An Englishman Abroad

by Gianluca Barneschi

  Thus, his capture had ruined the plans made by both SIM (definitively) and SOE (temporarily).

  In all this, despite Mallaby’s capture, the Italian organization that had infiltrated Bern continued to enjoy the full and enduring trust, and even the concerns of SOE’s personnel.

  Despite the disastrous start to Neck, agent 900 allowed himself to indicate that he had arranged safe houses between Como, Genoa and Bari. This did not cause suspicion, only thoughtful interest.

  On 21 August, Bern asked in an apparently cynical way, but actually naive:

  did agent 1400 not realize implications of Olaf’s arrest for him, and is he not perturbed for his own safety?

  We have done anything to alter this and I think it may be as well better not to communicate anything further to 900 beyond what we are ourselves telling him today, namely that the friend he was expecting has had a grave misfortune and will not now arrive.61

  Mallaby was handed over to the Italian counterespionage service, and on the morning of 14 August 1943 he was transferred to its Milan office together with all his equipment. There, during the course of a further interrogation, something unexpected happened. Agent Olaf was shown two pieces of US Army parachute equipment. Given the simultaneous discovery of this equipment, the Italians assumed that Mallaby had not parachuted in alone.62

  Instead of remaining in the custody of Italian counterespionage, Mallaby was transferred to San Vittore Prison – most likely in an effort to extract confidential information from him using a SIM employee posing as a cellmate.

  Whilst at San Vittore, further interrogations took place. Mallaby maintained the latest version of his story, and, above all, tried to sustain his captors’ interest in him, in order to keep the firing squad at bay.

  The official version of what happened to agent Olaf after his capture is in a British report, compiled almost a year after the events, on 1 August 1944, entitled ‘The Mallaby Case’.63

  This document is particularly important, being based on copies and translations of the secret reports drawn up a year earlier by the Italian officials. Clearly, this material had become available to the British as a consequence of the contacts established with the Italian Supreme Command and SIM following the September 1943 surrender and the declaration of war by the Italian ‘Kingdom of the South’ against Germany on 13 October 1943.64

  Reading these Italian reports a year after the events, SOE’s leadership was pleased with the way Mallaby handled his interrogations (‘It seems that he thought the best version was the easiest’) and with the very fortuitous and unforseen role he took on.65

  With regard to the Italian side of things, the documents reveal not only efficiency and good organization, but also determination, in contrast to common perceptions of the morale of the Italian forces and population in the summer of 1943. Without delay, the Ufficio Protezione Impianti e Difesa Antiparacadutisti (UPIDA – Office for the Protection of Infrastucture and Anti-Parachute Defence) of the General Staff of the Italian Royal Army dispatched a recording on 14 August 1943, and subsequently, on 16 August, a memorandum and detailed reports to the Chief of Staff of the Army and to SIM. Besides documenting the step-by-step process of, and those involved in, Mallaby’s capture, the message notes the engagement of ‘all anti-parachute assets recently activated in the area’. In contrast to what had been assumed by the British, the Italians had intensified their vigilance, notably in Mallaby’s landing area.

  The inventory of objects found on Mallaby drawn up by the Italian investigators, accompanied by the customary mugshot, is much more detailed than all the reports compiled in the previous months by SOE. In addition to the (‘perfectly falsified’) documents, we learn of the discovery of a sweater that ‘could be used as a chemical reagent if placed in acid’, Giovanni Papini’s Italia mia book (which, between pages 185 and 188, held the negatives containing the cryptographic codes), and a newspaper dated 29 June.

  The Italians also listed a water purification compound, a small pot of boric vaseline (with a camera film inside) and an antenna (disguised as a clothes line). They also tried, unsuccessfully, to iron the other pages in the Papini book to see if any further codes could be revealed, but concluded that this would only be possible using a specific chemical reagent.

  The report also stated that the ‘fake’ tube of ‘Ideal’ toothpaste and the toothbrush could contain small pieces of paper with codes written on them. Mallaby himself (with an ulterior motive, one assumes) had indicated that inside the tube of toothpaste there were other negatives containing codes and inside the shaving brush a quartz crystal. The person compiling the inventory pointed out that there was no razor in the razor box.

  The first report, signed by Major-General Ruggero of the Comando Difesa Territoriale di Milano (Milan Territorial Defence Command), concluded by highlighting the voluntary civilian participation in Mallaby’s capture and proposed that the five key figures involved be awarded a ‘large cash prize’ (with Borghi and Abate receiving the lion’s share). No prize money was paid, however.

  A further Italian report, dated 26 August 1943, provided the results of a thorough investigation, reporting that the captured parachutist was not called Richard Norris, but Richard Mallaby; that he was born to an Italian mother (confusing Mallaby’s birth mother with his stepmother); that he jumped alone from a Halifax flown by six crew; and that his mission was to carry out radio-telegraphy activities, having replaced an Italian who had refused to take part in the mission at the last minute – the last element a clear and clever attempt by Mallaby to explain his lack of knowledge of the mission’s details.

  The most important part of the report relates to his telegraphic activities. Pointing out that Mallaby was carrying cryptographic codes, the report indicated that he was to have used a radio based in Milan and, according to the author of the report’s view, the radio was the one that had been found (along with two pieces of paper containing the necessary codes, disguised as poetry) some time before in the Giussago area.

  According to this document, Mallaby claimed that he had refused to be parachuted into Italy to carry out sabotage activities and was consequently transferred to North Africa to carry out propaganda work. He was then assigned a new mission of landing in Italy to carry out wireless work in unison with other agents, whom he would meet once in situ, after having recovered a previously delivered radio.

  Italian documents held in the British archives hold a further secret report dated 5 September 1943. In this, it is explained that Richard Mallaby was the ‘son of Cecil and of the deceased Mary Schofield’, demonstrating that in a short space of time the Italian intelligence system had carried out effective investigative work, arriving at a precise identification (which included the place and date of his birth) and correcting his mother’s particulars.66

  The unveiling of Mallaby’s true identity was certainly not the result of a breach of SOE’s communication systems, nor of spying (as is sometimes inaccurately stated in certain published works), but was due to the diligent work of the Italians. In addition to monitoring the movements of British citizens resident in Italy, the Italian security services gathered names, photographs and personal data of British, British-Italian, and Italo-British citizens. By exploiting this precautionary work, they were quickly able to determine Mallaby’s real identity and more.

  The report summarized Mallaby’s statements and the investigators’ deductions, and ended by stating that further investigative activities would be undertaken ‘by the Rome CS [counterespionage], to whom Mallaby was handed over together with the objects seized on his person’. Also, further investigations aimed at capturing the other elements present in Italy – especially those responsible for the ground light signals – had not met with success despite mobile checkpoints being set up in the border area between Varese and Como, partly as a result of the large number of displaced people present.

  Two critical points emerge from the study of all these documents. Firstly, Mallaby revealed numerous details about hi
s equipment; and secondly, his Italian inquisitors were able to quickly confirm his true identity and his family details despite the limited technology of the time.

  In his interrogation Mallaby mixed together both true and false elements; thus employing an impromptu tactic (by instinct, or by training), he dripped confessional details that could appear important, but actually weren’t and did not compromise either himself or SOE’s activities, mainly in order to nurture the idea that he would be more useful alive than dead, avoiding the potential brutality of his captors.

  It was thus a collaboration in appearance only, which conversely also allowed him the opportunity to carry out some useful disinformation work; it is possible that he was also seeking to ingratiate himself with his Italians captors, so that he might be allowed to transmit a wireless message.

  Despite the flurry of reports, SIM’s secret daily bulletins did not mention Dick Mallaby’s capture, and what was omitted from the Italian intelligence services’ confidential bulletins was instead splashed all over the front pages.

  This was not fortuitous of course, but a conscious decision to involve the media.

  We can only assume that this was not done for propaganda reasons, but for some subtle, hidden diplomatic/espionage purpose, which was certainly not connected to the tumultuous events that soon followed.

  The front page of the Milanese daily La Sera–Il Secolo, published on Wednesday 18 August 1943, heralded the capture of the British agent with the headline: ‘The Man who Fell from the Skies was Betrayed by Moonlight’.

  Despite its imaginative style, the article reveals numerous significant details. It relates the disastrous beginning of Operation Neck and confirms that a fairly precise identification of Mallaby had been achieved in a short period of time.

  This article could not have been published without the consent of the relevant authorities, for at this time, as far as freedom of the press and public order were concerned, Badoglio’s first government had issued even more draconian diktats than those established in the previous 21 years under Mussolini.

  However, publicizing Mallaby’s capture made a further contribution to preserving his life: the article in the Italian newspaper helped spread the news more widely and more quickly. The article also alleged that Mallaby had adopted a surly tone with his captors, despite his desperate circumstances. This is something which McCaffery commented on in his unpublished memoirs (‘No Pipes or Drums’), surprisingly stating that it appeared ‘absolutely incredible that in such a desperate situation anyone could afford the luxury of arrogance, but an enemy newspaper could hardly have invented such a detail’.67

  For the time being, Dick Mallaby had managed to avoid the customary fate of a captured, non-uniformed agent – namely the death sentence. This was chiefly because the Italian security services were extremely interested in him and his equipment, and hoped to extract further useful information, or use him to continue to spin their web of disinformation.

  What did the British know about the immediate failure of Neck and the fate of its protagonist? In the days immediately following, some communications were sent (not always in a coordinated manner) which only briefly dealt with the negative outcome.

  On 14 August 1943, Massingham had announced the beginning of the operation, noting that agent Olaf had departed in a keyed-up and confident state. The following day, SOE’s Italian Department in London had summarized all the details of Operation Neck, with the umpteenth listing of Mallaby’s equipment (which partly differed from previous ones).

  On the 17th, a double message was sent from Bern to Massingham stating that agent 1400 had arranged everything in Como and should have escorted Mallaby from agent 900’s care to Milan, although there was still no news of any developments.68

  The bad news, however, began to spread that very day.

  An encrypted message from London pointed out that various sources had stated that several parachutists had been detained near Como. According to the author of the message, the greatest concern for SOE’s leadership was the technical equipment that Mallaby was carrying.

  This generated panic in Bern. The Swiss office pointed out that the local press had learned from Italian sources of several important arrests, with a few fanciful details added, including the presence of women and Italians among the captured. It was feared that, under torture, Mallaby had revealed details known to him of the organization in Italy.

  In the following days, London, with quite mystifying arguments, made it known to Bern that the news did not trouble the heads of SOE, in part because what was communicated did not fit with agent Olaf, who in any case was not carrying any documents that could compromise others. Their subsequent recommendation was: ‘do nothing which may embroil anybody’. In a separate message, it was pointed out that the pilot of the plane from which Mallaby had jumped reported that the villages around Lake Como were not in blackout conditions, which evidently had contributed to the anxiety felt by those in charge of the mission.

  On 19 August, Massingham also reassured all those involved, asserting that precautionary measures had been put in place, and that until their point of meeting, the British agent and the Italian ones operated in watertight compartments. The conclusion was that agent Olaf would not be able to ‘compromise our groups’.69

  The greatest concern related to the fear of such compromise and not the fate of Dick Mallaby himself.

  On 20 August, in a message sent at 11.17pm and based on information received from Bern, Dick Mallaby’s capture was divulged.70

  A series of messages sent the following day from London to Massingham laid out the official sequence of events. Firstly they expressed satisfaction for the beginning of the mission, secondly best wishes for a successful outcome, but finally came the official news about the capture of the mission’s central player. Of course this news had been made public in the La Sera–Il Secolo article three days earlier, but the message gave further details.

  Agent 1400 had reported that, on account of the full moon, Mallaby had been spotted as soon as he exited the plane, was captured immediately and was awaiting trial in a military court; secondly, he also reported that he had already made significant attempts ‘via the Major’ to contact Mallaby and to make plans for his escape; thirdly, this pivotal agent stated that two other parachutists had been arrested, too.

  According to a coded message sent on the 21st, agent 1400 had:

  1asked for confirmation about the arrival in Como of 23 General Staff officers, to attack them;

  2praised the accuracy of the bombing of Milan (adding it was a pity that they had ceased and allowed the Italians to catch their breath), and recommended continuous actions against smaller, specific objectives rather than large-scale raids;

  3with his group, claimed to have sabotaged telephone lines in Verona, Bolzano and Brenner and slashed a large number of military vehicle tyres in Dongo.

  A subsequent message dated 23 August adds a further, subtle, one-worded detail: that ‘1400 is working through the Carabinieri Major’.71

  Having ascertained that Mallaby was indeed alive and in captivity, frantic efforts were initiated (chiefly via secret diplomatic channels) to save his life and obtain his release. Yet even before this, SOE attempted to make contact with their precious agent Olaf.

  Cecil Roseberry, head of Department J, reported that he was able to obtain confidential information about the fate of agent Olaf and his place of detention and even let him know that there were plans to get him out of prison. Such information, however, like all that flowing from Italy, was obviously manipulated, and originated from the group of Italian agents who had infiltrated SOE Bern’s network.

  Mallaby’s unpublished memoirs confirm the above events, stating that, after a few days in prison in Milan, another prisoner had informed him in a typically sibylline prisoner-to-prisoner way that, at the earliest possible opportunity, he would receive some help ‘from his friends’. Having received this comforting reassurance, Mallaby faced further danger when, fo
llowing another air raid on Milan, an unexploded bomb landed near his cell. Mallaby was then transferred, together with several petty criminals, to Como’s San Donnino Prison. According to Mallaby’s secret diary, ‘there followed daily interrogations and each day I had to find some different sort of story to tell’. British declassified documents reveal the doubts and hesitations over how to end Mallaby’s imprisonment, in part due to the need to avoid revealing too many details about the mission, even to other British service organizations.

  A dispatch from Massingham dated 22 August suggested a few altentaive actions: activating agent Partito (who would need to be accompanied by a radio operator); or ‘intervening’ during Mallaby’s trial (which according to the information available would be a rapid process) to get an acquittal, or a prisoner exchange, negotiated via the Vatican.72

  Meanwhile, communications between the parties involved in Operation Neck were attempting to pinpoint the reasons for its immediate failure.73 A lengthy Most Secret dispatch dated 25 August 1943, while acknowledging that not all the details were available, noted that the aviation side to the operation went without a hitch, recalling that four previous matériel drops had been made around the Italian lakes without any Italians noticing, while the single parachute to which Mallaby was attached had apparently been spotted immediately.74

  A message dated 27 August gave news of the capture of two other parachutists (a radio operator and a ‘guide’) who had jumped on the night of 12/13 August. It also noted that the increased Italian vigilance might have been due to the extensive parachute activity that had taken place during the previous two full moons. According to an official SOE memorandum dated 24 August, the reasons for the presence of so many people on the shores of Lake Como in the middle of the night ‘could not be explained’. It even considered a leak within SOE as a cause, or the improved reaction capabilities of the Italians (due to the fact that the noises British aircraft made were clearly distinguishable and, therefore, could trigger a state of alert when recognized).