Operation Garbo (16 page)
Authors: Juan Pujol Garcia
On 22 April
GARBO
received a long letter from the Abwehr, dated 3 April 1944, Lisbon, which showed that they were particularly impressed with
DAGOBERT
’s subagents:
I have taken note with great interest of what you have told me in your letters about the amplification of your network, and the numerous messages which you have sent during the last few weeks have demonstrated to me that you have been absolutely right in your idea of nominating the old
collaborators
as subagents of their networks. In particular, the network
of
DAGOBERT
appears to be the one which is giving the best results.
This message caused some celebration at Crespigny Road and St James’s Street, for it was the first real proof that
FORTITUDE
was off to a good start.
GARBO
responded by relaying a message on 30 April from
CHAMILLUS
, the NAAFI waiter, who, on 27 April, had volunteered to leave the depot at Chislehurst for a secret invasion embarkation point. On 29 April
CHAMILLUS
telephoned
GARBO
to arrange a rendezvous the following day at Winchester railway station. At their meeting
CHAMILLUS
had disclosed that his new base was Hiltingbury Camp, near Otterbourne in Hampshire.
GARBO
reported that, according to
CHAMILLUS
,
all the 3rd Infantry Division are concentrated here ready to embark. There are other camps full of troops ready for attack. Have identified the 47th London Division in a camp to the south of mine … it is extremely difficult to leave the camp. They are preparing cold rations for two days, also vomit bags and lifebelts for troops’ sea voyage.
The purpose of this particular scheme was to place
CHAMILLUS
in a position where he might reasonably be expected to let
GARBO
know when the invasion fleet had put to sea. Both
GARBO
and Harris were adamant that advance notice of the invasion of just one hour would be enough to enhance his reputation with the Abwehr. The Twenty Committee accepted this idea, with some dissent, but unfortunately the atmosphere soured early the next month and the committee’s attention was
temporarily
diverted. News arrived from Portugal which suggested that
ARTIST
’s (Jebsen) case had taken a turn for the worse. On 28 April Jebsen had kept a rendezvous with Graham Maingot in Lisbon, at which Jebsen had disclosed that the Abwehr had become suspicious of
TRICYCLE
(Dusko Popov) and were convinced that even if he was not now operating as a
controlled
led agent for the British he probably had been in touch with them at some stage. The relevant part of the Secret Intelligence Service’s summary of Jebsen’s debriefing is reproduced here as it sheds important light on the kind of agonising a case officer had to endure:
Abteilung III has announced that in their opinion
TRICYCLE
’s material is not controlled by the British. This judgment is entirely on the basis of
TRICYCLE
’s latest report, and the Abteilung hold to their opinion that in one period of his career
TRICYCLE
was under Allied control. They explain the change as follows: the Allies provided poor material;
ARTIST
complained to
TRICYCLE
that he was not earning his keep;
TRICYCLE
then decided to collect material himself, and the result has been his last report – so good that Abteilung III is in entire agreement with the general staff that it is inconceivable that the British should have deliberately fed it. From
ARTIST
’s point of view the outcome is a complete triumph, and he is sure that
whatever
happens now, these two departments whose confidence it is hardest to win will never reverse decisions so
categorically
expressed. To crown it all,
ARTIST
has been awarded the ‘Kriegsverdienstkreuz, 1st Class’, an honour shared by no one in Lisbon.
Although Jebsen had given SIS an optimistic account of his handling of Dusko Popov, he did admit that a week earlier, on 21 April, he had ducked out of a meeting he had been ordered to attend at Biarritz with Dr Aloys Schreiber, a senior Abwehr official also based in Lisbon, and a certain Major von Bohhlen. Jebsen had suspected that the location of the meeting, which had been to discuss various sums claimed by Popov, was conveniently close to the French frontier if the Gestapo wished to arrest him. Jebsen had excused himself, saying that he was anxious not to compromise his own cover as a German malcontent.
The day after Jebsen had reported to SIS he went to the German embassy in Lisbon to receive his decoration. As soon as he stepped through the door of Schreiber’s office, he was knocked to the floor and interrogated. On 1 April he was bundled, unconscious, into the trunk of a limousine
carrying
diplomatic plates and driven straight to France, where he received an official escort for the remainder of his journey to Berlin. After a brief spell in a Wermacht prison, he was
transferred
into the custody of the Gestapo, who are believed to have executed him in the Oranienburg concentration camp on an unknown date in April 1945.
The first news of this catastrophe reached Bletchley on 2 May 1944, when a signal was intercepted from Schreiber to Berlin announcing the successful completion of Operation
DORA
. The message confirmed that Jebsen had crossed into France at Biarritz at 1500 hours the previous day. It was subsequently established that
DORA
was the code name for Jebsen’s abduction.
An analysis of Lisbon’s
ISOS
traffic showed that
DORA
had been a last-minute affair, and that Schreiber had been recalled from Madrid on 24 April to prevent Jebsen’s rendezvous with the SIS, which the Abwehr believed had been arranged for the following day. It seems likely that either Jebsen’s
determination
to discover the real identities of the Lisbon Abstelle’s agents had led to his exposure or that his investigation of a particular spy on the German payroll had caused his downfall. All these possibilities were discussed at length by the Twenty Committee, which had no alternative but to hope that Jebsen resisted his interrogators at least until the end of D-Day. In order to reassure Tommy Harris, an MI5 officer who had not been let in on the secrets of
OVERLORD
was asked to review
GARBO
’s correspondence to date to see if he could detect a bias in favour of a particular target area on the French coast. The officer concluded that there was only the slightest of imbalance in favour of the Pas-de-Calais.
Nevertheless, undeterred by these events,
GARBO
and his case officer continued their work as if nothing had happened. On 1 May
GARBO
relayed a routine message from
DONNY
, who had seen officers of the 28th American Infantry Division in Tenterden and Dover. At Folkestone he had spotted the American VIII Corps;
GARBO
commented that these (real) units were evidently on the move. The 28th Infantry Division had been portrayed elsewhere as an assault group unit and had also been reported recently in Tenby by
DORICK
, shortly before he had left South Wales. As D-Day got closer, the FUSAG forces (of which the 28th Infantry Division and the US VIII Corps were constituents) were to move slowly eastward toward Kent and East Anglia, adding support to the proposition that the expected attack would be spearheaded from the Dover area.
The following day, on 2 May,
GARBO
described an indiscreet chat with his mistress (who was working in the war ministry), who said that there was no chance of an immediate invasion, thus contradicting the view expressed by
CHAMILLUS
just three days earlier.
‘I am disconcerted by what
CHAMILLUS
said and cannot under any circumstances advise or give information,’ radioed
GARBO
.
The Abwehr, clearly preferring
CHAMILLUS
’s version of events, replied the following evening:
I do not consider that you should attribute too much importance to the opinion of J(5) in the present situation, since it is very probable that the ministerial personnel have received very severe orders with regard to the confidential handling of all military matters at the present moment. It is also possible that subordinates of ministries are being falsely misled intentionally.
For good measure,
GARBO
added a report from
DORICK
, who had seen armoured cars and tanks of the 6th US Division at Ipswich railway station.
The next day, 4 May,
CHAMILLUS
vouchsafed that the 3rd Canadian Division had just left Hiltingbury with orders to embark at Southampton.
GARBO
transmitted the message the same night and sent a longer text the next evening:
CHAMILLUS
communicates that orders have been given to clean and prepare the camp to receive troops once more. Agent supposes that these will be second-line units. This proves J(5)’s lie because she suggested, naively, today that troops in the southern area were on manoeuvres, information which has been disproved, as in this case troops would have returned. My opinion is that, assuming they have not landed on the Channel coast, the troops which embark must at this moment be moving toward their far-off objective or to join the fleet reported by
BENEDICT
in the Clyde.
In his next transmission, on 7 May,
GARBO
laid into
CHAMILIUS
who, he said, had
displayed the ability of a simpleton. I am very disgusted with him, though I have not let him know this. He has, today, communicated with the troops he was awaiting, which he thought would be second-line troops, who have arrived, but they are the same as previously left, which is to say the 3rd Canadian Division. The troops at the other camps have
likewise
returned. Though too late, he tells me that they have been in one of the many rehearsals which Churchill announced would be carried out before the second front was opened. My last comments about J(5) should be disregarded. I see that her information was true and that the fault has been partly mine through being impressed with my agent. I see that I could get more accurate information through my
ministerial
friends.
CHAMILLUS
, in excuse, says that his beliefs were confirmed by concrete military events, which I am unable to deny. In future he will make no further comments to influence
me or my chiefs. I am afraid he is a little discouraged by his great stupidity.
Madrid wasted no time in replying to this skilfully woven item of psychological arm twisting.
GARBO
received the following at 1959 hours, 8 May 1944:
I do not consider that we should reproach
CHAMILLUS
at all since the troops and the majority of the officers left the camps convinced that it was to be the invasion and only a few high officers knew the real objectives. If
CHAMILLUS
is disillusioned through his mistake, which he could not avoid, you should give him encouragement, as, if not, it might happen that when the real invasion is about to take place he will not notify this owing to over precaution.
Just half an hour later it was business as usual, with
GARBO
sending a report of troops from the 61st and 45th Divisions, and Nos 3 and 16 Commandos, seen by
DICK
between Brighton and Newhaven.
On the evening of 10 May
GARBO
transmitted a message in which he recounted a conversation he had had with
CHAMILLUS
’s American acquaintance, the sergeant known as 4(3), who had said that
the second front would open as soon as the two army groups destined for operation were ready. One of these, the 21 Army Group, is under Montgomery. The other, the First Army Group, is provisionally under the orders of Bradley. The American troops which are expected here will enter the latter army group. He assured me that Eisenhower would give a very important task to the American army group.
BENEDICT
also continued to keep the shipping movements on the Clyde under surveillance and supplied
GARBO
with a regular
flow of intelligence. On 10 and 11 May he kept watch from Greenock and later spotted a big naval assault group
exercising
in Loch Fyne, and mentioned having noticed troops kitted out with arctic clothing. He was convinced that this was the prelude to an important attack on Norway, and this news was reported by
GARBO
’s wireless on the evenings of 14 and 15 May. A similar picture was drawn by
BENEDICT
’s Greek agent, who noted a gradual build-up of cargo ships in Methil. Apparently, they were to supply an operation in which a large number of troops were to take part. They had already been assembled in some other ports along the Scottish east coast.
The pace was now hotting up, with a strong implication in
GARBO
’s messages that perhaps a two-pronged attack across the North Sea and the Strait of Dover was being planned. The ever reliable
DAGOBERT
was producing some useful intelligence from the south of England. Each sounded eminently plausible, and the
ISOS
decrypts from Bletchley confirmed that the Germans believed them to be authentic.
On the main Romsey–Ringwood road I saw 125 military vehicles of all types, including Bren gun carriers, with the insignia of the 54th Division. I also saw vehicles with the insignia of the 47th London Division.
Meanwhile, it was realised that
CHAMILLUS
’s reported
conversation
with the American sergeant, 4(3), had made the necessary impact, for
GARBO
received the following questionnaire from Madrid by radio on the evening of 17 May:
