An Englishman Abroad

by Gianluca Barneschi

  The second safe house was in Genoa (inaccurately given as Geneva in some mission reconstructions) at No. 57 Via Granello. Here, the agent was to contact Mr Ricciuto, saying he was Mr Rossi of the Mirafiore company and had need of the accommodation reserved for him.46

  The fact that the safe houses and contacts were controlled by SIM demonstrates the level of infiltration it had achieved into SOE’s network. It is also clear that Mallaby was well and truly thrown in at the deep end, given that reaching Milan from Como without using public transport was a challenge in itself, while getting to Genoa (hundreds of kilometres away) under the same restrictions and while northern Italy was being battered by air raids and its roads were being ripped to shreds was almost asking the impossible.

  These expectations did not seem extreme to London, Bern or Massingham.47

  The icing on this poisoned cake was that the first contact arranged for Mallaby in Como, the Swiss Enrico Cavadini, head of the secret so-called Lupi (Wolves) group, was also an Italian intelligence services collaborator.

  If he was forced to flee, Mallaby was to reach Switzerland, declare himself an escaped prisoner and request an interview with the British military attaché so that the War Office might be notified.

  The person in charge of Operation Neck at Massingham was Richard Hewitt. He was in continuous contact with SOE’s Bern station.

  Even the bureaucratic and accounting aspects of the operation added elements of uncertainty. On 14 August, it was reported that agent Olaf had arrived from Cairo with 160,000 lire, but part of this amount was in notes that had been withdrawn from circulation; so Mallaby was quickly provided with 117,350 lire, and a simultaneous request for a receipt (Mallaby’s handwritten one is preserved in the British National Archives).48

  Despite the overall uncertainty and disorganization that characterized and undermined the mission, a report dated 15 August ended with the following statement: ‘with just the right amount of luck, I think a first-class job will be done’.

  The coded messages sent between Africa and Europe in the hours that followed contain various pertinent details. Some of these are significant, such as the fact that Mallaby was to communicate initially with Massingham, then with London and Cairo, in case of need; while others are less so, such as the reprimand given to Mallaby for having asked for a package to be sent to Christine Granville.49

  Dick Mallaby set out on Operation Neck dressed as an Italian labourer. The only weapon he was carrying was a knife.

  On Friday 13 August 1943, at his Tuscan residence, Cecil Mallaby wrote in his personal diary his impressions of the atrocious heat and the unlucky date.

  At the same time, Cecil’s son, the first British agent to begin a mission in Italy, was preparing to lay any superstition to rest and experiencing the tension of the final moments prior to the launch of Operation Neck in similarly hot weather. Mallaby junior had to make his departure dressed as an Italian labourer, on top of which he was also wearing a parachute smock, a jumpsuit and a wetsuit. It took two people (one of whom was Teddy De Haan) to help Mallaby get on board the plane, and even that was a struggle.

  At 10.02pm on 13 August, agent Olaf took off from Blida on board a Halifax heading for Italy, piloted by the Canadian Alfred Ruttledge and accompanied by six other crew members. Mallaby was the only passenger on board.

  As planned, it was a full moon night.

  Despite the tension, Mallaby managed to catch some sleep on the flight to Italy. The aircraft flew over Minorca, south-eastern France and Lodi in Lombardy, and he was woken as it approached Lake Como from the south-west.

  The flight was a turbulent one. Due to radar tracking around Nice, as a precaution the pilot dropped chaff; in Italian territory, there was flak in the Savona area and searchlights around Pavia.

  The sky was clear and the full moon lit up the landscape described by famous writers such as Byron and Wordsworth. But agent Olaf had no time for poetic musings, and after the customary tap on the shoulder and a ‘Good luck, mate’ from the dispatcher, one Sergeant Wilson, Mallaby launched himself into the black void around 600m above the great Lombard lake.

  It was 2.48am, 14 August 1943.

  The plan was for him to splash down near the town of Torno, about 8km from Como itself, his subsequent destination. Mallaby’s first challenge was to target the central part of the body of water – no easy task, given the narrowness of the lake at this point, and the air currents and micro vortices caused by the surrounding high mountains. Hitting dry land would have been very dangerous.

  Dick Mallaby’s parachute opened without problems. According to a subsequent report dated 28 September, ‘The site pre-chosen for the drop was a place where it was highly unlikely anyone would be present after 10.00 p.m.’50

  As the waters of the lake approached, Mallaby noticed that the banks were not as dark as they should be, and he could see flashes of light to the south.

  The report submitted by the pilot who had flown Mallaby to Lake Como was not reassuring, and predicted the forthcoming disaster. It stated that agent Olaf had exited the plane flying at about 200km/h, and that the planned drop point was unsuitable due to the height of the surrounding mountains. Furthermore, it noted the unexpected presence of lights on the ground below and on the surrounding mountainsides. The report ended by reiterating, with fatal foreboding, that despite it being night, the villages around the lake were all lit up.51

  To the south of Lake Como, a sinister light was spreading from the direction of Milan, which had been heavily bombed the previous night and was still burning. In the hours preceding Mallaby’s jump, thousands of people had also fled to Lake Como: the surrounding area, despite it being night, was busy and brightly lit. Furthermore, the Italian anti-aircraft defences had been placed on alert.52

  Thus the British agent was spotted while still flying about 1km from the southern shore and 3km to the east of the intended drop point.

  Dick Mallaby hit the water safely.

  After a brief, dangerous struggle to rid himself of his parachute, his next step was to activate the self-inflating mechanism on his rubber dinghy. Having clambered on board, Mallaby tried to orient himself, moving slowly on the lake using a pair of small paddles worn like gloves.

  But the noise made by the British plane had raised the alarm. Mallaby, heading towards the western shore of the lake in the direction of Carate Urio, had no idea that he had already been spotted from there.

  Using official documents and several eyewitness accounts, it is possible to reconstruct in detail what took place in the hours that followed, and correct several key misconceptions.

  Mallaby was first spotted by Domenica Aquilini. From the balcony of her home in Carate Urio, she watched the British agent descend from the sky, and immediately raised the alarm.53 Also in Carate Urio, Fulvio Borghi and the municipal rural guard Giovanni Abate saw agent Olaf enter the water between Faggeto and Pognana, off the eastern shore of the south-western branch of the lake. Seeking help, they met local policeman Emilio Rusconi and Amleto Morandotti, a convalescing soldier from the 42nd Genoa Infantry Regiment, and decided to take a rowing boat out to the mysterious parachutist. Another local, Domenico Taroni, also joined the group.

  Given the method of transport used, it took some time to make contact with the target, but they were aided by the full moon. Tension grew on both sides. Mallaby heard the sound of hostile voices and saw the flash of torchlights; gunshots followed. Several minutes later, the British agent was intercepted in the middle of the lake around Pognana. From the rowing boat came a shout to halt.

  From his dinghy Mallaby replied, ‘Friends!’ Cunningly trying to reverse roles, the best form of defence being attack, he asked with increasing insistence bordering on arrogance if those cautiously approaching him were fishermen.

  The rowing boat came nearer, and when he was ordered to put his hands up, Mallaby dawdled, managing to drop the knife he had tied to his wrist into the water. He was soon surrounded by other boats and captured. As he was
hoisted on board, Mallaby claimed that he was injured, and was offered a cigarette.

  Agent Olaf had been captured before his mission had begun.

  There are two possible reasons why Mallaby’s drop into Italy and the massive bombing raids in the area conspired to produce this negative result. The first is that there was a clear lack of coordination between SOE and the RAF, either deliberate, for reasons of mutual secrecy, or accidental, through having failed to identify a need for it. The second is that it was thought that both the plane and Mallaby were less likely to be spotted and intercepted in the confusion resulting from a period of devastating air raids in the vicinity.

  The source materials from this period lean towards the former explanation: the area planned for the water landing was (and remains to this day) sparsely populated.54

  Brought to shore, Mallaby immediately began to improvise, diverging from his instructions. He initially claimed to be an Italian aviator who had jumped out of a Caproni plane on its way from Taliedo airport, located a few dozen kilometres from Como.

  This explanation was plausible but could only be short lived given the relative ease with which it could be disproved. It indicates that Mallaby was working out a definitive strategy, evaluating the situation and perhaps hoping to be able to escape in some way.

  However, Mallaby’s inflatable dinghy, with its highly visible English writing, immediately destroyed this explanation. The atmosphere changed abruptly, and the Italians began to use menacing sarcasm.

  By now it was almost dawn, and when the group reached the shore the captured agent was immediately surrounded by steadily increasing crowds of people.

  Anna Maria Rusconi, daughter of the policeman Emilio, clearly remembers seeing Mallaby at the small dock next to the current Fioroni hotel-restaurant, still wearing his camouflage floatation suit and with a small box tied to his leg.55

  The captured and his captors were escorted to the Comune (town hall), under the surveillance of soldiers and Guardia di Finanza. The commander of the Como Carabinieri arrived and Mallaby’s interrogation began. Although agent Olaf’s fake Italian identity had already been discounted, Mallaby continued to claim to be a Caproni test pilot who had crashed into the lake.

  In the course of the interrogation, a dark comedic moment ensued when Mallaby was asked to empty his pockets, and an innocuous tin of rations was mistaken for a bomb.

  An examination of everything else Olaf was carrying proved to be highly compromising. The following items were found immediately: the quartz oscillators inside the small box tied to Mallaby’s leg; 113,000 lire (less than the inventoried amount); the false documents; spare parts for the radio; and the negatives of the cryptographic codes, carefully hidden inside the book Italia mia by Giovanni Papini.

  It was immediately understood that the captured parachutist was a precious find, and the deployment of forces increased. Faced with this situation, agent Olaf adhered to the number one rule of a captured special agent whose life is on the line: buy time.

  His first interrogation did not last long, and Mallaby was quickly placed in a cell, before being interrogated again shortly afterwards by an officer from a Bersaglieri regiment who acted with greater incisiveness, and physicality. When the first blows started to land, Mallaby confessed his British identity.

  Mallaby immediately understood that his capture had been a random event, and, consequently, that his interlocutors had no idea of the aims of his mission, nor of his destination, contacts and reference points on Italian soil. In order to avoid bringing down Italian checks and raids in the area, he improvised his story with his interrogators, changing only his surname and claiming to be Richard Norris, a second lieutenant in the British Army serving with 2nd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment. He claimed he was part of a special unit, on a solo mission aimed at informing the Italians that they would be treated well by the Allies when they completed their conquest of the whole of Italian national territory.

  Malcom Tudor, author of SOE in Italy: The Real Story, asserts that Mallaby’s immediate capture was the consequence of a mission ‘compromised from the outset due to the Fascist infiltration of SOE’s Bern branch’. This theory is a commonly held one and unfortunately has been carelessly taken up by other authors with a summary, tangential interest in Operation Neck.56 The situation at the time of Mallaby’s capture, however, was quite different.

  For the sake of context, it should be recalled that the widespread infiltration of SOE’s structures overseeing Italian matters was implemented and managed in Switzerland and Italy by the skilled, official systems of SIM, which was not in itself a Fascist institution. Furthermore, in August 1943, fascists had dissolved away in the wake of the fall of the regime on 25 July.

  Mallaby began his mission in the midst of the famous ‘45 days’ between Mussolini’s defenestration and the disclosure of the Italian surrender. During this period, despite the proclamation of the new prime minister, Pietro Badoglio, that ‘The war continues’, the attitude that prevailed among the Italian political–military leadership was the will to end the war against the Allies, and the desire to avoid starting one with the Germans.57

  Despite Italian counterespionage’s almost total infiltration, and the supporting role played in Operation Neck by agent 900 and those around him, Dick Mallaby’s capture was not a direct consequence of this.58

  The involvement of agent 900 in the mission (as a contact for Mallaby, and keeper of the radio) does not constitute proof that SIM itself was aware of SOE’s operational details. The fact that, in its Italian activities, SOE made use of a false anti-fascist network run by Italian counterespionage assets does not necessarily mean the Italians were able to intercept all the communications of the most secretive, well-protected element of the British armed forces.

  Indeed, there is no evidence from any source to indicate that the Italians had even the most superficial knowledge of the fine details of Operation Neck.

  The documents confirm that the Italian knowledge regarding the mission was far from complete. The official SOE report on Operation Neck states that Mallaby was to make himself available to agent 900 ‘who had been advised to wait for him’ – only ‘advised to wait for him’.

  Even the unwary McCaffery, as the relevant papers make clear, had only alerted agents 900 and Galea that ‘One of our colleagues – a reliable and technically competent friend – could visit you on Saturday 14th or the following days. His name is Tito [Mallaby’s codename for the Italians, of course also known by SOE] … Do all you can to look after him … Give him the green suitcase we sent a few months ago.’

  The above clearly does not contain any specific details.

  In fact the secret messages sent between the various SOE offices in the first days of August reveal the constant worry (shared by Dick Mallaby himself) about guaranteeing safe addresses and back-up ones, without revealing the exact place of arrival to agents 1400 and 900.59

  Considering, moreover, that agent 1400 was waiting for Olaf in Como and agent 900 in Milan (thanks to instructions given them by McCaffery), it is easy to infer (and Italian documents confirm this issue) that in both these areas vigilance was heightened.

  Even the events both during and after Mallaby’s capture in Carate Urio show that there was no detailed awareness, and allow us to conclude that what took place did so purely by chance. If the Italians had been aware of all the relevant details of Operation Neck, agent Olaf would certainly not have been captured by a local policeman, a convalescing soldier, a member of the rural guard and two passers-by.

  Moreover, if Mallaby’s capture had been the result of a counterespionage operation, the confidential reports drafted in the immediacy of his seizure (thankfully preserved) would see those responsible for the operation claiming the success as their own, and perhaps even informing the Germans. On the contrary, the relevant documents inform us that Mallaby was captured through a fortuitous sequence of events. In fact, in many ways it would have been more profitable for Italian counterespionag
e to follow Mallaby discreetly, rather than catch him immediately.

  For the Italians, it was thus just a matter of (apparent) good fortune.

  The improvised intervention of citizens and local police forces clearly ruined the potential for a complex strategy that could have made the brilliant infiltration operation carried out by the Italians even more effective and sensational.

  An official SOE report, written some time after the events, partly explains the reasons why Lake Como was anything but deserted that night. It highlights, in an exaggerated manner, that after the air-raid sirens had gone off, ‘thousands of frightened citizens fleeing from Milan’ were camped on the shores of the lake, ironically concluding: ‘never had an SOE agent been received by such a large and unfortunate reception committee’.60 It makes no mention of SIM or its agents.

  Mallaby’s private memoirs clear up this matter definitively:

  In point of fact, the Italian espionage and counterespionage organization SIM had previously managed to plant an agent inside our organization in Switzerland. This agent was in fact almost entirely responsible for the development of the Italian ‘resistance movement’ and for passing information on to the Allies, naturally false. I learned all this later and also that I had been expcted by SIM, who hoped to use me, without my knowing, to pass further information of dubious nature back to our HQ. However as things stood, they were not sure as to whether I was the expected wireless operator and hence the continued gruelling [sic].

  A final demonstration comes from the fact that it took a few days for the highly efficient SIM men – who had benefitted from reading the direct communications to agents 900 and Galea – to conclude that Tito was the paratrooper captured in Carate Urio (i.e. Mallaby).

  To sum up: Mallaby’s capture in Carate Urio had not been planned, but his arrival in Italy was known and SIM’s plans were to control and manipulate him, not capture him.