Arthur Owens facts for kids

Arthur Graham Owens, who later became known as Arthur Graham White (born April 14, 1899 – died December 24, 1976), was a Welsh man who worked as a double agent for the Allies during World War II. This means he secretly worked for two sides at once! He was actually working for MI5, which is Britain's security service, while pretending to be an agent for the Abwehr, the German intelligence agency during the war. MI5 knew Owens by the secret codename SNOW, which was a clever play on his last name.

How Arthur Owens Became a Spy

Arthur Owens owned a company that made special batteries for ships. Because of this, he worked with the Royal Navy (Britain's navy) and also had regular meetings with the Kriegsmarine (Germany's navy) in a place called Kiel. His first experience with spying happened in 1936. He was briefly hired by the Secret Intelligence Service (another British spy agency) to report what he saw in German shipyards.

In 1938, a German agent named Nikolaus Ritter contacted Owens in Britain. Owens was a Welsh nationalist, which meant he felt more loyal to Wales than to the United Kingdom. This made him seem like a good person for the Germans to recruit. His business trips also gave him a good reason to travel to other countries. He visited Germany that year and was recruited by the Abwehr. His German spy number was A3504, and they gave him the codename JOHNNY. Later, they even called him Colonel Johnny.

Working for Both Sides

When Owens returned to Britain, he had second thoughts about working for Germany. In September 1938, he told the British authorities about his contact with the Germans. He also told them he was supposed to receive a secret radio. He went to Germany to pick up the radio. Two weeks later, he pretended it had arrived at a left luggage office at Victoria Station in London in early 1939. Owens gave the radio to British experts. They found it was much more advanced than British radios at the time. After studying it, they gave it back to Owens.

On August 11, 1939, Owens visited his German contact in Hamburg with his girlfriend. During this visit, his wife, who he was separated from, wrote to his German contact. She claimed he was a British spy. She also went to the British police to tell them he was a German agent. But surprisingly, neither side took action right away. The British police didn't arrest him when he returned on August 23. He then used his radio to send several messages from London to Germany over the next week.

War between Britain and Germany began. On September 4, Owens contacted the Special Branch (a part of the police) to offer his help. However, he was instead put in Wandsworth Prison. This was under a special rule called Defence Regulation 18B, which allowed the government to hold people who might be a threat.

MI5 decided that Owens, now codenamed SNOW, could be a useful double agent. On September 12, MI5 gave the radio transmitter back to Owens in Wandsworth Prison. A prison guard listened as Owens tried to contact the Germans. MI5 agreed to release him if he sent only messages they approved to his German contacts. After being released, Owens was set up in a new place with his radio and girlfriend. In mid-September, he was helped to travel to the Low Countries (like Belgium and the Netherlands). There, he met with German agents in Rotterdam. He told them about the Chain Home stations in England. These were radar stations designed to detect incoming aircraft. The Germans, knowing he was a chemist, even asked him if he could poison water reservoirs in England. When he returned to England, he began sending misleading messages to Germany, as instructed by MI5.

What Did Owens Do as a Double Agent?

In the early months of the war, the Germans often asked Owens for weather reports. These were for the Luftwaffe (the German air force) and also to check if he was truly reliable. He sent these reports by radio. At another meeting in Belgium, this time in Brussels, Owens received £470 in cash from the Abwehr. This was for the information he gave them about the Chain Home radar stations. He also received some detonators, which are used to set off explosives for sabotage. He brought another double agent with him, who was also a Welsh nationalist. This person was told to start a postage stamp business. The Germans planned to use tiny hidden messages called microdots on stamps to communicate.

In December 1939, Owens met Ritter of the Abwehr again in Brussels. He was given more money and promised a salary of £250 per month. He was also told he would receive explosives and a better radio. Owens told MI5 that the Germans had said the "Phoney War" (a quiet period of the war) would end in mid-May. This prediction turned out to be correct. The Germans believed Owens was their most important agent in Britain.

MI5, however, was suspicious of Owens. At one point, he rented a fishing boat from Grimsby to meet Ritter in the North Sea. Owens brought a second double agent, Sam McCarthy (codenamed BISCUIT), with him. McCarthy had been placed by MI5 to test Owens. The meeting failed. Owens was found with a list of all key MI5 personnel. This was a menu card from a formal dinner for intelligence staff in 1939. He was arrested and faced serious consequences for being a possible traitor. The menu card was traced back to an MI5 officer who was unhappy with his job and later died. A second attempt at a meeting in the North Sea, this time controlled by MI5, also failed. Ritter, flying in a Dornier Do 18 seaplane, couldn't find the fishing boat.

MI5 believed that Owens was mostly interested in making money from both sides. They thought that probably neither side fully trusted him. Owens was allowed to keep sending radio messages to Germany. But MI5 made sure he only passed on information they had approved. An ex-prison guard named Maurice Burton, who had looked after Owens in Wandsworth, now sent the messages. He even copied Owens' way of transmitting. Ritter still believed in Owens. He was feeding Owens false information about a planned invasion of Britain. At the same time, Owens was sending false information to Germany about the bombing of Britain.

Working with Other Spies

In August 1940, Sam McCarthy (the MI5 agent) went to Portugal and met Ritter. He gave Ritter some "modified" (changed) documents, like ration cards. In return, he received a new radio and £950. This meeting, arranged by Owens, made Owens seem even more important to the Germans. One of the most important pieces of fake information sent to Germany by radio was a list of false names and ration book numbers. These were used on fake documents for German agents who were sent into Britain.

Owens helped deliver German spies to MI5. These captured spies were then given a choice: become double agents for Britain or face severe punishment. Most chose to work for Britain. They became double agents themselves and provided very important information to the Allies. This included details about troop movements and clues that helped crack German codes.

The German agents were part of their Operation LENA. This plan was to secretly send agents into Britain to find out about British coastal defenses. This was before Operation Sea Lion, which was Germany's plan to invade Britain. One German agent, a Swedish man named Gösta Caroli, parachuted into Britain. He was captured and agreed to be a double agent. He sent a message saying he was hurt when he landed. The Germans then asked Owens to meet the agent and help him. This made Owens' standing with the Germans even higher.

During the bombing of London, MI5 moved Owens to Addlestone in Surrey. There, he lived comfortably on his £250 per month German salary with his girlfriend Lily Bade and their new baby.

In February 1941, Owens was allowed to fly to Portugal to meet Ritter. He was joined by Walter Dicketts, a former British naval officer. Dicketts had worked in air intelligence during World War I and had faced legal trouble for fraud since then. MI5 couldn't fully trust Owens, so they told Dicketts to check if Owens was truly reliable. Dicketts was also supposed to get involved in Owens' spy network. This way, Dicketts could be a separate source of information if needed. Dicketts was told to use his World War I military background to impress the Germans. He was also supposed to try and get taken into Germany for training. Ritter invited Dicketts to Hamburg for questioning by German experts, and Dicketts accepted. He was escorted through Spain and France into Germany. Ritter did not allow Owens to go with Dicketts, so Owens had to stay in Lisbon. Using information given to him by MI5, Dicketts managed to convince the Germans that he was a traitor willing to sell out his country for money and to help end the war. He was accepted as a German agent. Ritter told Dicketts to buy a boat when he returned to England. This boat would be used to ferry German spies and sabotage equipment from the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands into England.

Three weeks later, Dicketts met Owens again in Lisbon. Both flew back to England in late March. Owens was found to be carrying £10,000 and explosive pens. Owens claimed he had told Dicketts, even before Dicketts went into Germany, that both he and Dicketts were working for MI5. Dicketts strongly denied this. Owens thought that Dicketts willingly going into Germany proved Dicketts had been "turned" by the Germans. MI5 spent many hours questioning each agent. In the end, some in MI5 believed Dicketts' story, while others did not. Owens was put in prison until the end of the war. This was because he had put Dicketts' life in danger and had revealed secret information about his pre-war German radio transmitter being used by MI5.

The end of the "Snow network" meant the end of the careers for several double agents, including Snow, Charlie, GW, Biscuit, Summer, and Celery. However, GW was able to restart his work through another spy network. Dicketts continued to work as an agent for MI5 until 1943. He went on another mission to Lisbon to help a German officer defect. He also spent six months in South America until March 1942.

A German agent named Willem Ter Braak had landed in November 1940. He successfully found a place to live and rented an office. The police did not catch him, even though he had ration cards with false numbers. However, he died on April 1, 1941. This made MI5 suspect there was another German spy network separate from Owens' agents. Owens was arrested and found himself in prison. There, he was joined by Rudolf Hess, who was Hitler's Deputy Fuhrer. Hess had recently landed in Scotland, seeking a peace deal. It's possible he was encouraged to do so by the false messages Owens had been sending. Dicketts was sent back to Portugal. The Germans decided he had not been turned into a double agent. With neither the Germans nor the British fully trusting Owens, his spying career was over. The Germans had paid him at least £13,850, which would be worth over £1 million today.

Life After the War

MI5 used Owens' radio to tell the Germans that he was very sick. Meanwhile, they kept Owens in Dartmoor Prison until the end of the war. In Dartmoor, Owens stayed in the hospital part of the prison, which was called Camp 001 for people who were held there. While in prison, Owens continued to help the British. He became friends with German prisoners and shared what he learned with MI5.

Owens' son from his marriage, who was 21, tried to get his father out of prison. He might have been acting on his father's instructions. When he bragged about sketching airfields in 1939 and sending the information to Hamburg, he was arrested and imprisoned. Owens' girlfriend, Lily Bade, married a local man and settled down with Owens' child.

When Owens was released in May 1945, he signed the Official Secrets Act. This meant he promised not to share any secret information. MI5 gave him £500. Owens, now using the surname White, moved to Ireland in 1948 with a new wife and a new baby. He settled in Harristown, County Dublin, where he passed away in 1976.

His daughter, Patricia Owens, became an actress. She is best known for her main role in the 1958 science-fiction horror film The Fly.

See also

• Double-Cross System