It was during February 1944, only a few days after Alex’s wife, Teddy, resigned her commission in the Air Transport Auxiliary, that a fundamental change happened in German intelligence circles. Until that time, military intelligence for the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht was in the somewhat incapable hands of the Abwehr controlled by Vizemiral Wilhelm Canaris. Reports were starting to come into MI3 suggesting that the Abwehr had been disbanded and replaced by the notorious Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers-SS (SD) that had been the construct of the much-hated SS-Gruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. Even though Heydrich had been assassinated by two British-trained Czech agents in Prague two years earlier, the SD survived and became the dominant force in German intelligence circles.
Commanding the SD and replacing Canaris as head of German military intelligence was SS-Oberführer Walter Schellenberg. MI3 became convinced that the somewhat amateurish attempts at military intelligence that had allowed all known German agents operating in the United Kingdom to be controlled by the British intelligence services were about to change, and that it would no longer be so easy to lead the Germans by the nose into trusting some of the outrageously improbable schemes that the British had fed it over the past few years.
In March 1944, Alex was summoned to a conference at a country house to the west of Reading in Berkshire, comprising all senior officers in the security services and the intelligence service who had anything to do with the planned invasion. The American General Eisenhower led the summit, accompanied by Montgomery and several other senior officers. Notable by his absence, though, was the French General Charles de Gaulle.
‘Gentlemen,’ Eisenhower began, ‘Operation Overlord, the invasion of France, will commence on Monday, June 5th, and will see combined troops of the Allied forces attack and invade the Normandy region of France.’
There was a hum of consternation amongst those gathered. Eisenhower continued that German intelligence needed to continue to believe that this was a diversionary attack and that a second force would launch the main attack on the Pas-de-Calais shortly afterwards. From the German perspective, they needed to continue to believe that this second attack would be coordinated simultaneously with the invasion of Denmark and Norway – all of which was illusionary and would never happen. However, the operation’s success depended on the Germans being convinced that the main attack was coming across the English Channel’s narrowest point so that they retained the units committed to defending those areas in place.
‘God only knows,’ Eisenhower continued, ‘this is an audacious plan, but it represents our best opportunity of invading France successfully. If we can pull this thing off, it will go down in history as one of the greatest conquests of all time and will be, to paraphrase Mr Churchill, the British Prime Minister, the beginning of the end!’
The briefing had taken less than one hour, and Alex left with Simon Potts and Captain Jeffers to return to London. None of them uttered a word as they drove back to Broadway Buildings. Each was buried in their own thoughts – Alex and Simon considered the implications to their individual sections, while Captain Jeffers pondered how this would all come together successfully. For the most part, however, their silence was motivated by their understanding that security was of the utmost importance, and drivers were notoriously loose-lipped.
Alex and Simon joined Captain Jeffers in his office to reflect jointly on the implications for each of the various sections. The section heads from Section B, which looked after Austria-Hungary and Switzerland, and Section C, covering Germany and all its other allied nations, along with the head of Section E (Military Translations) were not invited to attend, as they were not directly involved in the areas where the invasion would occur, or where Germany needed to believe it would happen. Although the sun was barely over the yardarm in any civilised part of the world, Captain Jeffers poured three large glasses of brandy into which he sloshed a goodly amount of ginger ale in the fashion of a Horse’s Neck that was popular in the wardroom of many naval ships at the time.
Handing round the drinks, Jeffers observed, ‘This could be the undoing of Hitler. As Frederick the Great of Prussia once said, “He who defends everything defends nothing”, and the Germans are spread pretty thinly on their western defences.’
‘From the intelligence I have seen,’ said Simon, joining in the conversation, ‘most of those who are defending the front are either Hiwis1 or Osttruppen2, and what Germans there are appear to be either elderly has-beens or those injured on the eastern front and no longer considered fit for active frontline service.’
‘Does that not fly in the face of Hitler’s directive that only true Germans can bear arms for the Third Reich?’ Alex asked.
‘Needs must.’ Simon continued, ‘From the intelligence that we have been receiving, von Rundstedt is so short of troops that he is emptying the hospitals of men who can barely walk and putting them back into service. How Hitler imagines that he will be able to man Fortress Europe to any significant degree with a bunch of misfits and cripples is beyond my comprehension. With the need for so many troops in the east, the western defences are woefully under-manned.’
‘So,’ Jeffers considered, ‘Eisenhower must be thinking that attacking the extremity of the defence line is likely to mean that we would only meet token resistance? I have to say that if this is the foundation of the plan, then it is likely to be doomed to failure. From all accounts, these eastern battalions, the so-called Osttruppen, are ferocious and uncompromising fighters.’
‘That is as may be,’ Simon persisted, ‘but they are not the crack Wehrmacht troops that we would have faced had we invaded sooner. These are very much second-raters who are poorly equipped and generally not highly motivated. By all accounts, their rations are abysmal, and although punishable by death, they are only too willing to trade with the locals for morsels of food that the French peasants would throw away anyway. Their loyalty to Germany is non-existent, and morale is low. It really would not surprise me if they threw down their arms and joined the invasion force – after all, they have switched sides before; why not again?’
‘I doubt even an optimist such as Eisenhower would dare to build a strategic plan that depended on the enemy laying down his arms in the face of invasion,’ Jeffers was clear, ‘but I take your point – turncoats can turn again.
‘Alright, gentlemen, ’ said Jeffers, getting ready to close the meeting, ‘go back to your departments. There’s no need to tell your juniors any details of dates and places yet, but be vigilant to any changes in chatter and keep a close eye on the intelligence received. I imagine that we shall be getting considerably more substance from Station X3 over the next few weeks, so make sure that you do not miss a small but vital detail that could make or break this thing. If we need additional personnel, particularly in your section, Simon, let me know, and I’ll draft some more bodies to help.
‘Alex, we need to know the moment that the Germans start to move troops towards Normandy, probably from Scandinavia or the Netherlands, and, Simon, keep an eye on what’s happening around the Pas-de-Calais. Are the enemy strengthening for invasion or redeploying to Normandy? The intelligence we get from Station X, and our own agents, may be critical to the success of Overlord. I gather that Eisenhower is appointing a liaison officer to feed information back to SHAEF4 – no doubt he will want to meet you when he arrives.’
The meeting was over, and Alex and Simon left together before returning to Simon’s office on the floor below.
‘So,’ Simon began, ‘the balloon’s going up!’
‘It would seem so,’ Alex agreed, ‘and whatever happens, 5th June will henceforth be carved in large letters in the annals of history, either as a momentous achievement or as a catastrophic disaster.’
‘What do you think this liaison chappie will be like?’ Simon wondered.
‘Probably a chinless wonder,’ Alex supposed, ‘who does not know his arse from his elbow and has only reached the dizzy heights of whatever rank he holds through the good offices of family connections. That is the usual profile of these types.’
Alex was only partially correct. Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Phipps, formerly of the Brigade of Guards and now reassigned to the Intelligence Corps, former minder of Alex Carlton when he began his training, presented himself later that same afternoon and announced that he was their liaison with Eisenhower’s staff. Charles may have benefited from familial connections, but he was acutely aware of the difference between his arse and his elbow – and for that, both Alex and Simon were most grateful.
*
In all, Simon’s Section (A) was responsible for deploying over 120 agents into France in the run-up to what was becoming known as D-Day, whereas Alex’s Section (D) was only accountable for forty-three, spread across all of the countries that the section monitored – not because there was less of a need for agents in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, but more because of the logistics in getting them there. Simon had an almost limitless availability from 138 and 161 (Special Duty) squadrons based at RAF Tempsford in Cambridgeshire, enabling rapid deployment at the drop of a hat. Alex had to rely more on scheduled bombing runs when an agent could parachute from one of the aircraft going on to bomb Germany or strategic targets in Norway. The alternative to being dropped from a bomber on a raid, and Alex’s preferred option, was to use the newly formed American Operation Carpetbagger, which operated from a remote aerodrome at Harrington in Northamptonshire. The 801st Bomb Group’s two squadrons flew stripped-down B24 Liberators with sufficient range to drop agents in the furthest-flung sector of Alex’s section area. Even so, on more than one occasion, the agent returned to the UK because the drop zone was unidentifiable, and some even did not make it to their target if the coastal batteries shot down the bomber in which they were hitching a ride.
Unlike when Alex joined the service, he hardly met any agents who fell under his section’s command. There was one, however, that he did meet. A Norwegian Rittmeister, the equivalent rank of captain in a cavalry regiment, called Aksel Jørgensen, who was repatriated through Sweden when the group he was operating was betrayed to the Germans by Quislings5. Jørgensen was spirited out of Norway and to Stockholm, where an agent using the codename ‘Pipistrel’ assisted his departure from Sweden and return to Britain.
Together with a captain from the Intelligence Corps, Alex was instructed to debrief the Norwegian at a secret location in Hertfordshire. Although Alex was not trained in the art of interrogation, he had been its subject more frequently than the Intelligence Corps captain. Nevertheless, Alex chose to take a back seat and let the captain do what he had been trained to do, especially as the man appeared to be more than adept at lulling the victim into a false sense of security. Alex adopted the role of watching for any inconsistency in the Norwegian’s answers. Alex took more than a cursory interest only when the Rittmeister began to tell of the preparations against an invasion that the Germans were undertaking. It appeared that Germany had identified an area between Stavanger and Ålesund as the area most likely to be the target of an invasion by the Allies, as it represented the shortest possible distance between Scotland and Norway.
Consequently, additional troops were being deployed to this area to bolster the existing divisions. According to the Norwegian, the Germans did not believe a seaborne attack alone was feasible and thought that either the Allies would invade by air or would use paratroopers to take the ground behind the coastal defences before attempting an assault from the sea, developing a two-pronged attack and overrunning the sea defensive positions from the rear. This analysis closely matched the evaluation that Alex’s team had already established. Norway was, in many respects, the ideal country to defend itself from the west. A direct assault on the capital, Oslo, would involve negotiating the Skagerrak, and an invasion force would be immediately attacked both from Norwegian shore batteries around Kristiansand and those along the Tannis Bugt in Denmark together with whatever surface craft could be mustered. The defences to the land west of Kristiansand were strong, but it remained an option, as did the fjords between Stavanger and Ålesund – being that this was what the Germans had concluded by themselves, it should be easy to convince them that this was the prime target area.
Alex returned to London and wrote his report that intelligence should identify the Stavanger/Ålesund option as the prime target while preparing any actual assault for the area west of Kristiansand, which offered a faster route to the capital for minimum additional risk. On reading the report, Captain Jeffers dropped by and congratulated Alex on a well-researched document. Then, he reminded him that the Allies had no intention of attacking Norway.
‘Yes,’ Alex responded, ‘but if we are going to convince the Germans to keep their troops in Norway, we have to act believably – we almost have to accept it as real to the point that we could not understand why we would not attack Norway. If we acted otherwise, the Germans would quickly realise that it was a ruse and would redeploy their troops accordingly.’
‘Hmmm,’ Jeffers said sceptically, ‘don’t waste too much time on it. It is far more believable that we would go for the Netherlands and the Low Countries.’
‘I agree,’ Alex countered, ‘but intelligence shows that Hitler believes Scandinavia and particularly Norway is vulnerable, which is why he has doggedly kept so many troops in the country. We need to pander to his beliefs.’
‘Alright,’ Jeffers agreed. ‘By the way, how’s young Daphne settling in?’
‘Very well,’ Alex said, ‘although she’s missing Ralph.’
‘He’s still at HMS Dolphin, isn’t he?’ Jeffers asked.
‘Yes,’ Alex replied, ‘but he’s trying to get a command again. It seems he’s not happy teaching new submariners how to survive.’
‘There’s no accounting for taste,’ Jeffers said, smiling. ‘Personally, I would do almost anything rather than be trapped inside a tin can under the water when the depth-charges are falling.’
‘I agree,’ Alex said, ‘but Ralph Bottomley misses it.’
‘And how is Daphne coping with married life?’ Jeffers continued.
‘Apart from the fact that she could not see herself as being “Mrs Bottomley”, well enough.’ Alex smiled to himself.
‘Yes, I did wonder why she retained her maiden name.’
‘The name was not the main reason,’ Alex explained. ‘Daphne wants to be recognised by her own efforts, not for being Mrs Ralph Bottomley, wife of the intrepid submariner. She has said that when hostilities are over, she will willingly become the most dedicated of wives, but until then, she still wants to be her own woman.’
‘How very liberating,’ Jeffers commented dryly, although Alex could not read the captain’s personal sentiments.
Alex had only met Ralph Bottomley once, and that was in passing. He appeared to be a thoroughly pleasant chap; short, as many submariners are, with sandy-coloured hair and a ready smile that extended to his remarkably blue eyes, it was easy to see why Daphne had fallen for the man, who seemed to carry the luck of the devil with him, as he had survived more than one encounter with the enemy when many of his crew had perished. Following the most recent incident when HMS Temptress limped back into port with the aid of a naval tug after a deadly encounter with a German F-class frigate and then being strafed and bombed by an enemy seaplane, Ralph Bottomley had been promoted to full commander and was beached at HMS Dolphin in Gosport to train new submarine officers. He was a man of action who hated not being at sea and, since his appointment, had used every opportunity to petition the Rear Admiral (Submarines) to be allowed back to active service. His pleas had fallen on deaf ears, but as the invasion approached when all armed services would need experienced officers, that opposition was starting to waver.
A week after the discussion between Alex and Captain Jeffers, Daphne Devine arrived at Broadway Buildings in a mood that was hard to pin down. She was snappy with colleagues and had witheringly put down Lieutenant John Harrington in a disagreement he had comprehensively lost. At other times, she was often distant and, sometimes for no apparent reason, prone to go to the toilet with tears welling in her eyes. Her mood may have changed, but Daphne’s approach to work had not, and the quality of her input remained excellent. Alex decided to gently probe the reason for Daphne’s mood change, and when he did so, he was not too surprised when Daphne told him that her husband, Ralph, had been offered a new command of one of the latest V-class submarines.
HMS Voyager was nearing completion at the Vickers-Armstrong factory in Barrow-in-Furness, and a crew was being mustered in preparation for final sea trials that were due to start at the beginning of April. Although a smaller boat than the previous T-class that Ralph Bottomley had commanded by a good seventy-two feet, it still packed a punch and had the advantage of a three-quarter-inch steel pressure hull that allowed for much deeper diving and an extended stern with redesigned bows to make the boat more manoeuvrable underwater. For all of her husband’s enthusiasm, Daphne was bloody annoyed with him for giving up the safe posting in Gosport for an active command where she knew she would worry every single day that he was at sea.
*
Although the liaison officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Phipps, had been conspicuous by his absence since his appointment, when he deigned to make his first official visit to Broadway Buildings at the end of March, Alex was genuinely shocked by the change that had occurred in his former guardian. A grave seriousness had replaced the devil-may-care attitude of the young subaltern whose company Alex had so enjoyed five years previously. Although Charles was his usual affable self outwardly, there was now an aloofness that separated them that was almost as wide as the Thames Estuary. Nevertheless, Alex was glad to be working with Charles again, and he was keen to catch up with all that had happened with his former minder since they had last met.
Physically, Charles had aged. Although he was only slightly older than Alex, he looked at least ten years his senior. His perfectly barbered chestnut hair had lost none of its elegance but was now peppered with a considerable amount of grey, he had furrows and a greyness to his complexion that suggested his service had been much closer to the action than Alex would have imagined, and he had lost so much weight that his uniform hung on him. The Military Cross’s ribbon was evident over his left breast pocket, and Alex wondered where Charles had served and what he had done to warrant such a distinction.
The reason became clear in a conversation with Simon, who explained that in 1942, Major Charles Phipps had been sent to France to resolve a dispute that had escalated between two resistance groups in neighbouring towns in the Loire Valley. A reception committee of Germans was waiting for the arrival of Charles’s aeroplane, and in the firefight that ensued, the aircraft was destroyed. Sadly, both the pilot and the agent who was returning to England were killed. Several of the Maquisards also fell in the encounter, and Charles was captured and taken to the picturesque Grand Seminary of Angers, which had been taken over as the regional headquarters of the Gestapo. He had been interrogated for nearly six weeks before being transferred to Paris and the Gestapo’s notorious headquarters in Avenue Foch. However, Charles never arrived in Paris. As he was being driven along the N23 towards Le Mans, the car transporting him was diverted by the local gendarmerie just after the village of La Flèche at a place called Clermont-Créans. The gendarmes had been polite as they apologised to the driver of Charles’s car, saying that an accident ahead had closed the road, so the grumbling driver took the detour. At the junction near the hamlet of La Rechangerie, the Maquis attacked the car, killing all three of Charles’s German escorts. Charles was dragged from the car over the corpse of the young leutnant who had seemed a pleasant enough youth and unceremoniously bundled into the back of a waiting truck in which he was taken to a farmhouse where a doctor gave him a sedative before being moved ‘up the line’ quickly until Charles reached Lisieux in the Calvados region of Normandy. In Normandy, another doctor topped up Charles’s sedation – for the four days that Charles was being moved, he was kept sedated throughout. That night, Charles was taken to a field in the farming community of Saint-Ouen-le-Pin, and within half an hour of his arrival, a Westland Lysander landed. Charles was hastily stuffed into the rear cockpit, and despite his being unconscious throughout, the aeroplane was only stationary on the ground for about two minutes.
When the Lysander touched down at RAF Tangmere in Sussex, a car was waiting to take Charles to a converted country house in the east of the county that had been converted into a convalescent home for agents returning from operations. After France, Charles’s first memories of his survival were of his lying in a hospital bed and being treated by a lovely auburn-haired nurse named Margaret Trotter, but who he quickly knew by her familiar name of Peggy. Charles had always been a bit of a gadfly when it came to the ladies, but when he opened his eyes and found Peggy leaning over him, he fell hopelessly in love.
Simon concluded his story by telling Alex that Charles had been promoted to half-colonel and had been awarded the Military Cross for his exploits in France, but because his nerves had not fully recovered, he had been stood down from active duty and given the role of liaison between SHAEF and Military Intelligence.
1 Abbreviation for Hilfswillige, which literally translated means ‘willing helpers’ and generally refers to former Soviet troops who have switched sides rather than face being a prisoner of war.
2 Literally ‘eastern troops’, and comprised of Poles, Czechoslovaks, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukrainians, who sided with Germany in preference to the Red Army.
3 The code name for Bletchley Park, which was alternatively known as the ‘Government Code and Cypher School’ (GC&CS) and which developed into the Government.Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). The ‘X’ in the codename is Roman numeral 10, so its codename was ‘Station10’.
4 Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force.
5 The name given to Norwegian traitors and called after Vidkun Quisling who was a Norwegian military officer, politician and Nazi collaborator who nominally headed the government of Norway during the occupation of the country by Nazi Germany during World War II.