The Wireless Operator E-Book

David Tuch

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 322

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Government agencies and rival factions were closing in. His look-alike had already fallen victim to professional hitmen and his once-powerful allies in Cuban intelligence and the DEA could no longer guarantee his safety. How did a boy from Manchester revolutionise the criminal world and become the largest marijuana trafficker in American history? This is the never-before-told story of Harold Derber, the debonair British Merchant Navy veteran who invented the modern drug trade with his groundbreaking invention: the drug mothership. Through his ghost fleet of drug ships, Derber eventually become the chief supplier of marijuana to post-war America. This gripping true tale follows Derber from humble beginnings in Manchester, England to his assassination in the sun-kissed streets of Miami. Along the way, Derber's story takes in some of the most significant events of the twentieth century - the Second World War's Battle of the Atlantic, the Cuban Revolution and the murky shadows of the Cold War. Shedding light on a litany of plots including arms and refugee smuggling, large-scale stock fraud and Derber's rise to the pinnacle of the drug world, this remarkable transatlantic story paints a complex picture of a singular figure and brings his extraordinary life into focus for the first time.

Leseprobe

 

 

Published in the UK and USA in 2025 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-183773-245-6 ebook: 978-183773-246-3

Text copyright © 2025 David Tuch

The author has asserted his moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Typeset by SJmagic DESIGN SERVICES, India Printed and bound in Great Britain

Appointed GPSR EU Representative: Easy Access System Europe Oü, 16879218 Address: Mustamäe tee 50, 10621, Tallinn, Estonia Contact Details: [email protected], [phone]

Dedicated to MELOC

CONTENTS

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

PART I

1.Escape from Manchester

2.War

3.Questionable Ventures

PART II

4.The Three-Mile Limit

5.The New American Dream

6.The Freedom Ferry

7.We Will Not Be Stopped by Military Force

8.The Exile Runner

9.Love and Hate and Humanitarian Solutions

PART III

10.Shipping Interests

11.The Night Train

12.Operation Zebra

13.Vast Opportunities

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

List of Illustrations

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Notes

AUTHOR’S NOTE

While researching my family history, I discovered I had a British cousin named Harold Derber, reputed to have been a smuggler, gunrunner and soldier of fortune. Curious, I began researching old newspaper articles to see if there was any truth to the family lore. With each story confirming the rumors, I was drawn into a world far stranger and more dangerous than I ever could have imagined.

Unable to turn away, I interviewed his criminal associates, former undercover agents and distant relatives. I tracked down an unpublished memoir, long-lost folders in foreign archives, undercover photos and newly declassified intelligence reports. The tale that emerged – one of organized crime, espionage and survival – was so astonishing that I dedicated myself to chronicling Derber’s life, culminating in the book you’re reading now.

Writing about the intersection of espionage and crime presented unique challenges. My research was often hindered by intentional falsehoods, conflicting accounts, relatives sworn to secrecy, and government records that had been classified or destroyed. In such cases, I’ve presented the most plausible scenario based on the available information, always aiming to distinguish between established facts and informed speculation. I’ve corroborated extraordinary findings with at least two independent sources whenever possible.

I’ve taken some artistic liberties to enhance certain sensory details and minor scenes. These creative touches are designed to help readers more vividly imagine the events and emotions Derber may have experienced without compromising the fundamental truth of his unbelievable odyssey.

It is not down on any map; true places never are.

HERMAN MELVILLE, MOBY DICK

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Principal Characters (in order of appearance)

H

AROLD

D

ERBER

‘Soldier of Fortune.’ Former radio officer with the British Merchant Navy. Born Hyman Tuchverderber in Manchester, England.

R

EHAVAM

‘R

AY

’ A

DIEL

Derber’s lifelong friend and occasional business associate.

S

ARAH

C

OHEN

Derber’s romantic partner. Aliases: Sari Lesley and Sari Cohen.

J

ACK

N

AGELEY

Derber’s Miami attorney and a thorn in the side of the US State Department.

C

APTAIN

V

ÍCTOR

P

INA

Director in the Cuban Transportation Ministry and co-founder of the Cuban intelligence service. Derber’s ally in the Castro government.

J

OHN

D. S

TEELE

Derber’s ground operator in America. Former mayor of Hallandale, Florida.

Supporting Characters (in order of appearance)

J

OSEPH AND

K

ATHE

T

UCHVERDERBER

Derber’s parents. Later, Joseph and Kathy Derber.

I

SIDOR AND

S

YBIL

T

UCHVERDERBER

Derber’s brother and sister. Later, Jack and Sybil Derber.

F

IDEL

C

ASTRO

‘El Comandante.’

J

OHN

F. K

ENNEDY

President and second-most hated man in Miami.

S

USAN

C

OHEN

Sarah’s identical twin sister. AKA: Susan Johnston. Alias: Susan Lesley.

M

ICHAEL

McL

ANEY

Casino magnate and ‘Genial Hustler.’

M

ORRIS

L

ANSBURGH

Hotel tycoon who backs Derber’s cruise liner.

S

AM

B

ENTON

Private investigator and Mafia fixer.

M

EYER

L

ANSKY

‘The Mob’s Accountant.’

J

AMES

B. D

ONOVAN

Private negotiator for the Kennedy administration. ‘The Metadiplomat.’

R

OBERT

F. K

ENNEDY

Attorney General and White House coordinator for Operation Mercy.

G

ORDON

C

HASE

Special Assistant for National Security Affairs.

Mc

GEORGE

‘M

AC

’ B

UNDY

US National Security Advisor and ‘Shadow Secretary of State’ in the Kennedy administration.

I

RENALDO

G

ARCÍA

B

ÁEZ

Ticket salesman for the ferry. Former Chief of Military Intelligence in the Batista regime.

E

MIL

S

TADELHOFER

Swiss Ambassador to Cuba.

P

ETER

W

HITEHEAD

Briton living in Jamaica. Provides Derber with the

Nana

ship used for the Cuba ferry.

C

APTAIN

A

LAN

C. T

OUGH

Harbormaster at Port Royal, Jamaica. Originally from Scotland.

B

RAULIO

A

LFONSO

M

ARTINEZ

Labor organizer and Cuban intelligence agent. Aliases: Braulio Alfonso and Francisco De Ravirich.

H

ENRY

K

ISSINGER

Secretary of State and chairman of the Cabinet Committee on International Narcotics Control.

T

ED

A

KEY

Florida Marine Patrol officer. Undercover alias: Kelly Summers.

W

INCES

V

ELASCO

Derber’s Colombian supplier and import-export broker for the Medellín cartel.

F

ERNANDO

R

AVELO-

R

ENEDO

Cuban Ambassador to Colombia. Architect of the Cuban-Colombian guns-for-drugs trade.

R

OBERT

E. B

RENNAN

President of First Jersey Securities and Derber’s stockbroker. ‘The Penny stock king.’

Principal Boats

C

ALYPSO

L

INER

Luxury cruise ship.

C

YPRIA

Norwegian merchant ship.

E

MPRESS OF

B

AHAMAS

Luxury cruise ship. Formerly called the

Wappen von Hamburg

.

L

ILLIAN

B

Trafficking boat.

N

ANA

Ship initially planned for the Cuba ferry.

N

ELSON

II

Ship used for the Cuba ferry, also called the new

Nana

.

N

IGHT

T

RAIN

The mothership.

VAN

O

STADE

Dutch merchant ship. Formerly called the

Empire Toiler

.

Other Key Boats

C

ATCHALOT

II

Undercover ‘pickup’ boat.

C

LARA

Trafficking ship.

C

ORAL

R

OCK

Colombian fishing boat.

D

AUNTLESS

United States Coast Guard endurance cutter. The ‘nation’s premier drug buster.’

G

INA

IV

Trafficking ship.

L

OBSTER

F

ARM

Colombian fishing boat.

M

IL

M

AR

I

Colombian fishing vessel.

O

RANGE

S

UN

Cruise ship considered for return of the Bay of Pigs prisoners and for the Cuba ferry.

O

RION

Cruise ship considered for the Cuba ferry.

R

ED

M

ACHINE

Trafficking ship.

PROLOGUE

Mesic, North Carolina, 1975

Cordgrass and black needlerush swayed beside an old mobile trailer parked on the edge of Pamlico Sound, a vast brackish lagoon. Moonlight reflected off the mud-covered corrugated siding. Inside, three middle-aged men in salt-stained flannel shirts and worn jeans lay deep asleep. Their fishing trawler, carrying thirty tons of Colombian marijuana, was still hours from arriving.

Outside, a branch snapped. Night herons screeched and beat their wings. The flimsy trailer door flung open. Two armed men stormed in – one with a shotgun, the other a pistol. The first was gaunt, with wire-frame glasses and tight, kinky hair; the second was short, nearly obese, with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth.

“Where’s Derber?” one shouted.1

Not waiting for an answer, he fired his shotgun. The blast tore through a trafficker’s skull, almost decapitating him. Without another word, the two hitmen slipped out the trailer door and vanished into the night.

The two survivors lay staring at the spreading pool of blood. When their breaths finally steadied, they exchanged a single, grim look. Then they moved.

They stripped the body down to its underwear and wrapped it in a plastic tarp and bedsheet. One grabbed a box cutter and sliced out the blood-soaked carpet. They loaded the body into the back of a truck and drove to nearby Bear Creek. In a secluded pine grove, they dug a shallow grave and buried the body, along with his clothes, a key and the stained carpet.2,3

It was easy to understand how the hitmen had mistaken the victim for Derber. The description matched almost perfectly: white, around 150 pounds, medium height, dark facial hair, late forties. The main difference was that the real Derber couldn’t be killed that easily.

PART I

1. ESCAPE FROM MANCHESTER

Manchester, England, 1939–43

Hyman’s head snapped back from another straight jab. His opponent’s shoulder twitched, signaling an incoming cross. Hyman slipped the punch and fired back with a right hook to the floating rib. The large boy stumbled, then dropped one knee to the grass, wincing in pain.

On the ringside bench, a mother gasped, clutching her neighbor’s arm. A father grimaced and wrung his cap with both hands. The cadet officers straightened in their seats.

Hyman Tuchverderber, the thirteen-year-old destined to become Harold Derber, worked his mouthguard free and spat it to the ground. He loosened his glove strings with his teeth and a twist of his swollen jaw.

The Manchester Jewish Lads’ Brigade (JLB) had taught him well. Home to the finest cadet boxing club in the kingdom, it had won the prestigious Prince of Wales’ Challenge Shield for several consecutive years.

Through boxing and paramilitary training, the JLB sought to ‘iron out the Ghetto bend’1 into the ramrod values of honor, self-respect and loyalty to the Crown. All these virtues were on display at the retreat, which was deliberately held on Saturday to clash with the holy Shabbat.

The cadet major called an end to the day’s sparring and ordered the lads to change into their greens for rifle drills. Spilling out of the makeshift bell tent barracks, the cadets fell into a two-line formation.

Hyman and his fellow cadets made a splendid sight in their World War I-style serge wool uniforms, complete with peaked service caps adorned with the ‘JLB’ monogram encircled by an imperial laurel wreath.2 Standing shoulder to shoulder with their bolt-action Enfield rifles, they presented a unified front – not as Polish, Russian, Hungarian or German Jews, but as ‘Englishmen of the Mosaic persuasion.’

Manchester Jewish Lads’ Brigade.

Yet, even among his peers, Hyman stood out. Intense, obsidian eyes hinted at a depth of understanding beyond his years. His face was etched with deep laugh lines, the left more pronounced, lending him a bemused smirk. His angular nose gave his youthful face a sharp edge, and his furious, scruffy black hair seemed perpetually in motion.

The cadet major marched Hyman and the lads to the firing range, where they assumed the line. On the command to aim, Hyman raised his rifle and rested his swollen cheek against the cold rifle stock. The placement was second nature; he had mastered the proper cheek weld at the age of ten.

He closed one eye and focused the other on the wooden plank fifty yards away. He inhaled the familiar scent of cleaning solvents, oil, sulfur, and saltpeter, and held his breath. The still pine branches in the distance meant no correction was needed. He made microscopic adjustments for the bullet drop and his reflexes.

At the command to fire, Hyman opened his closed eye and squeezed the trigger between heartbeats. The lads unleashed a cracking barrage of bullets. With the cadet major’s command, ‘Orders Down!’, the rifle clicked back into place at the heels. Hyman’s lips twitched into a subtle grin as he saw the empty spot where his target had been.

Following rifle drills, the cadets assembled for the colonel’s address. He commended them for winning the Lucas Tooth Trophy for the most efficient cadet corps and then launched into an oration on the imperative of military preparedness. England’s solemn pledge to defend Poland should rouse the fervor of every cadet, he said. These virtues, he insisted, were not mere slogans, but sacred principles worth fighting for.

Hyman clenched his jaw as the speech wore on. Five more years of this before he could enlist felt like a lifetime.

The buglers finally sounded the closing retreat, and the commander dismissed the battalion. Hyman grabbed his kit bag and hurried to catch the train back home to Cheetham Hill. On the walk home from the station, the Manchester Parks Officers were scrubbing the chalk slogans from the city walls again: “Stop the War, Stop the Warmongers!” and “Christians awake! Don’t be slaughtered for Jewish finance.”3 The vocation of slogan-cleaner seemed like steady, honest work.

Hyman passed by windows flickering with Sabbath candles, their gentle glow amplified by the blackouts. He reached his one-up, one-down red-brick terrace house on Herbert Street. After checking the rooms to ensure no one would catch him, he went straight for the wireless. He flicked the switch, and the radio hummed to life. He tuned to the BBC on the Moorside Edge frequency, the warmth of the tubes drawing him closer. Yet there was no news – no invasion, no movement. Herr’s troops were still holding at the Polish border.

Later that night, as Hyman prepared for bed, the whispers of his parents, Joseph and Kathe, drifted through the open crack of his door. The hushed tones piqued Hyman’s curiosity, proving the old saying that children only listen when parents try not to be heard.

Peeking out, he caught his mum waving a letter at his father. Hyman had no idea what it was about, except that it wasn’t call-up papers. His dad was short, had broken teeth, a sideways-bent spine, and a history of epilepsy, hysteria and “heaviness of head.”4 He had struggled with these illnesses since childhood, but they worsened during his service in the last war. He now ran a leather goods stall in Accrington Market Hall, selling shoes and handbags despite a surname that meant “cloth spoiler.” Work-related correspondence never came home, though, so the letter remained a mystery.

The next morning, Hyman half-heartedly dressed for school, throwing on his cardigan and shadow-colored jacket. He tucked his unruly dark hair beneath his black cap adorned with the school’s ‘M’ logo, for Manchester Jews’ School (MJS).

The school was an imposing red-brick Victorian building with gabled wings and a verdigris copper atrium. Inside, the students settled at their desks for the morning register. Hyman’s inscrutable surname always brought a classroom snicker. Most of his classmates’ names had been anglicized by the school long ago – Cohen to Cowan, Hillel to Hill, Levi to Lewis – but, for some reason, Hyman’s absurd last name remained unchanged.

Classes covered the quintessential three Rs and the geography and history of Britain and her empire. The lessons on this day covered Dickens’s reflections on social reform, moral conscience and the ceaseless struggle between the aristocracy and the downtrodden. Other days were reserved for Shakespeare’s timeless tales of the towering ambitions of rulers and the sacred bonds of loyalty.

The teachers stressed the unique beauty of the English language, compared to the ‘uncivilised, uneducated jargon’ of Yiddish, which the school had thoroughly banned due to the waves of unwashed refugees arriving from the continent.5 Forbidden from speaking Yiddish and struggling with English, the new students were quiet, which suited Hyman fine.

Recess offered a medley of games. On some days, the yard rang with the crisp pock of leather cricket balls hitting willow bats. Other afternoons brought the clickety-clack of croquet mallets or the thunderous gallop of football. Today, the children strapped on their gas masks and ran practice sprints to the pretend air raid shelters in the equipment sheds. The visors fogged over, sending the students veering off in comical directions, while other pupils collapsed, writhing with phlegmatic laughter.

Class from Manchester Jews’ School. Hyman is likely the boy second row from the back and second from the right.

Hyman paused, his breath catching – the old tightness in his chest, a lingering scar from childhood tuberculosis. Memories surged: his mother’s panicked screams at the first sight of blood in his cough, the murmuring doctors, the agonizing months in sanatoria, staring at the white ceilings of Pendlebury and Booth Hall children’s hospitals, each strained breath bubbling and clicking in his chest.6,7

After school, Hyman trudged home to find his mum reciting the daily litany of angst to his dad: the children need to evacuate in case the Nazis bomb the factories; the Blackshirts set up headquarters down the road; the clothes rations will mean the end of the market stall; Home Office administrators are pounding on Jews’ doors; the cousins in Berlin have stopped sending letters.

But Kathe’s sermon could only hold back the malevolent spirit for so long. The BBC wireless rasped the following morning:

These are today’s main events. Germany has invaded Poland and has bombed many towns. General mobilisation has been ordered in Britain and France. Parliament will summon for six o’clock this evening. Orders completing the mobilisation of the Navy, Army and Air Force were signed by the King at a meeting this afternoon of the Privy Council.

Hyman turned to his four-year-old sister, Sybil, with her black hair and precocious rosy cheeks, engaged with her toy blocks. His fifteen-year-old brother, Jack, born Isidor, returned to his business, whistling a jaunty tune. Hyman had also had a younger brother, Basil, but he’d succumbed as a three-month-old when Hyman was only six.

The following Sunday, the family huddled around the dining room wireless set. Hyman pressed his ear against the speaker as he counted down to the ultimatum deadline. Fifteen minutes past the cut-off, the Prime Minister made the announcement:

This morning, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

When ‘God Save the King’ played at the end, the family exchanged uncertain glances, wondering if they should stand. The house was silent, except for the metallic clanging outside where city workers were dismantling an iron fence and loading it onto a truck bound for the smelting furnaces.

While his family attended to their affairs, Hyman sat captivated, marveling at the magic of wireless. This mystical box, made of walnut veneer and gleaming Bakelite, housed glowing glass tubes, spiraled copper coils, and reverberating magnetic membranes. It plucked invisible waves from the ether, bringing word from the other side of the world.

Testament to its dark wonder came a few hours later when the radio choked out the somber news: off the northwest coast of Ireland, a German U-boat had mistakenly torpedoed the SS Athenia, an unarmed passenger liner carrying people fleeing the war. Over a hundred souls perished – American tourists, European refugees and British child evacuees, many from the north.

Hyman’s mind filled with flashes of icy water gushing through torpedo holes, panic-stricken passengers clawing at lifeboats, bodies already blue. Maritime regulations were supposed to protect civilian ships, but rules were always the first to go.

Knowing what was coming, Hyman’s mum finally explained the purpose of the mystery letter she had been angrily waving at his dad. She had packed everything listed on the note in a worn, oversized haversack: fresh undergarments, nightclothes, plimsolls, spare socks, toothbrush, comb, towel, soap, face cloth, handkerchiefs, a Mackintosh and his gas mask, neatly tucked in its cardboard box with his name scrawled on it. She prepared a twine-wrapped paper parcel containing a cheese sandwich and dry biscuits for the trip. Lastly, she fastened a hefty cardboard tag with his name and address to his lapel.

She didn’t know where he was going or who the family would be. If Hyman despised them, her heart would break from despair; if he loved his new parents, her heart would ache with jealousy. The family wouldn’t be kosher, but it wouldn’t be a sin if there was a war. His brother and sister would remain in Manchester with her. Maybe he’d be home soon – rumors said the war would end by Christmas, although she wasn’t sure. The only thing she knew for certain was that his train was leaving the following morning.

The next day, Hyman and his classmates gathered in the MJS classroom, some bouncing with anticipation, others from fright. Whenever the teacher’s back was turned, the mischievous ones sniggered and swapped name tags. The teacher, clipboard in hand, explained the evacuation procedures for Pied Piper Day. They would quietly queue outside by standard and board trams bound for Manchester Victoria Station, where evacuation trains would take them to Blackpool for wartime billeting.

The classroom erupted into cheers at the news they were going to Blackpool, home of the famous Pleasure Beach amusement park. With a wry smile, the teacher reminded them not to get too carried away – the war would be over by Christmas, and they’d be back before they knew it.

The eager students gathered outside and boarded the rickety trams. As it rattled through the streets, Hyman slumped forward, resting his forehead on his folded arms. Pleasure Beach was hardly the warfront he’d had in mind.

Stepping into Victoria Station, the platform was mobbed with animated schoolchildren, some as young as five. The children carried rucksacks and makeshift valises from pillowcases. Tearful mothers handed their children chocolates, urging them to hurry aboard for a good seat. Expectant mothers, the elderly, the disabled, and civil servants were the last to board.

The platform whistle screamed as the steam train began to chug forward. Hyman found a seat and pressed his forehead against the glass as the parents, waving handkerchiefs, disappeared around the bend.

After an hour-long journey, the train shuddered to a halt at Blackpool Central Station. The door chute slid open, unleashing a stampede of students onto the platforms. In a scene resembling a frenzied cattle market, eager adults snatched children as they alighted from the train. Foster mothers elbowed their husbands to pick this one – no, wait, that one. Brothers and sisters screamed as they were wrenched from each other’s arms.

Amid the commotion, the teachers scrambled to record the names of the foster parents and ensure an equitable distribution of children. As the new foster parents spirited the students away, teachers stuffed pre-paid postcards into the children’s jacket pockets so they could inform their parents back home of their new address.

After the foster parents picked all the best children, the teacher took Hyman and the leftover children on a door-to-door appeal. Hyman and his classmates straggled in crocodile formation through Blackpool center. The teacher politely knocked from door to door and inquired if the lady of the house would be so kind as to foster a deloused, bed-trained evacuee from ‘Derby Street School’ – no oil sheets required.8 The students stood upright at the outset, eager to get a billet, but sagged closer to the pavement as the evening dragged on.

Around dusk, when Hyman had all but given up, his teacher found him a home on Highfield Road. His new foster father stood in the doorway – a dour, unmarried Irish butcher in his early thirties wearing a blood-stained smock.9 The Ministry of Health would compensate him eight pounds sixpence a week to look after an unaccompanied child under fourteen.

Hyman slumped his shoulders and entered his new home, which smelled of raw meat and disinfectant. Meeting his foster father’s stern gaze, he gripped his sack tighter, exchanged a few soft murmurs of gratitude, and climbed the creaking stairs. That night, he lay on the bed facing the barren wall, staring into his future.

The following morning, Hyman and the other evacuees trudged to the local school for their first day of classes. The unfamiliar teachers droned on in tiresome half-day lectures while Hyman’s gaze drifted out the classroom window. Outside, children played carefree in the yard. Reports began filtering in from Manchester: Nazi troops were not goose-stepping down Market Street. Town Hall hadn’t been razed. Only the odd stray bomb landed in a suburb.

With no actual fighting happening, they should have called it the Phony War or perhaps the Bore War. Sitzkrieg had a nice ring to it. And thinking about names, ‘Pied Piper’ seemed fitting for the evacuation scheme; after all, the piper hadn’t led the rats to safety but to drown them in the river.

As the days passed, the teachers began to resemble amateur actors in an ill-rehearsed play. Their constant reminders about the evacuation’s importance rang hollow, as if they were trying to convince themselves as much as the students.

With no imminent invasion, the evacuation was pointless. There was no reason to have children living with strangers so far from home. Yet none of the adults were willing to make the call to bring them back. Left with no choice, Hyman took matters into his own hands.

After three miserable weeks in Blackpool, he’d had enough. He declared an end to the phony war, packed his belongings into his haversack, and caught the next train back to Manchester. He’d face the firebombs rather than stay with the wretched butcher one more day.

As the train rolled into Manchester, the familiar industrial skyline welcomed Hyman home. The red brick buildings and bustling streets were a comforting sight after the desolation of his foster home. His parents barely looked up when he walked through the door, offering little more than a nod as if his return was just another routine part of the day.

Hyman resumed classes at MJS proper, joining a mix of classmates who had either defied evacuation or stayed behind for religious reasons. Gradually, more evacuees returned. Some spoke of loving foster families who even offered to adopt them, while others had endured misery and attempted the fifty-mile journey back to Manchester on foot. Many returned haunted, flinching at touch, victims of unspeakable abuse behind closed doors. Like many children, Hyman rarely spoke of what happened to him in Blackpool.

Months passed, and the day of the entrance exams arrived. True to his own path, Hyman didn’t sit for Manchester or Salford Grammar. On Leavers’ Day, at fourteen, he left MJS without a backward glance. Done with school but still too young to join up, he spent his days helping at the market stall and knocking about with his corner mates.

One day, Hyman returned home to find his parents and grandfather, Alter Tuchverderber, gathered at the kitchen table. They were discussing a letter from the Home Office internment tribunal, which had just cleared Alter. The British government, under Churchill’s order, was rounding up thousands of British residents of German and Austrian descent, predominately Jews, and forcing them into detention camps across the country. The fear was that, in the event of a Nazi invasion, they might form a fifth column and align with Hitler’s forces. Detainees from Manchester were sent to the Warth Mills cotton mill factory in Bury, Lancashire, which had been converted into one of the largest internment camps in the country.10

In his broken English, Alter had explained to the tribunal that he had fled Tarnów, Poland, to Manchester in the 1890s to escape the boycotts. He served some prison time when he first arrived, but now he lived within the law.11

Thankfully, the tribunal had classified Alter and his wife, Rebecca, as Category C, meaning they were not deemed ‘enemy aliens’ and were spared from internment.12 They also avoided Category B, which would have confined them to within five miles. Category A went straight to the camps.

Despite Alter’s reprieve, a cloud loomed over the family. If a 75-year-old retired grocer who had lived in Manchester for five decades was a potential enemy of the Crown, then the outlook for the rest of the family was bleak.

The streets of Cheetham offered no refuge. One autumn afternoon, as Hyman ran errands, a faint, rhythmic click-clack echoed off the cobblestones. He glanced over his shoulder. A group of men in sharp business suits was closing in, too polished to be mistaken for socialists. The black dress shirts worn by some gave them away – a subtle nod to the now-banned uniform of the British Union of Fascists.

The fascist procession marched past Hyman, exchanging stares. They were headed to the New Hippodrome to hear their leader, Sir Oswald Mosley.3 The troops paraded past a cordon of local shopkeepers, schoolteachers and housewives lining the pavement. The onlookers extended their right arms in a Nazi salute as the marchers passed. Behind them, supporters and protestors jostled and shoved, tearing at each other’s jackets. England was at war.

On the Sunday evening before Christmas 1940, a gentle knock came on the door. Hyman peered through the window and exhaled upon seeing two young female Air Wardens rather than Home Office bureaucrats or Mosley’s henchmen. When he swung the door open, the undulating wail of the air raid sirens flooded the house. Neighbors were streaming onto the streets. This was no drill – the German bombers were on their way.

The Wardens pointed Hyman and his family to the nearest shelter, a quarter of a mile away. The family shouted over each other, scrambling to shut the lights, turn off the gas mains, and draw the heavy blackout curtains. They grabbed their winter jackets and sprinted to the shelter, the children’s cardboard gas mask boxes bouncing off their thighs.

Overhead, the rhythmic drone of several-hundred planes reverberated like an industrial transformer. The first wave of Luftwaffe flew unscathed through the crisscrossing searchlights, releasing incandescent flares. The new stars hung low in the atmosphere, casting an eerie reddish-white glow over the city’s factories, train stations and hospitals, lighting the targets for the incoming Junkers and Heinkel bombers. The flares multiplied until all the illumination fused, turning the evening night into unnatural day.

Hyman and his family sprinted the last few yards to the air raid shelter, tumbled inside and collapsed against the stone wall. All was quiet except for their heaving breaths.

The prolonged silence was broken by the distant staccato of anti-aircraft fire. Faint whistles followed, growing louder and sharper, until they erupted in a ground-shaking quake. Stones and dirt rained on the cowering occupants. Parents huddled over their children as their terrified screams pierced the air.

With heads bent and eyes closed, they prayed silently, their faces lit by dim emergency lights. Distant thuds echoed, each rumble shaking loose bits of masonry that fell softly around them. No one dared to sleep.

When the all-clear signal sounded at dawn, the shelter occupants stirred and coughed, emitting clouds of dust. Hyman rose and climbed out of the shelter exit, squinting against the daylight and acrid smoke. Black ash covered every surface like an eerie, inverted snowfall. On the horizon, an apocalyptic pall hung over central Manchester.13

Hyman staggered through the ruins, weaving past smoking debris, gaping craters, and overturned, flaming cars. Sparks rained from parachutes draped over tram cables, showering down onto his head. Every few paces, he doubled over, coughing and retching from the stinging vaporized glass and brick.

Only a few hundred feet from his home, the Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital nurses’ quarters were a jumble of jagged beams and debris. Searchers stood amid the debris in a fugue state, rummaging for trapped survivors and salvageable metal.

Hyman rounded the corner, the broken glass crunching beneath his feet. Amid the devastation, his home stood, miraculously unscathed. He stumbled forward, reaching out with a trembling hand to touch the rough, warm brickwork.

He turned to face the burning skyline. Tears cascaded down his face, blackening as they trailed through the soot on his cheeks. He wept for a city in utter ruins. But he also cried from a secret, rapturous joy at witnessing the dreariness of his old mundane life consumed in a purifying, all-consuming firestorm. Wiping the ash and tears with the backs of his hands, he tilted his head back, basking in a supreme, blissful calm.

Victoria Memorial Jewish Hospital after the Christmas Blitz.

The next day, the Manchester Evening News reported the scale of the devastation. The Christmas Blitz left several hundred dead, thousands injured and countless others trapped beneath the wreckage. Dozens of cherished buildings were reduced to meaningless rubble. And then, in a horrifying echo, the bombers returned the following evening.

Over the following days, Hyman learned of the friends who had perished. His once bustling street corner turned desolate. The relentless rain turned the rubble into a muddy quagmire. The smell of smoldering brick and plaster gave way to the ferment of mold and refuse. The city was shrouded in darkness at night from the blackouts. Distant shouts of looting filled the air.

The Rest Centre on Cheetham Hill Road, just around the corner from his house, provided breakfast, shelter and clothing to those left homeless by the bombings. Exhausted people stretched around the building, their faces marked by fatigue and despair.

Within weeks the Luftwaffe struck again – and then again.

By sixteen, Hyman had witnessed his share of devastation. The war scarred every aspect of life, from ruined streets to empty shelves. His old school, the MJS, had been gutted by a fire caused by the bombings.

With his dad’s leather goods stall empty due to the clothing rations, Hyman became responsible for supporting the family. No one ever assigned the duty, but it was implied whenever his parents asked if anyone had any milk spaces left in their Junior Ration Book or why the gas bill had not magically disappeared from the kitchen counter.

Seeking some way to support his family, Hyman donned his beige tweed suit and matching trousers and headed to the garment district. Steam plumes billowed from the factory chimneys as workers scuttled in, shoulders hunched, while the proprietors strode past in their ribboned homburg hats. The thought of joining either side of the procession made his stomach turn. There had to be another way.

Thumbing through the ‘Clerks, Assistants Wanted’ section of the Manchester Evening News, he came across an advertisement:

The Best Foundation for a Future Career. Wise Parents are having sons of school-leaving age trained now for positions as Radio Officers in the Merchant Navy. On joining the service such boys are given officers’ status and accommodation, and £21 17s. 6d. per month. A sound investment for your son’s future, now and after the war. —Call, ’phone, or write, The Wireless Telegraph College, 25, John Dalton-street, M/c 2. BLA. 7501.14

He had also seen the recruitment posters plastered on factory and train station walls. One of the more cinematic ads showed a silhouetted wireless operator encased in a transparent orb, transmitting concentric rings of radio waves out to scenes of electrical towers without wires, tanks bounding up flaming hills, diving bombers and distant battleship convoys, all far beyond the market stalls of Cheetham. The poster read: ‘Wireless War: Post office Engineers and Operators are in the forefront of radio developments.’15

Radio. Radio was the medium to transmit himself the hell out of Manchester. At sixteen years old, though, he was too young to enlist in the Royal Navy, so the British Merchant Navy (BMN) would have to do. He already knew the ‘Guns and Butter’ of the BMN. Although considered the poor relation of His Majesty’s Royal Navy, the BMN was the lifeline for the Allied world, delivering everything from fresh fruit on reefer boats and unkempt refugees on passenger liners to blockbuster bombs on hulking cargo ships.

Hyman’s eyes gleamed as his brilliant escape plan took form. He would attain his 2nd Class Postmaster General Certificate in Wireless Telegraphy and work for Marconi. He’d send his seaman’s wage home to his skint family, have grateful women meet him in every port, and help save what was left of the free world.

When Hyman shared his plans with his family, his mother gasped. His father leaned in, forehead creased with concern. His brother laid out the dangers bluntly. Merchant sailors faced the same dangers as the Royal Navy – U-boats prowled the seas in wolfpacks, acoustic mines were scattered across shipping lanes, and patrol aircraft circled everywhere. Without defenses or armor, merchant ships didn’t stand a chance. Just look at the Athenia. Worse, the Germans deliberately targeted merchant ships as part of their strategy to starve England. U-boat commanders measured their success not in kills but in cargo weight destroyed.

Despite the warnings, Hyman remained resolute. And so, at sixteen, Hyman Tuchverderber enrolled in wireless college with the breathless goal of becoming a wireless operator in the British Merchant Navy.

In early 1942, Hyman arrived early for his first day at the College of International Marine Radio Telegraphic Communication, housed in a stately building on Mosley Street.16 Sitting in the back of the room, he surveyed his new classmates. They were mostly twice his age – ex-servicemen, landline operators seeking their first sea posting, and engine room ratings training for new roles. The few closer to his age had the pale complexions of ham enthusiasts who loved building their own crystal sets at home. Hyman was surprised to see so many other Hebrews, but it made perfect sense considering, as he saw it, all the codes and secret meanings.

With graying hair and charcoal eyes, the head instructor explained that the curriculum would lead to Special, 2nd Class, and 1st Class PMG Certificates of Proficiency in Wireless Telegraphy. He called the students ‘Sparks,’ after the occult blue electrical arcs that leapt from the silver-coated spark-gap transmitters used in the original telegraphs.

Morse instruction began, covering both plain language and code. To pass, students needed to achieve 25 words per minute for plain text and 15 for coded groups. They started with distress signals. Each letter symbolized a threat: AAAA an aircraft attack, while MMMM indicated a mine hit and SSSS warned of a submarine attack. During drills, the instructor heightened the urgency by kicking chair legs or dropping books to simulate bulkheads cracking and portholes blowing out.

Next, they learned the Q-codes – three-letter signals that condensed messages, enabling communication between operators without needing a common language. For instance, ‘QRK?’ asked, ‘How do you receive me?’ And ‘QRV?’ meant, ‘Are you ready?’17

Hyman’s classmates quickly mastered the tapping, while he struggled, his shoulder and forearm burning. Pressing on, he refined the minimal flex at his wrist until the rhythmic pattern finally clicked into place.

After transmission came the principles of reception. The class dialed into the Portishead radio station, with its unmistakable raspy GKA call sign and buzzing tone.

Compared to sending, Hyman had a natural flair for receiving. He could hold ten words in his head while touch-typing, then twenty, then thirty, even with increased levels of simulated interference.

Exam day finally arrived for the coveted PMG Certificate. The test covered wireless telegraphy, radiotelephony, and knowledge of rules in practical and written form. Hyman left the exam room with a sigh and a nagging doubt about whether he had passed.