Operation Garbo (30 page)

In addition to Agent No. 5’s correspondence with the Germans, all organisational matters were dealt with in direct correspondence between
GARBO
and the agent.
GARBO
would send a monthly report summarising their correspondence, and occasionally extracts of the original letters received from him by
GARBO
would be forwarded to the Germans to add colour.

The ink used by the agent for his correspondence with the Germans was [word censored on insistence of the intelligence
services
] ink, for which
GARBO
did not have the developer. Therefore, the long process of forwarding the letters to Lisbon, instead of
developing
them here and transmitting their contents by wireless, was
necessary
.
GARBO
was, of course, in possession of the developer for the inferior ink used for the service intercommunications in which Agent No. 5 used to correspond with him.

Shortly after the arrival of Agent No 5 in Montreal he met his cousin who, though residing in Buffalo, used to travel frequently to Canada,

In the first place, Agent No 5 used to extract information from him, and in January 1945 he got his cousin to hand him espionage reports, periodically, knowing that the information he was supplying would be passed to the Germans. These reports, which were very extensive, were forwarded via
GARBO
to the Germans, where they were well received. In spite of the mass of detail and unimportant
information
which they contained (much of which had already appeared in the press in a different form), it was nevertheless seen to pass from Madrid to Berlin on MSS in its entirety.

It was envisaged at the time of recruiting this agent to increase the network of Agent No 5 that the Canadian organisation might have continued to operate against the Japanese after the collapse of Germany. The sudden German collapse made this impossible.

Agent No 6 was violently anti-communist and worked for the Germans for ideological reasons.
GARBO
had promised him an
important
post in the New World Order after the war. This agent was the person responsible for introducing
GARBO
to J(3). He was a first-class linguist, intelligent and capable. From the time of his recruitment, the Germans were told that he did not like living in England and proposed to take advantage of the first available opportunity to get abroad. He had been
GARBO
’s intermediary in Plan
DREAM
, and before he left the UK he made the necessary arrangements for
GARBO
to be able to continue to carry out these final transactions through a friend of his, who performed in his role.

In October 1942,
GARBO
wrote to say that he was studying a plan of the greatest importance for this agent. It later materialised, for Agent No 6 managed to get himself recruited to go to North Africa a few days prior to Operation
TORCH
. He was taken on by the War Office on the strength of his linguistic abilities.

When his recruitment and departure from the UK materialised very rapidly and unexpectedly, there was just time for
GARBO
to instruct him in secret writing and supply him with the necessary inks, so that he was able to maintain contact with
GARBO
through a cover address in London and send him military and naval reports as soon as he was established in the Mediterranean.

GARBO
, who had no developer for the ink which he had supplied for these communications, had to forward the original letters to one of his cover addresses in Lisbon, and thus the Germans had the
satisfaction
of handling material which, to all appearances, had passed through the censorship of Algiers.

Though there was frequently a delay of up to six weeks between the date of the letter and the time of its arrival in German hands, they were nevertheless delighted with their new agent. During the period of his build up it was possible to pass the Germans very accurate
information which served them no useful purpose, as it was already very out of date by the time it reached them.

An attempt was made to get the Germans to send
GARBO
the developer for ink which he was using, so that the contents could be transmitted to them by wireless from London. This was not
forthcoming
, probably due to the fact that the development of ink is somewhat complicated and they were afraid that
GARBO
might have been unable to develop the letters successfully.

When the case of this agent had started to develop well a real misfortune occurred. The person in this office who had been acting as scribe for this notional agent met with an air crash while returning from leave in Scotland and was killed. It was considered inadvisable to take the risk of imitating his handwriting and so it was decided that the case would have to be brought to an untimely end.

GARBO
reported that the agent had been killed in an accident in Algiers, having learned the news from the agent’s mistress in London. Through her,
GARBO
was also able to discover that none of his
espionage
material had been discovered after his death. Thus, there was no risk of any developments as a result of this incident which might reflect on the security of
GARBO
or the rest of his organisation.

During the period when we were first considering breaking down the airman courier system of communication, the alternative of using a seaman courier was considered. It was envisaged that a seaman courier in the organisation would permit bulkier objects to be sent out than would be possible by air.

Another consideration at the time was that after Agent No. had left for North Africa his letters, which would bear the Field Censor’s stamp of North Africa, could not very well be sent on by the airman courier without arousing his suspicion.

Therefore, Agent No 7, a seaman, was recruited, and it was to transpire that he would have numerous friends in the Merchant Navy who, for a monetary payment, would be prepared to do a little smuggling of correspondence and parcels at his request. He was introduced to the
GARBO
network by Agent No 4, who guaranteed his loyalty. From the very beginning,
GARBO
pointed out that no one could be better placed to assist the work of his organisation than a member of the Merchant Navy. He then prophesied that this agent would facilitate the growth of the network. His prophecy was fulfilled a year later.

The recruitment of a seaman agent was at first frowned upon by the Admiralty because it was feared that the Germans would ask him a number of embarrassing questions about convoy routing and
composition
. We therefore emphasised to the Germans from the beginning that, on account of his long association with the sea, the agent had stipulated that he would not give information about the movements of ships which might lead directly to the death of his fellow seamen. He nevertheless gave a considerable amount of information about convoy protection which the Admiralty considered might be
misleading
to the enemy.

With time, it became obvious that the agent’s primary
consideration
in helping the
GARBO
network was a monetary one. At the same time, he was a Welsh Nationalist and, as such, anti-British. He
pestered
GARBO
a good deal for money, but in return gave him good service and, in particular, supplied him with numerous seamen
couriers
operating in ships which put in at South Wales and Portuguese ports. The agent was an ill man, suffering from a defect of the spine which had developed after an accident, and towards the middle of 1943 he was invalided out of the Merchant Navy,

Between then and December 1943 he operated mainly as a
military
reporter, and in December that year he brought to
GARBO
’s notice an organisation known as the ‘Brothers in the Aryan World Order’. This was composed of a number of fanatical Welsh Nationalists who had long ago abandoned the too moderate Welsh Nationalist Party. From this ‘Order’ no less than six operative agents were recruited who played an important role in implementing the cover plan for
OVERLORD
.

Agent No 7 thus became head of one of
GARBO
’s sub-
organisations
until July 1944, when, shaken by the arrest of Agent No 7(5), a member of his network, he decided to return to the Merchant Navy. This did not result in his breaking with the network, for he offered to continue to serve
GARBO
to the best of his ability in his new employment.

He was responsible for hiding Agent No 4 after the latter had exposed himself to the danger of arrest. He later succeeded in
smuggling
this same agent to Canada.

He found a safe hideout for
GARBO
in South Wales after his
activities
had brought him to the notice of the British authorities. Finally, he operated as courier on the North Atlantic route, facilitating the clandestine communications exchanged between the
GARBO
network in the UK and his Canadian network.

The 9th Armoured Division, frequently referred to in the traffic as the Panda Division (since its insignia was that of a panda) was built up as a first line formation by the
GARBO
organisation at the time of Operation
STARKEY
. The Germans took a lively interest in the activities of this Division. The association of the words ‘panda’ and ‘panzer’ seemed to register in German minds. They were prepared to accept this Division as a likely assault division for the Second Front.

In the absence of a directive, we built up the potential of the 9th Armoured Division until January 1944, after which period it was allowed to fade out since the plans then revealed that it was not among those Divisions which were to be used in the order of battle of
FORTITUDE
SOUTH
. In fact, it never operated in France and was disbanded.

He was introduced to the
GARBO
organisation by Agent No 7 as a seaman who had left the sea seven years previously. He was a
fanatical
Welshman who had left the Welsh Nationalist Party to form the ‘Brothers in the Aryan World Order’.

This agent started to report in January 1944 and was given the important area of Dover and district to cover during the period of build-up for the
FORTITUDE SOUTH
deception. He continued to operate from there until August 1944. He then travelled around the country for
GARBO
to obtain military reports and continued to be an important source until VE Day.