50. NCML, SHR-025, Colonel McCormack’s Trip to London, May–June 1943, Bluebird Incident, 271.
ACT III. CHAPTER 2. MARE INCOGNITUM
1. HW 8/24 AI/MSS/13, “German Intentions in the Mediterranean,” May 6, 1942. Cf. the follow-up report, HW 14/37, AI/MSS/14, May 18, 1942, which confirms these conclusions.
2. HW 14/37, Commanders in Chief to DMI for Chiefs of Staff, May 13, 1942.
3. HW 14/37, Tedder to Chief of Air Staff, May 17, 1942.
4. HW 13/52, CX/MSS/S/12, “Axis Preparations for Operations in the Mediterranean,” May 26, 1942. On the Hut 3 research section, see HW 43/64, The History of Hut 3 (1940–1945), 2: 356.
5. Fraser, Knight’s Cross, 304–306; War Journal of Franz Halder, entries for March 1942. On March 25, Halder listed German dead, wounded, and missing at 1,073,066 out of an army originally numbering 3.2 million.
6. Liddell Hart, Rommel Papers, 191–192.
7. CD, May 12–13, 1942.
8. CD, April 29–May 2; Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War, 205–214.
9. Carl von Clausewitz, “Friction in War,” chap. 7 of On War, trans. J. J. Graham, Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm (accessed September 25, 2019).
10. Main sources used here on Husseini’s relations with the Nazis include KV 2/2085, passim; Francis R. Nicosia, Nazi Germany and the Arab World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 180–205; Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine (New York: Enigma and United States Holocaust Museum, 2010), 88–94; Michael A. Sells, “Holocaust Abuse: The Case of Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husayni,” Journal of Religious Ethics 43, no. 4 (2015): 724–725; Samuel Miner, “Planning the Holocaust in the Middle East: Nazi Designs to Bomb Jewish Cities in Palestine,” Jewish Political Studies Review 27, no. 3/4 (2016): 20–22; Mallmann and Cüppers, “Elimination of the Jewish National Home,” 6–7; Weinberg, World at Arms, chap. 10.
11. DFP 13:515, “Record of the Conversation Between the Führer and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem on November 28, 1941, in the Presence of the Reich Foreign Minister and Minister Grobba in Berlin”; 13:516, “Memorandum by the Director of the Political Department,” November 28, 1941.
12. CD, April 14, 1942.
13. Weinberg, World at Arms, chaps. 6, 10.
14. HW 1/573, “Arab Independence: Japanese Ambassador, Rome, Forwards Letter from Mufti and Gailani to Ciano,” May 16, 1942; HW 1/575, “Arab Independence: Japanese Ambassador, Rome, Forwards Letter from Ciano to Mufti,” May 17, 1942.
15. Mallmann and Cüppers, “Elimination of the Jewish National Home,” 6–7.
16. HW 77/12, Hut 6 weekly report for week ending May 23, 1942.
17. HW 5/91, CX/MSS/988/T15.
18. HW 5/92, CX/MSS/993/T11.
19. This is the second Bluebird message described in NCML, SHR-025, Colonel McCormack’s Trip to London, May–June 1943, Bluebird Incident, 271. The information is based on a meeting between McCormack and Dudley-Smith. It is unclear whether McCormack took notes or reported based on his memory of the conversation. It is possible that his list is incomplete.
20. KCLH GB0099, papers of Maj. Gen. Henry Maughan (“Bill”) Liardet, letter to his wife, February 18, 1943, published as Guy Liardet, “The Gazala Battles,” Tank Journal, August 1996. Liardet writes that his unit was to move up on July 1 but also that he had a fortnight from May 15 to train them. “July” is almost certainly a substitution for “June,” an extremely common error.
21. IWM, Document 25879, R. G. Hurlock, letter to his father, May 25, 1942.
22. IWM, Document 7876, E. H. Wilmott, Nothing Spectacular: 41–45 (transcribed journal), 12.
23. HW 5/93, CX/MSS/1003/T9.
24. DEFE 3/756, MK 5749, May 24, 1942, based on decrypt CX/MSS/1008/T5.
25. HW 5/94, CX/MSS/1014/T16, intercepted May 22, 1942.
26. Morik Brin and Raoul A. Biancardi, Say It in Arabic and See Egypt: Manual and Guide-Book for the British and Imperial Forces (Cairo: Horus, 1942).
27. The account here is based on interrogations of Eppler, Sandstede, and others in the summer of 1942, which corroborate each other and differ greatly from wildly embellished postwar accounts by Eppler and others. In the interrogations, they recalled the date when they were left at Assiut and took the train to Cairo as May 24. However, Almasy recorded the date as May 23 in the diary he was keeping at the time. See Almasy’s diary in Gross, Rolke, and Zboray, Salam, 326–327. Interrogations: HW 14/40, “Special Report on German Intelligence in Egypt and Libya,” based on the statements of Waldemar Weber and Walter Aberle, June 18, 1942; KV 2/1467, “Report on the Interrogation of Victor Hauser,” July 22–23, 1942; “First Consolidated Report on Activities of Eppler, Johann and Sandstede, Heinrich Gerd,” July 29, 1942; “Second Consolidated Report on the Activities of Eppler, Johann and Sandstede, Heinrich Gerd,” July 31, 1942; “Further Report on Sandy and Eppler Case,” August 5, 1942; KV 3/5, J. C. Curry, “The German Secret Services: Supplement to the Report on the German Secret Service Issued in August 1942,” July 1944, 67–71.
28. Almasy’s diary in Gross, Rolke, and Zboray, Salam, 326–331.
29. KV 2/1467, “Second Consolidated Report,” says that Albert Wahda had “apparently been working for Mme. Therese as a pimp.” In the unsigned “Further Report,” the writer refers to him as “a Jew boy called Albert Wahba.” The overt anti-Semitism of the investigators toward Wahda/Wahba may have led to their assumption that he was Therese’s pimp.
30. Almasy’s message: His diary for May 18, 1942; Gross, Rolke, and Zboray, Salam, 322. Message from Tripoli to Berlin: HW 19/30, ISOS 27806, May 20, 1942, via Gross, Rolke, and Zboray, Salam, 369. Mideast Headquarters to Kaid Khartoum: WO 201/2139, May 25, 1942. On the bottleneck in transmitting Abwehr decrypts, see Brett Edward Lintott, “Confidence Men: The Mediterranean Double-Cross System, 1941–45” (PhD diss, University of Toronto, 2015), 59–63.
31. Bagnold, Libyan Sands, 10.
32. Fraser, Knight’s Cross, 313ff.; Warner, Auchinleck, 182ff.; Liddell Hart, Rommel Papers, 191ff.; WO 201/2014, Personal for CIGS from General Auchinleck, Situation Review, May 27, 1942.
33. FFP, Cable 1090, June 1, 1942.
34. Liddell Hart, Rommel Papers, 203–208; Fraser, Knight’s Cross, 323–328; Marcus Cowper and Christopher Pannell, Tank Spotter’s Guide (Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2011), 27–29; Michael Peck, “The M-3 Grant: America’s Nazi Germany Tank-Killer,” National Interest, January 22, 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-m-3-grant-americas-nazi-germany-tank-killer-19126 (accessed September 23, 2019); cf. FDR, Map Room, Box 93, File MR300, Section 1, Fellers Cable 1076, May 30, 1942.
35. WO 201/632, To Mideast from HQ Main Eighth Army, Cositrep 322, May 30, 1942; Cositrep 323, May 30, 1942; Cositrep 325, May 31, 1942.
36. IWM, Document 15623, 4/5 W. B. Kennedy-Shaw papers, Wbk 8, “The Almasy Commando,” June 5, 1942; WO 201/2139, To Mideast from Kaid Khartoum, June 8, 1942; To Main Eighth Army from Mideast, June 9, 1942; “Enemy Intelligence Unit,” June 9, 1942; HW 51/26, message of June 9, 1942; HW 14/40, “Special Report on German Intelligence in Egypt and Libya,” based on the statements of Waldemar Weber and Walter Aberle, June 18, 1942. The documentation clearly indicates that Weber and Aberle were captured on May 27 and that some of Weber’s papers were found separately on May 29. There is no mention in the British records of the novel Rebecca or of any other English-language novel. The report on the interrogation of Weber and Aberle does note that Weber was carrying “a number of incriminating documents.”
37. KV 2/1467, 1st Consolidated Report on Activities of a) Eppler, Johann (alias Hussein Gaafar) b) Sandstede, Heinrich Gerd (alias Peter Muncaster), July 29, 1941.
38. The key sources for the legend are Leonard Mosley, The Cat and the Mice (London: Arthur Barkey, 1958); A. W. Sansom, I Spied Spies (London: George G. Harrap, 1965); John Eppler, Operation Condor: Rommel’s Spy, trans. S. Seago (London: MacDonald and Jane’s, 197
4).
39. IWM, Document 15623, 4/5 W. B. Kennedy-Shaw papers, Wbk 8, “The Almasy Commando,” June 5, 1942; HW 14/40, “Special Report on German Intelligence in Egypt and Libya,” based on the statements of Waldemar Weber and Walter Aberle, June 18, 1942.
40. Cüppers, Walther Rauff, 142; Mallmann and Cüppers, Nazi Palestine, 119–120; Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman, 218–276; R. C. Jaggers, “The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich,” Studies in Intelligence 4, no. 1 (1960): 1–20, www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP78-03921A0003003100010.pdf (accessed September 24, 2019).
41. HW 1/641, CX/MSS/1027/T17, decrypted and translated on May 30, 1942. The version in HW 5/95 gives the key as Red. Note that CX/MSS/1030/T24, also in HW 5/95, provides more of the original German message, including information from the same source on May 5, but was not given to Churchill.
42. This is the third Bluebird message described in NCML, SHR-025, Colonel McCormack’s Trip to London, May–June 1943, Bluebird Incident, 271.
ACT III. CHAPTER 3. SPIES, EVERYWHERE
1. HW 1/612, CX/MSS/1032/T7.
2. HW 1/615, CX/MSS/1037/T6. The Enigma key appears in handwriting on the version in HW 5/96.
3. Bennett, “The Duty Officer,” 34.
4. WO 201/632, To Mideast from HQ Main Eighth Army, Cositrep 322, May 30, 1942.
5. Greenberg, Welchman, 71.
6. Jackson, Solving, chap. 21.
7. Erskine, “Breaking Air Force and Army Enigma,” 69–70; Calvocoressi, Top Secret, 78–79; HW 14/38, Colman to Travis, “Middle East ‘E’ Interception,” May 25, 1942; HW 14/39, “Scorpion II,” June 7, 1942; “Operational Intercepts, Middle East. Scorpion II,” June 7, 1942; From Travis to DDMI (O), June 9, 1942; HW 77/12, Hut 6 reports for weeks ending May 30, June 6, June 13, 1942.
8. Welchman, Hut Six, 166–169.
9. HW 8/17, “B-Dienst 26/5–2/6.” The report does not include CX/MSS/1027/T17 on the failure of RAF technicians, which was under investigation outside Bletchley Park. See NCML, SHR-025, Colonel McCormack’s Trip to London, May–June 1943, Bluebird Incident. On Welchman’s feelings: Greenberg, Welchman, 138–139.
10. The main sources for Eppler and Sandstede’s early days in Cairo are KV 2/1467, “Report on the Interrogation of Victor Hauser,” July 22–23, 1942; “First Consolidated Report on Activities of Eppler, Johann and Sandstede, Heinrich Gerd,” July 29, 1942; “Second Consolidated Report on the Activities of Eppler, Johann and Sandstede, Heinrich Gerd,” July 31, 1942; “A Report on the Eppler and Sandy Case,” undated, likely from August 1 or 2, 1942; “Third Report,” August 3, 1942; “Further Report on Sandy and Eppler Case,” August 5, 1942; “Aziz El Masri and His Connection with the 2 German Spies Now in Custody in British Hands,” August 11, 1942. Other sources noted below.
11. KV 1/1467, “Further Report”; Halim, Diaries, 48–54, 71; WO 208/1561, Security Summary Middle East No. 43, May 7, 1942.
12. WO 2019/2139, DMI to DDO, June 7, 1942; “Operation Claptrap,” June 7, 2019; cf. IWM, Document 15623, 4/5 W. B. Kennedy-Shaw papers, Wbk 8, “The Almasy Commando,” June 5, 1942.
13. US NARA, RG 165, 390/31/30/7, Box 753, File 3850, Fellers Report 2376, “Anglo-Egyptian Relations,” May 27, 1942.
14. WO 208/1561, Security Summary Middle East No. 36, April 13, 1942; No. 38, April 21, 1942. On opposition to the Axis in Egypt, see Israel Gershoni, Milhemet Ha’umot Hahalashot [The War of the Weak Nations: Egypt in the Second World War, 1939–1945] (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2017).
15. HBF B40 F13, Military Attaché Report 1, November 20, 1940; B19 F4, correspondence with Azzam, Abdul Rahman.
16. Moorehead, African Trilogy, 350–355; WO 201/632, To Mideast from HQ Main Eighth Army, Cositrep 327, June 1, 1942; Cositrep 329, June 2, 1942.
17. Liardet, “The Gazala Battles.”
18. FDR, Map Room, Box 93, File MR300, Sec. 1, Fellers Cable 1105, 3:46 p.m., June 6, 1942; Fellers Cable 1107, 5:40 p.m., June 6, 1942. On the responsibilities of assistant attaché Lt. Col. Gooler, see US NARA, RG 319, Entry 47, 270/5/13/5, Box 125, File 315–452.1, Fellers to Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, “Organizational Chart,” January 21, 1942.
19. Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War, 231–235, 495n44; Moorehead, African Trilogy, 359–363; Liddell Hart, Rommel Papers, 213–220; WO 201/632, Cositreps 330–342, June 3–9, 1942. Moorehead (African Trilogy, 360) reported that there was a second woman in the French forces at Bir Hakeim.
20. HW 5/97, CX/MSS/1048/T17, CX/MSS/1048/T27. The latter message is also in HW 1/626.
21. HW 8/17, “‘B-Dienst 3/6–9/6.”
22. Weinberg, World at Arms, chap. 6; Budiansky, Battle of Wits, 1–21, 255–257.
23. HW 14/47, Hastings to Godfrey, June 30, 1942, and attached retyped copy of June 7, 1942, article from the Washington Times Herald; HW 69/9, Godfrey to Hastings, July 7, 1942; Stephen Budiansky, “The Difficult Beginnings of US–British Codebreaking Cooperation,” Intelligence and National Security 15, no. 2 (2000): 51–53.
24. Ranfurly, To War, July 16, 1941, May 28, 1942.
25. HS 7/234, SOE War Diary, June 1942, 4239–4240; Cox, “Britain and the Origin,” 73; Brenner, Ium Haplishah, 11.
26. HS 7/266, SOE War Diary, Mideast and Balkans, July–August 1942, 36–38.
27. HW 1/641, For ACASI, from Duty Officer, Hut 3, June 8, 1942. Tedder is identified as the author of this message in a subsequent note in the same file from Chief of Air Staff Charles Portal.
28. WO 201/214, Personal for CIGS from General Auchinleck, Situation Review, June 5, 1942.
29. WO 201/2139, “Operations, Cyrenaica,” May 30, 1942; Special Forces, 144–153, 302–310, 319–322.
30. HW 5/98, CX/MSS/1060/T24.
31. HW 5/99, CX/MSS/1062/T7.
32. US NARA, RG 226, Entry 171A, Box 59, “Report on the Penetration Activities of the ‘P’ Squad of the Italian Military Intelligence Service, Counter Espionage Section,” 3, 7; CD, June 9, 1942; Brian R. Sullivan, “Manfredi Talamo (January 1895–March 1944),” unpublished manuscript courtesy of the author; David Alvarez and Robert A. Graham, Nothing Sacred: Nazi Espionage Against the Vatican, 1939–1945 (Portland, OR: F. Cass, 1997), 125–126.
ACT IV. CHAPTER 1. COMPROMISED
1. FFP, Cable 1118, Parts 1 and 2. Over the next three days, Fellers wrote seven more parts to this cable. Parts 1 and 3 are also in FDR, Map Room, Box 93, File MR300, Sec. 1, Warfare-North Africa, Mid East, Mediterranean (1), May–June 1942.
2. IWM, Document 25879, R. G. Hurlock. A newspaper clipping, with no date preserved, states that he was killed on June 10, 1942.
3. HW 5/99, CX/MSS/1066/T10, CX/MSS/1065/T18, CX/MSS/1066/T11; Liddell Hart, Rommel Papers, 218.
4. HW 5/99, CX/MSS/1067/T21; Moorehead, African Trilogy, 361.
5. HW 5/100, CX/MSS/1078/T12; WO 201/2014, Personal for CIGS from General Auchinleck, Situation Reviews, June 11 and 19, 1942; WO 201/632, To Mideast from HQ Main Eighth Army, Cositreps 346–347, June 11, 1942; FFP, Cable 1147, June 18, 1942; “Susan Travers,” Telegraph (London), December 23, 2003, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1450081/Susan-Travers.html (accessed October 17, 2019); Alan Riding, “A Legionnaire, She Was Never Timid in Amour or War,” New York Times, April 21, 2001, B7; Kitchen, Rommel’s Desert War, 495n44.
6. HW 1/640, CX/MSS/1069/T8.
7. HW 1/636, CX/MSS/1062/T17, and attached note from Menzies, June 10, 1942. The message also appears in HW 5/99, where it is marked as having been sent in Chaffinch II.
8. HW 50/22, “W/T Security and Deception,” states that in the spring of 1942 the Naval Section at Bletchley Park “set aside a research specialists” [sic] to track German successes in codebreaking. From context, the singular rather than plural is correct, and the research specialist is Storey. In the same file, the “Interservice Cypher Security Committee and Cypher Policy Board” entry for February 19, 1941, refers to Dudley-Smith’s appointment.
9. HW 8/132. The log of cables is incomplete, and Tiltman’s cable is missing. However, the content and approximate ti
ming can be derived from Friedman’s urgent response, addressed to Tiltman and received at 4:35 a.m. in England.
10. HW 8/132, A80, Friedman to Tiltman, received 0435 June 11, 1942.
11. HW 8/132, R135, Tiltman and Kullback to Friedman, received 1103 June 11, 1942.
12. HW 8/132, A82, For Tiltman [unsigned, presumably from Friedman], received 0157, June 12, 1942.
13. HW 8/132, A83, For Tiltman [unsigned, presumably from Friedman], received 0820, June 12, 1942.
14. NSA OH-17-82, Kullback. Kullback’s recounting in 1982 implies that Friedman accepted that the code was compromised but believed it had been stolen rather than solved. Travis’s reply in 1942, however, implies that Friedman was asserting that the Germans’ source was an agent, an assertion Travis disputes.
15. HW 1/641, C/9743, June 12, 1943, with Churchill annotation of June 13, and attachments.
16. HW 1/642, C/9744, Menzies to Portal, June 12, 1942.
17. HW 8/132, T767, Travis to Friedman, received 1705 June 12, 1942; R137 (unmarked, presumably Travis to Friedman), received 2210 June 12, 1942; HW 5/99, CX/MSS/1069/T21.
18. HW 8/132, R139, Kullback to Friedman, marked “personal,” received 1345 [text of time unclear], June 13, 1942.
19. WO 201/2139, Dennys to DMI et al., June 10, 1942; DMI to G(O), June 10, 1942.
20. Churchill, Hinge of Fate, 326–327.
21. HW 5/100, CX/MSS/1071/T17, CX/MSS/1073/T8.
22. HW 5/100, CX/MSS/1078/T11.
23. HW 5/99, CX/MSS/1069/T16; WO 201/632, To Mideast from HQ Main Eighth Army, Cositrep 352, June 14, 1942; Liddell Hart, Rommel Papers, 220–224; Barr, Pendulum, chap. 1.
24. HW 1/646, C/9761, Menzies to Churchill, June 14, 1942.
25. HW 8/132, R140, Travis to Friedman, received 1930 June 14, 1942. The decrypted message cited is HW 5/100, CX/MSS/1078/T5.
26. The message cited is CX/MSS/1078/T7, found in HW 1/648 and HW 5/100, sent in Chaffinch II.
27. FFP, Cable 1118, Part 2.
28. NCML, David Kahn Collection, DK 66/33, Cable 1119. This is the text as deciphered and paraphrased at the receiving end, where it was mistakenly numbered 11119 by a clerk who struck the numeral “1” too many times. The grammatical error is most likely also a product of the Washington code room.
War of Shadows Page 50