AS ALL THOSE IMPLICATED IN the Kondor mission were rounded up for interrogation, hundreds of miles to the west the real war rumbled on. Two weeks before the raid on the Nile houseboat, Rommel’s Intelligence Service had suffered two other hammer blows.
The Intelligence Service had been extremely useful – if not crucial – in the desert war from the end of May and throughout June, although at times Rommel was inclined to treat it in a cavalier manner. On 1 June Colonel Feller (the ‘Good Source’) had reported to Washington on the condition of the Eighth Army; almost immediately a copy landed on Rommel’s desk.
June 1 1942 16:43. Personnel losses of the British are fairly light but loss in material heavy. It is estimated that 70% of British tanks engaged were put out of action and at least 50% permanently destroyed. The air ground liaison was poor and the RAF repeatedly bombed own forces.1
He also reported on the ‘Flap’ gripping Cairo, revealing that RAF officers were throwing their files through the windows of offices into trucks waiting below to remove them. This information had gone some way to convincing Rommel to pursue the badly mauled Eighth Army, regardless of earlier plans he had had to halt at the Egyptian frontier. He was willing to risk his vulnerable supply lines in the search of the elusive decisive victory.
At the end of June the ‘Good Source’ reported British tactical plans. They had initially intended to try and restore the defensive line on the old defences at Mersa Matruh but Auchinleck soon realised that this was not possible and decided that Eighth Army should fall back to the Alamein position. Fellers’ reports from Cairo to Washington kept Rommel up-to-date on the British change of plan.2
Early in July the ‘Good Source’ was cut. In May a German POW had told the British of the intercepts, and British code breakers soon broke the US Black Code, and were able to read Fellers’ messages an hour after he filed them. Edward Thomas, working at Bletchley Park at the time, felt they learnt about Fellers through Enigma.
… our suspicions [of Fellers’ messages] were aroused through our reading of Luftwaffe and Panzerarmee Afrika Enigma, and we were finally, but somewhat late in the day, able to trace the source of the leak.3
Fellers was recalled to Washington, and after that messages contained no useful information. It was a great embarrassment to the US, as their intelligence services had sent a team out to check Fellers’ security measures back in the spring, but had given him a clean bill of health. Ironically, later in 1942 Fellers was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for his work as military attaché, which ‘contributed materially to the tactical and technical development of our armed forces.’ The citation also stated that ‘His reports to the War Department were models of clarity and accuracy.’4
The replacement US military attaché in Cairo began using the M-138 strip cipher, which the Axis could not break. Rommel was thus cut off from the strategic intelligence on which he had depended for so long. Hans Otto Behrendt wrote:
Whatever the reason, from 29 June onwards the Good Source fell silent. We no longer had this incomparable source of authentic and reliable information, which had contributed so decisively during the first half of 1942 to our victories in North Africa.5
On 10 July Panzerarmee Afrika had suffered another catastrophe when their 621 Radio Intercept Company was overrun and virtually wiped out. Which in a queer way may have been, partly, a self-inflicted wound. Captain Alfred Seebohm, commander of 621, had apparently been reprimanded by a colonel for not having his unit far enough forward during fighting around Mersa Matruh. That colonel probably had no idea that 621 was not a combat unit ‘but a precious and even irreplaceable intelligence gathering operation’.6
The criticism, although unjustified, stung the highly strung Seebohm. He knew in early July that his position was far too advanced, only about 6 kilometres west of El Alamein, though he would obtain much better results from there.
The official operations report of the Afrika Korps states:
Whereas in the south the attack was making good progress and promised well for the next day, on 10 July at 06:00 the enemy attacked the [Italian] Sabratha division north of the coastal road with a reinforced [Australian] brigade after laying down a preparatory artillery barrage for one hour with tank support. Italian troops here whose artillery seems to have consisted of one light artillery battery and one heavy artillery battalion, either surrendered without resistance or took to their heels. The Sabratha division was largely wiped out or captured and lost its entire artillery except for the heavy battalion. Barely two miles south east of the Panzerarmee Command Post itself it was possible for us to restore an improvised line of resistance using the machine gunners and Flak units attached to the Army headquarters and some elements of the 382nd Infantry Regiment which was just arriving along the coastal road and keep the enemy from advancing farther.
A regrettable consequence of this route was that the enemy advanced so quickly that they were able to destroy nearly the whole of 621 Radio Intercept Company.7
Colonel Von Mellenthin saw the tragedy unfold as the Sabratha Division collapsed under the attack of 26th Australian Brigade and elements of 9th Australian Division, in the Tell el Eisa area. ‘Unfortunately the brilliant leader of the listening post service, Captain Seebohm, fell in this action and most of his important information was destroyed or captured.’8
It took the British months to go through all the captured codes and documents, and to question the 101 men captured. One of them was Seebohm, who was badly wounded. Although taken to a hospital in Alexandria, he died shortly afterwards. Lieutenant Heinrich Habel was the last company commander of 621:
Over the next five or six months several interrogation officers from British signals Intelligence did their damnedest to squeeze out of me as the last company commander everything they might not yet know. Their interrogation methods are well known and there is no need to go over them again here. From the questions and remarks of the British officers I gained the impression that our working methods and wireless intelligence successes in North Africa had literally dumbfounded them, and that afterwards there had been a substantial reshuffle at the higher levels inside the Corps of Signals.9
Thus Rommel, with the crucial August battles coming up, was forced to rely almost exclusively on air reconnaissance for intelligence; he could have done with a reliable agent in Cairo. As he had told Eppler before the agents set off, he wanted to know three facts: ‘First, where will the British make their main stand when I begin my final attack upon the Delta; second, what reinforcements, in men, tanks and guns, will they have received; and third, who will lead them?’ Now he was more or less in the dark.10
See here for a list of abbreviations used in the below notes
1 Behrendt, Appendix II p.233
2 ibid, p.166
3 ibid, p.167
4 Kahn, p.255
5 Behrendt, p.167
6 ibid, p.170
7 ibid, p.168
8 Carell, p.242–243
9 Behrendt, p.172–173
10 Mosley, p.75–76