The Spy with 29 Names (23 page)

Garbo had not had any contact with Fred since earlier in May, when the former Chislehurst-cave digger now working for the army canteen staff had been given twenty-four hours’ leave. After a meeting with his spy chief, he had returned to his job at the military’s Hiltingbury Camp, on the south coast, to which all communications with the outside world were closed.

On the night of 5–6 June, however, Fred suddenly and unexpectedly reappeared with vital fresh information. Garbo’s message told the Germans what Fred had said, without spelling out what exactly it meant. They could work that out for themselves.

The text read as follows:

Still no word from 3(3)
[the Greek sailor in Scotland]
but meanwhile Four
[Fred]
has hastened to London having broken camp together with two American deserters who had arrived in the camp last Sunday. Discovering the plans of the two men he decided to join them in view of the important news which he would otherwise have been unable to communicate in view of the complete sealing of the camps for the last week. En route he tried to communicate by telephone, using the password prepared in case of emergency, but found that only official calls were being accepted. He therefore continued his journey clandestinely to London in order to report to me personally. He arrived after a difficult journey created by the steps he took to slip through the local vigilance. He states that he wrote to me three days ago announcing anew the distribution of cold rations and vomit bags, etc. to the Third Canadian Division. This letter has not yet reached me due to the delay in the mail. Today he says that after the Third Canadian Division had left Americans came in, rumours having reached him that the Third Canadian Division had embarked. The American troops which are now in the camp are a mixed formation belonging to the 1st US Army. The two Americans who escaped with him through fear of embarking belonged to 926 Signals Corps.

On reading this, Kühlenthal could have no doubt. The references to ‘cold rations’ and ‘vomit bags’ made it clear that the Allied forces camped in southern England were on the move and already sailing for France. D-Day, the beginning of the Second Front, was under way.

By 0300 British and US airborne troops were already fighting German troops in Normandy at the eastern and western end of the invasion area. Meanwhile, out to sea, minesweepers were clearing a path for the thousands of vessels now waiting over the horizon.

As Alaric, Pujol had earlier encrypted the message and given it to the Widow to hand on to Agent 4(1), the Radio Operator, to be transmitted to the Germans at the agreed time. In reality, Pujol, Harris, Tar and Hesketh stood around at 35 Crespigny Road as Charlie Haines tapped out the calling signal to Madrid. They were on time, the agreement had been made. At the other end, Kühlenthal and his radio man would be listening.

The Garbo team waited, but there was silence. Haines tried again, but still no answer.

‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Normally Fritzy answers right away.’

The five men were puzzled. They had thought the whole thing through so carefully, and had depended on German efficiency and punctuality to allow them to pass the vital message over.

‘I’ll try again in fifteen minutes,’ Haines said.

After a quarter of an hour, however, there was still silence at the other end. Then after half an hour and an hour as well. Whatever they had agreed, there was no one in Madrid to hear their momentous news.

Whether they were out drinking in the late-night bars of the Spanish capital or had simply gone to bed, the Germans had lost their chance to hear a calculated pre-warning of the Overlord invasion.

As a German spy, Garbo was outraged. How on earth could his own side have let him down like this?

As a British double agent, however, Pujol, along with Harris and the others, was delighted. Not only would the Allied troops now land with total surprise on the Normandy beaches, but Garbo could still tell his German masters that he had tried to warn them.

The element of surprise for Overlord had been protected, Kühlenthal would be shamefaced, and Garbo could bask in the glory of being the only German agent who had known the truth about D-Day.

Kühlenthal was not going to miss a single message in the future.

The set-up for the next few days was perfect.

AS PUJOL AND
Harris caught a few hours’ sleep in Hendon, 150 miles to the south, ‘the most complex and daring military operation in the history of modern warfare’ finally got under way.

To the east of the designated landing areas the British 6th Airborne Division successfully attacked and held bridges north of Caen over the River Orne and Caen Canal, strategically vital to hold up any German counter-attacks on that flank. The US 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions performed a similar, if more chaotic, operation to the west, carrying out a large-scale parachute drop in the Cotentin peninsula. Then, at 0630, came H-Hour – the moment of the first landings. Amphibious craft carried infantrymen of the US 1st Army to the beaches of Utah and Omaha, their arrival timed to avoid German mines and defences exposed by the low water tide. An hour later, British and Canadian troops from the British 2nd Army began landing further east at Gold, Juno and Sword beaches.

Four years had passed since the evacuation from Dunkirk. In that time the sea had helped impede any German invasion of Britain. Now, however, the same defensive advantage had to be overcome to stage an attack in the other direction.

There was much heavy fighting and loss of life as over 150,000 men poured over the Channel in a vast armada. As many as 3,000 Allied
soldiers were killed, many from the 1st US Infantry Division landing at ‘bloody’ Omaha, and the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, which ran into heavy resistance at Juno. Elsewhere, on the beaches of Utah, Gold and Sword things went relatively well for the Allies, although the British, pushing inland, were unable to capture the nearby city of Caen – one of their main objectives for the day. That failure would cost them heavily over the coming weeks, but Eisenhower and the Allied commanders could be satisfied that by midnight on the first day the five invasion beaches – precious toeholds in the sand – had been secured.

German casualties were high as well that day – perhaps even double those of the invaders. Yet despite offering pockets of determined resistance, the Wehrmacht failed to launch a decisive counter-attack against the Allies before nightfall. In some cases it was down to luck, but the inability of the Germans to coordinate a proper defence strategy owed much to Garbo and the Allied deception plan as a whole, serving to confuse the enemy as to what was actually happening on the day. The vast majority of Allied soldiers were unaware of the umbrella of deception that was easing their progress against the enemy, but Fortitude was already paying important dividends.

Rommel, the man whose presence in France could have made a difference, had only arrived in southern Germany the evening before. He was informed early in the morning that the landings had begun: General Hans Speidel, his deputy, called him once the sightings of the invasion fleet had finally been confirmed. Confusion reigned as to what exactly was happening, however. Others in the German military were reporting at that very moment that the Allies were invading but that the attack was coming in the Pas-de-Calais area.

‘How stupid of me. How stupid of me,’ Rommel said quietly into the phone.

Ending his call with Speidel, he quickly rang through to Berchtesgaden to cancel his meeting with Hitler, and raced outside, where his car was waiting for him. It would take him most of the day to get back to his command post. As tremendous events unfolded in Normandy, he had to sit in the back of an open-top car, uninformed and unable to issue orders.

Rommel was not the only commander crucially absent from the scene, however. Others had seen the bad-weather reports and decided
it was the right moment to take some leave. The nearest armoured division to the Normandy beaches was the 21st Panzer, led by General Edgar Feuchtinger. Close to Hitler and the Nazi party, Feuchtinger had had no combat experience before D-Day and owed his position to his political connections. On 5–6 June he was away from his post, having travelled to Paris to entertain a mistress. When, crucially, his tanks might have rattled the nascent invasion force, he was not in a position to give orders.

Problems on the German side went beyond absent commanders. Arguments over strategies for dealing with the Allies meant that there was no coordinated plan. General Geyr von Schweppenburg insisted on allowing the enemy to land and establish a footing, effectively drawing them in, before launching a full-scale counter-attack, using all the armoured units available.

Meanwhile Rommel countered that they had to be stopped in the first hours or days of landing. They could not be allowed to get a toehold because once they pushed inland their control of the skies (what remained of the Luftwaffe at this stage was concentrated in Germany, defending the country against Allied bombing raids) would make it difficult for German armoured units to move about unscathed. The Panzer formations, with their powerful tanks and superior equipment, had to be sent in quickly, he said, to deal with any threat.

That Rommel was convinced the early stages of the invasion would be crucial made it particularly ironic – and fortunate for the Allies – that he was away when the landing actually began.

Neither side had won in this dispute: neither Geyr nor Rommel’s reasoning had prevailed. In the end Hitler himself decided to take control of the armoured Panzer divisions – the units that would make the difference in the battle for France. No one could deploy them anywhere without his approval.

What with the Germans’ misreading of the weather, disputes over strategy and a confused command structure, the Allies already enjoyed some much-needed advantages on 6 June. The deception plan of Fortitude South – convincing the Germans that the main attack was going to come over the Pas-de-Calais – was the crucial added ingredient.

As reports – often confused and contradictory – flooded into von Rundstedt’s headquarters at St Germain-en-Laye in the early morning
hours, the head of the German forces in the west issued an order: the two Panzer units near the Normandy beaches, the Panzer Lehr and the 12th SS Hitler Youth Division, were to move at once towards the invasion zone to repel the Allies.

It went against Hitler’s instructions that only
he
could order the armoured reserves to move. No matter, von Rundstedt reasoned. Give the order now and later they could get clearance from Hitler and High Command, currently based in Berchtesgaden with the Führer.

Von Rundstedt sent a message explaining what he had done. ‘If [the Panzer Lehr and 12th SS Panzer divisions] assemble quickly and get an early start they can enter the battle on the coast during the day.’

It was still early and the Führer was asleep. Not only that, his underlings refused to waken him, despite the fact that his forces were now fighting the largest amphibious invasion force in the history of warfare. Furthermore, from Berchtesgaden, Colonel-General Jodl of High Command, who had woken by this point and seen the message from France, called back to insist that the Panzer reserves could not be moved. Von Rundstedt’s order had to be rescinded immediately and the tanks stopped. Jodl even rang von Rundstedt personally to make sure that his word got through.

The field marshal did as he was told: the armoured units were halted.

Other commanders in France came to the same conclusion as von Rundstedt and tried to free up the Panzer divisions over the course of the morning, all with the same result. Adolf Hitler was still sleeping, and no, the armoured reserves could not be deployed.

‘Why?’ came the call.

The word from Berchtesgaden was unequivocal. Those on the ground were in ‘no position to judge’. High Command enjoyed a clearer view, could see the bigger picture. Normandy was only a sideshow.

‘The main landing was going to come at an entirely different place.’

And besides, only the Führer could make the decision.

When, finally, he woke, late in the morning, Hitler was informed of the developments in France. His first reaction was one of glee.

‘It couldn’t be better,’ he said. ‘As long as they were in Britain we couldn’t get at them. Now we have them where we can destroy them.’

It was time to review the situation and start issuing orders. He
was pleased that Jodl had countermanded von Rundstedt’s decision to send in the Panzer Lehr and Hitler Youth divisions.

Word from military intelligence assured him even further that the right decision had been made. Colonel Alexis Baron von Rönne, the head of Fremde Heere West (FHW), whose job it was to assess the Allies’ military capabilities, sent a report through for Hitler’s midday conference.

‘While the Anglo-Saxon enemy landing on the Normandy coast represents a large-scale operation,’ von Rönne wrote, ‘the forces employed comprise only a relatively small portion of the [Allied forces available]. Of the sixty divisions held in southern England only ten to twelve . . . appear to be participating so far . . . Not a single unit of the First United States Army Group [FUSAG] . . . has so far been committed.’

As far as the Germans were concerned, Patton, the Allied general they most feared, was not taking part in the events in Normandy. He was still in Dover with his superior troops waiting for his moment to cross over to Calais. Operation Fortitude was paying important dividends.

Finally, after lunching with the Hungarian prime minister, at 1500 hours, over nine hours after the first Allied soldiers landed on the beaches, Hitler gave word: the Panzer divisions in Normandy – the Panzer Lehr and 12th SS Hitler Youth – could move in and attack the invasion force. It was precisely what commanders in France had been pleading for since first light.

It was too late to inflict significant damage that day. But the Allies had only just made it onto land and were still highly vulnerable.