572 • WHADDON HALL
considered good candidates. At the end of the war Welsh searched
Germany for evidence of Nazi atomic research, found a primitive re-
actor, and learned that apart from Gustav Hertz, who had been
dropped because of his Jewish origins, all the scientists were shown
to have participated in the German project. Welsh remained SIS’s li-
aison withScientific Intelligenceafter the war and worked from an
office in the Shell-Mex building on the Strand.WHADDON HALL.The headquarters in Buckinghamshire during
Wo r l d Wa r I I o fSection VIIIof theSecret Intelligence Service
(SIS), responsible for communications and headed by Brigadier
Richard Gambier-Parryand his deputy, Major Ted Maltby. Desig-
natedSpecials Signals Unit1 and thenSpecial Communications
Unit1 (SCU 1), and located near the estates ofBletchley Parkand
Hanslope Park, Whaddon Hall provided an operations center and,
in the outbuildings at the rear, workshops for the development of ex-
perimental radio equipment. Although the senior management were
SIS officers, the remainder of the staff were either civilians or se-
conded from theRoyal Corps of Signals, and some were accommo-
dated in nearby houses, including Little Horwood and The Chase.
Whaddon Hall’s extensive stables were converted into stores and
workshops, and here a group of up to 20 technicians produced radio
transmitters for the use of agents, including the powerful but bulky
Mark III, and converted vehicles for use as mobile SCUs. The spe-
cialists were led by Ewart Holden, the proprietor of a radio shop in
Twickenham before the war, and Alex Polland, a former salesman in
radio parts. The only casualty during the war, Major Jack Saunders,
was killed in 1944 returning from a mission to enemy-occupied terri-
tory in a Lysander aircraft.
As SCU 1, Whaddon was linked to outstations in the Middle East
and India and provided a secure wireless link to military commands
over whichultramaterial was disseminated. In 1945 Whaddon Hall
was relinquished by SIS and most of the technicians were transferred
to theDiplomatic Wireless Serviceat Hanslope Park.
WHARTON-TIGAR, EDWARD.An accountant from Chester Beat-
ty’s Trepca Mine, Edward Wharton-Tigar joinedSection Din 1938
and transferred toSpecial Operations Executive(SOE) in 1940. In