Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte
In the event of a grave emergency they were to go in and try to rescue ST 25 himself. This assignment required that the Lieutenant with his men should be transferred to the Secret Service (Agar was to be allocated the code number ST 35) and officially the Government would know nothing about them. The team was to work under the guise of agents for a boat building concern: the boats, ostensibly pleasure-craft, were to be passed off as samples. There was a lot more to the scheme than has been outlined here, but the foregoing was the gist of it. Agar's emotions were at once a nice balance between pride at being considered suitable for the job and excitement at the prospects for the future: he accepted the appointment unconditionally and, having been given two days in which to prepare, he returned to Osea Island to collect his men and the boats.
So far as the personnel were concerned, he invited Sub. Lieutenant Sindall, Midshipmen Hampsheir and Marshall, and two mechanics, Beeley and Piper, to join him, all of whom proved to be keen volunteers for unspecified special service abroad - as for the boats, Agar selected Nos. 4 and 7. Forty-eight hours later Agar paid a return visit to 'C' and explained his preliminary plans. By this time he had been given the code numbers of two British secret agents operating in Finland (ST 30 and ST 31) and Agar now stated that he intended to despatch the
C.M.Bs - suitably disguised - by steamer to Abo in Finland: their transit would be handled by Sindall and the two mechanics. He himself had decided to proceed separately from Hull to Abo, taking Hampsheir and Marshall with him. On arrival in Finland he would arrange to contact the two British agents and make future plans when he had ensured their assistance and obtained their advice. 'C' was well satisfied with the scheme and, having given strict instructions that Agar was on no account to make his presence or purpose known to anyone serving in the British Baltic Squadron - except the Admiral - the Lieutenant was dismissed to complete his final plans and, inevitably, to make history.
Agar's initial arrangements worked admirably. The Lieutenant travelled north with the Midshipmen, wearing plain clothes - it was the first time Agar had been out of uniform for five years - and at Hull they all boarded a Swedish steamer which took them to Abo where they were met by ST 30 and ST 31. Meanwhile the two
C.M.Bs, painted white and looking incredibly innocent, had been delivered secretly at the West India Docks. Sindall and the two mechanics accepted delivery and accompanied them to Abo, arriving some days after Agar and his companions had landed to start their opening round of talks. The leader of the naval party was now faced by three major problems. First, the choice of a suitable base from which to conduct operations; second, the provision of the necessary couriers; and, third, the conveyance of the boats to the chosen base. A number of protracted conferences with ST 30 and ST 31 decided Agar to use Terrioki in Finland as his headquarters. It lay on the north coast of the Gulf, fifteen miles from the Russian frontier, and in theory was ideally placed. The British agents were able to produce a number of intrepid couriers, and Rear-Admiral Walter Cowan, to whom Agar now appealed, ordered a destroyer to tow the two
C.M.Bs from Abo to Biorko Sound near Terrioki - a distance of about 300 miles. The Lieutenant was also granted a second concession, namely the supply of two torpedoes which were to be issued to him by a British oiler he would meet at Biorko while on passage to his newly chosen base.’
Marshall inspects the Lewis guns set up on the roof of Terrioki Yacht Club Arrest and early operations
The arrival of Agar and his team at Terrioki in mid-June 1919 was not without incident, the local Commandant, a former Russian army officer, proving a hard nut to crack in terms of friendly Anglo-Finnish relations - so much so that the unfortunate Marshall was arrested the day of the team’s arrival. Harry Ferguson’s definitive history, Operation Kronstadt, takes up the story:
‘The next morning, Friday 13 June, Gus [Agar] and Broadbent were due to see the Finnish Commandant. But before that meeting had even happened there was trouble. Marshall and Beeley had been sent down to the harbour to check on the boat and they had only been gone about twenty minutes when Beeley came running back to the villa. Whilst Beeley was on C.M.B. 7, Marshall had been on shore checking out the yacht club to see if they could store any of their gear there. As he was scouting around, he was challenged by some of the Finnish sentries. The guard had obviously changed since the previous night and the new shift was in no mood for argument. Marshall clearly wasn’t Russian, but he was in civilian dress and didn’t speak any Finnish either so, despite his loud protestations that he was a British naval officer, he was immediately placed under arrest and marched at bayonet point along the main street of the village to the fort. Beeley hid out on the boat until the sentries and their prisoner were gone and had then run for help.
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