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The British Baltic Fishery Protection Service (BBFPS) and the Clandestine Operations of Hans Helmut Klose 1949-1956
by SIGURD HESS -- abstract

The British Baltic Fishery Protection Service was set up as a cover for operation "Jungle," the clandestine agent transport organized by the British secret intelligence service MI 6. Commencing in May 1949, MI 6 used the Kriegsmarine Schnellboot S 208 (Fast Patrol Boat or FPB) under the command of the German naval officer Hans-Helmut Klose to transport agents to the landing sites in Polanga, Lithuania, in Uzava and Ventspils, Latvia, in Saaremaa, Estonia, and in Stolpmünde, Poland. After improvised beginnings, MI 6 considered a permanent organisation, which was set up 1951 in Hamburg-Finkenwerder and later in Kiel. In 1952, a second Schnellboot, S 130, joined and the mission was enlarged to include signal intelligence (SIGINT) equipment. In 1954/55, three newly built Schnellboote replaced the old and war-weary FPBs.
From 1951 onwards, MI 6 suspected that Soviet counter-intelligence might have infiltrated the spy networks in the forests of Courland. Actually, the KGB had been very successful with its "operative game" named "Lursen-S." All of the more than 42 agents which MI 6 had sent "into the cold" were caught, sentenced, or turned around as moles or counteragents. The Klose operations were successful as far as SIGINT and the naval aspects of his raids are concerned. Inadvertently, the British also helped to lay the foundation of what developed in the 60s into the German Navy "Schnellbootflottille" and the "Marine Fernmeldestab 70," the Naval Intelligence Organization. The MI 6 operations in the forests of Courland, however, were a complete failure. This had much to do with superciliousness and lack of internal security inside MI 6. In the end, neither MI 6 nor the KGB achieved their intended aims and many human lives were sacrificed for a trickle of information, which after close analysis proved to be without much value.