X, Y & Z

by Dermot Turing

  As for Gustave Bertrand, nobody actually knew who he was working for. He wanted the Poles and the British to believe it was for the Allied cause, with liaison via Dunderdale. The Vichy régime generally did not know what it wanted, but from time to time it needed to put on a show of hostility to Britain, particularly when it came to colonial affairs. Since it was Vichy ministers who paid Bertrand’s bills, he needed them to believe he was working for them. In fact nobody, not his superiors at Vichy, nor Gwido Langer, nor Biffy Dunderdale, knew very much about Gustave Bertrand at all.

  • • •

  Bertrand did not keep a regular schedule. He would disappear to Vichy. He had a flat on the south coast and he was living in Nîmes rather than at the château. Periodically, Bertrand would have Maurice drive him to the station, from where he would take a train north. On these occasions, he might be absent for several days.

  When he travelled through France as Monsieur Barsac, Bertrand was, for these purposes, a parfumier’s salesman, visiting Paris. A real parfumier friend furnished him with the what-have-you for a whiff of credibility. The fake perfume merchant’s first actual task was to salvage the Enigma replicas from the Bélin factory. The engineering had been completed but there had been no opportunity to take delivery before the Germans invaded. So, using a variety of false names and laissez-passer documents, Bertrand would take the train across the demarcation line and secrete bits and pieces of precision engineering about his person for the return journey. There was, however, a more mysterious purpose to some of Bertrand’s visits. At some point, while Bertrand was having a nice meal at Maxim’s, Paris’s famous restaurant (his excuse for this indulgence was that it was a good place to observe the ‘gentlemen of the Wehrmacht’), he struck up an acquaintance with a German spy called Max. The purpose of these rendezvous was to furnish Bertrand with details of what the Germans were up to. For Max was well placed, working in the German Embassy in Paris. In his account, Bertrand says he never knew Max’s other name, a claim that seems rather implausible, since Bertrand began a series of meetings with Max, many of which took place in Max’s own office. Bertrand was probably being discreet and cooked up the meal at Maxim’s as a convenient cover story. Among other favours, Max smoothed Bertrand’s passage across the line, once even booking him (Enigma parts and all) into the compartment reserved for diplomats travelling between Paris and Vichy.37

  The liaisons with Max were not just for the frisson of visits to the enemy’s headquarters. The Service de Renseignements already had a mole in the German Embassy, called (or codenamed) Bodo, an Austrian spy landed by Rex in 1935 who had become part of the German Embassy establishment after the annexure of Austria.38 Bodo, or Max (who may be one and the same), was able to provide an inside view not available from any other source, which was relayed straight back to London over the radio link provided by Dunderdale. London rated the information ‘especially useful’.39 Yet, Bertrand’s behaviour was not unambiguously pro-British. On the wall at the château there were portraits of Pétain and Darlan, hardly necessary as a show in a farmhouse which was never – they fervently hoped – going to be visited by anyone checking on its occupants’ political correctness. And Bertrand was still trying to make the X-Y-Z relationship a bargain rather than an alliance. In his eyes, the British should not have been given the Enigma for free, and they should continue to pay for it.

  • • •

  Bertrand the magician had made people appear. On his visits to the occupied North, he could also make people disappear. This was harder, even impossible, but doing the impossible is the stock-in-trade of magicians. Since the evacuation to Britain, Major Jan Żychoń had been running the Intelligence Department in General Sikorski’s London-based General Staff.40 It was with Żychoń that Gwido Langer communicated when direction from Headquarters was needed: ‘Janio’ was the principal contact. Also in London, in charge of Polish naval intelligence, was Brunon Jabloński, who also served as Żychoń’s number two. Bertrand was to whisk the wives of these two Poles out from under the noses of the Germans in the Zone Occupée.

  1°. Following the personal request of [Dunderdale], B. has done the impossible to extract Madame ZYCHON and her friend Madame JABLONSKA from the Zone Occupée. 2°. Madame Z refused to leave … before being sure that her husband was in the Zone Libre. Madame J has arrived all right and asks for news and instructions from her husband. 3°. With extreme priority desire advice of Monsieur Z. on next steps for departure of his wife and response of Monsieur J.41

  Disappearing acts were not easy and they were outside Bertie’s area of expertise. He was also being asked to extricate Polish agents across Spain to Lisbon. Arranging some iffy paperwork, through sympathetic contacts in the Vichy régime, was usually not too hard: Bertie had been buying documentation for years. But setting up the transport and logistics was not his métier. Later on, Bertrand’s powers of exfiltration would be put to a more serious test.

  In the summer of 1941, though, the Vichy government was putting pressure on Bertrand that called upon all his fine qualities of psychology and diplomacy. He had to slip, eel-like, past the Germans, pacify the Poles and convince the British to keep faith. The Vichy régime itself was in disarray, needing to be alternately soothed and ignored. When the British attacked the French colonies – always the sensitive spot where Vichy pride was concerned – in Syria on 8 June 1941, that must surely be the end of Bertie’s love affair with MI6? Not at all. A few days later Bertrand fired off a petulant telegram to Dunderdale with a litany of complaints, demanding the Enigma keys solved by the British since 23 May, and, in case Biffy was worried, underlining that the Bertrand organisation was out of range for the Gestapo and totally secure. The British prepared a disingenuous reply to Bertie’s complaint: nothing since 23 May, the only method available was the Bombe. How much Bertie knew about British successes with the Bombes, which were just coming into their own, is unclear, but with hindsight it must have seemed a terrible mistake to have allowed him into the secret. If anyone with knowledge about successful techniques for breaking Enigma should be captured by the Germans … the most comprehensive source of reliable intelligence could dry up overnight. Bertrand being at large in enemy territory could send a chill draught through the summer corridors of MI6.42

  It is difficult to assess the motives of Bertrand, who always played his hand with subtlety and guile. Certainly he impressed his superior Louis Rivet, whose reports of Bertrand included comments such as ‘fine qualities of psychology and diplomacy’, ‘constantly alert’, ‘hard-working and persistent’, ‘superior officer of integrity and exceptional worth’, and so on.43 For their part, the British were never sure whether there was something else. A telling remark comes from a certain Kim Philby, himself no stranger to deception, who reported to his control in Moscow that ‘Dunderdale’s direct contact is Commandant Bertrand, a fat unpleasant character, as silent as an oyster.’44

  Across Europe, as in France, everyone was deceiving somebody else. The greatest deception of all had now been revealed for what it was: the pretence of amity between Nazi Germany and the USSR. Although Stalin refused to believe the evidence of German troops amassing on the Curzon Line, he could not ignore the invasion which began on Sunday 22 June 1941. Operation BARBAROSSA proved that the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact had, indeed, been nothing more than a cipher and now both of Kim Philby’s paymasters were fighting the Germans. Germany and Russia – the two great enemies of Poland – were at each other’s throats. Only time would tell how Poland herself would emerge from yet another superpower conflict being fought out on her own soil.

  9

  A MYSTERY INSIDE AN ENIGMA

  I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key.

  Winston S. Churchill

  Broadcast, 1 October 1939

  Among the Poles who had escaped to Britain from the fall of France in 1940 was a small team of code-breakers. Not everyone from the old Biuro Szyfrów
had fallen into the clutches of Gustave Bertrand. Bertrand had been more interested in those from the parts of the bureau dealing with Enigma than those responsible for monitoring the USSR, so only a few Russian-specialists had ended up in his Équipe Z.

  In August 1940, Colonel Kazimierz Banach of the Polish General Staff commissioned a paper on the capabilities of his own Russian-specialists. The stolid British became almost excited at the prospect of their very own Équipe Z.

  2nd September, 1940. The organisation of an interception station for U.S.S.R. Military and Air information is most important … We have 4 Polish W/T [wireless telegraphy] operators for reception purposes and 2 specialists for decoding.

  5th. September, 1940. I cannot understand why we have not been told of them before. These and any other Polish operators with interception experience ought to be made available to us at once … It is questionable whether the decoding expert mentioned would be of any use to us, but we certainly ought to see him.

  5th October, 1940. We have now had an opportunity of seeing what the Polish party have done, and feel that use could be made of them in interception of Russian work …

  23rd. November, 1940. If they could furnish us with their cypher knowledge in exchange for which we could furnish ours … As we intercept no military material we can send the Poles copies of naval intercepts …

  4th. December, 1940. The Polish D.M.I. [Director of Military Intelligence] agrees to allow Dower House to be used for:- (a) W/T Interception of Russian (b) Cryptography by Poles (c) Billeting accommodation for intercept operators and cryptographers …1

  The Dower House in question was in Stanmore, on the north-western outskirts of London, a place which was to become the nerve centre of Polish activities contributing radio-related intelligence and engineering skill to the Allied war effort.

  The Poles say they have available about 8 trained operators, and they are quite willing to be guided and instructed and put these operators at our disposal but as an organised Polish body working under our instructions, wherever we may desire … A.4. [Dunderdale] 16.5.41.

  Commander Travis [Number 2 at Bletchley Park] It seems curious that we should turn down this Polish offer completely when U.S.S.R may be involved in hostilities at any moment … SM [Stuart Menzies] 20/5.2

  The British authorities did not turn down the offer and soon a satisfying relationship developed between Bletchley Park and the Polish Russian unit at Stanmore, led by Czesław Kuraś, who had originally been recruited by the Signals Corps in Poland in 1923. Kuraś had been reactivated from the reserves on the eve of the war and evacuated to Britain in 1940.3

  Sir Stewart Menzies, now head of MI6, was right to expect hostilities beween German and Russia at any time. Enigma decrypts coming from Bletchley Park indicated that German forces were massing along the Curzon Line in Poland, the demarcation agreed between Molotov and Ribbentrop two years before.4 Now, it seemed, Czesław Kuraś’s country was going to be the scene of further conflict and devastation. Never had the need for an understanding of what both Germany and Russia were doing been greater. Only Joseph Stalin seemed to be in denial. No preparations were being made to meet the assault. The Downing Street diarist John Colville recorded Churchill’s thoughts on Saturday 21 June 1941, the day before the Germans launched their attack.

  The P.M. says a German attack on Russia is certain and Russia will assuredly be defeated. He thinks that Hitler is counting on enlisting capitalist and right-wing sympathies in this country and the U.S. The P.M. says he is wrong: he will go all out to help Russia … After dinner, [he said] that he had only one single purpose – the destruction of Hitler – and his life was much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell he would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil!5

  Churchill’s simplified view might be fine for British foreign policy. The USSR was a long way away and Britain was not under Russian occupation. From a Polish perspective, the political line to take was not so straightforward. There was, however, one immediate consequence of BARBAROSSA, Hitler’s offensive in the East. The monitoring of Russian encrypted radio traffic had to come to a halt. According to a footnote in the official History of British Intelligence in the Second World War:

  All work on Russian codes and cyphers was stopped from 22 June 1941, the day on which Germany attacked Russia, except that, to meet the need for daily appreciations of the weather on the eastern front, the Russian meteorological cypher was read again for a period beginning in October 1942.6

  That, indeed, was the official story.

  • • •

  General Władysław Sikorski had foreseen the realignment of politics which would be imposed if Germany were to attack the USSR. It would be a rash person who questioned Sikorski’s patriotism, but the fact is that he was born and educated in what was (before the Great War) Austrian-controlled Poland. Sentiments tended to follow pre-independence lines: if you came from Warsaw or eastern Poland, it was self-evident that the Germans were less ghastly than the Russians, and if you came from the German or Austrian partitions, the Russians were clearly the lesser evil. For Sikorski, a deal with the Russians against Nazi Germany – whose evil march swiftly pushed the Russians right out beyond the 1939 borders of Poland – was a pragmatic thing to do. Diplomatic relations should be restored and Polish soldiers held as prisoners of war in Russia since 1939 should be re-constituted as a new Polish Army under General Władysław Anders and set to fight against the Germans. Moreover, such a deal would be welcomed by the British. Without agreeing to a Polish-Soviet pact, Poland’s only government might collapse into irrelevance.

  Still, a remarkable exercise of leadership was needed to convince the fractious, multi-party government-in-exile that it was safe and sensible to treat with the Russians, particularly if the question of Poland’s eastern border was not part of the deal. By 30 July 1941, the majority of the Polish Governing Council were won over. The intractables resigned and Sikorski signed the pact. The Downing Street insider, John Colville, wrote in his diary:

  Was present at the signing of the Russo-Polish treaty … against a background of spotlights and a foreground of cameramen by the P.M., Eden [British Foreign Secretary], Sikorski and Maisky [USSR Ambassador to Britain], while a bust of the Younger Pitt looked down, rather disapprovingly I thought. Although this treaty abrogates the Soviet-German treaty of 1939, and leaves the frontier question unsettled, it has caused a lot of Polish heart-burning, including, I believe, the resignation of the President. To a Pole, a Russian has no advantages over a German – and history makes this very understandable.

  Now that, officially, Britain, the USSR and, apparently, Poland, were all on the same side, what was going to become of the Polish station at Stanmore, which was only just getting into gear? Russia was still a riddle, a mystery, an enigma. An ally of convenience. So the theory that the British cryptanalytic struggle must come to an end now that the USSR and Britain were on the same side was exactly that – a theory. Certainly, the official file of the GC&CS has nothing more in it after 2 September 1941. And yet, ‘In the autumn of [1941] the English stopped their USSR-directed interception, and put its entire burden on our cell in Stanmore.’7 The Stanmore code-breakers – the old ally which had been invaded in 1939 by the new one – were going to continue listening to the secret thoughts of their unpredictable, perfidious neighbour. And they were going to share those thoughts with the British, who would maintain the glossy appearance of having discontinued such underhand practices.

  • • •

  The Eastern Front was also being watched at PC Cadix. Bletchley was breaking into Enigma messages using the ‘Method Kx’ and forwarding the settings to Bertrand. One area of study agreed for the Poles of Ekspozytura 300 was ‘German Police’. In the Nazi state the police had many roles. As the panzers dieselled irresistibly eastwards, there was ‘clearing up’ to be done in the rear. This task fell to the SS Police Division, whose signals were being followed by the code-breakers of Uzès, but not at Bletchley Park. In the absenc
e of Major Ciężki in North Africa, it fell to Wiktor Michałowski to prepare the digests of the intercepts for Dunderdale, and via him, to John Tiltman at Bletchley Park. The dispassionate military drafting style could not disguise what was happening in western Ukraine:

  SS Kavbrigade: 27.8.41. stationed at STARE DORCJO, 2.9.41 DOBRUJSK. General task, the cleaning up of the PRYPEC MARSHES and Forests along the DOBRUJSK-MOHYLOW highway … the 2nd. Regt. on 21.8.41 after a bloody battle captured TUROW 40km. east of DAWIDGRODKA, levelling this town as well as other places to the ground like Kollektivmasnahme [collective reprisal] … Up to 3.8.41. the Kavbrigade liquidated 3,274 partisans and Jews.

  The next day’s digest reported on the activities of an SS brigade in Belarus, some miles east of Pinsk:

  The following items figure in the list of results achieved by the above unit:

  26.8. – 46 prisoners, capture of 2 guns, shooting of 82 Jews.

  30.8. – after the clearing up of the region ZYTOMIERE – 99 prisoners i shooting of 16 Jews.

  The Pol.Reg.Sued shot on 23.8. – 367 Jews, and on 26.8 – 69 Jews. It reports the complete destruction of the 3rd guerrilla battalion, as well as the wiping out of half of the 9th battalion.

  The Staff Company HSS Upf. Sued. shot on 26.8. – 546 Jews.

  The 320th batallion after having cleared up the region of KAMIENIEC PODOLSKI, where together with the Einsatzgruppe der Stabskompanie at the time of Sonderaktion, on 27.8. they have shot 4.200 Jews …8

  Sometimes the intelligence generated by PC Cadix was of more immediate tactical significance. Britain and Poland were fighting Germany in Africa and substantial intelligence on the war in the desert was being supplied through the X-Y-Z channel. Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel had arrived in Libya at the head of the German Afrika Korps in February 1941 and the Germans had been pushing on steadily ever since. Tobruk was besieged, with the Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade locked up there alongside the Australian 9th Division. The obstinate resistance of these troops at Tobruk deprived Rommel of a supply port close to his operations. Bertrand had news for the British: to help with Rommel’s supply problems, 400 new trucks were being urgently shipped from France to Bizerte.