Operation Garbo (18 page)
Authors: Juan Pujol Garcia
GARBO
was now ready to assist in the second phase of Operation
FORTITUDE
, which began on 29 May with a massive fighter attack on the Pas-de-Calais area. A total of sixty-six squadrons took part in the exercise, which was observed and reported on by
DONNY
, the leader of the Aryan World Order, who was living in Dover. He identified a number of airfields in Kent and Sussex which had been used by the planes, although most had in fact been based in Hampshire. The Luftwaffe was known to be aware of the various aerodromes around Southampton that were crammed with aircraft waiting to provide air cover over Normandy. By suggesting that these concentrations were merely awaiting dispersal to operational sites nearer north-west France, the enemy was distracted from the most obvious conclusion: that planes in Hampshire meant an attack on Normandy. During the exercise on 29 May hundreds of fighters landed on unfamiliar airfields in Kent and Sussex to rearm and refuel.
DONNY
made the necessary
observations
(which were, of course, confirmed by such German aircraft as ventured into the sky) and the operation achieved the desired result.
On 3 June
GARBO
raised the temperature a little further by relaying an interesting snippet of information from
DORICK
in Harwich:
Sign, not previously seen, of a yellow shield with three blue mountain peaks outlined in white. This newly arrived division from USA.
The following day
GARBO
transmitted a long despatch from his Greek agent in Scotland, adding further pressure on the eve of the planned invasion:
3(3), having received news of the landings in Scotland of a large contingent of troops coming from Ireland, disregarded my instructions that he should not leave the Clyde in order to investigate this information. He discovered the entire
division
had, in fact, arrived and was encamped in the Locherbie area. Insignia is the red rose on a white ground. He believes it to be the 55th English Division. Returning to Glasgow, on arrival at Motherwell he discovered that vehicles and men in full equipment in large numbers were assembling there and in the surroundings belonging to the stags antler divisions and the one with the sign of the fish in red on blue and white waves. The road in direction of Hamilton was controlled by CMP.
Monday 5 June had been earmarked as D-Day, but bad weather forced a temporary delay of twenty-four hours. So instead of transmitting a warning early on 5 June,
GARBO
had to content himself with forwarding a brief message from the wretched Agent 7(6), who claimed to have spotted a division of US assault troops assembling in Liverpool
destined for an attack on the South Atlantic French coast in cooperation with a large army which will come direct from America to the French coast.
GARBO
did not attach much importance to this message,
especially
as he had already characterised the self-styled Welsh Fascist as an incompetent. In any case, there were more important matters at hand. His chief concern was the elaborate warning message which had to be transmitted at exactly three o’clock on the morning of the D-Day landings. The timing was to be explained by a complicated text from
CHAMILLUS
, who was supposed to have reported to
BENEDICT
. The resulting message had been encoded by the long-suffering widow Mrs Gerbers, who had then sent it straight to
ALMURA
in time for him to begin transmitting at exactly three o’clock. Its content was intended
to tell the Germans that the invasion had already begun, but
GARBO
was too subtle to say so in so many words:
Still no news from 3(3) but, meanwhile,
CHAMILLUS
has hastened to London, having broken camp together with two American deserters who had arrived in the camp on Friday. Discovering the plans of these two men, he decided to join them in view of the important news which he would otherwise have been unable to communicate in view of the complete sealing of the camps for the past week. En route, he tried to communicate by telephone, using the password prepared in case of
emergency
, but found that only official calls were being accepted. He therefore continued his journey clandestinely to London in order to report to me personally. He arrived after a
difficult
journey created by the steps he took to slip through the local vigilance. He told me that three days ago cold rations and vomit bags had again been distributed to troops of the 3rd Canadian Division and that the division had now left the camp, its place now taken by Americans. There were rumours that the 3rd Canadian Division had now embarked. The American troops which are now in the camp belong to the First US Army. The two Americans who escaped with him through fear of embarking belonged to the 926 Signal Corps. The situation of this agent is very compromising for the service because his absence must have been noted owing to the many hours which have elapsed since he left the camp. In order to protect the service, I have taken a decision which I think you will approve, which is to put him in hiding, taking advantage of the fact that
DAGOBERT
is here, who says that he can arrange this with absolute safety and without danger of compromise. Therefore, tomorrow, they will both leave for the south of Wales.
Charles Haines, masquerading as
ALMURA
, the conscientious objector, tapped out this historic message and was watched by
GARBO
, Tommy Harris and Tar Robertson, who had driven up to Crespigny Road especially for the occasion. The Germans had begun transmitting to
GARBO
at 7.29 p.m. and had
continued
until about midnight. Most of it was for relaying on to Cyril Mills in Canada, and there were one or two items concerning
GARBO
’s call signs. Evidently, the Abwehr had little idea of the offensive which was about to open.
GARBO
, Harris and Haines continued the cipher work until the time arrived for them to start transmitting to Madrid. Haines switched on his set and keyed in his call sign, but he got no reply. Instead of the agreed answer Haines heard nothing but static. He tried again at
regular
, fifteen-minute intervals for the next five hours, but the Abwehr only came up on the net at eight in the morning. After so many heated arguments about the advisability of giving a specific warning to the enemy, the entire plan had flopped. Madrid finally acknowledged
GARBO
’s message more than two hours after the first Allied troops had landed in Normandy. Understandably, everyone concerned was profoundly
disappointed
, although some consolation was taken in the slightly altered text which was eventually transmitted. This implied that
ALMURA
had actually tried to reach Madrid rather earlier than three o’clock. Thanks to the Abwehr’s inefficiency a
tremendous
opportunity had been lost, but it was now too late to alter the plans. The long-awaited invasion had begun, and it was up to
GARBO
to persuade the enemy that this was a mere feint to divert attention away from the major cross-Channel attack which had yet in take place.
Shortly before dawn on 6 June 1944, 1,213 warships
gathered
off the coast of Normandy and began disembarking more than 120,000 Allied troops. It was the first phase of history’s biggest amphibious operation, involving some 13,000 Allied aircraft, flying a total of 1,1,600 sorties and dropping 5,200 tons of explosives. Yet the enemy was caught entirely unprepared.
The sheer scale of
OVERLORD
was breathtaking. The
statistics
were almost incomprehensible in their magnitude. In all,
counting the small assault craft, more than 5,333 ships would be deployed off the French beaches, having made the Channel crossing in fifty separate convoys. Approximately 2,000,000 Allied personnel were concerned either directly or indirectly with the plan. The logistical problems of landing and
maintaining
the invaders without the benefit of a fully equipped
deep-water
port were so immense that extraordinary arrangements had been made to build an entire harbour offshore and lay a fuel pipeline across the widest part of the Channel. Twenty thousand vehicles were to be driven ashore and supplied, including 900 armoured vehicles and 600 guns in the first few hours. Therefore, the southern half of England had been transformed into a vast military camp with armour clogging every country lane.
The preparations had been going on for months, and yet the German high command was sufficiently confident that the German commander in the field, Field Marshal Rommel, was authorised to return to his home near Ulm on leave … to celebrate his wife’s birthday, which happened to be on the sixth of June. At the headquarters of the Seventh Army in Le Mans, Colonel General Friedrich Dollman had chosen 6 June to hold an indoor war game. His instructions specified that all divisional commanders were to attend and that they should each bring at least two of their regimental commanders. For his part, General Spiedel read the forecasts of high winds and rain and gave his permission for the troops of both his two armies to reduce their state of readiness and get some rest. In the first twenty-four hours of the invasion the Germans suffered 6,500 casualties.
Incredibly, the first serious Allied loss of D-Day was a single Norwegian destroyer, sunk by a group of torpedo boats, which made a brief counter-attack before returning to Cherbourg. Not even the German coastal radar stations had been able to alert the defenders to the armada’s imminent arrival. Most had been destroyed by the RAF, and the lone installation near Caen
that did spot the force was unable to persuade the military to take the warning seriously. Even after the bridgehead had been established, the enemy was thoroughly confused about its significance, and a majority of the senior Wehrmacht
officers
in France were convinced that a further attack was likely further north in the Pas-de-Calais area. In fact, Rommel
actually
signalled to von Rundstedt on 19 June that ‘a large-scale landing is to be expected on the Channel front on both sides of Cap Gris Nez or between the Somme and Le Havre’. He even repeated the message eleven weeks later, thus preventing the German Fifteenth Army, which was being held in reserve to resist the expected second assault, from launching a
counter-attack
. As Winston Churchill later observed (
The Second World War
, Vol. VI, p. 10):
Our deception measures both before and after D-Day had aimed at creating this confused thinking. Their success was admirable and had far-reaching results on the battle.
While the supreme commander and his staff waited anxiously throughout the day to hear of the progress being made on the five target beaches in Normandy, MI5 prepared themselves for
GARBO
’s evening transmissions. Would the Abwehr be full of recriminations or congratulations? In the radio contacts with Madrid early in the morning of 6 June (and the complete text of his warning message had been repeated no less than five times), the Germans had shown no particular concern. Nor, the previous evening, had they betrayed any signs of anxiety which might have indicated that they had been aware of the significance of the date.
GARBO
, Harris and the rest of the team were satisfied that the enemy had been duped, but what would their reaction be to the news from the beachhead?
GARBO
’s main objective now was to build up
FORTITUDE SOUTH
, the projected deception for the Pas-de-Calais area. Unfortunately, his job was not made any easier by some highly indiscreet remarks made by
the prime minister during his afternoon statement to the House of Commons. All ministers and all the public commentators had been asked not to speculate on the possibility of further landings on the Channel coast, so that the Germans would accept
GARBO
’s line, but Churchill evidently got a little carried away with himself and announced that during ‘the early hours of this morning the first of a series of landings in force upon the European continent has taken place’. This indiscretion was entirely contrary to MI5’s advice, for if there really were to be more attacks, the prime minister would hardly announce them in advance. Furthermore, the statement seemed to be in contradiction with
GARBO
’s prepared text, which was due to be communicated later that day.
That evening, at 8.05, exactly on schedule, Haines began signalling to Madrid:
After the crisis last night with
CHAMILLUS
I was summoned early this morning to the Ministry of Information. I arrived to find the department already in a complete state of chaos, everyone speculating as to the importance of the attack which had started this morning against France. All the sections were handed copies of a directive, distributed by PWE to the
ministry
. I find it very significant and more still if compared with the speeches of the Allied chiefs. I transmit an exact copy of the directive.
Special Directive on the Offensive against Northern France, Political Warfare Executive. Central Directive.
1. The offensive launched today by General Eisenhower forms another important step in the Allied concentric attack on the fortress of Europe.
2. It is of the utmost importance that the enemy should be kept in the dark as to our future intentions.
3. Care should be given to avoid any reference to further assaults amid diversions.
4. Speculation regarding alternative assault areas must be avoided.
5. The importance of the present assault and its decisive influence on the course of the war should be clearly stated.
Together with the directive, J(3) handed me copies of the speeches which had, at that moment, not been broadcast. After reading these documents I asked him for a further interview and told him that, as a basis for propaganda, I considered that the directive was in complete contradiction with the speeches, as it was inevitable that these speeches would be quoted and used as the basis of propaganda by the world press. I pointed out that these speeches gave a latitude which is denied by the directive. For instance, in Eisenhower’s speech, which says: ‘A premature uprising of all Frenchmen may prevent you from being a maximum help to your country in the critical hour. Be patient. Prepare!’ … and still more important, the following: ‘This landing is but the opening phase of the campaign in western Europe. Great battles lie ahead.’ The Belgian prime minister said: ‘Preliminary operations for the liberation of Europe have begun. The first assault is the certain signal for your deliverance.’ And also: ‘The moment of supreme combat has not come.’
J(3) told me, in confidence, that I had spotted the one inevitable weakness in the policy which had been directed. He explained that, in the first place, it was essential that Eisenhower should keep the people from rising too early in areas which were yet to be involved in operations but, at the same time, it was equally necessary to try to hide all this information from the enemy. He said he did not think the enemy would be able to draw any definite conclusions from these speeches but he thought that they, nevertheless, constituted such a
contradiction
to the directives as to create a difficult situation internally. He went on to say that the director-general had himself raised my point. Nevertheless, he felt that, if the work were done
intelligently, he believed it possible to focus public attention on the present attack and thus detract from any other suggestion of future plans, this being precisely the work with which he was entrusted.