Operation Garbo (17 page)
Authors: Juan Pujol Garcia
With reference to the latest reports of 4(3), I send the
following
questionnaire, the reply to which would be of much
interest
. Where is the headquarters of the 21 Army Group, English? The numbering of the armies within the said army group, and their headquarters. How many and which divisions are within
each of the armies of the said army group, indicating, where possible, which divisions are armoured and which are infantry.
Ten days later
GARBO
described a further exchange he had had with the American:
I questioned him on the 21 Army Group, but it seems that he does not know much about this formation. He was only able to say that there are a few American troops in it, but that the Americans are mainly in the First US Army Group.
Heavy emphasis was being placed on the obvious build-up of Allied forces in the south-east and eastern counties. On 25 May
DAGOBERT
saw ‘the sign of the panda several times’ around Ipswich, a reference to the divisional identification of the 9th British Armoured Division, which was evidently moving into East Anglia.
GARBO
himself made a contribution the following day by sighting ‘many troops with sign of a knight with lance’ at Lewes. This was further evidence that the 8th English Army Corps Headquarters had moved into eastern Sussex. A week later, on 1 June,
DAGOBERT
noticed the 9th Armoured Division outside Tilbury. The entire division had been transferred right across the country, surely more proof that the invasion was imminent and heading for the Pas-de-Calais?
While the German high command absorbed these reports,
GARBO
had other, more mundane, developments to report. Agent
DRAKE
’s behaviour, for example, had been giving cause for concern. He was supposed to have set himself up in the West Country, but on 19 April he had reported from Taunton that he had failed to get into the local prohibited zone. A month later he had sent an anxious letter from Exeter:
I entered this prohibited area where vigilance is extremely strict. I do not see any possibility of remaining here owing to
the continual demands for documentation, which up to the moment I have been able to evade.
His luck had only lasted another fortnight. On 2 June 7(6) reported from Swansea that
DRAKE
had been arrested and sentenced to a month’s imprisonment:
Apparently, there is no indication that any suspicion exists regarding the mission with which he was entrusted by me and that it was only a routine case for not having complied with the present restrictions.
This effectively eliminated
DRAKE
from
FORTITUDE
and ensured that he did not have to experience any awkward lapses during the invasion. Having removed
DRAKE
, it was decided to silence 7(6) by portraying him as another of
DAGOBERT
’s failures. Accordingly,
GARBO
told Madrid:
I have received a long letter from 7(6) with reports, the majority of which were stupid. We can therefore discount the ability of this agent as an informant in spite of the repeated instructions given. His usefulness to the military information service is nil.
This ploy was designed to add some authenticity to
GARBO
’s work. After all, however brilliant an organiser he might be, not all his agents could plausibly be presented as excellent performers.
DRAKE
and 7(6) proved that occasionally
GARBO
experienced a setback. Nevertheless,
GARBO
’s network was maturing well, and the letter and wireless traffic to Madrid was gradually being built up. In fact, the volume got so great that Harris became concerned that it was probably too much for a single person, so
GARBO
sought permission to bring
BENEDICT
the Venezuelan down from Glasgow to act as his deputy. He also asked for Mrs Gerbers, Agent two’s widow, to be allowed to help with the mass of ciphering work. Madrid responded with enthusiasm. Incredibly,
they also accepted
GARBO
’s suggestion that all future
communications
should be written in English, to assist Mrs Gerbers.
One agent who had excelled was J(3), the unconscious source who worked at the Ministry of Information. As Tommy Harris had already pointed out, this individual could have been identified as the head of the Spanish section and, purely by chance, the real person actually went to Madrid early in May 1944.
GARBO
reported his departure, and MI5 requested that the British embassy send him home at the earliest opportunity, before the Germans took any initiative. Nothing untoward happened to the entirely innocent official, and on 22 May
GARBO
described a conversation he had had with him on his return:
Result of interview today with J(3). He returned from Madrid for reasons connected with propaganda preparations of the second front. He proposed that I should help him, offering good remuneration for work which I could do at home. I accepted provisionally, telling him that I wanted to consult with my family, in order to allow time to receive approval from you, since it concerns work for the enemy which I could only accept as a sacrifice to be compensated by getting important information.
Not surprisingly, when tempted with such an attractive prize, the Germans wasted no time in telling their star agent to take up the MOI official’s tantalising offer. They radioed the next day:
Have studied carefully the question of J(3). Am of the opinion that you should accept the offer as apart from his being able to facilitate good information, this work assists your cover in every respect.
On 28 May,
GARBO
announced that he had taken the job … and had been made to sign a special document in which he had undertaken not to breach the Official Secrets Act.
I attach much importance to this because I learned that only people who may get to learn details which may compromise secret plans are obliged to sign this.
Even forty years later it is not difficult to imagine the fun that
GARBO
and his case officer had while compiling this particular message. But there was also a serious side to the Abstelle’s signal of 22 May. Madrid Abstelle had also inquired about
FORTITUDE
’s fictitious units in Scotland:
I am particularly interested to know urgently whether the 52nd Division is still in the camps in the Glasgow area after finishing the manoeuvres on the 11th, in accordance with the message of
BENEDICT
. I should be grateful to have your reply as soon as possible. Please take every measure to ensure that you are notified of every movement of that division by the quickest possible means. I should be grateful if you would tell me how much time will be lost from the moment the division starts its embarkation operation until the news reaches you for the transmission to us by message.
One interesting aspect to this text was the final sentence
concerning
the delay involved in passing on news of any embarkation. MI5 knew, from the
ISOS
intercepts, that this exact question had been put to the Madrid Abstelle by the Berlin Abwehr; Madrid had promised Berlin that the information about embarkation would reach the Spanish capital within forty-eight hours. On 23 May
GARBO
offered to send it on within twelve hours, which must have pleased Madrid.
This request was also convenient because it offered an excuse for
GARBO
to demand that the German receiving station in Madrid stay on the air later than its current closedown of eleven o’clock at night. MI5’s motive for obtaining longer hours from the enemy’s wireless service lay in a controversial plan to warn the Abwehr that the Normandy invasion had begun
shortly before the landing craft really did hit the beaches. Both
GARBO
and Harris were adamant that the network’s credibility would be enhanced greatly if it could send a message to Madrid in time. The Abwehr would then be more likely to believe that this first attack was a feint and would then listen to
GARBO
’s information about preparations for the main landing in the Pas-de-Calais area. With
GARBO
’s increased reputation, Harris had argued, he would be an even more effective weapon of deception. He also pointed out that if the warning was received a few hours before the invasion started, it would still be too late for the Germans to do much about it. MI5 knew from
ISOS
that it would take the Abwehr about three hours to relay the warning to the relevant sectors via Berlin, so there was no danger of
actually
betraying or endangering the operation itself. Naturally, this extraordinary proposal got a mixed reception from the services responsible for conveying the troops across the Channel safely. Some thought that what Harris was suggesting was
uncomfortably
close to treachery. After lengthy negotiations with General Eisenhower’s staff, the supreme commander eventually gave his consent for a transmission to be made on condition that it should go out no more than three and half hours ahead of the attack. The idea of signalling just before eleven the
previous
evening was vetoed. The master plan for D-Day had the first troops landing on enemy territory at exactly 6.30 on the morning of 5 June 1944, so
GARBO
was authorised to make his signal at about three o’clock in the morning. Unfortunately, the Abwehr operators went off the air between eleven and seven, so
GARBO
was obliged to find an excuse to keep them up all night. His scheme was particularly ingenious and involved the creation of a spurious crisis concerning his Greek agent.
On the evening of 26 May
GARBO
reported that he had summoned his last agent in Scotland, the Greek seaman, 3(3), down to London. At a debriefing session, 3(3) had confirmed that the ships assembled for the forthcoming invasion of Norway were still moored in the Clyde.
3(3) is in London having been called here by me by telegram. He says that the 52nd Division is at present in camps in the areas Saltcoats, Kilmarnock, Prestwick and Ayr. The entire division is concentrated there. He also saw there a large number of the insignia of the pilgrims’ shell, which he had previously mentioned in the area of Dundee. Since it was impossible for him to keep a check on the fleet and the 52nd Division at the same time, as they were no longer both in the same place, he was told that he should not lose contact with the fleet, as troops could not embark without ships, thus, while controlling one you control the other.
3(3) was promptly sent back to Glasgow with instructions to send a single code word when the ships steamed out of the Clyde. But at 8.20 on 3 June,
GARBO
reported that he had just received a telegram from the Greek, announcing his arrival in London at eleven that night. This was obviously a significant development:
Something must have happened which cannot be explained in the code which had been agreed between us for announcing the sailing of the Clyde fleet. Therefore you should be
listening
tomorrow morning at 0300 hours.
GARBO
later sent a message explaining that the Greek had blundered and had simply come down to London to report in person. Now, apparently, he understood completely the code word arrangements and had gone straight back to Glasgow.
GARBO
recommended that to avoid further delays the Madrid operator should maintain a night watch. To MI5’s delight, the Abwehr agreed, and the scene was set for a secret warning to be transmitted in the early hours of 5 June, three and a half hours before the Normandy landings.
GARBO
had also manoeuvred himself into what was
supposedly
a sensitive position in the Ministry of Information. In
theory,
GARBO
would report on the advice the MOI was
offering
in connection with propaganda for the invasion. If
GARBO
claimed that the MOI had forbidden any newspapers to
speculate
on a further invasion after D-Day, the Germans would inevitably conclude that a second attack was likely. The
possibilities
were almost limitless and, in order to acclimatise the Abwehr to their new source,
GARBO
described on 29 May how he had been reading the material used for the North African and Italian campaigns:
What I was clearly able to get out of it and what I consider to be of the maximum importance is the intention to hide the facts in order to trick us.
A little later the same evening
GARBO
sent a lengthy (and
accurate
) account of the political warfare executive’s role. This was an exercise intended to dazzle the Abwehr with
GARBO
’s grasp of the intricacies of the British establishment’s bureaucracy. It was also supposed to ensure that Berlin took proper account of his messages, which, in the coming days, would be of vital importance.
It is the executive body for all foreign propaganda and it
coordinates
directives issued which are based on policy
recommendations
of the Foreign Office, War Cabinet and Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Forces. The latter is known by the initials ‘SHAEF’. Thus PWE is the propaganda mouthpiece of Eisenhower, Eden and the British chiefs of staff. … In view of the fact that this department’s work is secret, it is very possible that Berlin is not aware of these important facts and I therefore recommend that steps should be taken to notify the competent chiefs in Berlin so that experts can evaluate and interpret the strategic plans behind the propaganda directives which are issued, hitherto unknown to us but which, through my present position, will be available
to you in future. I am convinced that, knowing the intentions behind these directives, together with the reports from my agents, we will know the future intentions of the enemy.