WATCHER SERVICE• 565intelligence abroad.’’ Among his achievements was his persuasion of
the bankers of Genoa to delay their financial support for King Philip
of Spain and his discovery that the ambassador in Paris,Sir Edward
Stafford, was in the pay of the Spanish. An amateur cryptographer,
his interception of private correspondence of Mary, Queen of Scots,
resulted in her trial and execution in 1587. He died three years later,
in debt, having expended his considerable fortune on his many
agents, among them his daughter, Lady Sidney, her steward Robert
Poley, and the playwrightChristopher Marlowe.WAR OFFICE Y GROUP (WOYG).Military signal interception dur-
ing World War II was conducted by the War Office Y Group, which
maintained large sites atChicksands Priory, Harpenden, Sandridge,
Grove Park, Denmark Hill, Cupar, and Wymondham. The network
overseas extended to Alexandria and Heliopolis, Egypt;Sarafand,
Palestine; Malta; andGibraltar. The WOYG’s headquarters were
initially at Fort Bridgewoods, Chatham, but when this area came
under attack by the Luftwaffe, it moved toBeaumanor Hall. When
the Russian Front opened in June 1941 and the enemy’s signal traffic
increased, the WOYG expanded and established intercept sites at
Forest Moor in Yorkshire, Keddleston Hall in Derbyshire, and Shen-
ley in Hertfordshire.
WARNER, SIR GERALD.Vice chief of theSecret Intelligence Ser-
vice(SIS) and director of counterintelligence from 1988, Gerald
Warner was later appointedintelligence coordinator to the Cabinet
in 1991. He joined SIS in 1954, after graduating from Oxford, and in
1956 was posted to Beijing. Warner later served in Rangoon, War-
saw, Geneva, and Kuala Lumpur. Upon his retirement from SIS in
1990, he was briefly a member of the Police Complaints Authority.
WATCHER SERVICE.TheMI5section responsible for keeping sus-
pects under observation has always been known as the Watcher Ser-
vice, although its internal designation—B6 during World War II,
when it was headed by Harry Hunter, and then A4 under JimSkar-
don—has changed whenever the Security Service has undergone re-
organization. Before 1939 the unit consisted of just three people, but
subsequently it expanded dramatically, relying on retired army non-