One Day in August

by David O'Keefe

  After carrying out one final exercise in Portsmouth harbour, the Royal Marines were confined to the Upper Chine School on the Isle of Wight, while Ryder and No. 10 Platoon (Ian Fleming’s Intelligence Assault Unit) sailed across the Solent to Eaglehurst House on the English coast, where they fine-tuned their mission in the same facility where Marconi had once experimented with his wireless communications. By July 2, they were all back in the town of Shanklin Chine on the island for the final briefing before embarking for the raid.

  The following day, 125 men from Major Titch Houghton’s Robert Force climbed aboard eight French chasseurs—one of them captained by the young Philippe de Gaulle, the only son of the Free French leader, now in exile in England. The remaining 172 officers and men of the Royal Marine Commando Tiger Force boarded a thoroughly crowded Locust; with Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Picton-Phillips and his headquarters staff, the Marines of A Company, No. 3 Platoon, No. 10 Platoon under Lieutenant Peter Huntington-Whiteley, and No. 1 Demolition Party, there was little room for the men to “sling their hook” (or hammocks, in Royal Navy slang).5

  Similar conditions existed on almost every ship and at every airfield now readying for departure. All across southeast England, soldiers, sailors and airmen prepared for the largest raid of the war—the biggest amphibious operation to date. The excitement in the air was palpable.

  But it was not to be. Bad weather set in, forcing a postponement of the operation from July 3 to July 7. Then, after a German air raid on July 5 hit several of the raiding ships in port and lessened the chance of surprise, the continuing inclement weather led those in command to cancel the raid. The war diaries for both General Ham Roberts’s Second Canadian Division and the Royal Marines noted the men’s deep disappointment. This feeling was no doubt shared by the trio of United States Marines who had been sent to take part in the pinch operation—a story that has remained unknown until now.6 Just how did these Americans come to be involved in the pinch?

  As spring moved into summer that year, the pressure on Rear Admiral John Godfrey and his Naval Intelligence Division had begun to mount in many quarters. Whether he knew it explicitly or not, he should have sensed that the clock was now ticking on his tenure as Director of Naval Intelligence. His sometimes abrasive and obstinate attitude, quick temper and blatant attempts at empire building had led to friction and an increasingly frosty relationship with the other heads of intelligence who sat with him on the Joint Intelligence Committee. His overbearing character and patronizing demeanour could be tolerated as long as he continued to provide the goods, but as soon as the four-rotor crisis deepened, his welcome began to wear thin, particularly after the discovery that German naval intelligence had broken the British naval codes—something Section 10 of Godfrey’s NID was tasked to protect.

  For the previous two years, as Blinker Hall had once urged, Godfrey and his indispensable fixer Ian Fleming had been working tirelessly to cultivate close liaisons with the American embassy in London and the American intelligence services in Washington. Now, finally, the early returns on both fronts looked extremely promising. First, Godfrey had courted Admiral Alan G. Kirk, the enthusiastic anglophile who served as the American naval attaché in London and also enjoyed a direct line to Roosevelt and the White House. Later, when Kirk ran the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, Fleming tried to strengthen the bond through constant personal attention. Second, Godfrey and Fleming fostered their growing relationship with Colonel William “Wild Bill” or “Big Bill” Donovan, who would go on to head the oddly named new government agency, the Co-ordinator of Information—later the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The increasing power of this institution had been a British imperative for some time. Along with William Stephenson—the Canadian millionaire known as “Little Bill” who looked after British intelligence interests in North America* —Godfrey, SIS head Stewart Menzies and many Foreign Office officials all conspired to make Donovan “their man” in Washington.

  Donovan, a Medal of Honor winner from the First World War who shared the same maverick personality and aggressive outlook on intelligence as these men, seemed the perfect candidate. He was much more malleable than the anglophobic J. Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI who was later described as a “cross between a political gangster and a prima donna.”7 Donovan, an Irish Catholic Wall Street lawyer from Buffalo, was at times brilliant, always tough and extremely cocksure. Like Roosevelt, who learned of Blinker Hall’s prowess during a visit to London in 1917 while working as the Under Secretary of the Navy, Donovan, too, became enamoured of the dark world of British intelligence.8

  More than willing to establish close ties with the British during the period of neutrality at the beginning of the war, Roosevelt had twice sent Donovan to England for a series of meetings with Churchill, Menzies, Godfrey and Fleming—in part to gauge the British will to fight on, but also to learn their way of foreign intelligence, a realm in which the Americans had little experience. From that point on, this British team began an intense courtship of Donovan, giving him unprecedented access to many of their trade secrets, including Bletchley Park and Ultra. As Godfrey advised Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, the commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet: “It was Donovan who was responsible for getting us the destroyers, the bombsight and other urgent requirements … There is no doubt that we can achieve infinitely more through Donovan than any other individual.”9

  On his return to the United States, Donovan approached Roosevelt with a controversial idea for a civilian intelligence agency that would bring together research, intelligence, propaganda, subversion and commando operations under one roof—rather like a “fourth arm” of the military services—and which would coordinate all foreign intelligence activities for the United States.10 British intelligence had firmly shaped and supported the plan, and, realizing the precarious nature of the request, Churchill now sent Godfrey, with Fleming in tow, to Washington in May 1941 to meet with Roosevelt and, even more important, persuade him to appoint Donovan as the head of the new agency, where he would act as the American “spymaster.” Staying at Donovan’s Georgetown flat, Godfrey plotted his strategy for the meeting while Fleming penned a loose set of organizational requirements that Donovan would need to get in place immediately.

  The timing was perfect: Roosevelt was increasingly dissatisfied with the patchy quality of the current intelligence community in the United States. Within days of Godfrey’s meeting with him, Roosevelt established the new office of the Co-ordinator of Information, or COI, with Donovan as its head, though the public announcement was delayed until July 11. The new organization looked impressive on paper, with its unlimited budget and presidential backing, but the British were disappointed that its mandate was not absolute. Ordered to “collect and analyze all information and data which may bear upon the national security” for the president and those he designated, the COI was given the authority to request data from other agencies and departments, but not allowed to interfere with the duties and responsibilities of the president’s military and naval advisers.11 And that made its position precarious, particularly when the usually competing elements of the navy, army, State Department and FBI came together in a loosely united front to oppose Donovan’s sudden rise to “intelligence czar.” Regardless, the British still rejoiced in their accomplishment. William Stephenson told Churchill: “I have been attempting to manoeuvre Donovan into the job of coordinating all United States intelligence … you can imagine how relieved I am after months of battle and jockeying in Washington that our man is in position.”12

  Mountbatten was also impressed, doubting “whether any one person contributed more to the ultimate victory of the Allies than Bill Donovan.”13 Like Godfrey, Mountbatten also understood the value a U.S. intelligence pipeline such as Donovan’s might offer to his Combined Operations Headquarters. In addition, Roosevelt’s son James, a Marine Corps Reserve captain, was Donovan’s aide-de-camp at the COI. Mountbatten and Godfr
ey interpreted that appointment as an opportunity to showcase the British brand of amphibious “commando” operations—the kind based on intelligence provided by the Inter-Services Topographical Department—and eventually to replicate that approach to pinch operations in the United States.

  Even before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Donovan had led the charge for American “commando-styled” operations. Two weeks earlier, he had presented Roosevelt with a one-page memorandum recommending “that there be organized now, in the United States, a guerrilla corps, independent and separate from the Army and Navy, and imbued with the maximum spirit of the offensive. This force should, of course, be created along disciplined military lines, analogous to the British Commando principle.”14 The brief piqued Roosevelt’s interest and garnered his support for action.15 Encouraged, Donovan reached out to both the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Army for help. The Marine Corps created the 1st Special Training Unit in February “for the express purpose of securing clearer insight into the operations, training and methods of the British commando organization,” while the army followed, in mid-June 1942, with the creation of the U.S. Rangers.16

  The road was not yet smooth, however, and obstacles soon appeared. Over the preceding months, Donovan had drawn the ire of the service intelligence departments, and in particular of General George C. Marshall, the army chief of staff, who, next to FDR, was the most powerful man in wartime America. Never a fan of the audacious or the irregular, the coolly impersonal Marshall once said: “You can sometimes win a great victory by a very dashing action … But often, or most frequently, the very dashing action exposes you to a very fatal result if it is not successful. And you hazard everything in that way.”17 J. Edgar Hoover also viewed the the COI with suspicion, in part because of Donovan’s close association with the British and his willingness to work with their Soviet ally, and also because of the lack of professionalism he perceived in the cadres of COI agents, who he alleged came from the ranks of socialites, toughs and Hollywood stuntmen.

  By early 1942, the COI, despite the open purse strings, had yet to make the impact Roosevelt had expected, and jealous rivals within the American intelligence community quickly accused it of organizational impotence. Before long these criticisms spilled over to Donovan himself, with allegations that he had ignored a direct presidential order by running agents in South America, a traditional FBI domain—not to mention a litany of rumours of adulterous indiscretions and other personal slights designed to damage his credibility.

  Like Godfrey, as long as Wild Bill Donovan delivered the goods, he remained on solid ground, but by April 1942 Churchill had received alarming news through Major General Hastings Ismay, his liaison on the Chiefs of Staff Committee, that their much-celebrated man in Washington was in trouble, with his status under review at a high level.18 They had spent years cultivating Donovan as a prime asset in their delicate relationship with American intelligence and a direct back channel to the president, Britain’s most powerful ally. With so much invested, they had to support any feasible effort they could to legitimize and enhance Donovan’s status and influence—and by extension their own.19 The problem was clear: if they could not reinforce Donovan’s organization, now rechristened the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), all the hard work that Godfrey, Fleming and to a lesser extent Mountbatten had invested in the relationship would be for naught.

  From the beginning of March 1942, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence had started harrying the British to uphold their end of the intelligence-sharing agreement by giving them a captured naval Enigma machine. With the United States firmly focused on the U-boat menace off its shores and still unaware of the existence of the four-rotor, handing over a three-rotor machine would not solve the issue and would only reveal the Naval Section’s current impotent position. Bletchley Park feared that such an admission would in turn encourage the Americans unilaterally to seek their own solution. There is no doubt that, in part, the British hoped Operation Myrmidon at Bayonne or Operation Chariot at St-Nazaire would result in a prize that would restore the flow of naval Ultra and satisfy the Americans. In the meantime, however, the British were forced to shift gears and admit they were in trouble. Still, they hoped to retain the lead in a co-operative arrangement with U.S. Naval Intelligence by introducing them to the pinch strategy in Mountbatten’s brand of combined operations. They set out not only to teach the eager Americans about British pinch operations but to involve them in the potential solution to the crisis.

  In this particular case, Mountbatten extended the invitation to a small and select group of U.S. Marines, who, as Donovan suggested, would train with the Royal Marine Commando and prepare to ride into battle with Tiger Force on HMS Locust. Given all the complexities over the sharing of intelligence between the two countries, what better way to deliver the pinched material than through a commando-style pinch operation involving the Americans? Simultaneously, the British could narrow the gulf between the two sides on the cryptographic issue, display the work of the new IAU and the pinch doctrine, and pump up the vulnerable Donovan. If they could solve these pressing concerns, they would score hefty political points for all concerned. From every angle, it seemed a devilishly clever plan.

  So, on June 20, a special contingent of three U.S. Marines, led by Captain Roy T. Batterton Jr., a former assistant naval attaché, was plucked from the second week of their seven-week training programme with the commandos in Scotland and inserted into Tiger Force—to train specifically with the Royal Marines on Locust. Although there is no indication of their attachment to No. 10 Platoon, given what is now known from their operational orders about the mission of the Royal Marines, the Americans would have been involved in some capacity. In addition, plans were made for Marine Corps colonel Franklin A. Hart, who had been attached to Mountbatten’s command since the fall of 1941 and was actively engaged in the planning of the raid, to join Commander Ian Fleming and a few other “guests” on board one of the headquarters ships offshore to monitor the Locust‘s role in Operation Rutter. A memo from Frank Birch at the Naval Section sheds some light on their role there, for on August 1 an American liaison officer revealed that they had been “organizing a special pinch team” of their own and “would welcome our experiences on this subject.”20

  In addition to the delicate situation with the Americans, the potential spread of the four-rotor Enigma machine and the deepening crisis at sea were preoccupations in the weeks leading up to Operation Rutter. In early June, the British learned that U-boat ciphers encrypted on the four-rotor naval Enigma had been introduced in the Mediterranean. Then, as the Operation Rutter forces sat in southern English ports waiting to launch the raid on Dieppe, another series of events shed dramatic light on the problem. It happened eight hundred miles to the north, not far from the Lofoten Islands, where the North Sea meets the Arctic Ocean.

  One of the few ways Great Britain could provide material and political assistance to the Soviet Union in its intense struggle against Nazi Germany was by running a series of giant convoys through the North Sea and into the Arctic Ocean past Norway en route to the Soviet ports of Murmansk and Archangel. For over a year, these convoys had been viewed as essential in keeping the tenuous link with Stalin alive. On June 27, PQ-17, the largest and most expensive convoy to date, left Iceland for its voyage to Murmansk. Comprising thirty-three cargo ships and one tanker, the convoy was escorted by destroyers, with a group of British and American cruisers shadowing her miles behind. Before it could reach the Soviet ports, the convoy would have to run great risks, successfully avoiding attacks by German aircraft, U-boats and large surface vessels such as the battle cruisers Admiral Scheer, Lützow and Admiral Hipper and the super-battleship Tirpitz.

  The strong suit for the Royal Navy up to this point had been Germany’s use of the three-rotor Enigma for home waters and Norwegian message traffic, meaning that the British had an almost crystal-clear picture of any preparations to attack the convoys. In March, Bletchley Park had intercepted a series of
messages that confirmed the Kriegsmarine’s focus on destroying the convoys as a top priority, followed by the movement of additional aircraft, U-boats and heavy ships to Norway. They also had Dönitz’s message to his U-boat captains: “The task for U-Boats is to prejudice delivery of supplies to Murmansk. Sink everything that comes within range of your torpedo tubes; head other U-Boats on to the convoys. Your own attack should have preference, but act according to the situation. The employment of our own naval surface forces or air forces is intended should the opportunity arise.”21

  The Royal Navy, and in particular Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord, the man who had final authority over the convoy, knew that the movements of large surface vessels such as the Tirpitz were restricted because of the oil shortage. Nevertheless, the Germans’ intent to engage the convoy was clear—whenever the chance presented itself. Should it occur, Pound had but few options. If enemy aircraft and U-boats came on the scene, the best option for PQ-17 would be to keep the convoy together with its destroyer escort; if the Tirpitz or any of the other large surface raiders appeared, it would be best to scatter the ships in the convoy in the hope of avoiding utter destruction. Once apart, however, the convoy faced the risk of having each individual vessel sunk by roving aircraft and U-boats. Either way, there could be heavy losses. Without their own air support to cover the convoy, the British had no choice but to rely on Ultra and signals intelligence to give warning of German movements and positions.