One of the first rumours that circulated soon after news of the PROSPER disaster had spread was that Francis Suttill had been very lax in his security measures; that virtually the whole PROSPER network had been terribly amateur and had more or less invited German attention. That view has been sustained in a great many accounts and histories. I can find no evidence to support it. Of course there were lapses and small indiscretions, as there were in the very best networks, but it seems to me there are a great many apocryphal stories of carelessness and indiscretion that have been incorporated as fact in the SOE canon.
The premature collapse of the PROSPER network came as a surprise to John Bevan at the London Controlling Section. He had hoped it would survive right up to D-Day and beyond. No one, except perhaps Dansey, had any idea how badly compromised it was. Consequently, PROSPER’s departure from the scene created a gap in that part of Bevan’s scheme to promote COCKADE – with still two months to go. Most people who knew how PROSPER was being used to promote COCKADE naturally presumed that the increase in the network’s activity to cope with all the arms drops was the only reason for its collapse. Déricourt’s involvement was still a watertight secret. In a particularly insensitive approach, senior officers in SOE were asked if they thought they could contribute something to fill the gap left by PROSPER.
A directive was sent from COSSAC inviting the Political Warfare Executive (PWE, the black propaganda organization) to collaborate with the SOE in a scheme it was hoped would, on the one hand, support COCKADE, and on the other cope with the sort of disasters that had befallen PROSPER. It seems odd in retrospect, but SOE were very enthusiastic about contributing to COCKADE.
On 13 July, three weeks after PROSPER’s arrest and a week after the news had been circulated, a top secret meeting was called at the War Office to discuss and draw up new security instructions for STARKEY.1 Bevan was present and hinted that a joint plan was being created by PWE and SOE that would hopefully prevent the occurrence of similar disasters. By 18 July, five days before Bodington’s departure to France, the joint PWE/SOE plan was presented to Morgan’s HQ. It described their objectives:
(i) To counter the repercussions of STARKEY upon the patriotic armies (Resistance) of Europe.
(ii) To counteract the effects of the enemy’s counter-propaganda which will doubtless present the outcome of STARKEY as a failure to invade.
They suggested that by producing a steady flow of false messages and BBC broadcasts they would present the Germans with a picture of the Resistance ‘subject to the strictest discipline derived from the Allied High Command’ as being fully prepared to ‘rise-up’ when commanded – or, likewise, ‘stay their hand’.
One of the most alarming aspects of the plan was to deliberately mislead the BBC into reporting false stories. ‘The BBC should be treated as an unconscious agent of deception, i.e. that it should react to the news and inspired leakages created by the forthcoming operations in a normal and uninformed way.’ This could be very dangerous.
The BBC held a very important responsibility during the war for broadcasting informed and impartial reports of the war to an audience both at home and abroad desperate for the truth. It was also the agency through which SOE delivered its ‘personal messages’ to the agents in the field. It seemed as though no one had properly considered the harm this new proposal might cause in the long term, when genuine BBC messages would be crucial.
But this was only the beginning. The PWE and SOE also felt they had a positive contribution to make to the prosecution of COCKADE, ‘by producing the symptoms of underground activity, prior to D-Day, which the enemy would naturally look for as a prelude to a real invasion’. ‘SOE would produce a number of subversive operations on a scale sufficient to disturb and confuse the enemy, but be so devised as not to provoke premature uprisings.’
This would be achieved, they said, by repeatedly warning the Resistance by means of broadcasts to ‘stay their hand until given the order to rise’.2 This was incredibly confusing. First, the SOE would be carrying out operations of ‘considerable scale to disturb the enemy’, then at the same time their agents would be told to ‘stay their hand’. The safety clause was this: seven days before the fictitious D-Day, leaflets and broadcasts would alert the Resistance that the operation had just been an exercise. It was precisely what had been attempted with PROSPER, but with the added features of a guarantee of discipline.
PWE and SOE were so confident about their scheme, that in conclusion they added a piece of hard sell, suggesting that unless they were allowed to make their contribution, ‘…COCKADE might lack the full colour of authenticity’.3
General Morgan was utterly confused by the plan and its stated objectives. He sent copies of it to the Chiefs of Staff, with a typically amusing memo:
…Now where are we?
You will see that PWE suggests leading the BBC up the garden path and refers to the press going the same way.
Now for pity’s sake, tell me who tells who what and when, and what he expects them to believe anyway. I refuse to see anybody in the information world about any of this until I am absolutely clear as to what it is all about, which looks to me like being never.4
The Chiefs of Staff perceptively noted, ‘Our disciplinary control over the Resistance groups in occupied territories might fail and the groups might take premature action … and be subjected to severe reprisals.’5 For those who cared to notice, their comments echoed a similar warning set out by the Army Intelligence officers in May.
By August the stories had begun to trickle into the press. United Press International proudly revealed, ‘An official source states that the Allies will move against Germany by the autumn and the race for Berlin is on … Signs multiply that the Allies may land in Italy and France within the next month.’6
Suddenly newspapers all over the world joined in the chorus. The New York Times ran a banner headline, ‘ARMIES READY TO GO’ SAYS EISENHOWER.7
And again, the United Press’ source in London told them, ‘French underground leaders were revealed today to be confidently expecting an early invasion of France … there was widespread speculation in Great Britain that zero hour for the assault on Western Europe was approaching.’8
On 17 August, the day Claude de Baissac and Bodington returned from France with the SCIENTIST network destroyed, the BBC broadcast the following:
…the liberation of the occupied countries has begun. We are obviously not going to reveal where the blow will fall. All those elements that are to contribute in any way whatsoever to the success of operations on French metropolitan territory must be fully equipped to carry out their task. You must prepare yourself, day by day and week by week, for the role you will have to play at a future date, which may be near, in the liberation of your country.9
The BBC had also broadcast a series of ‘personal messages’ that alerted the Resistance to expect the invasion within a fortnight. Drops of arms and equipment had not abated. In July 2200 Sten guns were dropped, in August 7378. The number of pistols went up from 445 to 1740, grenades from 2780 to 9527 and incendiaries from 6533 to 13,288.10
The USAF conducted over 200 heavy bomber sorties over the Cap Gris-Nez/Boulogne area while vast numbers of troops were deployed in peculiar mobilization exercises. The 59th Staffordshire Infantry Division recorded in its War Story, ‘Tented camps sprang up all over Kent and the roads became littered with direction and location signs. All contact with civilian population and the outside world was forbidden.’11
At Avenue Foch, every signal was being monitored and digested. Boemelburg and Kieffer marked off the calendar day by day. They were working round the clock, processing all the interrogations of the enormous numbers of people pouring into the prisons. Kieffer’s view had prevailed, and arrests had become a priority. ‘The more men we brought in before September, the fewer would support the Allies on D-Day.’ Boemelburg’s major preoccupation was convincing Von Runstedt, Commander of the German Forces in the West, that the intelligence he had received in July was accurate and that all the subsequent signs confirmed it. On this one point, the withering figure of the Abwehr was in complete agreement with the SD.12
Von Runstedt was not anxious, but cautious. He had initially found the reports of a planned invasion in 1943 unconvincing. He was confident that the Allies had so many resources already committed in the Mediterranean that another major operation in the same year was unlikely. He was not prepared to start calling up reserves. But Boemelburg would not give up and Von Runstedt was peppered with reports from the SD that the Allies were more than able to launch a cross-Channel operation of ominous size. The next few weeks would test his nerves.
However, in London, the earliest intelligence reports were already claiming that COCKADE had failed. On 14 August, an Army Intelligence review headed: Enemy Order of Battle in the West revealed,
…at no time before have [German] troops in Brittany been so thin on the ground.
The Germans have … dispatched one division (113) to Russia. It would appear, therefore, that whilst STARKEY had caused minor reactions in the increase of photographic reconnaisance over this country, the operation at present cannot be considered to have constituted a sufficiently serious threat to contain even the normal number of German divisions in the west.13
Added to which, a concerned and influential number of Army Intelligence officers, devastated by reports of the chaos in France, renewed their attacks and were lobbying for the whole thing to be called off. Already nearly a thousand members of the Resistance were languishing in prison.
With the reports from France getting worse, General Morgan was furious at the way the press reporting had got completely out of hand. PWE had actually overdone it. There was too much news about an invasion, whereas in reality one would expect there to be none at all. On 20 August, Colonel Bevan called an emergency meeting to deal with the disquiet over the press and the BBC broad casts. COSSAC, PWE and SOE were represented, the latter being particularly concerned about morale and keen to transmit to their people that ‘it was just an exercise’. But Bevan wasn’t keen to stop the carnival yet. A compromise was reached whereby the ‘Be ready’ broadcasts were replaced with a series of ‘Be calm, today is not the day’ broadcasts.14
Confidential advice was sent to all newspaper editors explaining why a clampdown on all press speculation should occur. The most embarrassing element of this back-tracking was the way in which the BBC was rescued from ignominy. It was decided to blame the enemy. It broadcast:
Be careful of German provocations. We have learnt that the Germans are circulating inspired rumours that we are concentrating armies on our coast with the intention of invading the continent. Take no notice, as these provocations are intended to create among you a situation where you may be caught. Lay low! Be careful! Do only what you are told to do by the BBC.15
Then, less than three weeks before ‘D-Day’, MI6 reported a change in German attitudes. A few cracks had begun to show. On 13 August, Hitler had redeployed the 25th Panzer from Norway to France. Photo-reconnaisance was stepped up, and Von Runstedt had revised his contingency plans for the deployment of reserves. On 23 August, he wrote in his weekly report that arms drops to the Resistance in August were already twice those for July; and for the very first time that year, he used the term ‘Zweiten Front’. It was possible COCKADE might work after all.16.
It was touch and go. In London, opinion still seemed to be swinging strongly towards calling it off. General Morgan suggested as much on 2 September, ‘Up to date enemy reactions to our operations have not been sufficient to justify the laying on of the final phase of STARKEY.’17
If Morgan was serious about cancelling COCKADE–STARKEY, then no one had informed SOE about it. They still had networks in northern France that were expecting a fleet of landing craft off the Calais coast in a week’s time. An essential part of their contribution towards COCKADE was being able to broadcast to their groups nine to seven days before ‘D-Day’ that it had all been an exercise. With less than four days to go they were getting very jumpy.
On 3 September, the operational section of COSSAC received a handwritten memo from their intelligence section, reminding them of the understanding with SOE. An anxious Colonel Rowlandson from SOE had been in touch to inform COSSAC that they had recently been ordered not to inform their networks that it had been an exercise.
Col Rowlandson states that there are at present no signs of an upheaval, but if the Boche get into a panic, it will probably communicate itself to the patriots.
Although all is quiet at present, Col Rowlandson could give no guarantees and he would like to be able to give his boys a line as soon as possible.18
In the meantime, MI6 reported ‘The German Secret Service considers cross-Channel operation imminent.’19
On 7 September, Dr Josef Götz intercepted a BBC ‘personal message’ that contained the secret codeword for a large-scale uprising meant to coincide with the invasion. Pandemonium broke out at Avenue Foch. Telephone calls were made to Kopkow in Berlin. Boemelburg was triumphant – the codeword had originally been passed to him by Déricourt. But would Von Runstedt believe them? Boemelburg called him personally. Kieffer sent a report by car to St Germain-des-Pres, Von Runstedt’s headquarters.20
On ‘D-Day’ itself, a fleet of 95 landing craft, escorted by two naval vessels, left port at 06.30 hours filled with troops and equipment. The armada set sail for the Pas de Calais. The sun shone brightly, there was a slight swell. A cine-cameraman had recorded in loving detail the process of loading the artillery and other equipment. Then during the lull before the storm, he busied himself taking shots of rugged-looking Tommies glaring out to sea, or the antiaircraft batteries scanning the sky for German aircraft.21
In the Kent countryside, the 59th Staffordshire Infantry suddenly got the order to move out.
When units began to move, they found themselves passing with unusual smoothness right through the system of staging camps. The anti-climax came when we reached the sea, we marched down to the shore – and about turned. That must have confused the Jerries.22
In the English Channel, the armada waited. Not one German aircraft flew overhead. Not one shore battery opened fire. Nothing happened at all. There was just the sound of the engines and the sea-wash. Then at around 10.00 am, a German radar station near Calais that had been out of action all morning, began to pick up faint traces of the invasion fleet. Later, a spotter plane confirmed … that it was sailing back to England.
The bare facts were that COCKADE had been devised, in lieu of a real invasion, with the purpose of pinning German forces in the west, whereas precisely the opposite had occurred. From April through to December 1943, there was an unstaunched flow of trained front-line troops from France to Italy, the Balkans and Russia – 27 divisions in all. A post-mortem reported that the Germans had clearly perceived STARKEY for what it was, a deception. But the truth was the Germans didn’t perceive it at all – and certainly not as a deception until they heard the BBC announce, ‘a major invasion rehearsal in the English Channel today’. Apart from the SD, German attention was elsewhere – in fact, at the precise spot from which COCKADE had been designed to draw it: the Russian Front. The only consolation that could be retrieved from the ashes was the fact that the Sicherheitsdienst had been utterly convinced of an imminent invasion.
COCKADE failed to convince the Germans for a number of reasons, but perhaps the single most significant factor was the premature collapse of PROSPER. Following the arrests in France in July, Hitler was utterly convinced there would be no invasion in 1943.
Kopkow had received almost daily reports from Kieffer and Boemelburg, cataloguing their remarkable successes in the field. Berlin was at first incredulous and then ecstatic at the vast numbers of men and women Kieffer was hauling into prison. Then there was the massive amount of arms and munitions that had been uncovered and were being shipped east to the Russian Front. No one in Berlin had ever imagined a secret army could be that large.
Hitler made the perfectly intelligible observation that PROSPER must have been meant to play a vital role in the Allied invasion. In one of the cruellest ironies of the war, the Fuhrer concluded that once the network had been eliminated, the Allies’ invasion prospects were shattered.23