Ike's Spies

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  The other main part of FORTITUDE, creating FUSAG to threaten the Pas de Calais, was even more elaborate. It included radio traffic for an army group, dummy landing craft inadequately camouflaged, fields packed with papier-maché tanks (jeeps dragging chains drove around to create dust and tracks), and the full use of the Double-Cross System. The spies reported intense activity—construction, troop movements, an increase in the volume of train traffic across the Midlands, and the like—all the activities that would have taken place in fact if the Pas de Calais were the target. Everything the spies said had to match what the radio signals were revealing to the Germans, with the emphasis on hard fact. As Masterman wrote, “Speculations, guesses, or leakages, would have little or no effect on the German military mind, for the German staff officer would make his own appreciations and his own guesses from the facts put before him. What he would require would be the location and identification of formations, units, headquarters, assembly areas and the like.”15

  At Dover, across from the Pas de Calais, the British built a phony oil dock. They used film and theater stagehands. The King inspected it. Eisenhower gave a speech to the “construction” workers at a dinner party held at the White Cliffs Hotel in Dover. The mayor made satisfied remarks about the “opening of a new installation” in town. The RAF maintained constant fighter patrols; German reconnaissance aircraft were permitted to fly overhead, but only after they had been forced to 33,000 feet, where their cameras would not be able to pick out any defects in the dock. Dover resembled an enormous film lot.

  The capstone to FORTITUDE was Ike’s selection of General George S. Patton to command FUSAG. The Germans thought Patton the best commander the Allies had (Patton agreed) and expected him to lead the assault. Eisenhower thought Patton an excellent commander for certain specific situations, most of all in the pursuit of a retreating enemy, but not the man for OVERLORD, which required a breadth of vision and an ability to get along with the British (especially Montgomery) that Patton did not possess. Ike’s plan was to use Patton after the Allies broke out of the Normandy beachhead. At that time Patton would take command of the U. S. Third Army for the drive through France.*

  Until then, Eisenhower used Patton’s reputation and visibility to strengthen FORTITUDE. Once again, the Germans knew of Patton’s arrival in England before a public announcement was made, thanks to agents Tate and Garbo. Later, Patton attended a play in London, went to a few bars, attended a party at the Savoy Hotel, and in other ways got his name in the paper, FUSAG radio signals also told the Germans of his comings and goings, meanwhile showing that he had taken a firm grip on his new command.

  These fictitious armies mixed real and notional divisions, corps and armies. The FUSAG order of battle included the U. S. Third Army, which was real but still in the United States, the British Fourth Army, which was notional, and the Canadian First Army, which was real and scheduled to go ashore in Normandy on D-Day. There were, in addition, fifty follow-up divisions (organized as the U. S. Fourteenth Army, which was notional) in the United States awaiting shipment to the Pas de Calais after FUSAG established its beachhead. Many of the divisions in the Fourteenth Army were real and were assigned to Bradley’s U. S. First Army. Thus the actual order of battle had the main weight of Allied forces in the west, southwest, and Midlands of Britain, while the notional one showed the main weight in Scotland, the east, and the southeast.17

  RELATIONS WITH THE PRESS were an important part of keeping OVERLORD secret. A year earlier, when preparations for the invasion of Sicily were under way, Ike had worried that newspaper speculation about the next Allied offensive might tip off the Germans. He hit upon a unique method to prevent such speculation. Calling together all the correspondents accredited to his headquarters, he told them he thought of them as quasi-members of his staff, explained that he did not want them doing speculative stories on the next target, and concluded with an announcement that Sicily would be it. He asked them not even to discuss it among themselves and added that many senior officers in his own headquarters did not know what they did. One reporter told Butcher, “My God, I’m afraid to take a drink.” No one talked.18

  Eisenhower did not go so far as to tell correspondents the FORTITUDE-OVERLORD secret, but he did tell them that he thought of them as quasi-staff officers and instructed his unit commanders to cooperate with the press in every way possible. In a general order, he said that war correspondents “should be allowed to talk freely with officers and enlisted personnel and to see the machinery of war in operation in order to visualize and transmit to the public the conditions under which the men from their countries are waging war against the enemy.”19 But any mention of possible operations, or movement of units, or their location, was strictly censored. FORTITUDE was too precious, too complex, to allow mention of a division or corps by an unsuspecting reporter to ruin it.

  The German press was much more tightly censored by Herr Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry, so the Allies could not get much information from French or German newspapers. But with ULTRA, they had an even better insight into German dispositions. ULTRA feedback was supplemented by air reconnaissance, spies reporting from France, POW interrogation (much was learned about the German Army by bugging the prison cells of German generals captured in Tunis, Sicily, and Italy), and other traditional methods of collecting raw information. General Kenneth Strong, Eisenhower’s G-2, had a staff of well over a thousand working for him, sifting, analyzing, cross-checking, and collating the information received and reducing it to manageable proportions. To give some idea of the scope of the intelligence network Strong had under his command, he recorded that in general a “take” of two hundred reports “would give me one sentence for my report to General Eisenhower.”20

  Strong was an affable, hearty sort of fellow, usually smiling, always optimistic, plain-spoken—a man much like Ike—and the two generals got on famously. Strong gives a good picture of Eisenhower’s methods in dealing with intelligence: “I discovered that the best way to deal with him was to be completely frank, no matter what national considerations or other controversial factors were involved in any issue.… I learned that Eisenhower had an immense talent for listening to oral explanations and distilling their essence.… Only on a few occasions, when it was essential that something should appear on the record, did I produce a written Intelligence appreciation for Eisenhower. He much preferred oral reporting, as this gave him an opportunity to question uncertainties and to probe below the surface of the apparent points at issue. I found that a visit to him was worth a pile of memoranda, especially as he was so often looking far ahead of current events. He never insisted on seeing the raw Intelligence on which judgments were based, as I am told that Churchill always did.”21

  Through the spring of 1944, Strong’s reports were decidedly encouraging. From ULTRA and other sources it was clear that the Germans had overestimated Allied ground strength by a factor of two, and that they believed Ike had four times more landing craft than was actually the case. At one particularly memorable session, Strong showed Ike a German map of the British order of battle, captured in Italy, which showed how completely the enemy was swallowing FORTITUDE and the notional Fourth Army. A recognition booklet, distributed to German field officers, picked up by an agent in France, included full-color drawings of the imaginary divisional shoulder patches.22 By June 1, German intelligence counted a total of nearly eighty-nine Allied divisions in Great Britain, when in fact there were forty-seven.23

  VON RUNDSTEDT and his principal subordinate, Rommel, were badly mistaken about the Allied order of battle. Eisenhower, thanks to ULTRA and other sources, knew the German order of battle almost as well as Rundstedt and Rommel did. And ULTRA not only told Eisenhower where the Germans were, and in what strength, but it also allowed him to eavesdrop on the debate between Rommel and Rundstedt over how to meet the attack. To oversimplify, Rundstedt wanted to keep his best panzer units well back from the coast, make sure the invasion was the real thing and not a feint, and then, and
only then, counterattack in great strength. Rommel thought differently. As Strong put it in his estimate of May 5, “Rommel has now learnt that once a lodgement area has been firmly established Allied superiority in aircraft, tanks and artillery makes the elimination of such an area impossible. He will therefore strike hard and immediately at the forces facing him.” To do so, Rommel wanted all his fighting units well forward, right on the beaches.24

  Fortunately, ULTRA showed that Rommel and Rundstedt were in agreement over the most likely invasion site—the Pas de Calais. Rommel had two armies in his Army Group B, the Seventh and the Fifteenth. The best-equipped and most mobile units were the eighteen divisions in the Fifteenth Army, which included the crack 116th Panzer Division and other armored formations. Rommel had concentrated the Fifteenth Army in and around the Pas de Calais, while the Seventh Army covered the French coast from the mouth of the Seine River to Brest, which of course included Normandy.

  ULTRA also revealed that the Germans estimated that Eisenhower had sufficient landing craft to bring twenty divisions ashore in the first wave. Partly because they credited him with so much strength, partly because it seemed to make such good military sense, the Germans also believed that the real invasion would be proceeded by diversionary attacks. Strong’s staff had worked up precise tables on the ability of the Germans to move reinforcements into Normandy. The conclusion was that if the Germans correctly gauged OVERLORD as the main assault, they could concentrate—by D-Day plus twentyfive—some thirty-one divisions in the Normandy area, including nine panzer divisions. If that happened, the Allies would be overwhelmed. Ike could not match that rate of buildup; if he could, he would not be able to supply the men with enough ammunition, gasoline, and food to fight with, because of insufficient unloading capacity at the artificial ports. In short, if FORTITUDE did not work, if the Germans pulled their Fifteenth Army away from the Pas de Calais and hurled it against Normandy, OVERLORD would fail.25

  In May, the Joint Intelligence Committee of the British War Cabinet began putting together weekly summaries of “German Appreciation of Allied Intentions in the West,” a one-or two-page overview of where, when, and in what strength the Germans expected the attack. These documents were stamped “Top Secret” and were circulated on a very limited basis—only fifty copies were made. In 1979, the National Archives of the United States made these summaries available to scholars for the first time. Reading them today, in a dusty cubbyhole in the Archives Building on Constitution Avenue in Washington, one is struck by the high drama and tremendous stakes involved, but even more by two facts: how completely the Germans were fooled, and how thoroughly the Allies knew not only the German order of battle, but also German plans and intentions.

  The summaries came in week after week with exactly the report Eisenhower wanted to read. FORTITUDE was an edifice built so delicately, precisely, and intricately that the removal of just one supporting column would bring the whole thing crashing down. On May 29, with D-Day less than a week away, the appreciation included a chilling sentence: “The recent trend of movement of German land forces towards the Cherbourg area tends to support the view that the Le Havre-Cherbourg area is regarded as a likely, and perhaps even the main, point of assault.”26

  Had there been a slip somewhere? Had the Germans somehow penetrated FORTITUDE? There was no way to know, unless there was a lucky ULTRA intercept, but meanwhile Ike’s chief air officer wanted to call off the scheduled paratrooper and glider landings on the grounds that the Germans had somehow learned the secret and would be waiting to slaughter the young men dropping into Normandy from the skies. This request caused Ike his most anxious moments in the entire war. The Allies were taking a tremendous risk and security for OVERLORD was absolutely crucial.

  IN FACT, Eisenhower had spent more of his own preinvasion time and energy on security than he did on deception. It was more important for the Germans not to know that Normandy was the site than it was for them to think that the Pas de Calais was it. Ike’s single greatest advantage over Rommel and von Rundstedt was that he knew where and when the battle would be fought, while his opponents had to guess. To keep them guessing, Eisenhower would and did go to any length to keep the secret of OVERLORD secure.

  “The success or failure of coming operations depends upon whether the enemy can obtain advance information of an accurate nature,” Eisenhower declared in a memorandum he sent around to all his commanders.27 To keep that advance information from the Germans, Eisenhower had to make some hard requests of the British Government. The tremendous activity going on in the British Isles, the heavy concentration of troops, the constant coming and going of aircraft—all were potential sources of security leaks. This was especially true on the coastal areas, where the training exercises could provide much information to an enemy observer.

  Eisenhower asked Churchill to move all civilians out of the coastal areas for fear there might be an undiscovered spy among them. Churchill said no—he could not go so far in upsetting people’s lives. British General Frederick Morgan of Ike’s staff said it was all politics, and growled, “If we fail, there won’t be any more politics.”

  Still the government would not act. Then, in late March, Montgomery said he wanted the civilians kicked out of his training areas, and Ike sent an eloquent plea to the War Cabinet. He warned that it “would go hard with our consciences if we were to feel, in later years, that by neglecting any security precaution we had compromised the success of these vital operations or needlessly squandered men’s lives.” Churchill gave in. The civilians were put out and kept out until months after D-Day.28

  In April, Eisenhower again forced the War Cabinet to take an unwelcome step. He proposed nothing short of a full stoppage of privileged diplomatic communications from the United Kingdom. Churchill was reluctant to apply so drastic a measure, but Eisenhower was insistent. “I feel bound to say frankly that I regard this source of leakage as the gravest risk to the security of our operations and to the lives of our sailors, soldiers and airmen.” He said he knew a diplomatic ban would make great difficulties for the British Government, and he also realized that the War Cabinet would have to take all the blame attached to the action. Still, he said, “I cannot conceal my opinion that these difficulties are far outweighed by the greater issues which are at stake.”

  On April 17 the War Cabinet ruled that foreign diplomatic representatives would not be permitted to send or receive uncensored messages, and couriers of such staffs would not be allowed to leave the United Kingdom. These restrictions did not apply to the Americans or the Russians. All the Allied governments and their representatives in the United Kingdom protested, and de Gaulle broke off negotiations with SHAEF over the command and employment of the French underground.*

  Churchill was understandably agitated, therefore, when Eisenhower told him that he wanted to continue the ban after D-Day. Ike feared that if it were lifted the Germans would realize that OVERLORD was the real thing and FORTITUDE would be compromised. Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary in the War Cabinet, spoke for Churchill when he expressed shock at the request. He said that all the Allied governments expected the ban to be lifted as soon as the invasion was announced, and that if it were not, their anger at the British for imposing it would be all the greater. He asked Ike to agree to lifting the ban on D-Day plus one or two.

  Eisenhower said that would not do. If the ban were lifted Hitler would “deduce the fact that from that moment he is safe in concentrating his forces to repel the assault we have made.” Churchill responded by saying he could not agree to an indefinite diplomatic ban because of the great inconveniences and frictions which it caused. He proposed that it be continued until D-Day plus seven. Ike said that was still not good enough, and in the end he had his way. The ban continued until D-Day plus thirteen.29

  With the British Government cooperating so admirably, Eisenhower could not do less. His orders on security to his commanders and their units were clear, direct, and stern. He told all units to maintain the highest st
andard of individual security and to mete out the severest possible disciplinary action in cases of violations. He was as good as his word.

  In April, General Henry Miller, chief supply officer of the Ninth Air Force and a West Point classmate of Ike’s, went to a cocktail party at Claridge’s Hotel. He began talking freely, complaining about his difficulties in getting supplies but adding that his problems would end after D-Day, which he declared would begin before June 15. When challenged on the date, he offered to take bets. Ike learned of the indiscretion the next morning and acted immediately. He ordered Miller reduced to his permanent rank of colonel and sent him back to the States—the ultimate disgrace for a career soldier. Miller protested his innocence. Ike wrote back, “Dear Henry, I know of nothing that causes me more real distress than to be faced with the necessity of sitting as a judge in cases involving military offenses by officers of character and of good record, particularly when they are old and warm friends.” But his decision stood.30

  There was another flap in May when Ike learned that a U. S. Navy officer got drunk at a party and revealed details of impending operations, including areas, lift, strength, and dates. Ike confessed to Marshall, “I get so angry at the occurrence of such needless and additional hazards that I could cheerfully shoot the offender myself. This following so closely upon the Miller case is almost enough to give one the shakes.” The officer was sent back to the States.31

  Despite all precautions, there were more than 2.5 million men under Ike’s command, and thus, inevitably, there were scares. One came in late March when documents relating to OVERLORD, including information on strength, places, equipment, and the tentative target date, were discovered loosely wrapped in the Chicago post office. A dozen postmen had seen some or all of the documents. The package was intended for the War Department in Washington but had been addressed to a girl in Chicago. What made it especially frightening was the fact that the sergeant who had put the wrong address on the package, Richard E. Tymm, was of German extraction. He underwent a thorough grilling; it turned out that he was not a spy, just careless. He had been daydreaming about home when he addressed the package and wrote his sister’s address on it. No wonder Ike was getting the shakes and talking about cheerfully cutting a few throats himself.32