Once the requirements of TROLLEYCAR had been satisfied, it was agreed that we might complete the disbandment of the fictitious airborne task force. The real 6th British Airborne Division had already gone to France. Of the 2nd British Airborne Division the Germans had remarked on 17th November: ‘The 2nd English Airborne Division, hitherto accepted in Great Britain, has apparently been used currently to find drafts for replacing losses of airborne troops already engaged. Presumably recourse has been had to parts of the 2nd English Airborne Division in the reconstitution of the 1st English Airborne Division destroyed at Arnhem, since the 1st Airborne Division is to be ready for battle again by the middle of December. In Great Britain, therefore, only two English airborne divisions (1st reforming and 6th) are accepted.’1 In fact this belief in the dissolution of the 2nd British Airborne Division was not prompted by us at all, but must be attributed to an uncontrolled report. When we discovered at the end of the month, through Most Secret Sources, that they held this belief and since we now wished to disband the formation, we allowed BRUTUS to send a confirmatory message on 7th December. ‘The 2nd Division will be used for giving reinforcements to the 1st and 6th British Airborne Divisions. I think that it will have been disbanded.’2 At the same time he told the Germans that the 19th Airborne Corps at Salisbury was formed ‘only as an administrative unit’.
At the end of the year we were thus left with the Fourth Army Headquarters, already amalgamated with Northern Command, 7th British Corps, the 5th British Armoured Division and the 58th and 80th British Infantry Divisions. By the middle of January the chance of requiring even this reduced force seemed so remote that it was decided to carry the process of disbandment a stage further and to retain only the 58th and 80th British Infantry Divisions.3 These further changes were summarised for the Germans in a message sent by agent Three on 2nd February. ‘7 (7) York: Have managed to get following complete story about Fourth Army from a Canadian officer attached to 21 Army Group Headquarters. He is here on a mission and I have been cultivating him carefully. He tells me that Fourth Army and 7th British Corps have been disbanded. We already know from my previous investigations that the 5th Armoured Division has also been disbanded. According to this officer, Montgomery had preferred to keep his reserves in England rather than behind the front line as he had always planned that Fourth Army should make an amphibious attack against Germany in support of a ground attack by 21 Army Group. This he had intended to make had not Arnhem failed. The heavy losses after Arnhem and during the Antwerp campaign, apart from the surprise German attack before Christmas, liquidated all plans for an attack by Fourth Army which had existed prior to their move to Yorkshire. Instead of this, it became necessary to draw on divisions under the Fourth Army to reinforce existing divisions. Montgomery preferred this course to the alternative of sending over the Fourth Army and withdrawing his mauled divisions, as the arrival of new formations of the Fourth Army in the battle front would have been observed by the Germans and have constituted a threat which would have drawn additional German reserves against 21 Army Group front. In reply to my question as to how the Allies would attempt another landing if it became necessary, he told me that the small British forces now in England were quite incapable of staging any operation, in fact he assured me that there were not sufficient British troops available even to occupy Norway should the Germans withdraw, as all available forces would be held as strategic reserve for the final offensive against Germany proper.’4 Besides giving the enemy particulars of the disbandment of Fourth Army, this report sought to explain why these British divisions had been kept in England during the autumn, for a message received by GARBO on 12th January showed that this matter was still exercising the enemy’s mind.5 We did not, of course, at that time know about the ‘psychological–political’ argument which they themselves had put forward, but which they had evidently come to regard as not altogether satisfactory.
Soon after this the 58th and 80th Divisions moved South, the former to Hitchin and the latter to St Neots. These two last survivors were disbanded in April and the Germans were so informed in messages sent by GARBO on the 18th and 27th of that month.6 Until the end they were represented on the air by 12th Reserve Unit which continued to operate after the New Year on a reduced establishment.
In January the Germans had come to the conclusion that the seaborne assault would only be launched in association with the main overland advance of the Allied armies. Northern Germany and Denmark were both, therefore, regarded as possible objectives, an attack on the former being the more immediate danger. Any attack on Norway would be purely diversionary in character. From this point onwards we have no way of feeling the German pulse except through the messages which they sent to the British-controlled agents. These showed increased anxiety during the spring of 1945. This was not to be attributed to anything which the British-controlled agents told them. Indeed during the period of Fourth Army’s disbandment GARBO did everything in his power to allay their fears. But the events of the previous autumn had given the story a momentum which could not now be arrested. ‘It is of very great importance to investigate by all means if there are any signs of preparations for a new operation to be carried out from Great Britain. Please send somebody to the important embarkation ports of the estuaries of the Thames and Humber and … further North on the east coast in order to find out if there exist troop concentrations in areas near to these ports or if landing craft and transport vessels are being assembled. Although 7 (7) in his last reports did not mention any special preparations, situation may have changed recently’.7 And on the same day TATE was asked: ‘Can you travel in the area of Bristol, Reading, Southampton, possibly also in Humber district?’8 On 19th February GARBO was asked to send weekly reports ‘even if this would be only to confirm that there has been no change of importance’.9 He continued to assure them that there was no cause for alarm and on 2nd March went so far as to say: ‘Any information you have to the contrary should be regarded with suspicion. An air reconnaissance by you would confirm this and relieve you of your anxiety.’10 He hoped in this way to deal a blow at those uncontrolled agents who were still backing the story, but it was of no avail. On 12th March BRONX received a code similar to the one which she had used to tell the Germans about IRONSIDE. ‘When we should expect a new invasion, either by landing or by parachute, let us know in the following code: Send. I have need for my dentist…. Landing South of Sweden £30, landing in Norway £40, landing in Denmark £50, landing in the German Bay £60, landing and parachuting in the German Bay £70. Parachuting to the west of Berlin £80, parachuting to the west of Berlin and landing in the German Bay £100.’11 The fear of this attack seems to have remained with them until the end of the war. Under interrogation Colonel Meyer-Detring, who had been on Field-Marshal Von Rundstedt’s staff at the time of the invasion and was later transferred to the OKW, stated that during the autumn of 1944 there had been various changes in the organisation of the forces and of the command boundaries in North-West Germany, all of which were connected with the fear of a possible sea and airborne assault against the North-West German ports. He agreed that the German Admiralty had not taken this threat seriously owing to the naval difficulties involved, but added that the OKW had counted on the possibility of such an operation until the advancing Allied armies crossed the line of the Weser. Since the war ended the writer has been informed by Danes living in the west of Jutland that work on the coastal defences there was intensified during the last months of the war.