Read The Spy with 29 Names Online
Authors: Jason Webster
The Spy with 29 Names
Contents
4. Southern England, April 1942
6. Spain and Portugal, 1939–41
8. The Eastern Front, Southern Sector, 25 December 1941
10. London, Spring–Summer 1942
11. Britain, Summer–Autumn 1942
12. London, Glasgow and Madrid, March 1943
14. Germany and the Eastern Front, July 1942–March 1943
18. Britain, Winter–Spring 1944
19. Britain, Spain and Algeria, 1936–44
20. Britain, France and Germany, Spring 1944
21. London, Lisbon and Berlin, Spring 1944
22. England, Northern France and Southern Germany, 5 June 1944
24. Northern France and Southern Germany, 6 June 1944
26. Northern France, Southern Germany and Belgium, 6–9 June 1944
28. Madrid, Germany and the Pas-de-Calais, 9–10 June 1944
30. London, 13 June–29 July 1944
31. Normandy and Belgium, 8 June–18 July 1944
32. Normandy, July–August 1944
33. London, Normandy and Paris, August 1944
34. London and Madrid, August 1944–May 1945
35. Britain, the Americas and Spain, May–September 1945
36. Britain, Spain and Venezuela, 1945–84
37. Venezuela and Spain, 1945–84
38. Spain, Germany, France, Canada and Britain, 1945–Present
39. London and Normandy, June 1984
Appendix I: The Flow of Deception Material from the Allies to the Germans through Garbo
He fought on both sides in the Spanish Civil War. He was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler and an MBE by Britain. To MI5 he was known as Garbo. To the Abwehr, he was Alaric. He also went by Rags the Indian Poet, Mrs Gerbers, Stanley the Welsh Nationalist – and 24 other names. He tricked Hitler over D-Day. He was the greatest double agent in history.
But who, exactly, was Juan Pujol?
Jason Webster tells of Pujol’s early life in Spain and how, after the Civil War, his determination to fight totalitarianism took him on his strange journey from Nazi spy to MI5 star. Working for the British, whom he saw as the exemplar of freedom and democracy, he created a bizarre fictional network of spies that misled the entire German high command. Above all, in Operation Fortitude he diverted German Panzer divisions away from Normandy, with a pivotal message transmitted from a small house in north London, through to Madrid, then to the German secret service, the German High Command and then finally to Hitler himself in the Berghof. Historians are agreed that, without Garbo, D-Day would almost certainly have failed – and our world would be a very different place indeed.
Meticulously researched, yet told with the verve of a thriller,
The Spy with 29 Names
comes from one of our leading writers on Spain. It uncovers the truth – far stranger than any fiction – about the spy behind one of recent history’s most important and dramatic events.
Brought up in England, Jason Webster lived for many years in Spain. His acclaimed non-fiction books about Spain include
Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco
;
Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain
;
Guerra: Living in the Shadows of the Spanish Civil War
;
and Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain
. He is also the author of the Max Cámara series of crime novels set in Spain, the first of which,
Or the Bull Kills You
, was longlisted for the CWA Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards New Blood Dagger 2011. This was followed by
A Death in Valencia
and
The Anarchist Detective
.
NON-FICTION
Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco
Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain
Guerra: Living in the Shadows of the Spanish Civil War
Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain
Or the Bull Kills You
A Death in Valencia
The Anarchist Detective
1
. The Dieppe Raid, 19 August, 1942
2
. Juan Pujol, aged 21, on military service, 1933
3
. The bombing of Barcelona, 1938
4
. Pujol and Araceli in Madrid, c. 1940
5
. The German Embassy in Madrid
6
. The cottages at Bletchley Park
7
. Tomás (Tommy) Harris, 1942
8
. Pujol in London, 1942
9
. 35 Crespigny Road, the MI5 safe house
10
. 55 Elliot Road, Pujol’s home until early 1944
11
. Pujol’s handwriting
12
. Joachim Peiper in Spain with Himmler, October 1940
13
. Joachim (‘Jochen’) Peiper, 1943
14
. Tiger Tanks, 1st SS Panzer Division LAH, in France, March 1944
15
. The text of Garbo’s D+3 message
16
. The Berghof, Hitler’s Alpine home
17
. V-1 flying bomb over London, June 1944
18
. The Stanford map of London, used to locate V-1 bomb sites
19
. Sherman tanks of the 23 Hussars, Operation Goodwood, Normandy, July 1944
20
.
Libération
, Paris, 25 August 1944
21
. Pujol in disguise, December 1944
22
. Tomás Harris, self-portrait
23
. Harris in Spain, after the war
24
. Pujol’s grave in Choroní, Venezuela
Sources: 1, 5, 12, 13, 14, 16 German Federal Archives; 2
misaventurasfavoritas.com
; 3 Italian airforce; 4
laopinondezamora.es
; 6 Matt Whitby; 7, 21 HMSO; 8, 11, 15, 18 National Archives, Kew; 9, 10, author; 17 US Federal Archive (WM); 19 Imperial War Museum; 20
lapaseata.files.wordpress.com
; 22, 23 Private collection; 24
dir.webring.org
.
For Gijs and Alex van Hensbergen, with thanks
The Story of the Second World War’s Most Audacious Double Agent
‘
Reality is not always probable, or likely.
’
Jorge Luis Borges
‘Facts are the enemy of truth.’
Miguel de Cervantes
Morning off the Normandy coast. Finally: they have been waiting years for this.
An ashen dawn is trickling into the sky as the flotilla of British warships moves in closer. On deck, peering out over the grey-green sea, Private Jack Poolton of the Royal Regiment of Canada is waiting his turn to go ashore. The Channel is calm, the crossing has been easy.
Jack’s letter home, to be sent if he does not return, is written and stored away. He tells his mother what is about to take place – a major attack against the northern coastline of Nazi-occupied France. Jack hopes that his generation will fight as bravely as their fathers did in the Great War. Much depends on what will happen that morning. To the east, the Russians are clamouring for this, a ‘second front’, to be opened in the west.
He remembers the past months’ training in England: the manoeuvres and marches, and the children killed when a German Focke-Wulf bombed a cinema in Littlehampton before they embarked. To be here this morning Jack has lied about being able to swim, and has hidden the fact that he has trench mouth, caught from washing his mess tin in dirty water. But he is keen to see action. Perhaps, when he gets back, he will talk about today’s events with Irene, the WAAF girl from Lancashire he met while sheltering from an air raid in the cellars of Birmingham railway station. She gave him a hat badge to remember
her by; her mother ran a pub – the beer would be on the house whenever he could make it.
None of the men are interested in the tea and sandwiches laid on. Nor are there any rum rations or prayers: no one feels the need. The signal comes and they climb down into the landing craft. Jack is a mortar man, and sits near the back.
The first sign that things are going wrong comes when a German convoy intercepts British commandos on the Canadians’ left. The gunfire alerts the defence forces on the coast, who fire star shells and chandelier flares to light up the sky. The attackers become visible, the element of surprise gone. Attempting to avoid detection, the Canadians turn in circles, slowing down their progress to the shore. Now, instead of a landing at dawn, it will be full daylight by the time their boots touch the beach.
A giant firework display begins, ‘like a thousand guns firing’: they are entering hell itself, Jack thinks. He is part of the second wave. Five hundred yards from the shore, his vessel is hit by heavy fire. A bullet passes through his tunic, near his shoulder, but mercifully draws no blood.
The landing craft is already reversing before all the men manage to get out. Jack jumps into 8 feet of water carrying the mortar, twelve high-explosive bombs, his grenades, and 250 rounds for a .303 rifle. Wading ashore, he realises that they are in the direct line of fire of a machine gun, bullets kicking up stones around his feet. Many of his comrades are already dead. The beach is littered with the shattered remains of the first wave.
Jack seeks cover behind a shallow abutment as the Germans accurately drop shells on their positions. It is, he thinks, as if the whole thing has been rehearsed. He sees Canadian soldiers trying to throw grenades at the enemy, only to be shot as they pull the pin, the weapon then exploding among their own men.
High explosives are useless in these conditions. Jack dumps his equipment and stretches out for the nearest rifle as men around him are cut down by enemy fire. He tries to join a group scaling cliffs nearby, but the man ahead of him is killed as he reaches the top, falling back on to Jack and dragging him to the bottom again.
The tide is coming in and wounded men on the beach are drowning. A landing craft comes ashore to take them away, only for the Germans
to place a mortar shell in the middle of it. More men are shot dead as they cling to the sinking wreckage.
A white flag appears – someone has stuck an undershirt to a bayonet. Most in his regiment are surrendering. Jack and his company commander, Captain Houssar, decide to fight on. Alone, they charge down the beach armed only with rifles, but are pushed back by machine-gun fire.
There is no hope: they are trapped. Jack and Captain Houssar are the last Royals to put down their weapons. They are alive, but with surrender comes a deep feeling of humiliation. You can train a soldier to fight and accept death, Jack realises, but there is no way you can prepare him for being taken prisoner.