Authors: Ben Macintyre
Tags: #General, #Psychology, #Europe, #History, #Great Britain, #20th Century, #Political Freedom & Security, #Intelligence, #Political Freedom & Security - Intelligence, #Political Science, #Espionage, #Modern, #World War, #1939-1945, #Military, #Italy, #Naval, #World War II, #Secret service, #Sicily (Italy), #Deception, #Military - World War II, #War, #History - Military, #Military - Naval, #Military - 20th century, #World War; 1939-1945, #Deception - Spain - Atlantic Coast - History - 20th century, #Naval History - World War II, #Ewen, #Military - Intelligence, #World War; 1939-1945 - Secret service - Great Britain, #Sicily (Italy) - History; Military - 20th century, #1939-1945 - Secret service - Great Britain, #Atlantic Coast (Spain), #1939-1945 - Spain - Atlantic Coast, #1939-1945 - Campaigns - Italy - Sicily, #Intelligence Operations, #Deception - Great Britain - History - 20th century, #Atlantic Coast (Spain) - History, #Montagu, #Atlantic Coast (Spain) - History; Military - 20th century, #Sicily (Italy) - History, #World War; 1939-1945 - Campaigns - Italy - Sicily, #Operation Mincemeat, #Montagu; Ewen, #World War; 1939-1945 - Spain - Atlantic Coast
The most crucial element of the letter was the last paragraph, clearly indicating that the assault on which Martin would advise was to be on the home of the sardine. Operation Brimstone, therefore, must be aimed at Sardinia. It was, Montagu admitted, a “laboured”
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witticism. Like many Britons, Montagu found the German sense of humor somewhat leaden. “I thought that that sort of joke
50
would appeal to the Germans.”
The Germans might or might not be amused, but would they be taken in? This second letter contained some dangerous flaws. It appeared to indicate that Mountbatten knew the contents of Nye’s letter which, in reality, was exceedingly unlikely. Would the chief of Combined Operations have needed to explain why the information was not being sent by cable? The sardines joke smelled fishy. Louis Mountbatten was a member of the royal family and hardly constrained by rationing. If anyone could get sardines whenever he wanted them, it was surely Lord Louis. The reference looked dangerously like an artificial attempt to crowbar the word “sardines” into the letter.
There was one final letter to add to the cache. This had no military significance whatsoever and was included, literally, to make weight. If Martin was carrying only two letters, he would most probably have put them in an inside pocket for safety. But in that case, they might be overlooked by the Spanish or Germans, as had happened with the body of Lieutenant Turner in 1942: “Papers actually on the body
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would run a grave risk of never being found at all due to the Roman Catholic prejudice against tampering with corpses.” An attaché case would be much harder to miss, but if Martin were to carry a briefcase, then he would need something bulkier than a couple of letters to put in it. Hilary Saunders, the House of Commons librarian and the husband of Montagu’s colleague Joan Saunders, had just written a pamphlet on the history of the Commandos, a tub-thumping story of derring-do to boost public morale. It was decided that in addition to the other letters, Martin’s attaché case would contain proofs of this worthy book, together with another letter from Mountbatten, asking General Eisenhower to write a blurb for the American edition.
In reply quote: S.R. 1989/43
Combined Operations Headquarters
1A Richmond Terrace
Whitehall, S.W.1
22nd April
Dear General,
I am sending you herewith two copies of the pamphlet which has been prepared describing the activities of my Command; I have also enclosed copies of the photographs which are to be included in the pamphlet.
The book has been written by Hilary St. George Saunders, the English author of Battle of Britain, Bomber Command, and other pamphlets which have had a great success both in this country and in yours.
The edition which is to be published in the States has already enjoyed pre-publication sales of nearly a million and a half, and I understand the American authorities will distribute the book widely throughout the U.S. Army.
I understand from the British Information Service in Washington that they would like a ‘message’ from you for use in the advertising for the pamphlet, and that they have asked you direct, through Washington, for such a message.
I am sending the proofs by hand of my Staff Officer, Major W. Martin of the Royal Marines. I need not say how honoured we shall all be if you will give such a message. I fully realise what a lot is being asked of you at a time when you are so fully occupied with infinitely more important matters. But I hope you may find a few minutes’ time to provide the pamphlet with an expression of your invaluable approval so that it will be read widely and given every chance to bring its message of co-operation to our two peoples.
We are watching your splendid progress with admiration and pleasure and all wish we could be with you.
You may speak freely to Major Martin in this as well as any other matters since he has my entire confidence.
Yours sincerely,
Louis Mounbatten
General Dwight Eisenhower
Allied Forces H.Q.
Algiers
Both letters were written on the same typewriter and signed by Mountbatten himself, who was told the letters were needed for a secret mission. The only element now missing was the seal of approval from on high.
At ten thirty in the morning on April 13, the Chiefs of Staff Committee gathered for its seventy-sixth meeting. Presided over by the chief of the Imperial General Staff, the first sea lord, and the chief of the Air Staff, the committee included eight other senior officers from the different services. Item 10 on the agenda was Operation Mincemeat. The letters were approved, and Lieutenant General Sir Hastings “Pug” Ismay was told to inform Johnnie Bevan of the decision, with instructions to make an appointment with the prime minister in order to obtain final approval for the operation to commence. Ismay dropped Churchill a note, advising him that “the Chiefs of Staff have approved,
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subject to your consent, a somewhat startling cover plan in connection with HUSKY. May the Controlling officer see you for five minutes within the next day or two, to explain what is proposed?” The note came back with “yes” scrawled in Churchill’s hand. “10.15 on Thursday.”
Two days later, Bevan found himself sitting on Winston Churchill’s bed and explaining Operation Mincemeat to a prime minister wearing his pajamas and dressing gown and puffing on a large cigar. Large wine cellars that had once served a stately home opposite St. James’s Park had been transformed into a fortified network of chambers, tunnels, offices, and dormitories known as the Cabinet War Rooms, the operational nerve center. Above the War Rooms was the No. 10 Annexe, including the private flat where Churchill usually slept. Britain’s wartime prime minister tended to work late, whisky in hand, and rise at a commensurate hour.
Bevan had arrived for the meeting in full uniform, at ten o’clock sharp. “To my surprise I was ushered
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into his bedroom in the annexe where I found him in bed smoking a cigar. He was surrounded with papers and black and red cabinet boxes.” Churchill loved deception plans, the more startling the better, and relished the seamy, glamorous trade of espionage. “In the higher ranges of Secret Service
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work, the actual facts of many cases were in every respect equal to the most fantastic inventions of romance and melodrama,” Churchill wrote after the war.
Bevan handed over a single sheet of foolscap paper outlining the plan, and Churchill read it through. Bevan felt he had better say something: “Of course there’s a possibility
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that the Spaniards might find out this dead man was in fact not drowned at all from a crashed aircraft, but was a gardener in Wales who’s killed himself with weed-killer.” Bevan had left the details to Montagu and Cholmondeley and now found himself trying to explain the pathology of chemical poisoning to a prime minister in his nightwear, and scrambling the facts in the process. “Weed-killer goes into the lungs
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and is very difficult to diagnose,” he bluffed. “Apparently it would take you three weeks to a month just to find out what it was.”
Churchill “took much interest”
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in the scheme, so much so that Bevan felt obliged to warn him that it could go spectacularly wrong. “I pointed out that there
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was of course a chance that the plan might miscarry and that we would be found out. Furthermore that the body might never get washed up or that if it did, the Spaniards might hand it over to the local British authority without having taken the crucial papers.”
The prime minister’s response was characteristically pithy. “In that case, we shall
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have to get the body back and give it another swim.”
Churchill was on board. But he had one stipulation: before Operation Mincemeat could go ahead, agreement must be obtained from General Eisenhower, whose invasion of Sicily would be profoundly affected by its success or failure. Leaving Churchill to finish his cigar in bed, Bevan returned to the London Controlling Section offices and dashed off a “Most Secret Cypher Telegram,” under the code name “Chaucer,” to Eisenhower at Advance Headquarters in Algiers. The response arrived within hours: “General Eisenhower gives full
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approval MINCEMEAT.”
CHAPTER TEN
Table-Tennis Traitor
T
HERE WAS DISCREET REJOICING
among the handful of people privy to the secret. Montagu’s dark mood lifted: “I get more and more optimistic,”
1
he told Iris. “We ought, by the time
2
you get this, to have exposed Hitler’s weak spot (Italy) to attack and the Ities ought not to last too much longer.” Astonishingly, this overt reference to war plans passed the censor. “Mincemeat is in the making,”
3
Guy Liddell, MI5’s head of counterespionage, wrote in his secret diary. “Plan Mincemeat has been approved
4
by the prime minister. The documents are extremely well faked.”
Liddell was in overall command of “B” Section, that branch of the Security Service dedicated to rooting out enemy spies and suspected agents: he monitored defectors, suspect refugees, Nazi agents, double agents, Soviet sympathizers, and, among many others, Ivor Montagu. For while the Hon. Ewen was about to launch a most elaborate feat of espionage, concern about the behavior of the Hon. Ivor had been steadily growing within both MI5 and MI6.
In May 1942, MI5 noted that Ivor was “in close touch with many Russians
5
in this country, including members of the embassy, the Trade Delegation and the TASS [news] agency.” Agents introduced into the audience during antiwar rallies, at which Ivor was a regular speaker, reported that he was “an incurable anti-nationalist.”
6
One P. Wimsey (possibly his real name) filed a report stating that on December 16, 1942, Ivor Montagu addressed a meeting of the Friends of the Soviet Union and stated that “facilities for sport were far greater
7
in Russia than in England.” Ivor was spotted having lunch with Constantine Zinchenko, second secretary at the Soviet embassy, and consorting with “men of decidedly foreign
8
appearance, possibly Russian.” A minor scare was set off when he was seen hanging around a secret Royal Observer Corps installation in Watford, but the informant added that he “did not think Montagu would get
9
anything secret unless he got inside the station.” Given “his association with the Russians
10
in this country,” MI5 concluded that “any information of importance that came into his possession would undoubtedly be passed on.” Mr. Aiken Sneath (again, surely, a name too implausible not to be real) informed MI5, without producing any evidence, that Montagu was “an active Fifth Columnist.”
11
His neighbors were encouraged to spy on him. They reported that “he is always very keen
12
to listen to the foreign news” on the radio and “has a wooden hut
13
at the bottom of the garden and it is well stocked with books.”
In 1940, Ivor had applied for a travel permit to visit the USSR as a journalist accredited to the
Daily Worker
. The application was turned down at the urging of MI5. “It does not seem desirable
14
to allow the Communist Party to have a courier travelling from this country to Moscow. … A Communist Party member of his standing should not be allowed to leave the country. It is one thing to allow the Daily Worker to conduct its war propaganda in this country, but it is another thing to give such a newspaper special facilities for sending correspondents abroad for the purpose of facilitating propaganda.” Ivor complained about his failed application to a left-wing MP, who raised the matter in Parliament, demanding to know “whether this refusal is
15
personal to Mr Montagu, whether I should be allowed to go, or whether it indicates hostility to Russia?”
Ivor had openly and vehemently opposed the war, but once the Soviet Union was locked in battle with Germany he had declared his willingness to fight. “I myself have registered
16
and am ready to join up and I hope if I get in shall make a ruddy good soldier,” he told the Woolwich-Plumstead branch of the Anti-war Congress, words that were immediately channeled back to MI5. Ivor was called up in 1941, but his call-up papers were immediately rescinded, it being “most undesirable that he should
17
be allowed to serve in HM armed forces.”