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Monterey Mary #1
Voices Under Berlin: The Tale Of A Monterey Mary
The novel is ostensibly set against the backdrop of the Berlin Tunnel (Operation GOLD, covername: PBJOINTLY). The yarn is told from both ends of the tunnel. One end is the story of the Americans who worked the tunnel, and how they fought for a sense of purpose against boredom and the enemy both within and without. This side of the story is told with a pace and a black humor reminiscent of that used by Joseph Heller (Catch-22) and Richard Hooker (M*A*S*H*). The other end of the tunnel is the story of the Russians whose telephone calls the Americans are intercepting. Their end of the tale is told in the unnarrated transcripts of their calls. They are the voices under Berlin.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 31, 2008
7 people are currently reading
30 people want to read
About the author
T.H.E. Hill
11 books4 followersI also write children's books under the pen name of "Mother Mouse".
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 30, 2015
Being a Monterey Mary myself, and having been a Russian transcriber for my 3 years in Berlin, how could I NOT like this book? It rang mostly true. As for the "bazooka attack on the guard tower", it differs slightly from the version I heard in training, but I enjoyed it just the same. It made me burst out laughing in several spots, but they were the kinds of things I couldn't explain to my wife. Fellow denizens of Treadmill would get it though.
March 14, 2022
I was there
2 years after the tunnel I was transferred to Berlin, worked 11 months at Rudow Station. This book brought back so many memories. The two men w/ the stove pipe were legends already. It also explains a lot of things I've wondered about, if not the fictional part of the story. Wish Mr. Hill had included a voice intercept operator or 2.
Thanks for the 84 y. o. memories Mr. Hill!
2 years after the tunnel I was transferred to Berlin, worked 11 months at Rudow Station. This book brought back so many memories. The two men w/ the stove pipe were legends already. It also explains a lot of things I've wondered about, if not the fictional part of the story. Wish Mr. Hill had included a voice intercept operator or 2.
Thanks for the 84 y. o. memories Mr. Hill!
January 22, 2022
My dad was a Russian transcriber in Berlin, but he never told us about his time in the army. He told us that he was a courier, but that was about it. After he passed away, my brother started researching the ASA and came across a group who suggested this book. I love historical fiction, and this book gave me an idea of what my dad actually did while he was in Berlin.
July 10, 2010
“Voices Under Berlin” is a wry and deadpan account of a very particular place at a very particular time – Berlin under allied occupation in the mid 1950s, when the Cold War was coming up to a steady, simmering boil – and the city was divided into four different sectors; American, British, French and Russian. The Berlin Wall had not been built, large chunks of Berlin was still in ruins from WWII, American GIs were technically forbidden to fraternize with German women,and the various intelligence organizations were playing all kinds of deadly serious games against each other, with varying degrees of success.
One of those operations involved a tunnel dug from a specially constructed warehouse with an unusually deep cellar, in order to install a tap on land lines used by the Russians. For better than a year, telephone calls were listened to and recorded, transcribed, and carefully sifted for essential bits of information. Subtitled “The Tale of a Monterey Mary”, this is about the group of military members at the sharp and pointy end of that particular spear over the course of their tour in Berlin. These are, for the most part, those who listened to the tapes, translated and transcribed, or those whose task it was to keep them all pointed more or less in the same direction. Other characters, who emerge through the transcriptions of their telephone conversations, are various Russian officers - ‘the voices under Berlin.’ For purely civilian readers and at this date, some five decades later, it is just as well that this novel starts with an extensive glossary. Most terms, other than those specific to that location at that specific time, are familiar to anyone who has been in the military, but the purely civilian reader would most likely otherwise be at sea,
The plot, such as it is, hangs on a pair of strands; first, the existence of the tunnel itself – can it be kept secret, and for how long, in a place where the Russians are constantly probing for information, seeking out willing traitors and testing the other allies’ intelligence services. The other continuing plot strand is - which one of the handful of American characters has been targeted by the Russians, the object of a ‘honey-pot’ scheme, wherein his German girlfriend is actually a Russian agent tapping him for information? Small clues as to the activities and whereabouts of the woman involved dropped throughout, in transcribed conversations. Is it the talkative student Gabbie, who is actually having a sweet and traditional romance with Kevin, the brilliant Russian-language expert, who is so adept at transcribing the tapes and so familiar with some of the voices on them that he has begun to think of them as personal friends? What about Blackie, whose nickname might come from his penchant for black-marketing, or for a practical joke involving rubbing sheets of used carbon paper onto the earpieces of his headset? He has a German girlfriend and so does the unspeakable Lt. Sherlock, the military martinet with no perceivable talents save for that of being able to walk away unscathed from the disasters large and small that he himself has caused. The potential security breach probably isn’t Fast Eddie, the married sergeant whose wife works at the PX Theater, or the crusty career soldier Master-Sergeant Laufflaecker, he of the parade-ground command voice and limitless ability to scrounge the necessary when it is absolutely positively necessary. And it most definitely not is the irascible and experienced Chief of Base, with his penchant for appearing in disguise and his dictate that whosoever acquires a German girlfriend will be reassigned so fast they will have whiplash injuries. The narrative follows the course of a year, enlivened with many seemingly vintage photos of places, objects and people relevant to the story, as well as accounts of a staggeringly varied number of practical jokes. Never underestimate the creative lengths to which extremely intelligent and bored military personnel will go to amuse themselves, especially when confined to spending hours and hours on duty, in the main just watching for something to happen; elaborate charades to divert (or scare the pants off of) the bored East German military, watching the site from a tall guard tower, the briefing-book cooked up for a totally imaginary Russian unit supposedly stationed just across the way, or even just loosening an essential screw in someone elses’ headset. Some of these japes are ancient, yet ever-renewed by a fresh generation, sent off post-haste on their first day for a fifty-foot length of flight line and a bucket of prop-wash. “Voices Under Berlin” is well worth the time, to a veteran and non-veteran alike, for a glimpse into another world, another war, half a century ago.
One of those operations involved a tunnel dug from a specially constructed warehouse with an unusually deep cellar, in order to install a tap on land lines used by the Russians. For better than a year, telephone calls were listened to and recorded, transcribed, and carefully sifted for essential bits of information. Subtitled “The Tale of a Monterey Mary”, this is about the group of military members at the sharp and pointy end of that particular spear over the course of their tour in Berlin. These are, for the most part, those who listened to the tapes, translated and transcribed, or those whose task it was to keep them all pointed more or less in the same direction. Other characters, who emerge through the transcriptions of their telephone conversations, are various Russian officers - ‘the voices under Berlin.’ For purely civilian readers and at this date, some five decades later, it is just as well that this novel starts with an extensive glossary. Most terms, other than those specific to that location at that specific time, are familiar to anyone who has been in the military, but the purely civilian reader would most likely otherwise be at sea,
The plot, such as it is, hangs on a pair of strands; first, the existence of the tunnel itself – can it be kept secret, and for how long, in a place where the Russians are constantly probing for information, seeking out willing traitors and testing the other allies’ intelligence services. The other continuing plot strand is - which one of the handful of American characters has been targeted by the Russians, the object of a ‘honey-pot’ scheme, wherein his German girlfriend is actually a Russian agent tapping him for information? Small clues as to the activities and whereabouts of the woman involved dropped throughout, in transcribed conversations. Is it the talkative student Gabbie, who is actually having a sweet and traditional romance with Kevin, the brilliant Russian-language expert, who is so adept at transcribing the tapes and so familiar with some of the voices on them that he has begun to think of them as personal friends? What about Blackie, whose nickname might come from his penchant for black-marketing, or for a practical joke involving rubbing sheets of used carbon paper onto the earpieces of his headset? He has a German girlfriend and so does the unspeakable Lt. Sherlock, the military martinet with no perceivable talents save for that of being able to walk away unscathed from the disasters large and small that he himself has caused. The potential security breach probably isn’t Fast Eddie, the married sergeant whose wife works at the PX Theater, or the crusty career soldier Master-Sergeant Laufflaecker, he of the parade-ground command voice and limitless ability to scrounge the necessary when it is absolutely positively necessary. And it most definitely not is the irascible and experienced Chief of Base, with his penchant for appearing in disguise and his dictate that whosoever acquires a German girlfriend will be reassigned so fast they will have whiplash injuries. The narrative follows the course of a year, enlivened with many seemingly vintage photos of places, objects and people relevant to the story, as well as accounts of a staggeringly varied number of practical jokes. Never underestimate the creative lengths to which extremely intelligent and bored military personnel will go to amuse themselves, especially when confined to spending hours and hours on duty, in the main just watching for something to happen; elaborate charades to divert (or scare the pants off of) the bored East German military, watching the site from a tall guard tower, the briefing-book cooked up for a totally imaginary Russian unit supposedly stationed just across the way, or even just loosening an essential screw in someone elses’ headset. Some of these japes are ancient, yet ever-renewed by a fresh generation, sent off post-haste on their first day for a fifty-foot length of flight line and a bucket of prop-wash. “Voices Under Berlin” is well worth the time, to a veteran and non-veteran alike, for a glimpse into another world, another war, half a century ago.
April 16, 2010
From my blog...
Voices Under Berlin takes the reader inside the 9539th T.C.U. during the early days of the Cold War. The reader is exposed to both sides of the Cold War in a manner I personally thought interrupted the flow of the narrative. In Voices Under Berlin, Hill does a good job describing what it is like for the recruits who arrive into the 9539th, especially the three main characters from the 9539th: Kevin, who is a Monterey Mary graduate, proficient in several languages and also the narrator of the American side of the story; Blackie a manual Morse Code Operator, one of the best, and also a fine blackmarketeer and Lieutenant Robert Sherlock, aka "Sheerluck". The 9539th is working to get the CIA's project, the Berlin Tunnel, up and operational during the early days of occupied Germany. The story is about the people that made the Berlin tunnel a reality as well as the interception of communiqués from East Berlin to the USSR. Voices Under Berlin is a spy story of sorts, told with wit, sarcasm and is intended to be a lighter look at a very serious time in history. Hill received numerous awards for his portrayal of Berlin in the 1950s and the secret operations occurring on both sides, yet for me the novel fell short of what I had hoped it would be. Having an extensive background in Soviet Foreign Relations, I was expecting the novel to take a more serious and in-depth historical look at the events taking place, and instead found myself at times bored, reading about sophomoric pranks or wasting time flipping to the front to be certain I was clear about a military acronym being used. The enclosed photographs were of great interest to me as was the few pieces of historical information, however I just could not find a solid rhythm to this novel. For those looking for a non-traditional spy novel with a twist of mystery, dark humour, stab at "military intelligence" and "Mata Haris",Voices Under Berlin may be exactly what you are searching for.
Voices Under Berlin takes the reader inside the 9539th T.C.U. during the early days of the Cold War. The reader is exposed to both sides of the Cold War in a manner I personally thought interrupted the flow of the narrative. In Voices Under Berlin, Hill does a good job describing what it is like for the recruits who arrive into the 9539th, especially the three main characters from the 9539th: Kevin, who is a Monterey Mary graduate, proficient in several languages and also the narrator of the American side of the story; Blackie a manual Morse Code Operator, one of the best, and also a fine blackmarketeer and Lieutenant Robert Sherlock, aka "Sheerluck". The 9539th is working to get the CIA's project, the Berlin Tunnel, up and operational during the early days of occupied Germany. The story is about the people that made the Berlin tunnel a reality as well as the interception of communiqués from East Berlin to the USSR. Voices Under Berlin is a spy story of sorts, told with wit, sarcasm and is intended to be a lighter look at a very serious time in history. Hill received numerous awards for his portrayal of Berlin in the 1950s and the secret operations occurring on both sides, yet for me the novel fell short of what I had hoped it would be. Having an extensive background in Soviet Foreign Relations, I was expecting the novel to take a more serious and in-depth historical look at the events taking place, and instead found myself at times bored, reading about sophomoric pranks or wasting time flipping to the front to be certain I was clear about a military acronym being used. The enclosed photographs were of great interest to me as was the few pieces of historical information, however I just could not find a solid rhythm to this novel. For those looking for a non-traditional spy novel with a twist of mystery, dark humour, stab at "military intelligence" and "Mata Haris",Voices Under Berlin may be exactly what you are searching for.
June 15, 2009
Voices Under Berlin by T. H. E. Hill promises to be: " story... told with a pace and a black humor reminiscent of that used by Joseph Heller (Catch-22) and Richard Hooker (M*A*S*H*). " It is set in the early 1950s in Berlin in the days before the Wall and during the time that the city was still divided up between France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union. With that setting in mind I was also reminded of I Was a Male War Bride (1949).
Like M*A*S*H* and Catch-22 the novel features an ensemble cast of characters. For the most part, though, the protagonist is Kevin, one of the language experts. He's a likeable sort, not perfect and not devoted to the army. He is, however, devoted to his love of language and to his Berlin girlfriend.
The novel follows the building of the tunnel, the trouble keeping it secret and about a year's worth of wire tapping. The wire tapped transcripts are worth reading because they are often very silly. Running the tunnel has its problems. It's below the water table so it has to be pumped. It's near an old cemetery. It's invisible as long as it isn't snowing. The tap itself isn't foolproof and the transcripts are only as useful as the person transcribing them.
At the start of the book the author includes an extensive glossary of terms. Most of them I already knew but if you're not familiar with military and cold war jargon, it's a good place to start. The book also includes a number of photographs labeled as if they were taken by characters in the novel. At the end of the novel the author provides information on their sources.
I thoroughly enjoyed Voices Under Berlin and I feel it holds up to its promise to be akin to M*A*S*H* and Catch-22. It's one of the funniest books I've been sent for review.
Like M*A*S*H* and Catch-22 the novel features an ensemble cast of characters. For the most part, though, the protagonist is Kevin, one of the language experts. He's a likeable sort, not perfect and not devoted to the army. He is, however, devoted to his love of language and to his Berlin girlfriend.
The novel follows the building of the tunnel, the trouble keeping it secret and about a year's worth of wire tapping. The wire tapped transcripts are worth reading because they are often very silly. Running the tunnel has its problems. It's below the water table so it has to be pumped. It's near an old cemetery. It's invisible as long as it isn't snowing. The tap itself isn't foolproof and the transcripts are only as useful as the person transcribing them.
At the start of the book the author includes an extensive glossary of terms. Most of them I already knew but if you're not familiar with military and cold war jargon, it's a good place to start. The book also includes a number of photographs labeled as if they were taken by characters in the novel. At the end of the novel the author provides information on their sources.
I thoroughly enjoyed Voices Under Berlin and I feel it holds up to its promise to be akin to M*A*S*H* and Catch-22. It's one of the funniest books I've been sent for review.
February 4, 2009
Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary takes place during the Cold War back in the 50’s. At that time not only was there a war going on but there was also another operation in effect. It involved a tunnel operation manned by the CIA. This operation was known as the Berlin Tunnel operation. While the Berlin Tunnel operation was not the first, it was the most famous of the many tunnel operations.
The whole story centers on the men in the tunnels but in particularly three men. There names are Kevin, a Russian transcriber, Blackie, the blackmarketeer and Lieutenant Sheerluck, the martinet. The tunnels were used so that cable-taps could be used to listen to the Soviets. As you could imagine, sitting in the tunnels all day with not much to you, you quickly find ways to entertain yourself. That is exactly what these men did. Have you ever listened to phone conversations between Soviets? It can be very amusing.
I enjoyed all the illustrations depicted throughout this book. It helped to make a great imagine in my head. Mr. Hill really knows his facts. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary is as close as you get to the real deal without being there at that exact moment. While I did find myself starting to skim over some of the reading, I would find myself drawn back in. I especially liked reading the phone conversations. They gave me a good laugh or two. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary turned out to be a good spy novel.
The whole story centers on the men in the tunnels but in particularly three men. There names are Kevin, a Russian transcriber, Blackie, the blackmarketeer and Lieutenant Sheerluck, the martinet. The tunnels were used so that cable-taps could be used to listen to the Soviets. As you could imagine, sitting in the tunnels all day with not much to you, you quickly find ways to entertain yourself. That is exactly what these men did. Have you ever listened to phone conversations between Soviets? It can be very amusing.
I enjoyed all the illustrations depicted throughout this book. It helped to make a great imagine in my head. Mr. Hill really knows his facts. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary is as close as you get to the real deal without being there at that exact moment. While I did find myself starting to skim over some of the reading, I would find myself drawn back in. I especially liked reading the phone conversations. They gave me a good laugh or two. Voices Under Berlin: The Tale of a Monterey Mary turned out to be a good spy novel.
April 9, 2011
You know a work of fiction is good when it is difficult to tell if the story is fact or fiction. Thus we have Hill’s boo, “Voices Under Berlin”. The lines are very blurred between fact and fiction in this book. The reason? The story is based on actual events with a few embellished events and people. Some of the military speak was difficult for me and I often wished my father, a military man, was still alive to explain part of it to me. My father was stationed in Berlin in the Army. Hill’s writing for me was rich enough that I will continue my research into this period of history. I loved that part of it was written in script form so you felt as if you were actually reading a transcript. From this book I gained a better perspective of the operation that took place before I was born. I have a greater appreciation for the men who served in this capacity.
November 3, 2008
I won this book from First Reads. Initially, I was skeptical about whether or not I would like it. The book is interesting, but a somewhat boring at times.
The writing reminds me of an old man telling a story, and sometimes it is difficult to relate. I found the history interesting, and it gives a new insight into what was going on during the cold war. One thing I disliked was the glossary of military terms at the beginning--it sounded like the author didn't think the average reader would know what SOP and military time were. And, for the few things I didn't understand, it was annoying to have to flip to the front instead of having a footnote or a simple explanation in the text.
I would recommend this book to someone interested in Cold War history.
The writing reminds me of an old man telling a story, and sometimes it is difficult to relate. I found the history interesting, and it gives a new insight into what was going on during the cold war. One thing I disliked was the glossary of military terms at the beginning--it sounded like the author didn't think the average reader would know what SOP and military time were. And, for the few things I didn't understand, it was annoying to have to flip to the front instead of having a footnote or a simple explanation in the text.
I would recommend this book to someone interested in Cold War history.
April 27, 2010
Did Not Finish
I really loved the idea of this book, it sounded great and it won five book awards. But after the first few chapters, I felt like I still didn't know what was going on and I didn't know who the characters were. I love spy books! They are my absolute favorite… but I didn't feel compelled to read this one. And I have come to realize that if I have to force myself to read something, why read it?
The writing was pretty good, and it had some funny lines, but it wasn't enough to keep me reading. I also really liked the phone calls, but still it wasn't enough for me.
I really wish I had liked this one more. However, check out Goodreads and Amazon for more reviews (30+ 4- and 5-star reviews), you will see that I am in the minority.
I really loved the idea of this book, it sounded great and it won five book awards. But after the first few chapters, I felt like I still didn't know what was going on and I didn't know who the characters were. I love spy books! They are my absolute favorite… but I didn't feel compelled to read this one. And I have come to realize that if I have to force myself to read something, why read it?
The writing was pretty good, and it had some funny lines, but it wasn't enough to keep me reading. I also really liked the phone calls, but still it wasn't enough for me.
I really wish I had liked this one more. However, check out Goodreads and Amazon for more reviews (30+ 4- and 5-star reviews), you will see that I am in the minority.
December 4, 2008
This was a pretty good read, I truly enjoyed it. It was filled with lots of pranks that the characters did, which made it funny. I thought it was going to be a bit dry, but it ended up sucking me in. Great read!
November 29, 2008
A new and interesting way to look at the Cold War.
March 5, 2016
Read it if you love the stories of modern history, cold war, Berlin, or the U.S. Army intelligence community.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews