by Nigel West
When questioned Polo was able to give a limited amount of information about the factories he had visited in Germany, but initially obfuscated about his attempts to engage in espionage, causing one of his MI5 interrogators to describe him as ‘a trickster who duped the German and British intelligence services in turn’ and ‘an inveterate liar’. In his summary of the case in June 1943, Buster Milmo concluded:
After a thorough interrogation at Camp 020 it became clear that during the year prior to his arrest and transportation to this country José Polo was trying to obtain a livelihood both from the British and German Intelligence services. He lied to both though it is only fair to say that certain information given to the British authorities in Barcelona may have been both true and of value – we have no information as to whether it was true or not.
Aparicia Polo maintains that all the information he gave to the Germans was either untrue or common knowledge whilst information given to the British was true but sometimes exaggerated unimportant details with the view to enhancement of his apparent value as an agent. He claims that his favouritism of the British was due to his having heard that the British Intelligence Service paid better than the Germans, and also because he came to the conclusion that the bad state of affairs in Spain at that time was due to Fascism. The latter reason appears to be an afterthought and is not convincing. In fact, he has lied so much to the Germans, and also whilst under interrogation, that it is reasonable to suppose that during his contact with the British authorities in Spain he lied as much as he thought he could without being found out. Moreover, we only have his word that the information he gave to the Germans was either untrue or obvious.
There is little doubt that through completely false representation Aparicio Polo wormed his way into the confidence of MI6 in Barcelona and induced them to evacuate him from Spain to this country through secret channels. Having found himself, on his arrival in this country, under close detention, he lied volubly about the missions entrusted to him by the German Intelligence Service and proved without a doubt that no confidence whatsoever can be placed in him.
Thus, because Polo had learned about SIS’s clandestine route to Gibraltar from Seville, stayed overnight at an SOE safe house in Seville, seen MI5 techniques, and experienced Camp 020, he remained in detention, although by August 1944 it had been discovered that he was suffering from epilepsy, and was transferred to the Royal Marsden Hospital for specialist treatment. He was deported to Madrid by air in September 1945, and this might have been the last to be heard of him. However, in October 1949 the French Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire contacted SIS and asked for any background information held on Polo, who was then representing himself in Paris as a Spanish intelligence officer offering information about the Soviets. In his version of events, passed to MI5’s Ronnie Reed by SIS, Polo claimed that he had:
… fought with the Republican Army during the Civil War, and also with the Blue Division in Russia, where he was wounded. During his convalescence in Austria he met Major Kammler of the Abwehr (or SD), through whom he was repatriated to Spain where he was planted on Sheldon of SIS at Barcelona. Polo was sent to England via Gibraltar and on arrival in the UK admitted to being a German agent.
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A 27-year-old Belgian waiter, Joseph Vanhove landed at RAF Leuchars in February 1944 having been flown in from Stockholm, where he had been living since jumping ship in April 1943. Under interrogation at the Royal Victoria Patriotic School he broke down and admitted having been recruited by the Abwehr in Antwerp for a mission to find out about Allied preparations for the invasion, and when he was questioned at Camp 020 in April he confessed and acknowledged links to several other Belgian spies recruited by the Germans. He was tried in May 1944 and hanged at Pentonville on 12 July 1944.
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The issue of wartime industrial unrest and labour stoppages was always of concern to the Cabinet, especially as the Minister of Labour, Ernest Bevin, had founded the Transport and General Workers’ Union in 1922 and had been general-secretary for eighteen years before he joined the coalition government in 1940. The introduction of conscription into the mines was deeply unpopular and on 28 March 1944 a shipyard apprentice and former Young Communist League member organised a strike which spread across the industrial north of England to the Clyde. Such an interference with production had the gravest strategic implications and MI5 identified three veteran Communists, Jack Haston, Roy Tearse, Keaton Lee, as having influenced the ringleader, Bill Davey. They were arrested on 8 April, along with Lee’s girlfriend Anne Keen, and prosecuted under the terms of the 1927 Act. As we shall see, the case would go awry.
15
3 JUNE 1944
In the month before the D-Day assault in Normandy, when the true Allied objectives for the invasion were the top priority, MI5’s monthly report disclosed a veritable German espionage offensive through Iceland, a territory under Anglo-American military control, but with only a small SIS office in the capital, Reykjavik.
MAY 1944
A. SPIES.
The most interesting development this month has been the sudden influx of a comparatively large number of spies into Iceland.
As far is known, the enemy had sent only three espionage expeditions to Iceland till April of this year. All three of these were enterprises of the German Military Intelligence Service, two of the agents concerned have since been operating under control, while the third committed suicide. In the latter half of April no less than seven new agents arrived in Iceland; these were grouped into three parties, two of which were controlled by Military Intelligence, and one by Himmler’s Secret Service. These agents had between them six wireless transmitters.
They were instructed to send weather reports, and at least two of the spies were equipped with instruments to assist them. They also had orders to send information on the presence of ski troops, landing craft for invasion, and on the number of ships in the fjords, and to keep a special watch on six named harbours.
Two of the parties comprising four spies in all were captured within a very short time of their arrival, but the third party was at large for over a week, during which time its members endeavoured to make contact with the enemy by wireless.
During the course of the war there has been no comparable activity by the German Secret Service since the autumn of 1940, when similar tactics were employed for the despatch to this country of invasion spies. However the questionnaires given to these Icelandic agents present a marked contrast to those given to spies sent here at the time when the enemy were preparing themselves to invade. These new cases strongly suggest that the enemy anticipates an offensive operation of some magnitude to be launched from lceland at some not far distant date, and the fact that both Military Intelligence and Himmler’s Secret Service have despatched expeditions thither suggest that this expectation is not confined to the Intelligence Service, but may well be occupying the mind of the German Supreme Command itself.
As mentioned in a previous report, Most Secret Sources disclosed that a spy was on route from Norway to this country through the Peninsula. This character was identified as one Knut Brodersen, and on his arrival here he was at once arrested. He has confessed that he had a mission on behalf of the German Secret Service to supply them with information regarding invasion details here. This information was to be sent in secret writing to a cover address in Spain, and Brodersen was to receive further instructions by means of broadcasts in code sent over the German controlled Norwegian radio. Particulars of this code have been given by Brodersen and attempts are now being made to decypher messages broadcast over this service which appear to be intended for him. His secret ink was concealed in one of the straps of his plus-fours and in a pocket knife. More material for secret writing had been hidden underneath his big toe nail and in his tooth, but the former came out when he had a bath, and the tooth broke off while he was eating.
A Pole, Wladyslaw Wilman, arrived recently in Gibraltar, where he volunteered the story of his advent
ures, including his recruitment by the German Secret Service.
In the course of Wilman’s career, both before and after he was recruited into the German Secret Service, he has been imprisoned by various powers no less than six times, and of course once again now in detention in this country. On his arrival here he produced a handkerchief from which he developed secret writing and microphotographs. The latter contained a diagram of a powerful wireless transmitter which he was to build when he reached this country or Canada, and also gave details of codes, call signs, cover addresses etc. The mission given him by the German Secret Service was to transmit technical details of new aircraft, which he was to obtain by getting work in an aircraft factory.
Joseph Jan Vanhove, the Belgian spy mentioned in the previous report, was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, 24th May.
B. SPECIAL AGENTS.
1) News has been received regarding special agent ZIGZAG, an Englishman, who was dropped by parachute in December 1942, and subsequently was returned to the Germans via Lisbon after having caused a notional explosion in the de Havilland Mosquito factory. It is now known that ZIGZAG is established as the chief instructor to the German Secret Service in sabotage at Oslo, where he is living prosperously, dressed in a pepper and salt suit and with a private yacht. It is hoped that in the fullness of time he will contrive to work his way back and tell us all he has learnt in the course of his present employment.
2) There has been an unfortunate development in the case of TRICYCLE, the true purport and consequences of which have not yet been determined. It was learnt from Most Secret Sources that ARTIST, his spymaster, was at the beginning of May, lured with great secrecy into France and from there despatched to Berlin. The reasons for this action are for the moment obscure, but it is certain that the TRICYCLE case is passing through a most critical phase and must be handled with the greatest care in view of OVERLORD.
A denunciation of FREAK, who was brought over here under TRICYCLE’s auspices, was received from Mihailovic circles. (It is from Most Secret Sources that this denunciation was intercepted by the Germans.) This denunciation has provided an excuse for closing down the FREAK transmitter, at least temporarily.
3) The special agent TATE, on the 24th May, l944, transmitted his 1,000th message, in which he took the opportunity of referring to this fact and expressing his loyal devotion to the Führer. A cordial reply has been received, and it is hoped that this will be followed up by the further advancement of TATE in the Order of the Iron Cross, of which he already holds the First and Second Class.
4) The Government Code and Cypher School have reported that the messages of TREASURE and BRUTUS are being so consistently relayed verbatim on the German Intelligence W/T network that, with the assistance of this ‘crib’, there has been a very considerable saving of time and manpower in decyphering Most Secret Sources. Thus, special agents have, at a critical period, acquired a value which it is scarcely possible to overestimate.
C. SABOTAGE.
The special agent, GARBO, has been asked to give the exact locations, including street numbers, of the Service Headquarters concerned with the Second Front. This, coupled with the mission to assassinate Generals Alexander and Clark in Italy, and the known interest of Himmler’s Secret Service in terrorism, makes it possible that parachute attacks against key persons may be attempted during coming operations. But this type of warfare is not beyond the Germans as confirmed by the recent parachute glider attack on Marshal Tito’s Headquarters.1
D. LEAKAGE OF INFORMATION.
Among the cases which have come to notice, are the following:-
1) A man who was formerly employed by a firm concerned with the manufacture of a special type of tank to be used in forthcoming operations, gave details about its purpose and performance to a casual acquaintance in a public house. He was prosecuted and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. There is no doubt that this man had been making use of his knowledge in order to attract attention to himself for some time before his apprehension.
2) An American Naval Officer, at a dinner party, gave, in the course of general conversation, very detailed information as to the probable date of future operations and the forces to be engaged in them. A report was made by a general officer who was present and also by a retired officer of the Royal Air Force. Steps have been taken to warn all those present as to the need for complete discretion. The American officer is being dealt with by the American naval authorities.
3) A ship’s fireman wrote a letter in which he explained that the ship on which he was serving was to be used as a block ship in the course of forthcoming operations. The letter revealed the port where the ship was then lying, together with other ships designated for similar use. The offender was prosecuted and was sentenced to thirty days’ imprisonment.
4) A case at present under investigation concerns a Dutch ship’s officer in an hotel at Port Talbot who stated that his ship would be off the French coast within the next two weeks, that she was loaded with petrol and ammunition, had sufficient men on board to carry out unloading. He added that all the ships in Port Talbot were similarly loaded and were ready to sail to twenty-four hours’ notice.
5) A woman living in a southern county wrote to relations in Lancashire giving the precise whereabouts of the house which General Montgomery will be using as his Headquarters. Proceedings are being taken against her.
3rd June 1944.
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Disappointingly, Petrie offered few details of the enemy’s espionage offensive in Iceland, which, as he pointed out, was on an unprecedented scale. Altogether seven spies had landed, and all had been captured within a week, but who were they? In the days and weeks before the much-anticipated Allied invasion of Europe, the German High Command was preoccupied with clues to the likely landing areas, and FORTITUDE NORTH had been designed to draw attention to a planned amphibious assault on Norway. The need for accurate information about the build-up of troops near embarkation ports in Iceland and Scotland was the only rational explanation for the sudden interest shown by the Abwehr in Iceland, and this suggested that the Germans had taken the bait.
Hitherto, as reported accurately by Petrie, there had been just three earlier Abwehr missions to Iceland, and of them COBWEB and BEETLE had become double-agents, maintaining contact with the enemy from Reykjavik under SIS’s supervision. Chronologically, the first had been a Norwegian, Olav Saetrang, who landed in Iceland in August with a group of genuine refugees off a boat from northern Norway, but he committed suicide before he could be questioned. According to ISOS, he may have been a spy code-named SVERRA, intending to travel to England, and the episode was recorded by Liddell:
There has been an interesting ISOS case. It became apparent that three Norwegians, Sverre [sic], Stefansen and Elverstadt [sic],2 were preparing for some expedition. The message said Iraq but it was difficult to see why three Norwegians should be going to that country. Hugh Trevor Roper discovered that the ‘Q’ was probably a misprint for ‘X’ and that the ‘R’ was probably a misprint for a ‘D’. This left IDA in inverted commas since X is used for this purpose. IDA is the speller in German Morse code for I. This leaves I in inverted commas and from the context it seemed likely to be Iceland. A telegram to Iceland has produced a reply that a boat called the Hornfjell recently arrived with eight crew and passengers, three of them being Saetrang, Stefansen, and Elverstad so they are all being sent over here for examination. This case is a clear indication of Trevor Roper’s value.
Two weeks later, on 17 September, Liddell learned of Saetrang’s suicide from Camp 020’s commandant, and took the appropriate measures to keep the matter secret, and informed Lord Swinton:
Colonel Stephens rang me up early this morning to say that Saetrang, one of the Norwegians who arrived on the Hornfjell, had committed suicide, by hanging himself from a water pipe with his scarf. He had stripped himself to the waist and gagged himself by stuffing a handkerchief down his throat. He had only been interrogated for three min
utes on his arrival on the previous day. He had been told that he had information which connected him with the German secret service and that he had better consider the advisability of making a written statement. He had been seen by the guard at 4am and must have committed suicide sometime between four and six o’clock.
On arrival at the office I got hold of Edward Hinchley-Cooke and Edward Cussen in order that we could make arrangements for a coroner’s inquest with the least possible publicity. They have made arrangements to do this effectively, through a tame coroner in the north of London.
Lord Swinton was in the office in the morning and I explained the facts to him. From the intelligence point of view it is a pity that Saetrang had done himself in. We think he is identical with a man called Sverra and that he could have told us a good deal.
The next spy, Ib Riis, landed from U-252 in April 1942, and he had been enrolled as COBWEB.3 Born in Hallerup, Denmark, to Icelandic parents, he had trained as a ship’s radio operator and served on the George Stage. In July 1939 he joined a hunting expedition to Greenland on the Gustav Holm, and in October 1941 was back in Denmark to be recruited by the Abwehr in Copenhagen. He attended a course in Hamburg in February 1942, and set off on the U-252 for Iceland.
Having surrendered on his arrival to British personnel, he was escorted to Reykjavik on 22 April, and soon afterwards took his captors back to a site near the beach where he had hidden his transmitter. When questioned, he described Jens Palsson as another agent destined for a similar mission. Always anxious to cooperate, Riis maintained his radio channel with the Abwehr until the end of the war, supervised first by MI5’s Ronnie Reed and then later by SIS’s Harold Blyth.
