A friend pointed me in the direction of recently declassified MI5 files, now officially and publicly available. One set of hitherto SECRET and TOP SECRET papers relates to a series of attempted IED attacks on British targets in 1947, by the Stern Gang, in the run up to the Israeli declaration of Independence in 1948. If you have the patience, there is an 88Mb download available at this link. For those of you with an interest in technical matters, the report by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Explosives on one device, planted in Dover House, Whitehall, London on 16 April 1947 is on page 239.
The devices largely failed for technical reasons. However later IEDs in 1948 were not all failures.
Elsewhere in the released documents, historians will find some of the material fascinating. MI5 demonstrably retained some of its star security officers from WW2, and they were involved, in part, in this case – people like “TAR” Robertson who ran the “Double Cross” counter intelligence operation against the Nazis in the War.
There’s some fascinating reporting of its time – telephone operators overhearing suspicious conversations, members of the public reporting concerns, police surveillance operations and pre-digital secret bureaucracy. It is interesting to see the 1947 version of inter-agency counter-terrorist coordination between Foreign Office, MI5, police forces, Special Branch and others.
A later file from 1948 is also available for download (post the establishment of the State of Israel) and others clearly can now be accessed. In May 1948 the Stern gang sent a postal IED to Captain Roy Farran of the SAS (who was accused of murdering Alexander Rubowitz) The package (addressed to R Farran), was opened by Roy’s brother Rex, killing him.
