I attempted to find out from 4(3) where the headquarters of General Bradley are to be found, but as he is at present under Montgomery’s orders at 21 Army Group, 4(3) had been unable to say where this headquarters might be. I asked him who, then, was in charge of FUSAG, to which he replied that it was General Patton who had taken over the command which had temporarily been held by Bradley during the first phase of its formation. In the conversation held, I was able to find out that the headquarters of General Patton, that is to say of FUSAG … is situated near Ascot.
GARBO was now committed to FUSAG’s continued presence in England, and further efforts were made to reinforce the idea of an impending further attack across the Channel by bringing elements of FORTITUDE NORTH further south. After BENEDICT’s arrival in London to assist his chief, GARBO only had one remaining subagent left in Scotland, the Greek seaman known as 3(3). At the time of BENEDICT’s summons at the end of May, the Abwehr had expressed some anxiety:
If you consider it advisable to call BENEDICT to help you, please ask him to consider carefully if in this event the north will be well covered by 3(3), since it is very possible that some action will start up from those ports.
GARBO had covered the gap by ordering the Greek from Methil to Glasgow, and just before D-Day he had reported the 58th British Infantry Division and the British 2nd Corps in Motherwell apparently heading south. Other units also seemed to be on the move. On 16 June GARBO submitted several reports from DAGOBERT’s agents:
DICK: Brighton. The situation has changed little, with the following exceptions. Troops with the insignia of the knight on horseback have left the area. They left for Normandy. US troops with the insignia of a blue circle cut in four have arrived in the area of Lewes. The insignia was reported by DORICK on his last journey to London as having been seen in his area. DONNY has also seen some troops with the insignia of the red fish on waves and the stag’s antlers. I have written to DONNY telling him that he should let me know urgently if he sees there … troops of the 55th Division, which 3(3) also reported in the concentration at Motherwell.
In fact, DONNY was to ‘discover’ the genuine 55th Division a few days later in Dover, apparently preparing to cross the Channel. The following day, on 17 June, GARBO made a further attempt to keep the FORTITUDE threat alive. The reference to training exercises involving landing craft was intended to be interpreted as a sign that further amphibious landings might be in the offing:
DORICK communicates that the American division at present occupying the camps in which the 28th US Division has been before they left for the south, is the division which has the insignia of a serpent which the Americans call a rattlesnake. The division recently arrived in England. In his letter he sets out in detail the manoeuvres which the 28th US Division carried out on the beaches of Felixstowe.
When the unreliable agent 7(6) had claimed to have seen American assault troops massing in Liverpool on the eve of the real invasion, GARBO had sent DAGOBERT to check. DAGOBERT had found nothing to confirm 7(6)’s alarmist suggestion of an impending attack on Bordeaux, but he did see a lot of American soldiers in the dock area. GARBO commented on 15 June:
Further evidence of the arrival of a new American formation over and above the number already mentioned is at present lacking. Nevertheless, reports of the arrival of fresh American transports deserve attention. We must therefore reckon with an early increase in the number of American divisions in England.
The following day GARBO received a message from DONNY in Dover, identifying the shoulder flashes of both the units known to have recently left Scotland. GARBO remarked:
I attach the greatest importance to the reference by this agent to these insignia, as it is an indication that all the troop concentrations seen by 3(3) in Motherwell have been moved south.
Three days later, on 20 June, GARBO returned to the subject of the increase in the American presence, courtesy of his indiscreet US army sergeant:
In conversation with 4(3), I today learned some very important news. I casually asked him which division his uncle was in. He replied, in the 48th US Division. To my question as to whether this division belonged to the First US Army Group, he replied that it did not, nor did it belong to 21 Army Group, thereby drawing the conclusion that there are many American troops here who belong to other large units. As is natural, I will investigate this matter as much as possible.
GARBO did not have a chance to pursue the sergeant until 2 July, when he reported:
Today I lunched with 4(3) and brought the conversation around to the subject which interested me, which is to say about the American units which have recently arrived in England. He told me that FUSAG will undertake a more important task and that in order to be able to accomplish it, four American divisions have recently arrived in this country under the command of another American army. These divisions are stationed in the Liverpool area. He insinuated that the war was about to enter a new and decisive phase. In view of this interesting news, I intend to send DAGOBERT immediately to investigate what is going on in the western area, which I am not controlling at the moment. I intend to clarify this matter and will invite 4(3) out frequently.
The Greek seaman followed up his report with a further message on 22 June, D+16, noting an exercise conducted by the British Fourth Army in Ayrshire. In his twenty-second letter, dated 20 July 1944, GARBO finally disposed of the threat posed by these non-existent forces in Scotland and killed FORTITUDE NORTH after a long and useful life, taking credit for the scepticism which he had expressed earlier:
There is something important which I want to stress. If I recall correctly, the British Fourth Army was in Scotland with the formations observed by 3(3), that is to say, together with the 2nd Corps, the 55th and 58th Divisions. If, therefore, the British Army moves down, the only division to effect the proposed attack against Norway will be the 52nd Division. I therefore consider that an attack against Norway is impossible for the moment. My present observation goes to show how right I was when I expressed the opinion against the views of BENEDICT and 3(3) that the operation would not then come off at that time of the year. I therefore consider that a state of alarm in Norway need no longer be maintained.
This, at a stroke, removed FORTITUDE NORTH, but GARBO was still heavily involved with FUSAG and FORTITUDE SOUTH, and the operation’s time was still running out. It was accepted that the deception could not be maintained indefinitely, and some of the real forces in Kent obviously had to move off to France in due course. With DONNY in Dover, it was a little difficult to avoid reporting genuine troop movements, and the 21 Army Group’s security group were especially keen to conceal the number of reinforcements going to France. Their main strategic task had been to persuade the enemy to underestimate the strength of their forces in Normandy so as to avoid attracting a massive counter-attack. FUSAG was destined to be eliminated, but not at the cost of the Germans believing that the FUSAG units had gone to reinforce the Normandy bridgehead. One solution was for the spy to travel to Tenterden, where both British and American units were known to be based awaiting their departure to Normandy. On 30 June GARBO described how DONNY had travelled to Tenterden by train, but had been turned back at the station because he was not equipped with the required documentation. When the 21 Army Group finally gave their consent to the reporting of various troop movements, GARBO sent the following from DONNY, which implied that the units were heading in the opposite direction:
Many troops of the 2nd Canadian Division have been leaving the area. Have seen large convoys of this division moving north on the London road. The 28th US Division is said to be leaving Tenterden.
On 3 July GARBO made his last contribution to FORTITUDE, with a short message from DORICK, who had seen the 80th British Infantry Division in Ipswich.
1 See Appendix.
10
ESCAPE
The FORTITUDE operation had now entered an exceedingly dangerous stage, GARBO had initially been brought into detailed communication about FUSAG (as oppo
sed to the overall Pas-de-Calais deception plan) because TATE’s lack of credibility might have endangered the entire campaign. Having participated directly in putting FUSAG across, MI5 were left with a dilemma. GARBO’s subagents were spread generously around the countryside and had begun to make genuine observations. BRUTUS, for example, presented none of these difficulties because, as a Polish officer, he could be posted elsewhere and, in fact, he was sent away to Scotland. But there were no such easy options available for GARBO’s network. This situation, if left unattended, would bring GARBO and Harris into direct conflict with the 21 Army Group. A quick resolution was required, and it was found in GARBO’s sudden arrest by the police in London on 4 July 1944.
MI5’s easiest solution to the crisis over FUSAG’s demise lay in GARBO’s removal from the stage for a convenient period, but there was another, equally pressing, reason for his temporary elimination. This latter motive dated back to a mysterious message received from Madrid on 15 December 1943:
Circumstances dictate that you should carry out your proposition with regard to setting up your home outside the capital. This warning is strictly confidential for you and, in taking the necessary measure, the collaborators must on no account suspect your reasons. Should the threatened action commence, in making your preparations, leaving to your judgment their execution, you must ensure that your collaborators maintain their contact with you.
What was this ‘threatened action’? At that time only a few people on the Allied side had any idea of Hitler’s ‘vengeance weapons’, so GARBO sought further information. On one occasion, on 22 February, GARBO complained that CHAMILLUS had narrowly escaped death when his rooms sustained a hit during an air raid:
I would be grateful if you would let me know immediately that these are the preliminaries of other, more intense attacks so that I can take immediate protective measures for the service. Let me know immediately, therefore, whether one is to know whether one is to expect other, graver developments such as, for example, the rocket, as if this were so I would remove the present radio apparatus to a safer place, taking the precaution to make it appear as if the present bombardments were the motive for my doing so, thus avoiding comment by the agents and, at the same time, without alarming them, being able to make them change their residences.
These none-too-subtle attempts to acquire advance warning of any major secret weapon offensive failed, although various ISOS intercepts indicated that GARBO was being groomed as a kind of advanced observation post, apparently to guide the V-1s onto their targets. ISOS showed that once the attack had started GARBO’s wireless messages would pass directly from Madrid to Arras, the German centre of operations in control of the V-1 launching sites. This new arrangement was planned to bypass Berlin and demonstrated, once again, GARBO’s high standing with the enemy.
The various problems presented by the V-1s remained academic until 13 June 1944, when the first ‘buzz bomb’ or ‘doodlebug’ fell on a railway bridge in Grove Road, Bow, in London’s East End. Six people were killed and nine were injured. GARBO was suitably indignant three days later:
We had not been informed by headquarters about this project, owing no doubt to the fact that all attention had been absorbed in the operations in France.
Later the same evening he remarked:
It has upset me very much to have to learn the news of this arm having been used from our very enemies when I had hoped to have heard about it in advance from you in order to be able to leave the city.
The Abwehr replied the following night:
Today headquarters has notified us that it has been impossible for them to warn us in advance as to the date on which the new arm would be employed, since they themselves were not informed on account of an order from the high command that the secret should only be disclosed to those people who had to be told in order to put it into operation.
There was no arguing with the logic behind this explanation, but the Abwehr’s request for his assistance in the bombing led to some agonising debates in St James’s Street. The Germans in Madrid asked GARBO to record the exact time and the exact position of as many V-1 hits in London as possible. Their purpose was obvious. The time of each V-1 launch was carefully recorded by its crew, and the time and place of impact gave the enemy an invaluable method of checking their calculations and improving their aim. The V-1’s navigation system was fairly straightforward, in that the unmanned craft was simply launched off a ramp aligned on a point in the heart of London, but the device which governed the duration of the flight was rather more complicated. A small propeller on the nose turned in flight and, after a predetermined number of rotations, cut off the engine’s fuel supply. The bomb then plunged to the ground in an eerie silence. The launch crews could only establish the required number of rotations by trial and error, and therefore depended heavily on a reliable observer close to the point of impact. With a definite time and location, they could work out exactly which aircraft had been successfully on target and could adjust the others accordingly. Suddenly, GARBO had been transformed into a human bombsight, and the realisation made the Twenty Committee distinctly uneasy.
At first there were plenty of opportunities to delay reporting the hits. GARBO reported that he had moved away from Hendon and had found lodgings at a small hotel in Bray, a picturesque village on the river Thames in Berkshire. This was indeed true. He moved into a hotel owned by a Spanish couple from Valencia named Terrades, and each morning he commuted up to London on the train from Taplow to go to work at MI5’s little front office in Jermyn Street. For his part, Tommy Harris left Chesterfield Gardens and took temporary refuge at the Bull, a well-known hotel at Gerrards Cross, to the north-west of London. These logistics disrupted GARBO’s traffic, and other reasons were found to justify the prevarication. One excuse concerned the grid selected for GARBO’s use by the Abwehr. It was only to be found in a street map of London published by Pharus of Berlin in 1906. Eventually, after a time-consuming search, a copy was borrowed … from the British Museum! Once that matter had been sorted out GARBO tried to prevaricate further by delegating the task of spotting the V-1s to BENEDICT, his Venezuelan deputy. His initial results were poor, and GARBO justified his disappointing performance by insisting that ‘the area affected is so extensive that it embraces a semicircle from Harwich to Portsmouth’. This was not entirely true, and it became clear that GARBO would have to take on the job himself. ‘As BENEDICT is a little timid, I am going to do this work myself and make the observations starting from tomorrow,’ said GARBO in a message at 9.15 p.m. on 30 June.
Thoroughly alarmed, the Abwehr responded forty-five minutes later:
I wish to repeat again that the news about troop movements, units, locations etc. continues to be your principal mission and you should add information about the objectives hit only to the extent that circumstances permit.
Characteristically, it was Tommy Harris who dreamed up the solution while the bureaucrats and politicians fumbled with the moral issues of directing the flying bombs from one part of London to another. Harris suggested that GARBO undertake the enemy’s bidding and then get himself arrested. This would isolate GARBO from the field, thus giving everyone a short breathing space in which the matter could be considered, and would also teach the Abwehr not to jeopardise the liberty of their star agent on such risky missions. Harris’s solution also had the virtue of closing down the entire network at the crucial moment of FUSAG’s disappearance. The scheme was very attractive and the Twenty Committee gave it their approval.
According to the Harris plot, GARBO had visited a pub on the evening of 3 July and had heard about the massive damage caused by the V-1 in Bow. The following afternoon he had paid a visit to the site in the East End and had started asking questions in the locality to determine the exact time of the impact. He had also taken notes of the bomb damage. As luck would have it, one of the onlookers at the bomb site had turned out to be a plain clothes detective, who had become suspicious of the inquisitive foreigner. GARBO had
taken fright at the police officer’s interest in him and had stuffed his notes into his mouth in a futile attempt to swallow evidence of his mission. The detective had promptly arrested him and had escorted him to the police station, where he had been questioned briefly by the local chief inspector. GARBO had protested his innocence and had claimed to have been gathering material for the Ministry of Information, following a conversation he had had the previous day with his section head, J(3), concerning the apparent inadequacies of the capital’s air defences against the V-1. The police had taken their time checking his story and had left GARBO to sit in the cells for nearly three days. GARBO had eventually been released through the intervention of the contact J(3), who had confirmed GARBO’s tale, but in the meantime he had received the benefit of some advice from a petty criminal who was something of a barracks-room lawyer. Both men had shared the cell for a while, and the crook had pointed out that GARBO had been detained illegally because only the commissioner could sanction the detention without warrant of a prisoner for more than forty-eight hours. As soon as he had been released, GARBO had written to the home secretary to complain about his treatment. On 10 July the secretary of state had sent him an impressive apology, which GARBO then forwarded on to the Abwehr in triumph. In due course, they returned it to him, through the Espírito Santo bank in Lisbon, in case it came in useful again.
Operation Garbo Page 18