Any further preparatory training for Mallaby, who had completed as many as seven courses and taught many others, was now redundant, and his equipment was ready – but still the mission was not launched. June 1943 passed by in vain, with Dick Mallaby still on tenterhooks in Africa.
Contemporary documents suggest that all the details of the operation had not yet been finalized and everything was very fluid. This was because, for the Allies, on the one hand important military actions were taking place, and on the other the political situation in Italy was rapidly changing.28
The plan that seemed to have gained the upper hand in this period was as follows: Olaf would arrive in Trieste with the help of the Yugoslav Partisans, only using the Aldo Guazzini identity card if absolutely necessary. En route, he would be given an address to head to. Following the suggestions of his Italian accomplices, he would fill in the second identity card, driving licence and the leave document, destroying anything that was not used. If questioned, Mallaby would state that he was in the area for a job interview with Francesco Parisi, a friend of his uncle.29
Clearly, agent 1400 (who, according to a message dated 13 May, was in charge of Mallaby’s welcome committee around Lake Garda) had not yet been able to finalize the details.
For Dick Mallaby it was still early days for Lake Garda – he would visit this only later, in 1945, as part of his second operational masterpiece. For now, on his first mission, it was Lake Como that awaited him.
How much was the life of a young man worth, according to those who were throwing him in at the deep end? A document dated 29 June 1943 informs us that Dick Mallaby was paid the lowest daily rate of 9 shillings and 6 pence, including a ‘parachute indemnity’ allowance, and also revealed that he had obtained substantial advances on his wages.
As Benito Mussolini, ‘Il Duce’, was spending his final days after a 20-year tenure as Head of the King’s Government in Italy, Mallaby’s mission was still subject to upheaval and reversal.
On 30 June, a note from London stated that a final decision had been taken to have another agent, Finucci, accompany Mallaby on his mission.
At the same time, questions were asked about whether the radio in Trieste could be moved in advance, as agent Olaf’s movements would be much less onerous if he did not have to carry this delicate and compromising object around with him.
On 2 July, a Most Secret message officially cancelled the original mission to Trieste. Everything had been reset to zero.
In spite of the frustration caused by the drip-feed approach to operational planning over several months, the indecision and delays to the mission’s start did help ensure that its preparation was both adequate and well thought through. This is nicely demonstrated by a further important piece of information contained in the message of 2 July. A concern was expressed by some bright spark that the false identity card given to Mallaby indicated his date of birth as 1923 – as according to the information available at the time, this age band had been called up for military service. Mallaby had also been given a false document of unlimited leave for study reasons – but nobody could guarantee for sure that such a key detail was coherent, or whether in Italy it was possible to gain such a dispensation in time of war. If questioned, things could have gone badly wrong for Mallaby, whose documents would immediately have been revealed as false, or at least would have aroused the suspicion of the person examining them.30
Another Most Secret message of the same date notes that the boots given to Mallaby were military ones, which when ‘worn by a civilian, would be the object of comment even in our country’. It was added that Mallaby would be given a more appropriate, normal-looking pair of waterproof shoes.31
At the start of the pivotal month of July 1943, Dick Mallaby’s first special mission, although unfinalized, had at last been given a codename: Neck. It was a sign that the mission would shortly be underway.
The turbulent events of the following days – the Allied invasion of southern Italy, Mussolini’s defenestration and the increasingly frequent and open Italian attempts to enter surrender negotiations – saw further updates to the mission’s priorities, aims and ambitions, and once again delayed its execution.
A message from London dated 7 July, layering confusion on top of confusion, proposed landing Mallaby around Bari in southern Italy by submarine, or parachuting him in.32 Mallaby was now being used as a guinea pig.
SOE was not exclusively responsible for all the indecision: it also resulted from SIM’s manipulations in the light of the prospects facing Italy.
A cross-analysis of the various documentary sources reveals that the projected outcomes of Mallaby’s mission were mainly the result of the frenzied work of the Italian counterespionage services.
Agent 900 had requested that he be kept informed of every detail and had indeed communicated that a wireless operator and a demolitions expert could be guaranteed welcome and shelter in Bari; that the best option was arrival by submarine in the Adriatic; and that the radio was no longer in Trieste and could be transported anywhere.
The Bari option began to take shape (despite the previous well-founded reservations regarding Mallaby’s Nordic appearance), so much so that the name of the Bari contact was also transmitted – Mr. Dositeo Carli care of the Cima company at No. 131 Via Vittorio Veneto – as well as the pass phrase: ‘I’ve been sent by Mr Gino Cuzzi from Milan, who needs some overcoats.’33
This reckless plan, however, never got off the ground. For one thing there was no time to contact the Royal Navy about transportation. Furthermore, London pointed out that it would be impossible to arrange the ground reception committee for a possible nighttime parachute drop to coincide with the full moon, and that the risk of operating in this area was unjustifiably high given the intense military activity, as well as Mallaby’s northern appearance and Tuscan accent.
Previously, London had reprimanded Cairo station for the ease with which it tended to throw special agents into the fray without adequately considering their chances of survival. Recently released documents from both the Anglo-American and Italian archives demonstrate the level of hidden danger to which SOE agents were exposed in Italy. It is clear that SOE’s leadership had little confidence that Mallaby would escape capture, and feared both the loss of their agent and the exposure of their (bogus) Italian network.34
In an effort to provide Mallaby with the best chance of success he received the highest level of personal training. In the period 12–17 July 1943, agent Olaf’s schedule was intense: every day, from 9.00am to 12.30pm, he attended ‘courses in demolition, sabotage and weapons used by the Axis forces’; from 2.30pm to 4.00pm, a motorbike course; and from 5.30pm to 7.00pm, a lesson in radio transmission.35
The option of dropping Mallaby over Lake Como finally won out. This time it was the real deal, even if the description of how Mallaby would arrive in Italy (‘dropping in blind’) was a little discouraging. The mission was about to begin. The coordination of transport was finally achieved, and in a message dated 14 July, Massingham announced that the RAF had confirmed the availability of an aircraft for Mallaby’s drop.
On the same date, Bern confirmed that agent 900 had arranged a safe house in Como, so that the mission to parachute in the wireless operator and expert in demolitions, as well as a supply of matériel for the organization, could be actioned.36
An encrypted message from London dated 31 July, although still a little vague, clearly lays out the leadership’s increasingly certain plan to drop Mallaby ‘blind’ into the area around Como, or over Lake Como itself, and leave him to reach the address provided to him; alternatively, if this option was deemed too risky, it should be insisted that agent 900 organize a reception committee. This message ends with an ambiguous, but significant, statement: ‘the current reduction in checks should increase possibilities’. Although events would go on to prove this wrong, this analysis may have been a result of indications from the Italian front, or, once more, of misinformation activities by Italian counterespionage.
Thus, after further discussions and disagreements between Cairo and Massingham over minor operational details and Mallaby’s false documents, August 1943 arrived.37
Meanwhile, in Italy a momentous event had transpired: on 25 July, Benito Mussolini had been uprooted from his position as head of government, arrested and locked up, to be replaced by Pietro Badoglio. The era of Fascism which began in 1922 had formally been brought to a close.
However positive this historic event may have been for the Allies, its consequences were less clear cut, in part because – both for the Allies and for the Italian king Vittorio Emanuele III – Pietro Badoglio’s positioning and his intentions were unclear and ambiguous.
An encrypted message transmitted by London on 1 August 1943 confirms that, having arrived in Italy, agent Olaf was to act as an instructor for members of the resistance in the use of weapons and, in particular, wireless transmissions, linking this to developments in events. Moreover, Mallaby ‘must stay in the north or head south’, when ‘(perhaps before he departs) we will be able to understand if the Italian government wants peace’. The message ends by stating that, if there were need of a weapons instructor, the radio-telegraphist could be trained for this role, and thus, in the light of the Italian political situation, there were three options: send only a radio-telegraphist; send both a radio-telegraphist and a weapons instructor; or send two radio-telegraphists. In the end it was decided to dispatch ‘all-round agent’ Olaf alone, to destination unknown.
On 5 August, Massingham spelt out three possible alternative destinations, adding that ‘Olaf has waited six months for this opportunity. I have to give him a definitive answer.’38
In this period, events were following one another in rapid succession, which provided further impetus and modifications to Mallaby’s mission.
After Mussolini’s fall from power, three semi-official Italian diplomatic approaches had been made in Lisbon, Tangier and Barcelona, in an effort to reach an agreed cessation of hostilities.
SOE had also been informed of this, which had heightened fears at the Foreign Office of what might result should Mallaby be captured.
The fact that agent Olaf had volunteered for a top-secret – and in many respects experimental – mission allowed him a familiarity and confidence with those in senior positions (who, evidently, also meant to keep a close eye on him, given the secrecy surrounding his task). Such familiarity was rarely granted to a humble sergeant.
During an evening spent in the company of some officers, Dick Mallaby (although oblivious to this at the time) met someone who would play a fundamental role in his life: his lifelong partner, future wife and mother of his children, Christine Northcote-Marks. The 18-year-old Christine was one of a group of young FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) personnel serving at Massingham, and was mainly responsible for the encoding and decryption of messages from agents serving in the various theatres of operation.
As often happens between people whom destiny subsequently unites for the rest of their lives, Christine’s first impression of her future husband was not entirely positive: Dick seemed a rather haughty type, who liked to act the typical ‘man with a mission’.
The evening they met, Christine’s future husband’s mind was anything but uncluttered or sunny: marriage, or the idea that his future wife was standing before him, were the last things he was thinking about – being understandably more worried about surviving long enough to marry anyone. He had just learned the final, confirmed details of Operation Neck.
The following was planned: a nighttime drop into Lake Como; making contact with Italian resistance members operating in the area; training them in sabotage techniques; and establishing a permanent link through the ether with Algiers using the wireless set sent by McCaffery, in order to provide instructions for future drops of matériel and subsequent missions. For Mallaby, all this meant having to learn names, codes and references and cover stories that matched his false documents off by heart, in case of capture. It should also be noted that Mallaby was also one of the first paratroopers in history to drop into water and at night; it remains uncertain as to whether he was the first ever to do so. 39
Besides parachuting into Italy, which remained enemy territory, and not wearing a uniform, which meant he could be legitimately executed, there were other aspects of his mission of which he was unaware that were anything but reassuring for agent Olaf.
Firstly, the radio that had already been sent to Italy several months previously might not be serviceable. To overcome this, a plan was made to drop a new apparatus (complete with antennae disguised as clothes threads), which could be used by Olaf himself, or kept available for others.40
Secondly, the timing of the operation was governed by the lunar phase: it had to begin shortly before, or shortly after, 15 August, the date when the moon was full.
With only a few days to go, Mallaby’s presence at and departure from Massingham was conveniently explained, so as not to reveal his actual role and the top-secret mission.41
On 6 August 1943, the point of no return was reached: the definitive outline of the mission was drawn up, and Dick Mallaby and his equipment were transferred to Tunis.
However, looking at the messages between the various offices around this time, what still emerges is a disconcerting and reckless state of disorganization. This was a result of the extreme secrecy surrounding Operation Neck and worsened by the absence of a direct telegraphic link between Massigham and Bern.
The mission was supposed to start on the night of 12/13 August, but it was postponed by 24 hours – a change that proved to be not without consequences.
According to the plan, agent Olaf, after parachuting into the middle of the lake, would need to reach the address of E. M. Avadini. This name was provided in a message from Bern dated 27 July, yet this same message pointed out that the name might be Cavadini, thus asking for verification using a telephone directory.
In addition, a list of farms in Como Province was sent to Massingham in order to provide agent Olaf with a false reference letter. Mallaby had in fact suggested that he should pretend to be an agricultural student, given that he had gained a familiarity with this subject from his father’s business.
Arrangements were also made for agent 900 to move the radio to a secure location (preferably in a non-concrete building, in order to improve modulation efficiency) from which Olaf could operate, recommending that the site should preferably be in northern Italy, given Mallaby’s appearance.42
Massingham had also been made aware that agent 900’s group would take care of Mallaby’s reception in Como and send him (alone, or in the company of another agent) even as far as Naples, thanks to the availability of appropriate permits.43
Agent Olaf was also provided with a false document that granted temporary exemption from military service due to his student status. In fact it was only a crude facsimile that needed adapting to match his other false documents. This draft was accompanied by two false stamps: the first was inscribed with ‘Principal’ (as requested), and the other ‘Rector’. Someone should have first confirmed that Italian heads of universities were known by the title ‘rector’ and not ‘principal’. The accompanying instructions politely suggested that ‘in an emergency’, the second stamp should be added to the document, while highlighting a further factor to be considered: if dated before 25 July 1943, the document should bear the words ‘Fascist Year’ accompanied by the appropriate Roman numerals, if after this date (i.e after the Fascist regime had fallen), then this should not be added.44
From 12 August 1943, all the departments involved in the operation received the necessary encryption and decryption details for agent Olaf’s messages: the code key, transmission frequencies and verifications, and alternative frequencies – precautions for avoiding interception or to check if the agent was transmitting under duress.
In the wake of the extraordinary and unpredictable events that unfolded in the days that followed, such details would also be subject to the u
nexpected turns of fate.
Finally, on 13 August 1943, after months of waiting, Operation Neck began. The relevant personnel in the listening stations were informed that their activities were to begin on Saturday the 15th at 3.00pm.45
The official details of the mission were communicated to the few in the know in a Most Secret message dated 15 August – the point at which the intended mission had already catastrophically concluded, and the impromptu one had not yet taken shape.
Dick Mallaby was to be dropped at a distance of around 8km from his initial destination, and, having landed on water, was to row his inflatable dinghy to the eastern shore of the south-western branch of Lake Como. Once there, he would ditch his dinghy, jumpsuit and ‘Mae West’ lifejacket in the water, sinking them. Then, having hidden his waterproof bag containing his vital documents and quartz crystals (and drawn himself a map to remember how to find the place), agent Olaf would hide and await dawn.
At 7.00am, Mallaby needed to be on the third floor of No. 1 Via Borgovico in Como, and he was to ask for E. M. Cavadini (whose surname had finally been confirmed just before the mission’s start), introducing himself as ‘a friend of Pietro and Tommaso’. Cavadini probably was the mysterious agent 1400.
The response phrase would be: ‘How is Giulia?’
In case of capture, agent Olaf was to claim he was an aviator recently shot down over northern Italy, who had been captured and then had escaped immediately (a detail shrewdly added to avoid difficult questions about any prison camp).
Mr Cavadini would then recover Mallaby’s waterproof bag and deliver its contents to the British agent to allow him to reach his destination. If it proved impossible or too dangerous for Mallaby to make it to Como, he was given two alternative addresses that he should head for, preferably without using public transport.
The first was in Milan, at No. 5 Via Calvi. Here, in the courtyard-facing apartment on the second floor, the agent, calling himself Olaf, was to seek out either Mr Bologna or Almerigotti, asking to meet Giacomo, who was none other than Giacomino Sarfatti (agent Galea).
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