Operation Garbo (23 page)
Authors: Juan Pujol Garcia
In spite of their many preoccupations on the continent of Europe, the Germans were still mesmerised by
GARBO
’s signals and they responded to all these messages with detailed
questionnaires
. All provided MI5 with valuable intelligence and betrayed highly significant areas of weakness in the enemy’s knowledge of the Allied order of battle. Together,
GARBO
and Tommy Harris constructed suitable replies, like this item
transmitted
on the evening of 30 August:
To investigate your questionnaire about airborne and armoured troops, I sent
DONNY
for a short trip to Larkhill-Bulford area where airborne and armoured troops were located before the landing. He discovered the following troops in this area:
DONNY
. 2nd British Airborne Division, with sign of winged horse, also saw American armoured troops and tanks of 25th US Armoured Division, just arrived from Norfolk, also some men with sign of 8th Armoured Division without vehicles. These both have unusual US armoured division sign with the number superimposed to identify the division. Also saw US infantry troops and convoys with the following sign: a blue oval with the letter ‘V’ in white interlaced with the number ‘9’ in red and a circle divided diagonally, with the number ‘9’ in
black on white in the white semicircle. Had no time to identify but believe latter is the 94th US Division.
At the end of August 1944
BENEDICT
was authorised by the Twenty Committee to bring
FORTITUDE SOUTH
to a swift
conclusion
and concentrate on short-term operation deception plans for 21 Army Group as the Allies headed for the Rhine. In order to facilitate communications and liaison between the commanders in the field in France and MI5’s case officers who had previously been based in St James’s Street, an offshoot of the Twenty Committee was introduced, designated the 212 Committee. The essence of the 212 Committee’s new scheme was contained in
BENEDICT
’s major transmission on 31 August:
Important! The following obtained at meeting between myself,
ARABEL
and 4(3) yesterday, in reply to your
questionnaire
about airborne army and also explains the moves of the Fourteenth US Army from the east coast. 4(3): He says that the original FUSAG plan for attacking Pas-de-Calais had been definitely cancelled, and the FUSAG forces are again being organised in the following way: the Fourteenth US Army and the 9th US Army are now under the direct command of SHAEF, as SHAEF strategic reserve. This force will be at the disposal of SHAEF for Eisenhower to be able to reinforce the Allied armies in France if they want assistance in the advance which is now about to be driven to prevent the German army from escaping to Germany. The Fourteenth US Army is being replaced in FUSAG by the new airborne army, which has now been given the name of the First Allied Airborne Army. With this rearrangement, a great part of FUSAG is now composed of airborne troops and will be used for special operations; in fact, FUSAG will become a sort of modern version of combined operations. For instance, they will carry out large-scale airborne operations anywhere in France, Belgium or Germany to attack the enemy lines of
communications. They will also be used to occupy any areas or countries which the Germans give up unexpectedly, and this will avoid the necessity of having to make sudden
dispersals
of forces in the battle at the expense of carrying out their original plans. Following just arrived, urgently, from
ARABEL
. This morning I happened to be present at an interview between J(3) and a war press correspondent of SHAEF, at M of I. He told us, in confidence, that a large attack in France is imminent. He was recently at advanced HQ of SHAEF in France, where he learnt about the following discussions. 21 Army Group demands that Patton’s advance should stop. They want him to make a feint attack toward the east,
keeping
back the weight of his forces to turn north to attack the German flank, whilst the 21 Army Group, reinforced by FUSAG, makes a definite attack against the Pas-de-Calais to occupy that zone. On the other hand, Patton requests that all reinforcements and supplies are put at his disposal to attack into the centre of Germany, asking, at the same time, that the British armies should make a deceptive attack against the Pas-de-Calais to maintain all the German forces there, leaving Patton’s troops with freedom of action. The correspondent said that it would, therefore, be absurd to speculate without knowing what personal decision Eisenhower will eventually take as to which of the two attacks is the feint attack and which is the one destined to make the advance.
On 9 September
GARBO
received the following letter from the Abwehr, which was dated 31 August 1944, from Lisbon. As one might expect,
GARBO
and Tommy Harris were fascinated by its contents:
It has, for a long while past, been my desire to deal in brief with your various collaborators or, that is to say, to let you know how we here judge the quality and importance of their reports.
I can say with satisfaction that all of these who are regular informants show that they have understood their mission owing to the logic of the good instructions which they have received from you. Outstanding in order of importance are the reports of your friend 4(3), who, owing to the position he occupies, is the best placed for facilitating details with regard to the organisation of the army in general, about its large units and its composition, the arrival of new American divisions, plans of the high command etc. Though I imagine that in this connection you are dealing with an unconscious collaborator, it is necessary to cultivate this friendship by all possible means, as you yourself have pointed out. The last report of this friend of yours about the reorganisation of FUSAG was excellent. Nevertheless, it is necessary to proceed with the greatest care so as not to arouse his suspicion through the questions you ask him.
The informants
DONNY
,
DICK
and
DORICK
we consider to be perfect military observers and we have no further
observation
to make. If they continue to work as they have done up till now, then we are more than satisfied!
As to 7(1), it is a long time since we had news of him, possibly you can get some information through this
channel
about the present location of the 9th British Division, a matter which interests us as we have already stated by message.
The work of
DRAKE
did not last long and we could not judge his good qualities. We are happy that the difficulties that he experienced did not bring more serious consequences. I realise that this agent must have been influenced by this incident. Nevertheless, I consider the Swansea area to be of great importance. Even though there are not, at present, large contingents of troops there, it is [important] from other aspects of war and therefore I do not think that you should break contact altogether with this agent. I think you should use him for work which is not dangerous, as I do not think
that he will be able to work free from fear, but he might be of some minor use. I leave the final decision to you.
I am completely in agreement with your decision in regard to agent 7(6), who has shown no signs of intelligence. We have had practically no news about 7(3) since she has been in your employment. We hope for good results from her new place of residence.
DAGOBERT
is the one who has the greater merits, since he has organised his large network and has at the same time acted himself as an observer and military informant of great
precision
and accuracy. He has also supplied us with several reports of extraordinary merit. We should be very upset should we ever have to lose this friend who has overcome so many
difficult
situations. It was undoubtedly he who gave so much help in cases which had to be resolved with urgency, such as the case of
CHAMILLUS
after he had left the camp. I hope, therefore, that we will be able to continue to count on the collaboration of
DAGOBERT
, and should he not wish to remain here we would like to have him in the new organisation in Canada, which I will deal with more fully later in this letter.
With regard to
BENEDICT
, who is undoubtedly your best collaborator, there is no need for me to say anything more since we have expressed, above, our opinion of him.
As to 3(1) and 3(2), it is a long time since we have had news of them. (Possibly your friend who was in contact with them is no longer able to maintain this contact.) If this is the case, please let us know so that we can remove them from our list.
The same applies to 3(3) as has been said about
DRAKE
,
DICK
and
DORICK
, though I think that this is a case where the informant might intensify his work a little, since it is
undoubtedly
the case that a lot of important military activities are taking place in the north, in spite of the fact that the
possibility
of an embarkation from there appears, for the moment, to have disappeared.
I shall deal more fully with
CHAMILLUS
, together with the Canadian project. The effort which he made when the
invasion
was about to take place merits the highest recognition and praise. I perfectly well understand that what he is doing now and his present situation must be intolerable, and I consider that we should please him as quickly as possible.
ALMURA
continues to carry out his mission with all
perfection
and reliability. He has acquired a great deal of practice since he has been transmitting. The transmissions have
sometimes
been very difficult, owing to atmospheric conditions and other disturbances. Should he be able to modify his set, increasing the frequency bands from 5,000 to 9,000 Kcs, for example, we should be able to adapt more favourable
frequencies
to the general conditions and times of transmission. If he cannot do it, it does not matter, because we have managed to get along like this and will continue to do so.
4(2) is another of the agents about whom we have had no news for some time. I therefore hope that you will also let me know in this connection whether we may remove him from our list or whether this agent is collaborating with you in some other connection.
With regard to your friends J(3) and J(5), I do not think they call for any special mention. This information from the MOI, which you have obtained through J(3), has on many occasions made it possible for us to be able to draw important conclusions and this friend has, furthermore, served your cover magnificently.
With reference to J(1), I can tell you that the sending of correspondence has worked recently to perfection. Some letters have been in my possession within a week.
This historic document was the best confirmation of the success that
GARBO
and his network had achieved. There were no complaints, no recriminations for all the misinformation that had been conveyed over the previous two and a half years.
Every plausible word of the deception campaign had been swallowed whole by the enemy.
DAGOBERT
’s ring was held in such esteem that MI5 were determined to wring every last advantage from it.
DONNY
was singled out in more than one
ISOS
decrypt as a ‘hitherto particularly reliable source’, so he was exploited further:
Southampton and surrounding areas. Most military camps in the area are occupied by US troops. All roads extremely busy with large convoy movements. Saw following troops and vehicles: Fourteenth US Army, XXXIII US Corps, US Division with the sign of the letter ‘VV’ in white interlaced with the number ‘9’ on a blue oval, 11th US Infantry Division, SOS SHAEF, 48th US Division, 59th US rattlesnake Division, 9th US Armoured Division, 25th US Armoured Division, 2nd British Airborne Division. General impression: great
activity
and movement of troops, vehicles, armour and supplies. Fourteenth US Army was recently reported by
DORICK
as having left his area.
All these assessments turned up, sooner or later, in the
ISOS
material intercepted by GCHQ. The Abwehr and the Wehrmacht high command seemed oblivious to the huge scale of the deception, and perhaps the ultimate irony lay in the fact that
GARBO
was receiving constant praise and funds from the victims of his imaginative duplicity. But just as
GARBO
and Tommy Harris were congratulating themselves on their triumph, disaster suddenly loomed large. The head of the British Secret Intelligence Service station in Madrid reported that a locally based Abwehr agent had offered to betray his organisation’s chief agent in Spain. The news caused
consternation
in St James’s Street.
SIS’s man in the Spanish capital was Captain
Hamilton-Stokes
, who ran the British passport control office from the first floor of the British embassy annex in the Monte Scinta. On the
floor above him the Section V representative, Jack Ivens, ran a small counter-intelligence department to monitor the enemy’s activities in and around Madrid. Suddenly, in mid-August 1944, Ivens received a telephone call from the embassy’s press attaché calling him to a meeting with a German who had walked into his office without warning. The German was a low-level Abwehr case officer named Fritz Guttmann, who made an intriguing proposition: he would give details of a major German spy ring run by a Spaniard in Britain in return for protection and help in getting to London. He was also prepared to trade his own star agent, an officer of the Directión General de Intelligencia (DGI), Franco’s intelligence service. The latter item was of no great interest to SIS, but Section V judged that the first would certainly intrigue MI5. Ivens agreed to communicate Guttman’s suggestion to headquarters, and suggested that he return once he had received his instructions. Apparently satisfied, the German left the embassy by the front door.