Charlie Sheen To Be A Grandfather

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Caption Charlie Sheen is seen at Fox’s All-Star Party at Castle Green in Pasadena, Calif. on January 8, 2012 Grampa Charlie Sheen!

The actor’s oldest daughter, Cassandra, 28, is expecting her first child.

Charlie’s ex-wife Denise Richards announced the news on Twitter, writing, “I guess some of you have heard… @charliesheen is going to be a Grampa…yes GRAMPA!”

Adding, “his beautiful daughter Cassandra is gonna be a mama”

Cassandra’s mother is the actor’s high school girlfriend Paula Profit.

Charlie and Denise, who were married from 2002 to 2006, have two children together, Sam, 8, Lola, 7. The actor also has 3-year-old twin sons, Bob and Max, with Brooke Mueller – who Denise often looks after when needed.

“They’re our family and they’re Sam and Lola’s brothers and I can’t imagine growing up without my sister, so anytime she needs help, I’m there for the boys,” she said during a visit to Access Hollywood Live in December. “[Sam and Lola] are the best big sisters to [the boys] and they love them.”

Adding, “I know it doesn’t seem normal, but it is our normal. They’re little kids and I love children, and like I said, it’s our daughter’s brothers, so I can’t say no.”