by Nigel West
Evan Simpson registered severe reservations about the questions posed by the Abwehr, as John de Salis pointed out to Dudley Clarke on 18 May that CHEESE’S position was ‘very precarious’.
Apparently Major Robertson had some information about him: ‘the heavy hand of the British Secret Service is now apparent’, do you know anything further about this? Up to now we have struck for money. ‘Sans argent, nouvelles militaires impossible’.
Remuneration has been promised but no sums have as yet materialised. The enemy are now asking for information about your aeroplane factory, location, details of equipment and whether manufacturing or merely assembly shops.
Simpson is now unwilling to carry on with this theme unless you insist on it. In my opinion there are several disadvantages. Sooner or later we shall have to locate this factory and tie it up with an existing building/installation, thereby exposing a building to bombing. We shall have to decide whether it is a factory or an assembly shop. The first is unlikely, owing to local conditions – total absence of primary materials, tools and skilled personnel. The second would have to be linked up with an area where considerable activity is already taking place where the associated features of a large factory, lodging capacity, rail/water communications, are to be found.
The enemy are also anxious to obtain the exact location of GHQ. This was given correctly by us as Sh.E1 Birgas (i) There is no record in the file that GHQ had been consulted. (ii) This might be an indication that our message had not been received, but would appear to be much more likely a check on our veracity.
The solution, produced by de Salis on 19 May, was to focus on three distinct themes and give the enemy the impression
– That LAMBERT is, and remains, loyal to the enemy;
– That owing to the lack of funds he has been forced to employ ‘inferior’ agents who had misled him and given him inaccurate and misleading information on – e.g. 18th Division;
– That he has now got rid of the lot and, should funds be available, he is now in a position to recruit better personnel who could and would produce the required information;
– With this new organisation we might allay the suspicion apparent … and give us a possibility of having a new start.
SIME later recorded that
it was not until the latter half of June that anything further was transmitted. Even then, the matter supplied was first of low grade, though in order to build up confidence it had to contain a high proportion of truth. ‘A’ Force was fortunately able to supply the enemy with information that he already possessed, new items that were unlikely to be of use to him, or truths that would probably confuse him more than a deliberate lie.
On 2 July the Abwehr suddenly expressed renewed interest and confidence in Nicossof and instructed him to begin transmitting daily, and TRIANGLE intercepts dated 4 and 12 July referred to him as ‘credible’ and ‘trustworthy’ although Athens noted that ‘the reliability of this agent has not yet been proved’. SIME responded by having Nicossof welcome the chance to bring Rommel to Cairo and suggested that the arrival of the Germans would enable him to receive some medals and have his debts repaid. It was also SIME’s chance to convey SENTINEL, a deception plan designed to encourage a German offensive in the period 10–20 August when the 8th Army supposedly would be in an especially advantageous position, with plenty of anti-tank artillery and minefields, to resist the attack. The objective, of course, was to delay the enemy’s impending attack until after 20 August when Auchinleck would have the benefits of reinforcements. In the event Rommel, with only 200 panzers and conscious of his supply line back to Tripoli stretching a thousand miles, significantly over-estimated the British strength and postponed his attack until the night of 30 August, but it failed at Alam Halfa. His plan had been betrayed by ULTRA, thus allowing the 8th Army to reinforce the precise focus of attack, the Alam Halfa ridge with 400 tanks, 300 anti-tank guns, 350 field-guns and huge minefields. In terms of strategic deception, ‘A’ Force invented RAYON, a supposed plan to invade Crete which required Greek troops in Egypt to be mobilised. The intention, at the very least, was to prevent Rommel from drawing reinforcements from the German forces on the occupied island, and this certainly happened, as demonstrated by an Afrika Korps assessment of the Allied order-of-battle which included the fake 74th Armoured Brigade joining the genuine 7th Armoured Division.
The other ‘A’ Force strategic objective was to apply maximum pressure on Rommel’s supply route from Italy, which in turn meant support for Malta, then besieged by the Luftwaffe and the Italian Regina Marina. The four submarines of the 10th Flotilla operating from HMS Talbot in Valetta’s Grand Harbour, HMS Unbroken, United, Unruffled and Unrivalled took a heavy toll of Axis shipping, up to half of the cargo ships and two-thirds of the tankers, on which the Afrika Korps was wholly dependent for food, ammunition, fuel and replacements, so Malta’s survival was a high priority for the Allies. The Royal Navy, with the benefit of well-protected submarine pens and high-grade intelligence derived from ULTRA, proved so successful in handicapping the enemy’s supply line that the Germans developed a plan, codenamed HERKULES, to bomb the island into submission and execute a joint paratroop and amphibious assault, thereby eliminating the menace. However, the project was abandoned when it was realised that such an undertaking would siphon off too many resources from the increasingly hard-pressed Afrika Korps. By the end of the war the 10th Flotilla had fired 1,289 torpedoes, with an estimated hit-rate of 10 per cent.
Allied attempts to deliver vital supplies to Malta, from Gibraltar in one direction and Alexandria on the other, had failed. Both convoys, HARPOON from the west and VIGOROUS from the east, had been disasters. HARPOON was under attack for two full days, and four of the six cargo ships sunk, along with a cruiser and five destroyers. VIGOROUS was an even greater catastrophe, and returned to Alexandria after the loss of a cruiser, HMS Hermione, and five destroyers.
A third mission, codenamed PEDESTAL, was planned for August 1942, in the knowledge that another failure would leave the island, which had endured 3,000 air raids in two years, undefended from the air because of a lack of aviation fuel for the island’s Spitfires operating from Luqa and its satellite fields. Surrender was contemplated, so PEDESTAL’S fourteen merchantmen were protected by a huge escort on an unprecedented scale, which included two battleships, three aircraft carriers, seven cruisers and thirty-two destroyers. The Italians attacked in force, but suffered heavy losses, and HMS Unbroken severely damaged the German tanker Regina, the heavy cruiser Bolzano and the light cruiser Muzio Attendolo with torpedoes, putting all three permanently out of action.
The assembly and departure of such a vast concentration of naval force was next to impossible to disguise, especially as it transited the Straits of Gibraltar, so the deception planners tried to divert the enemy’s attention to the eastern Mediterranean and promote the impression that the Allies intended to launch an invasion of Crete from Cyprus. This was reported by CHEESE which resulted in Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica Italiana reconnaissance flights being sent over Larnaca, Limassol and Famagusta to photograph landing craft and other preparations associated with amphibious operations. Evidently the combined evidence persuaded the Axis intelligence analysts who diverted Regina Marina surface vessels from engaging PEDESTAL, in preference to preparing for a major battle in Crete. In consequence, five of the PEDESTAL merchantmen reached their destination, including the SS Ohio carrying the vital aviation fuel, thus allowing Malta to survive. In David Mure’s view,
a large detachment of the Italian fleet which had been ruthlessly blockading Malta detached itself and shot off to Crete to intercept the invasion from Cyprus and the expected threat of the Italian heavy surface forces never materialised. The result was that a high proportion of the convoy got through to Malta and enabled it to remain a thorn in the side of Rommel’s supply services. Fortunately the Italians chose to consider this scare, which may have tipped the balance in favour of the survival of Eighth Army in front of Alexandria,
as a merciful deliverance enacted just in time.
The Axis failure to eliminate the threat from Malta would have many consequences. The ability of the RAF to deploy Bristol Beaufort torpedo bombers from 39 Squadron and Wellingtons from 69 Squadron, coordinated with the submarines, proved decisive when on 30 August a relief convoy destined for Tobruk was ambushed and three vessels were sunk. Then the San Andrea, a tanker laden with 3,198 tons of fuel for Rommel, was sunk. Increasingly desperate, the Germans assembled another convoy of nine ships, but it too was betrayed by ULTRA and five were sunk. In these circumstances, on 1 September, the Afrika Korps began its long retreat from El Alamein, in vehicles dependent on Luftwaffe fuel, thus making air protection from Albert Kesselring impossible. Further losses meant that during the first week of October, at an absolutely critical moment in the conflict, two tankers were destroyed, and the DAK received not a drop of gas.
During September 1942 the DAK took delivery of only 24 per cent of the 50,000 tons of supplies required each month to sustain the offensive. In that same month 33,939 tons of Axis shipping, mainly destined for Tripoli, was sunk.
In a prelude to the main offensive, Rommel attempted, at the end of August 1942, to break through the British defences at El Alamein to reach Alexandria, Cairo, and the Suez Canal, but his plans had been compromised by ULTRA. Instead of taking Montgomery by surprise and sweeping through relatively weak lines, many of Rommel’s 203 tanks unexpectedly found themselves in a minefield sown with 18,000 mines and attacked from the air at night under the light of parachute flares. Worse, Rommel had gambled on the imminent arrival of six ships from Italy loaded with fuel and ammunition, but ULTRA had identified the vulnerability, and four of the merchantmen were found and sunk, and while the battle raged, the last two tankers, the San Andrea and the Picci Fascio, were destroyed as they approached Tobruk. After six days of intense fighting, in which the DAK lost thirty-eight tanks and 400 trucks, Rommel began to withdraw, blaming the failure on a leak from the Italians.
By the time the British offensive at El Alamein began on 23 October, ULTRA had revealed the extent of the DAK’s plight, and on 25 October three tankers and one other merchantman were given a heavy escort and air cover, as learned from ULTRA, and another aerial ambush was prepared three days later, which resulted in the loss of three more tankers. Altogether the depleted DAK lost 44 per cent of its supplies in October, representing an increase of 24 per cent over September.
When Montgomery counter-attacked in October, Rommel was caught off guard and, short of fuel and ammunition, lost most of his tanks to new Allied weaponry. Overestimating his adversary’s strength and down to his last thirty-two tanks, Rommel led his 70,000 men on a long retreat 800 miles across the Libyan desert, constantly harassed by the 8th Army and the Royal Air Force.
The options for the pivotal role in RAYON to be played by CHEESE (referred to as LAMBERT) were set out in a proposal dated 29 September 1942:
1. LAMBERT’S friend (the BGM) meets a Polish officer in Cairo on a mission from Syria who says that the British seem anxious about the Russian threat and that there has been a large increase in the British troops in General Wilson’s command.
2. LAMBERT meets a friend recently returned from Alexandria via the desert route who says that there is a marked decrease in military traffic on that road since his last visit in August. He reports many Greek soldiers in Alexandria and gathered from a Greek officer that they were destined for Crete.
3. LAMBERT’S Greek merchant friend on his return from Aleppo reports seeing large troop movements by road in Syria and by road and rail in Palestine towards the North and the North East. He saw many tanks in the coastal plain in Palestine and US Airforce in Palestine and Syria.
4. The American officer back on leave does not speak of a British offensive but indicates that the British are consolidating their defensive lines. He has not heard of any new formations arriving with 8 Army and says that the British are keeping a wary eye on the Russian situation.
5. The Greek employee of the Egyptian State Railways mentions the specialist training at Qabrit and says that the Greek fleet is in the Port Said–Ismaelia area. He has seen landing craft near the canal on trains going east. Hears of Greeks going to Haifa after special training.
6. BGM’S Polish officer friend returns suddenly to Syria leaving the impression of certain Polish forces moving towards the northern front and of impending action. He seemed very excited and pleased.
7. LAMBERT sees many British soldiers on leave from WD and gives idents of some units and Divisions of 6 Army.
8. Greek friends talking again of the liberation of Crete and the part to be played by the Greek forces. Greek officer hints at an invasion by Britain and Greeks in November.
9. LAMBERT hears of big conference at General Wilson’s HQ and notices excitement among Greeks re. Crete.
When Rommel did attack his tanks encountered large minefields in their path, which made their progress slow. Making little headway because of mines, sustained air attacks, and short of fuel, Rommel ordered a withdrawal over three days from 3 September.
This was the crucial turning point in the war in the Middle East, and prepared the way for LIGHTFOOT, the Allied offensive scheduled for 23 October. The cover-plan for LIGHTFOOT was TREATMENT, which was intended to mislead Rommel as to the date and the location of the expected offensive that inevitably would be spearheaded, as usual, by the 7th Armoured Division. Clearly the ruse worked, for Rommel left Africa for medical attention in Germany on 23 October; his temporary replacement was General Georg Strumme who had arrived just four days earlier.
In the battle that followed the British deployed 1,200 tanks which faced a combined force of 525 Axis tanks, and the result was a shattering defeat for the Afrika Korps which lost 213, and for the Italians which had almost all their 278 destroyed, along with three complete divisions. By 11 November, 30,000 enemy PoWs had been captured. Rommel returned on 25 October, to find that Strumme had died of a heart attack two days earlier. Rommel himself would be recalled on 10 March.
Perhaps irrationally, based on this performance, the Abwehr concluded at the end of October 1942 that ROBERTO was once again ‘reliable’.
Nicossof responded positively to the renewed interest and
began to show a new energy and enterprise. Messages were even prepared to indicate that he was beginning to suffer from the monomania common among successful spies; it was not thought advisable to send these, and it was clearly becoming unnecessary to do so. CHEESE seemed to be completely re-established, and on the most favourable lines. The enemy had been given every excuse for forgetting the past: new contacts, which Nicossof represented himself as making, could be mentioned or dropped at will; mistakes and deceptions could be explained away on the plea of lack of funds, or of Nicossof’s unfamiliarity with the business of collecting military information. Prospects were good either for a renewed course of misleading and fogging enemy intelligence or, with good luck, for a larger and more decisive stroke.
By the end of November 1942 the respective military fortunes in North Africa had been reversed, with the British taking the initiative, and able to operate with relative freedom from Malta which was resupplied in December by STONEAGE, a convoy from Alexandria which made the voyage without mishap. In the last naval battle of the year, at Skerki Bank, off the coast of Tunisia, an entire Italian convoy of four ships, with an escort of three destroyers and a pair of torpedo boats, was wiped out. The merchantmen were carrying troops, ammunition, tanks and vehicles, and they were all sunk, killing some 2,000 Italians.
Between August 1942 and February 1943, at the height of the network’s activities, CHEESE sent an average of six messages a month on the topic of money, and received four or five from the Abwehr.
After much pressure the Abwehr agreed to CHEESE’S proposal, made on 25 September, to send a Greek merchant friend to Aleppo to collect his money, and the man travelled two days later on 27 September 1942. However, he returned empty-handed on 4 Oc
tober, claiming to have been scared by the execution a few days earlier of five German spies in Aleppo. This left CHEESE very disappointed, as did another scheme which was for an intended delivery by a native labourer between 10 and 15 October. Finally, CHEESE was informed on 7 December that his money had already reached Cairo and he was asked for a delivery address. He nominated a flat supposedly occupied by a friend of his Greek girlfriend, and was told to expect Hamel to drop off a packet or a milk bottle containing the cash. However, at the last moment the address was raided by the Egyptian police over an unrelated matter, so the plan was scuppered. This unexpected incident ‘electrified CHEESE’ and gave him ‘a severe attack of the jitters’ which he reported to his controller on 17 December, explaining that he had instructed his ‘amie’ to find a new and safer flat. Three days later he reported that the police raid had been ‘a domestic affair’ but that he had been ‘badly frightened’ by it. Nevertheless, on 15 January 1943 he was able to confirm that his ‘amie’ had acquired a suitable flat and ask that the courier be diverted to the new address. However, on 6 February the Abwehr report that it has been impossible to change the arrangements, so CHEESE reluctantly agreed to use the old address.
Interception of the Abwehr’s internal communications revealed the extent to which Athens shared CHEESE’S frustration. On 7 January 1943 Captain Rolf von der Marwitz, the naval attaché in Istanbul, was reported to have paid a large sum to a German agent in Egypt identified only as ARMEN. Then, on 25 January, CHEESE was asked for his girlfriend’s Christian name, which he supplied the next day. On 28 January Athens sent CHEESE more instructions about the delivery to the Rue Galal and suggested the password ‘El Hakim’. This prompted an exchange with Zähringer on 2 February who was ordered to acquire the girlfriend’s Christian name and to pass it on to headquarters so the delivery operation could proceed. In compliance, CHEESE identified Helene Cabri as an authorised recipient of his Abwehr consignment of cash, and described her as the tenant of a man named Kyriakides. Both, of course, were entirely imaginary.