Operation Garbo (20 page)
Authors: Juan Pujol Garcia
After the war the actual document summarising
GARBO
’s opinion was recovered intact, and a further assessment had been added:
The report is credible. The reports received in the last week from the
ARABEL
undertaking have been confirmed almost without exception and are to be described as especially
valuable
. The main line of investigation in future is to be the enemy group of forces in south-eastern and eastern England.
When Krummacher received the summary he underlined the sentence characterising the Normandy landings as ‘diversionary in nature’ and added the written comment: ‘Confirms the view already held by us that a further attack is to be expected in another place (Belgium?).’ Before being handed to Hitler, this paper was passed to Field Marshal Jodl, who initialled it and underscored the words ‘south-eastern and eastern England’. Evidently,
GARBO
’s poison had proved particularly efficacious on him.
It was later established that this single message had a
devastating
effect on the German high command and led to the cancellation of a major armoured counter-attack in Normandy, using seasoned units from the Pas-de-Calais area. Instead, the troops en route were ordered to return to their bases. The much-feared armoured thrust simply never materialised, and
credit for this coup can be given to
GARBO
and his notional conference of D+2.
1
This news did not filter through to
GARBO
or Harris for some considerable time, so the
ARABEL
network continued its routine, reporting numerous Allied troop movements to support the
FORTITUDE
master plan. On D+3,
DICK
and
DORICK
submitted their observations from Dover and Harwich respectively:
DICK
reports that the following divisions are to be found in his area without indication of embarking at present … Southern Command … 47th Division …
DORICK
reports that the
activity
in his area has greatly increased, giving the following
divisions
stationed in the area without indications of embarking for the moment … 47th London Division.
Later the same day,
GARBO
sent a further signal to hammer the message home:
Amplification and notes on the messages sent yesterday; Looking over the messages I see that I omitted to include, in the list of troops in the area of
DONNY
, the units 2nd Canadian Division and 2nd Canadian Corps.
DORICK
has learned through a well-informed channel that there are more than a hundred tank transport barges capable of transporting about five hundred tanks … which have gradually been concentrating in the ports of Yarmouth, Lowestoft and in the rivers of the Debenham and the Orwell.
The invasion was now just seventy-two hours old, and the need for the Allies to consolidate their position before the enemy could amount a counter-offensive was greater than ever.
Every day that the Germans could be persuaded not to send additional reinforcements to the Normandy front gave
the Allied troops a greater chance of victory. All the Allied commanders were only too well aware of their vulnerability during the first few days ashore.
GARBO
’s message of D+2 was to have immense implications for the German
defenders
, but
FORTITUDE
called for continuous deception until well into July when, it was conceded, there would be no further advantage to pursuing the campaign. The next priority was to persuade the Abwehr that the non-existent First United States Army Group (FUSAG) had not yet been committed to Normandy and, therefore, constituted an immediate threat around the Channel.
Although
GARBO
himself had played an exceptional role in the overall
FORTITUDE
plan, his agents had not contributed much to the existence of FUSAG. This had been left largely to two of MI5’s other double agents,
BRUTUS
and
TATE
.
BRUTUS
was a Polish air force officer, Wing Commander Roman
Garby-Czerniawski
, who had been imprisoned by the Nazis during the occupation of Paris. He had subsequently ‘escaped’ from their custody and made his way to England, where he revealed the true nature of his mission for the Abwehr. His dramatic escape had been stage-managed by them to give him cover and encourage the British to accept him at face value. After he had been turned into a double agent by his MI5 case officer, Hugh Astor, the Abwehr had been successfully duped into believing his reports, and he had made many of the notional
observations
which had created FUSAG. His contribution had worked well, and
BRUTUS
was held in high regard by the Abwehr.
Roger Hesketh later commented that,
of all the British controlled agents, it is evident that
GARBO
,
BRUTUS
and
TRICYCLE
enjoyed reputations of a high order throughout the whole period of
FORTITUDE
deception. This came as a surprise to us. We never doubted
GARBO
’s position. We knew that
BRUTUS
had attained something at least
approaching
GARBO
’s stature by midsummer, but we had supposed that he had risen during the spring from comparative obscurity.
Unfortunately, the same could not be said of
TATE
, a German spy who had parachuted into Cambridgeshire in September 1940. He been taken into custody quite quickly and had been persuaded to play his wireless back with what had seemed, initially at least, a degree of success. It had proved more
difficult
to double-check on his standing with the enemy because he reported direct to an Abwehr wireless station in Hamburg, which relayed his messages on to Berlin by a secure landline. The lack of wireless messages made interception impossible, but those relevant signals that were decrypted indicated that the enemy was not taking
TATE
’s messages too seriously. MI5’s problem lay in the parts of the
FORTITUDE
campaign, and in particular various sightings of FUSAG units in Kent, which had been allotted to
TATE
. In fact, the Abwehr’s poor opinion of
TATE
threatened to jeopardise FUSAG’s very existence in the minds of the enemy because the Hamburg Abstelle was consistently failing to pass on key pieces of intelligence. It was, therefore, decided to move
GARBO
onto the scene. On D+6,
GARBO
reported on a conversation he had had with the American sergeant, 4(3):
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: