Double Cross in Cairo

by Nigel West

  – Activity in the cacan zone.

  – Soldiers arrive from Shallerfa.

  – Told that the new Infantry Division is the 30th.

  – Approaching British attack in the desert.

  – Invasion of Italy imminent.

  – General Alexander arriving in Cairo.

  – The invasion of Italy.

  Occasionally CHEESE would insert into the text of his messages some indication of his source, such as ‘I had heard information received that’ or ‘a good source…’ Into this category were subjects such as ‘5,000 South African troops arrive. Allied equipment/troops arrive at Suva’. ‘British troop movements postponed; Canadian troops’. ‘19th Division HQ in Cairo; Polish Brigade in Western Desert’. ‘The 4th Indian Division and an armoured division; Canadian tank brigade left for Palestine; American tank and aircraft experts’.

  Another prolific source for CHEESE was AMAN, clearly located near the Suez Canal, whose first report mentioned ‘many troops with sign ‘GO’ in camps near Gaza. Think they belong to 8th Armoured Division’. AMAN went on to mention ‘many troops with chequerboard sign around canal’. Then he ‘saw a battleship last Thursday passing southwards. Think it was the How’ which was a deliberate reference to HMS Howe. In the same message he also mentioned ‘several trains recently carrying soldiers towards Palestine, wearing letter ‘Y’. A little later he saw ‘several trains of English paratroops and Indians passed canal towards Palestine recently. Think it must be 4 Airborne Division’. In his next observation he reported:

  Still many troops about canal wearing signs of: black and white chequerboard – white unicorn – yellow hammer – yellow axe.

  This was followed by:

  Recently seen many Arab troops wearing on their heads a red and white cloth – belong to Arab Legion.

  AMAN’s last five reports mentioned ‘33rd Division and troops wearing sign of chequerboard still about canal’ and ‘not seen sign of 8th Armoured Division for a long time’. Then ‘Valiant at Suez on the 11th ‘coming from the south’ and ‘soldiers of the 33rd Division no longer to be seen about the canal. Big battleship was at Suez and left southwards’. His last message was

  about twenty cargo ships, one tug at Suez – 25 December. Plenty of traffic South-North through canal. Think battleship that left southwards was the Valiant.

  CHEESE’S seventh unconscious source, mentioned in just two messages, was an Airborne Division major who was reported ‘still at Alexandria’ and was visited by ARMIN who was told that he thought he would soon go to Palestine with his unit. He also let slip that an Indian battalion was part of his division.

  ‘There was also an officer at 3 Corps Headquarters who was here yesterday. Many troops have left their camps at Alexandria. His old division to leave for Palestine.’ His second and last use as a source read

  Leaving soon for Palestine. Says English counted on a German retreat from the Balkans following Allied landings in France but German forces in Balkans now still too strong for an attack.

  After CHEESE found a job at OETA’s Cairo office, he was able to pick up some useful information which formed the basis of five messages which were more political in nature.

  Officer in branch of opinion that rupture of German-Turkish relations will facilitate British strategy of invasion of the Balkans.

  This was clearly intended to perpetuate the threat to the German southern flank, whereas his next signal merely recorded that ‘all superior officers of Middle East met here last week for talks with Paget and his staff’. Then he reported that ‘officer who accompanied head of OAB on tour of Libya says most of the troops there are indigenous Africans and are part of the 12th Division’. Finally, he observed that an ‘officer says he thinks all islands in the Aegean will soon be occupied by English and Greek troops’.

  One of CHEESE’S contacts was a Lebanese merchant referred to in two messages, who noted that there were ‘many French troops in Beirut, Lydda aerodrome had been enlarged. Heavy bombers stationed there’ and later stated that there were ‘many paratroops in Palestine. Rumour goes that they will attack Rhodes’.

  In December 1942 SIME undertook a review of CHEESE’S sources, noting that he was reliant on just four, being a BOAC pilot, a US Army officer, a US Army Air Force officer, and a naval petty officer. The recommendation was that this group should be expanded to embrace two wounded men, a Royal Army Service Corps officer and a Long Range Desert Group sergeant, and an OETA officer from Benghazi.

  The BOAC employee worked on the Benghazi to Cairo route, and the proposition was that he was in an ideal position to overhear useful conversations. The OETA officer could be expected to have a knowledge of future plans from Cairo,

  This man could be fairly insecure and could see shipping and especially landing craft in Benghazi and could pick up 8th Army line of communication gossip.

  The American could offer USAAF and RAF news, although SIME preferred to drop him as he should be somewhat discredited in CHEESE’S eyes if not in the enemy’s. The idea of developing a USAAF officer had originated when SIME had first contemplated widening CHEESE’S contacts:

  1. The American Air Force officer tells Amie that the rumoured attack on Crete is to be no more than a demonstration, if that. All the special training that the Greeks and other troops have done, is for a combined operation somewhere else. Where, he will not say.

  2. CHEESE’S Greek friends maintain that, although the date of the Crete attack has been postponed to coincide with operations elsewhere in the Levant, these other operations are simply feints to draw attention away from Crete so the latter affair will come as a complete surprise to the Germans.

  3. CHEESE has not yet been able to discover whether the other objectives are the Dodecanese Islands or the Greek mainland.

  4. Some Greeks say that Italy is the objective.

  5. CHEESE finds that it is difficult to sort out all these rumours because he has to rely, outside of Cairo, entirely upon the hearsay of his own and Amie’s friends.

  6. In view of recent events, it is now essential that he shall be able to travel around himself so he can assess the value of all this talk of operations in the Levant.

  7. His usefulness is at an end unless he has funds which must be fairly substantial.

  CHEESE’S naval source could give news of landing craft and supplies going by sea from Alexandria to Tobuk and Benghazi. The RASC officer ‘could talk of the supply situation, difficulties, plans and give identifications (this source should be important because the supply problem is bound to be uppermost in the enemy’s mind).’

  The wounded LRDG NCO could give indications of a flank attack and news from Kufra district. SIME also concluded that ROPE should make a practice of visiting the wounded in the hospitals, and that CHEESE ‘ought meet his old friends in bars while looking for work and not appear too keen and must not be brought up to such a boil as he was recently’.

  CHEESE also had a wide number of casual contacts, such as an Egyptian technician who remarked to him about an advertisement in a newspaper concerning a factory at Shoubra; a Greek sergeant pilot who was being taught to fly Mosquitos; a colonel visiting a Civil Affairs office who commented that there would not be an invasion of Greece this year; an officer in the Indian Division, destined for Italy, which he thought was about to embark; a Merchant Navy officer who mentioned ships assembling at Durban for a voyage to perhaps Crete; a Greek friend who claimed that Free French agents in Alexandria were contacting French sailors in Alexandria who were preparing for an attack on Italy; that many ships were docked in Alexandria, and the Hampshire Regiment had arrived from Malta; a Greek officer said a Parachute Brigade was moving from Kabrit to join the 8th Army; some supporters of General de Gaulle had predicted the invasion of Italy on 11 November; a drunk Australian was rejoining his regiment at Kabrit, and other Australian soldiers talked of an Australian division in Palestine; a Free French sergeant under the command of General Leclerc’s 21st Battalion de Marche was moving to Tripo
li; a Greek corporal from the 1st Brigade had arrived from Syria where he had undergone mountain training, and said his unit was part of the 3rd Corps in Syria.

  Because CHEESE based himself in Cairo, few of his reports necessarily concerned the war at sea, and any reporting from Alexandria of the Suez Canal entailed considerable danger and required the closest liaison with the Naval Intelligence Division. The central and eastern Mediterranean was an area of absolutely vital strategic importance, with Malta in the frontline as the Royal Navy’s base for submarine operations designed to disrupt Axis shipping destined for Libyan ports supporting the Afrika Korps. Similarly, the Suez Canal was a lifeline for the Empire, shortening the sea-routes to the Far East, so the Allies regarded any information being passed to enemy as being potentially very sensitive. Three messages in particular were considered critical, and the first, CHEESE’S 423rd transmission, sent in January 1945 at a time when he was supposedly convalescing in the port, included sightings at Alexandria of two cruisers and five destroyers; that there were more freighters in port than usual; that there was still plenty of traffic between Greece and Alexandria; that nothing had been heard of transports from Gibraltar; and that a chequerboard had often been spotted. A second message, his 428th, reported plenty of activity in the port and the embarkation the previous week of an Indian battalion with an emblem of a goat. He also mentioned the sign of the local naval headquarters as a ship with a white sail on a black and blue background. Another sign noted was a camel on a chequerboard, and he observed a large number of black colonial troops. The third signal, the 432nd in the series, and his very last transmission, described five cruisers, six destroyers, fifty cargo ships and a large liner at their moorings, on 2 January 1945. He also speculated that most of the sea traffic was with Greece and India, and identified the black troops previously mentioned as having come from South Africa.

  Five of CHEESE’S messages simply repeated information that had been published in the newspaper, the cuttings including articles on a visit by General Alexander to Syria, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus; that the Allied air forces had come under the command of General Carl Spaatz; references to General Doolittle as chief of Bomber Command; and the appointment of Alan Cunningham as chief of ground support. He also mentioned references to diesel engines being used on the Mersa-Capuzzo line, two reports about a visit made by General Wilson to Ankara, and an announcement that commercial shipping between Egypt and Turkey would resume shortly. On one occasion, in early 1945, CHEESE said he had encountered a British officer of the 5th Division who had been on leave. After a conversation with him, CHEESE concluded that the 5th Division was not in Egypt. In similar circumstances a New Zealand NCO remarked that most of New Zealand’s troops had gone home, although some had been sent to Italy.

  CHEESE’S military reporting was wide-ranging but much of it related to his observations of unit insignia, a very useful method of developing an order-of-battle. For example, he identified particular badges seen at Abbassia with specific components, so he said the yellow camel was GHQ; a white unicorn was the 15th Armoured Division, the green fig-leaf as belonging to 3 Corps, and a seal on a globe, the 12th Army; that he thought the sign of the New Zealand 6th Division was a Kiwi bird with other troops simply bearing the words ‘New Zealand’; the head of a blue bird in flames associated with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. He also said there were still many Greek troops in Alexandria. In other individual messages he reported in April 1944 that Sofoklis Venizelos had formed a transition government, that there were still many Greek troops in Alexandria; and that following a visit of Soviet personnel the Bulgarian section of the Civil Affairs branch would close as the Russians were to take responsibility for Bulgaria.

  In more general, low-level reporting, CHEESE picked up casual gossip and described how a Greek had recently arrived from Syria; that some American officers expected an imminent British attack on Derba; that a Greek naval officer had talked about the British fleet at Gibraltar which had been deployed in a feint to the west to cover an impending attack on Crete, and who claimed that most of the Greek navy was now based at Kabrit and Port Said. CHEESE was adept at picking up disparate items opportunistically, and examples included a 78th Division officer who was a member of the London Irish regiment which, he said, was a part of the Irish Brigade; a Jewish officer in the Polish Army who asserted that the ‘English had arrested at Alexandria several Jews who were organising riots to take place during Pan-Arab congress. The Jews meet in a club, the president of which is a lieutenant in the British navy.’

  This sort of material was intended to support CHEESE’S bona-fides, bolster the enemy’s confidence in him and even the most innocuous morsel of gossip might have a special significance for enemy analysts who, essentially, were being invited to draw some very faulty conclusions from the misleading information with which they had been provided. Some of these items were of no great strategic significance, but were part of the ‘pocket litter’ of espionage, the tiny background details that served to authenticate the larger picture. Thus, a Greek staff officer confided that ‘news of the evacuation of Athens would be the signal for larger scale landings in Greece which would take place any minute’. Also, a staff officer at GHQ mentioned that ‘General Laycock, Commander-in-Chief of the commandos, was here on his way to India’.

  One of CHEESE’S most prolific sources was ELIF who provided material for eleven messages. In his first he reported that two aircraft carriers in Alexandria had departed through the Suez Canal on exercises but their escort destroyers were still in the harbour. He had bought shares in the Bank of Athens which he thought would rise in value after the Allied invasion of the Balkans; he noticed that restaurants were full of English and Greek troops; that the 2nd Greek Brigade had been at Amriya during the rebellion; that the 1st Greek Brigade had been deployed to the desert so a purge could be conducted; that the same unit had left Amriya for the Lebanon where it would be joined by a newly-reorganised 1st Greek Brigade. In one quite long signal he was reported as having observed plenty of troops from the London Division in Alexandria, and had seen RAF trucks towing trailers carrying large wooden crates. He also claimed to have seen two cruisers in port, including HMS Birmingham, accompanied by three destroyers and five corvettes. On 7 June he said that the entire port had been obscured by a smoke-screen, and finally noticed that plenty of troops in Alexandria wore unit insignia bearing a black cat and a green tree.

  A Merchant Navy officer contributes to just three messages. He was reported as having speculated that ‘we are on the verge of important events’; that from mid-June there would be major troop movements from Egyptian ports; and that two aircraft carriers had left Alexandria on manoeuvers through the Suez Canal.

  A South African corporal who had been exercising with the 8th Armoured Division provided the content of four messages and disclosed the authentic news that General Wilfred Lloyd had been killed in an air accident. He had also mentioned that the South African troops at Heinan were infantry, and not part of his Division. His last report indicated that he was in Italy with his unit.

  The wife of a security officer was helpfully indiscreet and revealed that the Allies were about to impose travel restrictions across the Middle East, and especially on Syria’s border with Turkey. Her husband had recently returned from Syria where there had been plenty of troops, including an English armoured regiment. She also said that her husband hoped for leave after an imminent attack had been executed. Later she reported that her husband had told her that the frontier restrictions had been relaxed, and that ‘several groups of German PoWs will be repatriated through Turkey’.

  A major serving in the 4th Airborne Division based in Palestine, a unit that had its insignia of a winged horse replaced with a parachute bearing black wings. He mentioned that his division was in Tobruk, then was reported as going to Alexandria to rejoin his unit which was to soon embark.

  A source described only as ‘an American from the desert’ was responsible for four me
ssages, the first mentioning General Andrews in Cairo. He also spoke indiscreetly about forty US transport aircraft delivered to the 8th Army, and in another signal described how the British had adopted a tactic of drawing German tanks onto Allied minefields, and suggested that many troops had left the Delta for deployment in the desert. He alleged that the Afrika Korps had been drawn into a trap previously warned of by CHEESE, and predicted a British attack in the desert in November.

  CHEESE’S circle of friends appeared to be mainly Greek and they discussed many military topics, such as tanks leaving the Canal Zone for Palestine; speculation about a new armoured division with Greek officers and NCOs that was to undergo special training in Syria; that the defeat at Tobruk had prevented the British from launching a planned assault on Crete; that Greek troops had recently left Kabrit; of an invasion of Crete set for October or November; of a Greek brigade in Alexandria; and news of a Greek brigade in the desert; and of special training at Kabrit.

  A casual acquaintance in Alexandria told CHEESE that he had noticed less traffic on a desert road, and seen many Greek soldiers in the port. A Greek merchant friend was credited with the news that there were troops in Palestine wearing black berets. A French sailor claimed there were many small troop transports in the harbour at Alexandria, and he had encountered members of the Queen’s Regiment on leave, some Greek aviators and soldiers from Australia. A Greek soldier had asserted that Greek troops were only sent to the front for training. And a group of Greek contacts opined that the departure of the Greek Brigade from Kabrit meant the planned attack on Crete would be postponed until September, and disclosed that no assault on Crete could take place until the training at Kabrit had been completed.

  A journalist, codenamed SYRIAN, gave CHEESE two useful political items in early 1945. One was that relations between ministers had broken down to the extent that Marram had threatened to resign; the other was the news that there was to be a pan-Arab conference held in Egypt later in the year to which the leaders of all Arab countries would be invited.