THE UNASSUMING HOUSE ONCE PART OF A 1950S SPY RING
FIVE LIVING AT ADDRESS WERE JAILED FOR ESPIONAGE
IF you take a visit to Ruislip, get off at the London Underground station and head just a couple of roads down, there is a small, normal cul-de-sac called Cranley Drive of which you would never think anything in particular.
However, what you may be surprised to hear is that it actually used to be home to one of the most famous spy rings in history – the Portland Spy Ring.
It was a Soviet spy ring which operated from the late 1950s until 1961, when the British security services arrested the main group involved.
An informant told the CIA in 1959 that information was reaching the Soviets from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment and HMS Osprey at Portland, in Dorset.
MI5 put one of the civil servants working at the base, called Harry Houghton, under surveillance.
He was under suspicion because he had just bought a fourth car and a house, was a heavy drinker and his expenses were far beyond his salary.
He and his mistress Ethel Gee, who was a filing clerk at the base and had access to more secret documents, would travel to London and meet a Canadian businessman called Gordon Lonsdale and exchange packages around once a month.
Mr Lonsdale would visit 45 Cranley Drive, in Ruislip, to visit Peter and Helen Kroger, where they would smuggle secrets shared by Mr Houghton and Miss Gee over to the Soviet Union.
Mr Houghton, Miss Gee and Mr Lonsdale were arrested while they were meeting in London and were found with classified material including details of HMS Dreadnought, Britain’s first nuclear submarine.
Mr and Mrs Kroger’s house in Ruislip was raided and some microdots – the photographic reduction of documents to make them tiny – were found in her handbag.
The microdots containing the secrets were placed in particular places in antique books, which were then mailed to the Soviet Union.
The house was full of spy equipment including radio transmitters, code pads, fake passports and large amounts of money.
All five people were put on trial for espionage and the jury found them all guilty.
The Krogers – real names Morris and Lena Cohen – were sentenced to 20 years each in prison, while Mr Houghton and Miss Gee were sentenced to 15 years each.
The mastermind, Mr Lonsdale, was sentenced to 25 years in prison but was exchanged for British spy Greville Wynne in 1964.
Mr Houghton and Miss Gee married a year after their release.
It is believed there are more members of the Portland Spy Ring who were never caught.
45 Cranley Drive still exists and is lived in to this day.