by Giles Milton
Gubbins warned March-Phillipps that hunting U-boats was merely ‘a general direction’4 as to what his men were to do. It was quite possible – indeed probable – that their mission would change. Flexibility, as he was always reminding them, was the key to everything.
The Maid Honour was fully kitted out by the time Gubbins paid his lunchtime visit to Poole. He was joined at the waterfront by Cecil Clarke, who had travelled down from Brickendonbury Manor in order to watch the first test firing of the spigot mortars at sea. His workload had increased dramatically since taking up the reins at Brickendonbury, with more than a hundred agents from a dozen countries currently undergoing training. But the adapted spigot mortar remained his special project and he was so keen to film the test firing on his hand-held camera that he took the time to travel down to Poole.
The firing took place in Poole harbour and revealed that the spigot was every bit as powerful on sea as it was on land. One of March-Phillipps’s team, Graham Hayes, was seated on the deck of the Maid Honour calmly smoking his pipe when the firing took place. There was a flash, a roar and, for Hayes at least, an unwelcome surprise. The force of the blast lifted him clean off the deck and hurled him into the water, from which he emerged, concussed and bedraggled, minus his pipe, shorts and pants. March-Phillipps’s men were astonished by the spigot’s power. Not many weapons could relieve a man of his underwear.
The firing was followed by a farewell luncheon at the Antelope Hotel, with Gubbins seated at the head of the table like a much loved warlord presiding over a band of gangsters. The Antelope’s proprietor, Pop, lived up to his nickname by producing a few bottles of champagne from his well-stocked cellar. When the last of the desserts were finished, the men wandered down to the harbour and boarded the Maid Honour. Gubbins betrayed his Scottish sentimentalism by pinning a lucky sprig of white heather to the foremast. Anders ‘the Viking’ Lassen felt they would need more than luck to keep them alive. ‘He’s mad, our commander,’ he confided to one of his fellow team members. ‘We are doomed.’5
The voyage to West Africa was remarkably trouble-free, despite gale-force winds and big seas. The route took them across the Bay of Biscay, past Madeira and west of the Canary Islands before heading for Freetown in Sierra Leone. They might easily have been spotted by U-boats or even German planes, yet their only problems came when the Maid Honour’s engine seized up with rust. One of the team, ‘Buzz’ Perkins, stripped it down and repaired it.
Anders Lassen supplemented their meagre rations by means of an old nautical trick. He pierced a tin can, placed pieces of carbide-laced bait inside and then tossed it into the water. Swallowed by one of the many sharks that tailed the vessel, the can exploded when the carbide mixed with the acid contents of the fish’s stomach. The next few hours were spent pulling floating chunks of shark meat from the water.
After a six-week voyage and having covered more than 3,000 miles, the Maid Honour arrived in tropical Freetown on 20 September. The men now awaited precise orders from Gubbins. They felt as if they were on vacation rather than at war. ‘Really, this camp is for us a sort of holiday,’6 wrote Geoffrey Appleyard as he struggled up from his sun-lounger and undertook another bout of spear-fishing.
* * *
Colin Gubbins had already hinted that the focus of their mission might change. This was indeed the case, for within weeks of the Maid Honour arriving in tropical West Africa, he received intelligence of a most alarming nature. His informant was Louis Franck, whom he had sent to Lagos – capital of the British colony of Nigeria – almost a year earlier. Operating under the codename ‘W’, Franck’s task was to keep a sharp eye on the Vichy French territories on this stretch of African coastline and report on anything untoward taking place.
In order to undertake this work efficiently, Franck had built his own network of spies and informers whose tentacles reached right across the tropics. One of them was Victor Laversuch, W4, a Spanish-speaking operator based in Lagos. Another was Richard Lippett, or agent W25. And there were many more, all of whom operated under codenames.
It was from one of these informers, Colin Michie, that there came startling intelligence. Michie was the British Vice-Consul on Fernando Po, a steaming hothouse of an island that lay some twenty-five miles off the West African coast. It was a soporific place dominated by its pyramid-shaped volcano and tangled mantle of tropical rainforest. When the explorer, Sir Richard Burton, had come here half a century earlier, he described it as ‘the abomination of desolation’.7 Most of its inhabitants lived in the diminutive port of Santa Isabel, a colonial Spanish backwater with its cluster of whitewashed houses and a horseshoe volcanic bay. Here, at a far remove from the world, the war seemed impossibly remote. Yet in this very bay – warned Michie – there lurked a vessel that spelled grave danger for Allied shipping.
The Duchessa d’Aosta was a large Italian liner that had dropped anchor more than a year earlier, claiming shelter in the neutral, Spanish-controlled port. Michie had reasons to doubt this claim. He knew that the Spanish governor of Fernando Po, Captain Victor Sanchez-Diez, was by no means neutral. He was ‘violently pro-Nazi’8 and would do anything to help the Axis powers in their fight against the Allies.
More alarming, the Duchessa d’Aosta’s radio had not been blocked by Captain Sanchez-Diez, as it should have been. Michie had been informed that she was a listening vessel, tasked with supplying the Abwehr with precise details of Allied shipping movements. This information was being sent to a German fishing company in Las Palmas, from whence it was being forwarded to Berlin.
This was a grave matter indeed and it was made even more worrying by the fact that the Duchessa d’Aosta had recently been joined by two German ships, the Likomba and Burundi. The three captains had become close drinking companions, carousing long and hard at the Casino Terrace Restaurant. They made for a dangerous and unholy trio. Scores of Allied vessels, and thousands of lives, were being put at risk by the presence of these enemy vessels in Santa Isabel.
Gubbins thought long and hard about how to combat this threat. His Lagos-based agent, Louis Franck, warned that Captain Sanchez-Diez had greatly increased the strength of the local garrison, with sentries at the harbour mouth and an efficient Guardia Colonial. ‘Action,’ he said, ‘was almost impossible.’9
Almost. But not entirely. Gubbins’s most obvious course of action would have been to use March-Phillipps’s team to sabotage all three vessels. Equipped with collapsible canoes and Cecil Clarke’s limpet mines, they could have sunk them without too much difficulty. But such an operation carried huge risks, for it was certain to provoke outrage in Franco’s pro-German Spain. Worse still, it might tip Spain into the war as a pro-Axis combatant. This would be a disaster, especially for all the British Crown Colonies in West Africa: Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, Nigeria, British Cameroon and others.
There was one other option, one that was infinitely more appealing to Gubbins’s mischievous mind. He had often spoken of his desire ‘to strike the enemy and disappear completely, leaving no trace’.10 Now, he began planning a piratical raid of the sort not seen since the days of Sir Francis Drake’s attacks on the Spanish Main. Only on this occasion, instead of singeing the Spanish beard, he intended to leave no mark whatsoever.
The plan was for March-Phillipps and his men to perform one of the greatest nautical conjuring tricks in history, causing the three enemy vessels in Santa Isabel to vanish into thin air. It was a trick that would require neither a magician nor even a magic wand; rather, it would need guile, pluck and a tiny quantity of plastic explosive.
Having determined his course of action, Gubbins ordered his West African network into action. Louis Franck was to use every intelligence tentacle at his disposal as he planned a mission that was given the codename Operation Postmaster.
Franck’s first port of call was Colin Michie, who had originally warned of the danger posed by the Duchessa d’Aosta. Michie did much of the intelligence groundwork and even talked a local pilot into giving him an aerial
tour of the island, enabling him to take reconnaissance photographs of the three vessels in the harbour. This showed their precise positions and their alignment with the shore. Michie also managed to acquire highly revealing photographs of the Spanish governor, naked, cavorting with his equally naked African mistress. He conspired to get these shown to the governor, who was so concerned about being exposed to blackmail that he offered to relax the tight surveillance on the tiny British community on Fernando Po. Michie graciously accepted.
Soon after Gubbins received the aerial photographs, he was supplied with even better intelligence. In the previous March he had hired the services of Leonard Guise, or W10, a talented servant of the Nigerian colonial government. Now, Guise lived up to his name by landing in Fernando Po in the guise of a diplomatic courier. He was able to undertake a highly precise reconnaissance, right down to the strength of the Duchessa d’Aosta’s mooring chains.
While he was on the island, Guise enlisted the services of the local English chaplain, the Reverend Markham, whose devotion to God came second only to his devotion to country. In heavy disguise, he managed to slip aboard the Italian liner during a party and discovered that the crew were extremely lax in their approach to security. They were also shockingly debauched. ‘At least four have been sent to Spain sick,’ wrote Reverend Markham, ‘and a large number suffer from venereal disease.’11
The gathering of intelligence took time, but by Christmas Gubbins had his mission fully planned and March-Phillipps knew exactly what was expected. The final task was to inform Sir George Giffard, the army’s commander-in-chief in West Africa. His permission was needed for an operation due to take place on his patch.
Giffard was appalled when he learned of the intended piratical mission. He vociferously refused permission to allow Gubbins to send his men to Fernando Po, regarding them as little better than a band of wayward hooligans. ‘They are not round pegs in round holes,’ he said.
Giffard’s hostility was seconded by the Royal Navy’s Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic, Vice-Admiral Algernon Willis. He described Gubbins’s mission as ‘unnecessarily provocative’ and sent a telegram to London that arrived a few minutes after midnight on Christmas morning. It was a present that Gubbins could have done without. He and Giffard had ‘suspended operations’12 on the grounds that they were too underhand. Operation Postmaster was over before it had even begun.
Gus March-Phillipps and his men were blissfully unaware of the hostility to their mission. They spent Christmas up-country in Nigeria, at an enchanting lodge called Olokomeji, the former holiday home of the colonial governor, Sir Bernard Bourdillon. Here, far from prying eyes, they let rip with their machine guns and blew clearings in the jungle with plastic explosive. March-Phillipps’s second-in-command, Geoffrey Appleyard, thought it the best Christmas ever. All around there were ‘luscious fruits which we picked straight from the forest trees – oranges, grapefruit, coconuts and tangerine as big as grapefruit, no pips and full of juice’.
Sir George Giffard and Vice-Admiral Willis continued to block Operation Postmaster until they learned that Gubbins had succeeded in winning the backing of the Foreign Office and Admiralty. Now, reluctantly, they agreed to support it. ‘I tell you frankly, I do not like the scheme,’ said Giffard, ‘and I never shall like it.’
March-Phillipps had taken two decisions during his Christmas break. First, the Maid Honour was not suitable for the mission ahead. He needed powerful tugs, not a Brixham trawler. To this end, he approached Governor Bourdillon, who graciously offered two craft, Vulcan and Nuneaton.
March-Phillipps’s second decision was to hire more men, for he was concerned about being outgunned by the Italians and Germans in Santa Isabel. Once again, Governor Bourdillon offered to help. March-Phillipps was allowed to choose as many men as he wished from the Nigerian Colonial Service.
He picked seventeen tough, military-trained individuals with a keen hunger for action. When Gubbins’s agent, Leonard Guise, met them, he was impressed. ‘As choice a collection of thugs as Nigeria can ever have seen.’13
On 10 January the mission was given the green light. On the same day, March-Phillipps received a telegram from Gubbins: ‘Good hunting. Am confident you will exercise utmost care to ensure success and obviate repercussions.’14
March-Phillipps telegrammed back: ‘Will do our best.’15
He meant it.
* * *
At a few minutes before dawn on Sunday, 11 January the Vulcan and Nuneaton slipped unnoticed out of Lagos harbour on the four-day voyage to Fernando Po. As they crossed the bar, the swell of the open sea pitched the tugs from wave to trough, causing intense seasickness. It was like setting sail in a floating bottle. No one complained, aware that ‘the wrath of Gus would have descended upon them like an avalanche.’16 The breeze was as damp as a face-flannel and the tropical sun was soon burning with such intensity that sweat dripped from the brow at the slightest exertion.
March-Phillipps intended to use every hour of the voyage for additional training in target practice and marine assault. It was particularly important that his newly recruited ‘thugs’ familiarize themselves with the weaponry. When night fell after the first day at sea, the crew of the Nuneaton lowered their Folbot canoes into the water and undertook a practice raid on the Vulcan. ‘Highly successful,’ noted March-Phillipps. ‘The Folbots approaching within a few yards without being seen.’17 It was vitally important for everyone to be a master of their appointed role.
There was still much to be done. The men cleaned their weapons, sharpened their fighting knives and practised firing their Bren and tommy guns. ‘When possible, intimidate,’ said March-Phillipps. ‘If not, use force. Speed is essential.’18
As a tropical dawn cut through the sky on 14 January, a faint emerald smudge was discernible on the horizon. A few hours later, it began sharpening into focus and the men caught their first glimpse of Santa Isabel’s pyramid-shaped peak, its tangled upper slopes enveloped in a soupy mist. The warm mist also hung low over the water, a blessing for March-Phillips and his adventurers: it rendered their two vessels invisible to even the sharpest-eyed lookout on Fernando Po.
A cold lunch was served that noon, because the galley areas were being used to boil and mould the plastic explosive. In the afternoon, tommy guns, torches and pistols were issued to each of the men, along with truncheons designed for silent killing: twelve-inch metal bolts encased in sheaths of rubber.
The men spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for dusk, when their mission would begin in earnest. Their greatest concern was the troubled state of the Nuneaton’s engines. They had already faltered on several occasions since they’d been at sea. If this happened in Santa Isabel harbour, the men would be sitting ducks.
The mist lifted with the approach of evening and with it came an improvement in the weather. At 10 p.m. both tugs lay some four miles offshore and the town lights of Santa Isabel twinkled on the water like specks of phosphorescence. March-Phillipps kept glancing anxiously at his watch, counting down the minutes. Soon it was 11.15 p.m., time for the engines to be fired.
The vessels quickly closed on the lighthouse of Cap Formoso, which was to give them a steer on Santa Isabel harbour. Their raid was timed for just after 23.30 hours and March-Phillipps was a stickler for punctuality.
The Nuneaton was the leading vessel, but she was creeping towards the harbour mouth at an agonizingly slow speed. March-Phillipps, who always stuttered when stressed, called through the darkness: ‘Will you get a b-b-bl-bloody move on or g-g-get out. I’m coming in.’
It was only now, just as they prepared to enter the harbour, that March-Phillipps realized he had made a disastrous mistake in the planning. The island generator was always switched off at 11.30 p.m., extinguishing the harbour lights, which was exactly when he was intending to strike. He had assumed Fernando Po kept the same time as Nigeria. It didn’t. The island was on Spanish time, one hour behind Lagos, which meant they had arrived an hour too early.
H
e was so fired by adrenalin that he wanted to press on regardless, even though it meant risking a firefight in the well-lit harbour. This would have been insane and it earned him a stern reprimand from Leonard Guise, who had joined the mission in Lagos. ‘Gus himself struck me as completely intrepid, almost to the point of overdoing it, because this was not really a military operation. It was a burglar’s operation, and burglars don’t go in shooting.’ He convinced him to linger for an hour, until the lights went out.
After a tense wait, the island’s generator finally snapped off, plunging the town into darkness. ‘Very dramatically the blackout arrived,’ recalled Guise, ‘and what had been a well-illuminated display became utter darkness.’19 He felt vindicated. Only a few faint lights remained: the flashing buoys, a pier light and a bulb on the foreshore of the Duchessa d’Aosta. In the night sky, there was not even a whisker of moonlight.
The Vulcan and Nuneaton crept into the harbour with stealth, unseen by anyone. The Duchessa d’Aosta was visible as a dark gleam, with two lit portholes suggesting that there were people on board. The Likomba and Burundi lay in darkness, their bulky hulls wallowing low in the water. The men prepared themselves in absolute silence, aware that even whispers carry noisily on a nocturnal breeze. It was time for them to perform a conjuring trick unlike any other.
* * *
The Casino Terrace Restaurant in Santa Isabel was unusually busy that evening. A dinner had been arranged for twenty-five people, including Captain Umberto Valle of the Duchessa d’Aosta and eight of his officers. Also present was Captain Specht of the Likomba. As far as the two captains were concerned, the dinner had been arranged by Abelino Zorilla, a well-connected local fixer. His services were often used to arrange evenings such as this one. They had no idea that Zorilla was actually working for Richard Lippett, one of Colin Gubbins’s locally based agents in Santa Isabel. Lippett had paid Zorilla to arrange the casino dinner, aware that it would provide exactly the distraction March-Phillipps needed to pull off his heist.
