All the King's Men (38 page)

16
There is evidence from Josef Placke’s testimony to the DST in 1947 that the SD had known of this operation and followed ‘a party of agents to a schoolhouse’.

17
Kopkow, 30 June 1983.

18
Dr Götz, 26 November 1982. He claims that the first clue they had that the Abwehr might have been making any inroads into PROSPER was by picking up someone else’s
funkspiel
at the Boulevard Suchet.

19
Colonel Henri’s Story
, Hugo Bleicher, chapter 6.

20
Hugh Verity, 31 October 1985.

21
Foot speculates in
SOE in France
that Bleicher used the CARTE list to get to them.

22
Carl Braun recalls a hasty meeting between Boemelburg and Déricourt during Easter.

CHAPTER XI

1
A remark often attributed to Boemelburg.

2
I have reconstructed these events from details contained in Charles Weighton’s imperfect biography of Weil,
The Pin-stripe Saboteur
, pp. 129–50; a report by Cohen, the ROBIN radio operator, 11 October 1943; an interview with Mme Balachowsky by a French journalist in 1969 (not published); and some correspondence from Weil to Déricourt amongst the Déricourt papers.

3
Dr Götz, 26 November 1982.

4
Interviews with Atkins (January 1986) and Buckmaster (October 1985).

5
Double Webbs
, Jean Overton Fuller, pp. 184–223.

6
Interview with Harry Sporborg, March 1982.

7
The Foreign Office, 17 December 1985.

8
ibid., 28 November 1985.

9
As Mme Déricourt described it, 9 May 1982.

10
Dr Götz, though rarely present at these meetings, knew the routine well enough. There is more on these meetings on p. 301, n.

11
Suttill spoke to Mme Balachowsky and others about his reservations concerning Déricourt.

12
Clément, 8 May 1982.

13
Double Webbs
, Jean Overton Fuller, p. 192.

14
Besnard, December 1982.

15
Most Secret
, COSSAC/18DX/INT. Titled: ‘An examination of the effects of Operation STARKEY on Germany and the occupied countries.’ Signed by Lieutenant Colonel J. E. Fass.

16
Most Secret
, COSSAC (43) 15 FINAL.

17
Memo from Major General R. B. Woodruff, US Army, to the Commanding General, War Department, Washington DC, dated 23 September 1943, in which he describes British insistence on the classification, COCKADED or NOT COCKADED. The Americans found it very amusing.

18
Interview with Harry Sporborg, 21 March 1983. ‘Of course it’s wrong to say, as Foot did, that we weren’t involved in deception. We dropped some people as a result of that, indeed. Clearly, however, if deception is
involved, Buckmaster is the last person you want to know about it.’ Sporborg was referring to the official history,
SOE in France
, by M. R. D. Foot.

19
Buckmaster, 31 October 1985.

CHAPTER XII

1
Colonel Reile, Head of the Abwehr’s Ast III France, interviewed August 1982.

2
ibid.

3
Kopkow papers, Berlin Document Centre.

4
Codeword: Direktor
, Heinz Höhne, pp. 171–2.

5
Kopkow, 30 June 1983.

6
‘Our relations with the SD were not close. We went our separate paths. Yes, we tried to burn GILBERT.’ Interview with Reile, August 1982.

On discussing the subject with a number of SD veterans and with an ADC to Reile, they all conclude that such a move must have had backing from Berlin, if not an actual order.

7
Josef Placke was the SD man with the best links with the black market.

8
Christmann’s own description of himself.

9
Christmann’s testimony amongst the Déricourt trial papers, June 1948.

10
Richard Christmann was (and is) an unreliable witness. His explanation of what might have occurred had he caught up with Déricourt only leads to aimless speculation. He has claimed he was really interested in doing a genuine gem deal; he also claimed he ‘made a report to London about the various traffickings’ of Agazarian and Déricourt – in other words, alerting London to Déricourt’s arrangements with the SD. An ADC to Reile, familiar with Christmann and his serpentine explanations, is in no doubt Déricourt would eventually have been shot. Interview with ADC (anon.), 2 March 1987.

11
Reile’s ADC recalls hearing that Christmann was driven to 84 Avenue Foch, in the back of a BMW, escorted by two SD men.

12
‘Reile despised Boemelburg and the others from the SD –
like amateurs who should have had nothing to do with all that.’ Interview with Dr Götz, 26 November 1982.

13
La Sologne
, Paul Guillaume, pp.
56–65
.

14
Interview with Culioli, August 1986.

15
SOE in France
, M. R. D. Foot, p. 309.

16
Mme Déricourt, 9 May 1982.

17
Bureau continues … ‘All this was suddenly settled. He had received his orders. So it was normal that this man should appear a little troubled, a little worried, a little firmer. He deceived me then, he really made me believe in a September landing.’ Jacques Bureau, 24 February 1986.

18
Mme Guepin’s deposition to DST, 4 July 1947.

19
La Sologne
, Paul Guillaume, p.75.

20
The Pin-stripe Saboteur
, Charles Weighton, p. 183.

21
La Sologne
, Paul Guillaume, pp. 67–8.

22
German Penetration of the SOE
, Jean Overton Fuller, p. 71.

23
La Sologne
, Paul Guillaume, pp. 65–74.

24
Mme Balachowsky, quoted on p. 65 of
German Penetration of the SOE
, Jean Overton Fuller.

25
La Sologne
, Paul Guillaume, p. 63.

26
ibid., p. 73.

27
Mme Guepin’s statement to DST, 4 July 1947, in Déricourt trial papers.

28
Mme Fevre’s statement to DST, April 1947, in Déricourt trial papers. A similar description is also on p. 76 of
La Sologne
, Paul Guillaume.

CHAPTER XIII

1
PROSPER’s instructions to Bureau on what was expected of him, in the event of being arrested. Bureau, 24 February 1986.

2
PROSPER papers, ‘Buckmaster Reseaux’, Ministère de la Guerre Service Historique. 13P 18–64.

3
Culioli, August 1986.

4
The best account of the arrests is in the excellent
La Sologne
, Paul Guillaume.

5
Bureau, 24 February 1986.

6
ibid., and a letter from Bureau, December 1985.

7
‘I had a very comfortable war. I had my hotel, my food, a movie now and then. Sometimes I would go to Saint-Sulpice to listen to Marcel Dupré, the great organist. Compared with those who were at the Russian Front, I had an easy life.’ Dr Götz, 26 November 1982.

8
Götz papers, Berlin Document Centre.

9
Götz, 26 November 1986; also well covered on p. 331 of
SOE in France
, M. R. D. Foot, based on Götz’s post-war interrogation by the British, 3 September 1946.

10
PROSPER papers, ‘Buckmaster Reseaux’, Ministère de la Guerre. See note reference 2 above.

11
Letter from Sir Patrick Reilly, 15 September 1986.

12
Colonel Z
, Read and Fisher, pp. 271–2; also conversation with Marshall-Cornwall on 7 July 1985.

13
According to Kieffer’s post-war interrogation, Borrel was the best they ever saw.

14
Letter from Jean Savy, 17 August 1986.

15
According to Hugh Verity, SOE’s returning agents were driven from the aircraft to Tangmere Cottage for a ‘night-flying breakfast’, then driven away by FANY girls. MI6 were free to drive their people away to their own safe-house at the base.

16
SOE in France
, M. R. D. Foot, p. 293. Foot says his source was André Simon.

17
Double Webbs
, Jean Overton Fuller, p. 210.

18
ibid., p. 189.

19
Foreign Office, 17 December 1985.

20
ibid.

21
Foreign Office, 16 January 1986.

22
SOE in France
, M. R. D. Foot, pp. 329–30.

23
The Foreign Office claim that MI6 records identify only two agents outgoing that night. However, the 161 Squadron Records Book at the PRO clearly shows ‘three’ agents flown out to France on FLORIDE. MI6 veterans have also confirmed that it would have been absolutely impossible for anyone to get on an MI6 flight unless they were brought by an ‘MI6 escorting officer’. There were no other flights that night.

24
Mme Déricourt, 9 May 1982.

25
Reile, August 1982.

26
SOE in France
, M. R. D. Foot, p. 323; based on an
interview Bodington gave to SOE’s security section in April 1945.

27
Interview with Besnard, December 1982.

28
Foreign Office, 17 December 1985.

29
Foreign Office confirmed that Bodington warned Déricourt of Frager’s accusations. The conversation, as I present it, comes from Roger Bardet, whose papers became available in 1986.

30
There is another canard that Bleicher placed a personal announcement in
Le Figaro
, welcoming Bodington to Paris and saying how much he (Bleicher) looked forward to meeting him. Then, so the story goes, just before he left for London, Bodington placed a reply in the same paper saying how much he regretted having to miss Bleicher this time round. A long search through newspaper archives failed to turn up these messages.

31
Reile, August 1982.

32
I quote from
SOE in France
, M. R. D. Foot, p. 278 (written ten years before any papers on COCKADE were released):

Only nine arms drops had been made by May, but by the end of August SCIENTIST and its sub-circuits had received as many as 121 aircraft loads of arms and stores, in nearly two thousand containers and packages. De Baissac could thus dispose of almost nine tons of explosive, and could provide about half his force with a personal firearm. ‘Evidently something was building up’, as Bourne-Patterson put it in retrospect. [Bourne-Patterson had written SOE’s internal history.]

SCIENTIST in fact was snowballing, too soon for safety. Had the Allied invasion of France come in the early autumn of 1943, as many millions of people had hoped it would, SCIENTIST might have played an important role on the Biscay coast, distracting enemy attention from the main landing for a short but perhaps vital period of time. Twice that autumn the BBC broadcast warning messages to every active SOE circuit in France, indicating that the invasion would come within a fortnight; but the action messages that should have followed, on the night of the landing, were not sent.
With no other explanation to hand, Foot speculated that all this was designed to distract German attention from the landings at Salerno and the Italian surrender. No criticism intended – in 1964, very few people had ever heard of COCKADE.

33
Quoted in a letter from the Foreign Office, 16 January 1986.

34
Foreign Office, 28 November 1985.

35
Ref. CAB 79/63 (Cabinet papers). COS (43) 173rd Meeting (0). Minutes of Meeting of the War Cabinet, Chiefs of Staff Committee, 27 July 1943, in the PRO.

36
Quoted in CAB 79/63 (Cabinet papers). JIC (43) 325 (0). Report by the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee on SOE activities in France, in the PRO.

37
ibid.

CHAPTER XIV

1
CAB 80/71 (Cabinet papers). COS (43) 302 (0) – in the PRO.

2
CAB 80/71 5360 (Cabinet papers). COS (43) 386 (0) – in the PRO.

3
ibid.

4
Memo from Lieut-Gen. Morgan to Chiefs of Staff, COSSAC/3122/Sec. Now in Modern Military Records – US National Archives (MMR US–NA).

5
Minutes of Meeting of Chiefs of Staff Committee, 22 July 1943. WO 106/4241 76289, COS (43) 386 (0) –23c in A6/2.

6
Director of Press and Publicity, War Office Report, 19–25 August 1943, in Intelligence Branch COSSAC/182X (now in SHAEF SGS 381, Pre-invasion File MMR – US NA).

7
The New York Times
, 19 August 1943.

8
See note 6 above.

9
The New York Times
, 19 August 1943.

10
See note 5, page 292. Note how all the figures peak during August, just prior to the COCKADE–STARKEY ‘D-Day’, then decline dramatically. The dip in the July figures is accounted for by the PROSPER collapse. According to the Foreign Office (5 February 1986): ‘by the first of June the organization … had received 254
containers and that during June it was to receive 190 more between the 12th and 21st’. By July, drops to PROSPER circuits had virtually ceased.

11
The 59th (Staffordshire) Infantry Division, p. 35 of its ‘War Story’, produced by Peter Knight. IWM Library.