Antiques Roadshow: Expert values SOE spy radio
WARNING: This article contains spoilers from Antiques Roadshow.
An Antiques Roadshow expert was thrilled to delve into the history of a radio set that was initially believed to be a tool box.
BBC's Antiques Roadshow featured a segment at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, where expert Mark Smith excitedly inspected a large, hefty green box which had been discovered by its current owner in one of his father-in-law's outbuildings.
“You’ve brought me a big green box. It’s a heavy box as well. Where did you find it?”, Smith questioned.
The owner replied: “It was in one of my father-in-law’s barns or sheds.
“We were just sorting through it all when he died and I saw it and thought ‘that’ll be a lovely tool box.’”
Smith pointed out that on the front it read ‘Sergeant FL Church’, “Royal Signals”, alongside a service number.
When asked if the guest and his partner knew anything about an FL Church, they confirmed they didn't.
The expert continued: “Now the service number is a Second World War number and actually what I would say is, like you thought, it’s a tool box but what I think it is, is it’s a spare’s box, probably out of a vehicle.
“But that’s not what’s inside it, is it? So what is inside it is a radio set. Now what did you think when you saw that?”
“Just thought it was something special. It looked old and very complicated to be honest”, the guest candidly replied.
Smith revealed that it was a Mark III B2 radio, known as the B2, and was used by the Special Operations Executive (SOE).
The expert elaborated: “So in 1940, Churchill said we need an organisation that will go into occupied Europe and later into the war, into the far east, and set Europe ablaze.
“They will be there for sabotage, they will be there for information gathering and one of the key things they’ve got to do is they’ve got to get that information back to us.
“And this set was invented by a man named Captain Brown. He worked for SOE section nine and he invented this radio set in 1942.
“Now, it’s actually quite a complicated piece of equipment in as much as it can be powered by any source of power that you can think of.
“So you can plug it into the mains if that works, you can plug it into a battery, you can plug it into a car generator.
“You can plug it into anything that’ll give you power, even to the point, I know we’ve got a photograph, where you can actually link it to a bicycle.
“And you can pedal the bicycle and that will give you enough power to send a signal back.”
The BBC expert went on to predict that FL Church was a radio enthusiast, given a key clue inside the box.
“Now the thing about this is that Mr Church is in the Royal Signals and I think he was just someone who was fascinated by radio, because we have this big card on the front here that says ‘G3CUW’.
“Now I’ve looked that up and that’s an amateur radio call sign from 1948.
“Only using Morse Code but what I think, what it was that he had bought this in an army surplus, because he knows about radios and he knows how to make this thing work.
“What will be nice is if it could tell us some of the radio messages that it sent, because some of those missions that they undertook were definitely going to be fatal.”
It was then time for Smith to conclude: “It’s actually quite a special piece of equipment and it’s worth somewhere between £10,000 and £15,000.”
The guests quietly sniggered before sharing a look of surprise with one another.
The expert commented: “That’s not a bad tool box to find in the shed, is it?”
“This is a real treat. This is a real piece of Second World War history from the very darkest places across Europe that you can ever imagine.
“Thanks so much for finding it first of all and thanks so much for bringing it in.”
The radio set’s owner then simply replied: “Amazing.”
Antiques Roadshow is available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
