-AUTHOR & HISTORIAN-
HELEN FRY
THE WALLS HAVE EARS:
THE GREATEST INTELLIGENCE OPERATION OF WWII
The Daily Mail's War Book of the Year 2019.
A few days before the start of World War Two, Secret Intelligence Service Spymaster Thomas Kendrick arrived at the Tower of London to trial a top secret operation: German prisoners’ cells were to be bugged and listeners installed behind the walls to record and transcribe their private conversations.
This intelligence-gathering mission proved so effective that it would go on to be set up at a further three sites to provide the Allies with crucial insight into new technology and deadly German V-weapons being developed by the Nazis.
In this astonishing history, Helen Fry uncovers the inner workings of the bugging operations at three clandestine sites: Trent Park (North London), and Latimer House and Wilton Park in Buckinghamshire.
Upon arrival at stately homes like Trent Park, high ranking German Generals and commanders were given a ‘phoney’ interrogation, then treated as ‘guests’, wined and dined at exclusive clubs, given cigars and whiskey, and encouraged to talk.
There was even a fake aristocrat to charm the generals.
And so it was that the Allies secured access to some of Hitler’s most closely guarded secrets – and from those most entrusted to protect them.
"Had it not been for the information obtained at these centres, it could have been London and not Hiroshima which was devastated by the first atomic bomb." - L. St. Clare Grondona
ACCREDITED REVIEWS
'Hitler's senior generals were tricked into giving away vital Nazi secrets. This is such a good book, such a good story.' - Dan Snow
‘The world has long been familiar with Bletchley Park, where German codes were cracked by a secret army of listeners intercepting enemy wireless transmissions. But now, another clandestine intelligence operation that played an equally important part in the war has come to light.’ - Tony Rennell, Daily Mail (War Books of the Year)