All the King's Men (28 page)

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

XV
Denunciation

The events of that June and July became a spectre that haunted Déricourt for years. He once wrote, ‘Why is it that I am neither mad nor dead?’
¹
Frager had spread rumours about him among the other resisters and he had taken to carrying a pistol whenever he left the apartment. Nevertheless, he still expected to be around for at least another year and somehow managed to maintain the absolute confidence of his chief in London. ‘If they lose me, they’d never find anyone else to do this work.’ His life settled into a regular routine again, though with one small alteration.

Dr Josef Götz had been drawn into the PROSPER campaign, first as an administrator who organized the surveillance groups of Déricourt’s operations, then later, he was drawn in deeper because of his talent for conjuring with captured radio sets. In July, he was introduced to GILBERT himself. Kieffer and his staff were so stretched coping with all the arrests, there was no one else to oversee the regular meetings. Götz was extremely flattered to be included in something which everyone in Avenue Foch knew was Top Secret. But by the same token, he was a little frightened by the prospect of meeting such a famous double agent.
²

Götz’s instructions were very precise. He had to establish a link with GILBERT – a telephone number, through which they could arrange their meetings at one of the apartments. At each meeting he had to take the details of incoming flights, the date, the place, the number of aircraft etc. Then he had to telephone the Luftwaffe and anti-aircraft
units, give them the details of each flight and ensure they didn’t attack it. Then he had to write a report for Kieffer.

Once he had explained everything, Kieffer leant forward, crossed his two index fingers and held them in front of Götz. ‘Boemelburg and GILBERT are like that. Boemelburg thinks GILBERT will make our fortune for us in Berlin. Kopkow speaks of him with Himmler and everyone. Who knows, perhaps he will make us famous?’ Kieffer admitted he had never actually met GILBERT, ‘but even so, I don’t like him and I don’t trust him’.
³

Götz understood immediately that he was just another face to GILBERT, someone to whom he passed the small stuff, the trifles; while Boemelburg received the important material at his meetings with GILBERT in Neuilly.
⁴
Götz also appreciated that the meetings between GILBERT and Boemelburg were very regular and in private, so he would have to watch his step.

The routine began with a phone call from Boemelburg, ‘GILBERT, tomorrow.’ Götz would walk to the flat, let himself in and wait. GILBERT would arrive a little later; there would be a few words of conversation and then immediately down to business.

Götz soon developed a genuine admiration for Déricourt:

…A real agent, a true professional. He spoke carefully, infrequently and not before he had considered the whole question.

     [Metaphorically] … he was a man who always seemed to look around himself before moving and when you spoke with him, you had his complete attention.

He found him very personable, ‘but without offering anything of himself. Götz’s admiration quickly turned to fascination.

To Déricourt, Götz was always simply ‘the Doctor’. Though when in an expansive mood he once uttered, ‘no enemy of the middle class’.

One long hot summer’s day in August, Götz arrived at the flat and had removed his jacket and placed it over the back of a chair. He was not permitted to open the windows or shutters and as a result the place was like an oven. GILBERT arrived and followed Götz down the corridor into the living room, but before they could get down to business the telephone rang. Götz excused himself and went to answer it. While he was out of the room, Déricourt reached into Götz’s jacket pocket and took out his wallet. He carefully removed every single item, examined and returned it, slipping the wallet back into the jacket.

When Götz returned they concluded their business and GILBERT left. He always left first. A few minutes later Götz was stepping out of the flat and wondering about buying a beer before returning to Avenue Foch. When he opened his wallet he noticed that all the contents had been disturbed. He tried to think of how to explain it to Keiffer. ‘It was all there, just in the wrong order.’

‘Of course,’ said Kieffer. ‘What do you expect? I told you not to trust him.’
⁵

Just three days after he had dispatched Bodington and the de Baissacs to London, Déricourt organized another Hudson operation at a new field down at Soucelles near Angers. It was a massive operation – altogether ten people were expected to converge on that little patch of meadow. In Paris, some were lodged in JuJu’s pied-à-terre while others, like Tony Brooks, found their own accommodation. Brooks was the organizer of a remarkably effective and secure little network called PIMENTO. He met up with Déricourt to get the details of the operation and was immediately subjected to an irritating barrage of questions.

‘Aren’t you the organizer of PIMENTO?’

Brooks claimed he was just a courier returning to London for some dental work.

‘Where are you staying? When did you arrive? When do you expect to return from London?’ Brooks was incredulous but said nothing. He took the details of their rendezvous and departed.
⁶

On the night of the operation, with just half an hour to spare, Brooks, Déricourt and Clément turned up and began to lay out all the torches. Unknown to Brooks, in the bushes lay hidden the entire SPRUCE group – Marchand, Boiteaux, Regnier; G. Gerson, VIC; Octave Simon, SATIRIST – one of the sub-circuits connected to PROSPER; Robert Benoist, co-organizer of the CHESTNUT group, south-west of Paris, caught up in the PROSPER
rafle
(Benoist had just escaped from the SD); Madame Le Chêne, courier to the PLANE network down in Clermont Ferrand.

Once the Hudson was down, just one passenger emerged while the others made their way towards the shuddering mass of machine. Halfway across to the aircraft, they became aware of a herd of bullocks that had been grazing at one end of the field and had now begun slowly moving towards them. The noise of the engines and all the movement finally started a stampede. Everyone was rooted to the spot with fear. Déricourt’s major concern was the aircraft, which could have been torn to shreds by one of the crazed beasts. Miraculously, no harm was done to man or machine and the outgoing passengers climbed aboard. At the last minute, however, the operation was held up by Madame Le Chêne, who found it difficult, in her fashionable dress, to get her leg up high enough to reach the bottom of the ladder.

Brooks surveyed the scene for a moment or two but could see only one solution. He planted his shoulder beneath the woman’s buttocks, straightened up – and Madame Le Chêne shot into the Hudson to a chorus of ‘Bravo!’
⁷
It was an incident the Bony–LaFont men
neglected to mention in their report. They also lost sight of the single incoming agent, who had not waited for Déricourt’s assistance – and when the Hudson had gone, so had he.

Soon after that operation Clément paid a visit to Madame Menon in Tours, to deliver a message. She was the headmistress of the little school where, back in April, Frager and his party were disturbed by the SD. Curiously, they were disturbed again. Without warning, a squad of SD men turned up, charged into the schoolhouse and arrested everyone.
⁸
When the news reached Déricourt that Rémy had been arrested, he telephoned Boemelburg, demanding he be released immediately. Boemelburg told him to be calm, Clément would be free soon. The local SD commander was contacted and the entire party was released within two days. Clément was seriously shaken by the ordeal and described in graphic detail for Henri every moment as it had happened. Déricourt took the whole thing seriously too and planted Clément on the next flight to London.

There had been no SOE operations anywhere near the COCKADE–STARKEY ‘D-Day’. Déricourt’s next operation was exactly a month after the last. Outgoing with Clément were Colonel Zeller, Ben Cowburn, Goldsmith and a couple of Polish couriers. Incoming were Yolande Beckman, wireless operator to the MUSICIAN group near St Quentin; Harry Peuleve, new organizer of the AUTHOR group; H. Despaigne, courier for the DETECTIVE group; and a Gaullist agent called H. d’Evaigner. All were discreetly tailed by the SD’s agents. Déricourt’s arrangement was operating just as smoothly as ever. You would think PROSPER had never happened.

Clément returned on a Lysander on 16/17 October and brought with him six small diamonds from SOE, which Déricourt sold on the black market. He also brought with him the dapper little figure of André Watt, who had been assigned to FARRIER as Déricourt’s official radio
operator. Watt and Clément standing side by side were a comic sight; Rémy stood a full head and shoulders above the diminutive radio operator. He quickly settled into the FARRIER team and flourished under numerous nicknames, from ‘Tich’ to the imaginative ‘demi-Watt’. André became another for whom Déricourt arranged protection. He took Watt to the Bar Lorraine at the Place des Ternes, where he ‘displayed’ him for the benefit of Boemelburg’s men. In fact Déricourt took a lot of trouble to protect his team. Radio operators were particularly vulnerable. SOE’s radio sets had by Watt’s time evolved down to the size of a small valise though they were still pretty weighty objects. Carrying the device was always a tense operation, for although it looked completely innocent, anyone could be subjected to a spot check by the Feldgendarmerie and being discovered with one was the end of the line. How could one explain it? Déricourt never allowed Watt to carry the set. Though Watt always assumed it as part of his responsibilities, Déricourt wouldn’t argue and simply took the thing and strode off.
⁹