Marc McMenamin - Codebreaker: The untold story of Richard Hayes, the Dublin librarian who helped turn the tide of World War II

CODEBREAKER

The untold story of Richard Hayes, the Dublin librarian who helped turn the tide of World War II

MARC MC MENAMIN

Gill Books

History is punctuated with codes. They have decided the outcomes of battles and led to the deaths of Kings and Queens.

SIMON SINGH, Historian

In the written history of the world there is not so much as a glimpse behind the heavy curtains that enshroud the background of secret diplomacy.

MAJOR HERBERT O. YARDLEY, Cryptographer

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

I first came across the story of Dr Richard Hayes in an article in the Irish Times property section in early 2016. The piece dealt with the sale of a house at 245 Templeogue Road and had been shown to me by a teaching colleague who quipped, Theres a story there, as I read through it. The house had been known colloquially as the Nazi house and its story was local lore in Dublin 6. It was erroneously said that the Art Deco house looked like a swastika in aerial photographs.

Truth, however, is always stranger than fiction. In 1940, it was used as an IRA safe house and a man named Hermann Grtz had stayed there on an ill-fated mission to Ireland to spy for the Third Reich. Given my interest in history I decided to investigate the matter further.

After much research, I came across the name of Dr Richard Hayes. He had interrogated Grtz during his incarceration in Arbour Hill prison and subsequently broke the communication code he was using. A similar cipher had baffled staff in Bletchley Park, and such was its importance, MI5 had an entire hut with 16 staff working on breaking it. In addition to this, Hayess code-cracking expertise was to have a direct impact on various Allied engagements such as the Battle of the Bulge. He was also the first person in the world to break the German microdot encryption method.

Astonishingly, Hayes wasnt a military man at all. He had been seconded to Irish Military Intelligence for his obvious intellect. He spoke several languages, including fluent German, and was also a highly skilled mathematician. He uniquely possessed all the talents needed for the job that was at hand.

I was fascinated that a man such as Hayes was virtually unheard of in Ireland, given his achievements in the field of cryptanalysis and his contribution to the Allied war effort. The striking thing was that the more I read about Hayes, the more it became apparent how unassuming he was. He cycled to work every day in the library and after work he cycled to McKee Barracks near Phoenix Park to work on the German codes that had been intercepted during the day.

Often he would take messages home to work on while simultaneously raising his young family. In his spare time, he compiled a bibliography of Irish manuscripts that is still being used today. Despite Hayess obvious achievements, finding written material on him was a difficult task. He was merely a footnote in the more interesting stories of others from that period. A good starting point was the pioneering research into this period of Irish history by Prof. Eunan OHalpin, Dr Mark Hull and authors James Scannell and Enno Stefan. It is on the shoulders of that work that this book stands.

Despite Richard Hayess name being not widely known, his contribution to Irish history is immeasurable. He masterminded the Irish counter-intelligence programme during World War II and helped ensure that Germany felt it could not directly invade Ireland.

It is my hope that now, 42 years after the death of Richard Hayes, the story of his life reignites public debate on how we commemorate World War II in Ireland and that he and other Irishmen who played such a crucial role in the Allied victory are suitably commemorated.

Marc Mc Menamin
Ballyshannon
June 2018

MAIN CHARACTERS

Dr Richard J. Hayes Director of the National Library of Ireland during World War II. He was seconded to the Irish Defence Forces, where he headed the cryptography unit. He became Irelands most prolific and brilliant codebreaker as well as a formidable interrogator of captured German spies.

Hermann Grtz The most formidable German spy sent to Ireland during World War II, he remained at large for over a year. Grtz was a German spy in Britain and Ireland before and during the war.

Politicians and Civil Servants:

Frederick Boland Assistant Secretary of the Department of External Affairs from 1939 to 1946 prior becoming the Secretary, a post he held until 1950.

Admiral Wilhelm Franz Canaris a German admiral and chief of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944.

Winston Churchill British politician, army officer and writer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955.

amon de Valera Irish political leader in 20th-century Ireland. His political career spanned over half a century from 1917 to 1973; he served several terms as head of government and head of state. Served as Taoiseach and Minster for External Affairs during World War II.

Herman Gring a German political and military leader as well as one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party that ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. A veteran World War I fighter pilot, he was a recipient of the Pour le Mrite and leader of the German Air Force, the Luftwaffe.

Adolf Hitler German politician who was the leader of the Nazi Party, Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945 and Fhrer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945.

Franklin D. Roosevelt American statesman and political leader who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.

Joseph (Joe) Walshe Secretary of the Department of External Affairs of the Irish Free State from 1923 to 1946.

Joachim von Ribbentrop Foreign Minister of Nazi Germany from 1938 until 1945.

The Irish Defence Forces:

Col Liam Archer The Director of Irish Military Intelligence (G2) from the outbreak of the war until his promotion to Deputy Chief of Staff in 1941.

Col Dan Bryan Director of Irish Military Intelligence from 1941 until 1952. Bryan was responsible for recruiting Dr Hayes as a codebreaker and formulating Irish defence policy in the late 1930s.

Commandant amon De Buitlar worked for G2 alongside Dr Hayes as an interrogator and cryptographer.

Capt. Joseph Healy Professor of Spanish at University College Cork, seconded into G2 during World War II where he worked as a codebreaker and interrogator.

Lt. General Dan McKenna Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces during World War II.

General Hugo MacNeill Irish general who became involved in political intrigue with German spy Hermann Grtz.

General Eoin ODuffy an Irish nationalist, political activist, soldier and police commissioner. He was leader of the quasi-fascist Army Comrades Association, commonly known as the Blueshirts.

Captain John Patrick OSullivan Irish Army Signals Officer who monitored the German Legation from listening stations in Collins Barracks and his home in Chapelizod.

The Irish Republican Army:

Stephen Hayes a member and leader of the Irish Republican Army from April 1939 to June 1941. Served as Acting Chief of Staff while San Russell was abroad.

Stephen Carroll Held an IRA member who visited Germany in 1940 as an emissary of the IRA to discuss Plan Kathleen, the projected German takeover of Ireland.

Pearse Paul Kelly IRA man who was arrested along with Hermann Grtz at 1 Blackheath Park, Clontarf, in 1943.