by Nigel West
Yves Guilcher was a 28-year-old former soldier who had joined the French infantry in 1934 and was denounced to the US 2nd Army by Guy Mercader, a local resistance leader. He had been demobilised in 1940 and since then had struggled to make a living as an itinerant salesman, peddling lavender water and then newspapers on the streets. A search of his lodgings on the first floor at 77 rue St Loup in Bayeux by the 19 Field Security Section revealed scraps of paper in the attic that, when reconstructed, indicated that a transmitter had been buried in the garden. Sure enough, a German-manufactured radio and a set of ciphers were dug up, but initially Guilcher denied all knowledge of them and was passed to 101 SCI. It was only on 16 June, when he was shipped by landing craft via Portsmouth to Camp 020, that he not only fully confessed, but named several other German spies with whom he had undergone radio training and revealed his book code system based on a copy of de Montgon’s Louis XIV. Once MI5 had connected Guilcher with the ISOS personality code-named GUILLAUME, all the pieces began to fall into place.
Guilcher had shown up on a dozen ISOS intercepts between April and June 1944, all on the Paris–Wiesbaden channel, and had also been identified by two other stay-behind agents, Robert Charrier and Martial Durand, who had surrendered in Pré-en-Pail in August. When questioned at Camp 020, both had seen him at the SD training centre at 10 bis rue des Dervallieres in Nantes, where he had been known as ‘Le Gangster’ because of his unsavoury appearance and reputation. Even GUILLAUME’s training transmissions, exchanged between Angers and his temporary location in Morlaix, had been intercepted and filed as ISOS traffic.
According to another Abwehr agent, Manual Roger, he and Guilcher had enlisted in the pro-Nazi Legion de Volonaires Francais to fight the Soviets and had served in Poland, where they had been recruited by the Abwehr. They had then been posted to Saint-Malô under the command of a Captain Bergeret, and underwent radio training at the Château d’Ardannes in Seiches. Both became members of Abwehrtruppe 122, details of which were disclosed after the capture of Adalbert Paulsen, their principal instructor. He also named Jacques Heuber, Marcel Baudrou and Roger Beccassion, who were all arrested.
Guilcher was also implicated by the seizure of documents at the SD office in Rennes, which included a list of local agents, together with their code names, call signs and home addresses. When confronted with the weight of evidence, Guilcher confessed but claimed that he had been injured during an Allied air raid in early June and prevented from using his right arm to transmit, insisting that he had never intended to assist the Germans, even though he had been paid 38,000 francs since his recruitment in 1942, with a promise of a further 30,000 at the conclusion of hostilities.
In his confession Guilcher recalled that while in Bayeux he had been summoned several times to Saint-Lô, where he had been lectured by a Dr Schneider on unit recognition for components of the British Army, in anticipation of his post-occupation mission. Gradually, each piece of the intelligence jigsaw puzzle was put in its proper place, with personalities and their movements matched to their appearances in the ISOS traffic by a team of skilled SIS analysts, among them Hugh Trevor Roper.
Although Guilcher himself was not of great significance, his case was the first of its kind in Normandy and served to illustrate how well prepared the Allies were for dealing with the known threat of a relatively sophisticated enemy stay-behind organisation. Having developed a system for identifying, detaining and questioning suspects, the Allies effectively eliminated the problem posed by the individual agents, and took their instructors and controllers into custody to complete the picture. Thus what could have represented a significant risk, with a military reporting network combined with saboteurs, was reduced to a very manageable challenge of scooping up those implicated. The resulting interrogations, supported by meticulous record-keeping and ISOS carding, gave the counter-intelligence staffs a huge advantage, and leverage.
Guilcher was returned to French custody on 21 June, and a damning Liquidation Report was completed on 11 July. Thereafter, administratively, Guilcher posed something of a bureaucratic problem as he was a French national, captured in France by American troops, and taken as a prisoner to England. SHAEF was anxious for his return to face a French military tribunal, and a group of other confessed enemy spies in a similar position, including Henri Mathieu, Henri Roger and a Corsican, Michel Scognamillo. Accordingly, as they were of no further use to MI5, they were returned to the custody of Martin Furnival Jones at 21 Army Group in Normandy by air from Northolt on 22 July.
By that time MI5 had acquired several other enemy agents, including Andrew Guy (alias d’Arnal), Roland Ball, Claud Lambert, Michel Girka and Gaston Piat, all of whom were used by SHAEF’s intelligence staff to reconstruct the entire German espionage infrastructure.
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The final item on Petrie’s list was the conviction of four members of the Revolutionary Communist Party on two charges of furthering a strike following the Tyneside apprentices’ dispute. However, Mr Justice Cassells’ judgement was quickly overturned by the Court of Appeal, which ruled that the defendants’ involvement had been before the stoppage had begun, so they had been charged with the wrong offence. Accordingly, the three remaining prisoners were freed, Keen having been released upon the verdict because of the time she had served on remand.
17
1 AUGUST 1944
As the Allied invasion forces made slower progress than had been planned in capturing their objectives and driving towards Paris, MI5 emphasised to the Prime Minister how the organisation had neutralised the activities of enemy stay-behind networks, again citing Yves Guilcher as an example, and then expanding on the deception role adopted by MI5’s star performers, GARBO and TATE.
JULY 1944
A. SPIES.
The vast majority of spies arrested during July are individuals sent from the Normandy front for interrogation in this country. Some ten have been sent over and they fall into two main classes: those intended to stay behind as the Allies advance, communicating with their spy masters by W/T, and those who were sent through the lines to collect information, and then return to Axis-held territory. All branches of the German Intelligence Service are taking a hand in these ventures. The German military Intelligence Service directed the stay-behind agents, and Himmler’s Secret Service sent agents through the lines to obtain information on political matters, such as the attitude of the population to the Allies. In addition to these two Services, certain para-military organisations have run agents through the lines to obtain technical military information. These last mentioned organisations are a new discovery, and it appears that the Germans have for some time been giving young Frenchmen military training as cover for their eventual despatch on short-term espionage missions when the Allies invaded France. As an example, shortly before the capture of Cherbourg, a party of such spies was taken by sea from St. Malo to Cherbourg, and from there despatched to cross the American Sector and to return eventually to the Germans in the South.
This month’s haul of spies contains members of all these organisations. All of these spies captured, save one, are French subjects, most of them young, and all of a very poor type. The chief advantage of having them sent to this country and interrogating them has been to discover the names and details of other men of similar character whom they denounce, either voluntarily or under interrogation. This has already borne fruit as four of these spies have been captured as a result of the interrogation of other individuals sent here.
Four spies captured last month, including Guilcher, mentioned in the last report, have been sent back to Normandy to be dealt with in an appropriate manner by an Allied court. It is anticipated that the majority of the others will be treated in the same way when we have finished with them here.
Besides these French spies, we have also received here an important German spy, who has been sent by the French in North Africa on a lease-lend basis. This man, Hans Scharf, has been working for the German Secret Service since early 1940. He went to South A
frica with Robey Leibbrandt, the German ex-boxer and saboteur, who was arrested and sentenced by the South African authorities, but Scharf did not in the end accompany Leibbrandt on his mission after arrival in the Union. He has also carried out missions in Algeria and Tunisia, and was ultimately captured in North Africa, having been sent there by air from Italy and landed by parachute. He is in a position to supply a great deal of information regarding German espionage personnel and methods.
B. SPECIAL AGENTS.
1) Shortly after landing in Normandy, Most Secret Sources revealed three interesting appreciations of the work of Special Agent GARBO in implementation of the Allied deception plan.
(a) A message from Paris to Madrid in which certain tactical information that had been passed by GARBO was cited as having been described by Rundstedt as especially important.
(b) A message of congratulations from Himmler to GARBO’s spy master in Madrid on the work of his organisation in England, and a request for further reconnaissance to ascertain in good time the destination of the groups of forces in South East England, and the notification of their embarkation.
(c) An appreciation of GARBO’s reports in which he had built up the threat to the Pas de Calais area and listed the formations which would take part in this assault. This classified GARBO’s reports as especially valuable, and said that they had been confirmed almost without exception. The request for information about British forces in the South East of England was repeated, and GARBO was asked to keep a watch on the formations assembled in Western Scottish ports.
GARBO was also asked to give urgent information regarding damage caused by CROSSBOW. In order to avoid compromising the case by inaccurate reports on CROSSBOW incidents and to comply with the SHAEF directives that all military information sent to the enemy by special means should be reduced to a minimum pending the embarkation of the FUSAG forces to the battle area, it was decided that GARBO should be notionally arrested whilst investigating and showing excessive curiosity in a bombed area. Immediately upon his arrest, his notional deputy took over the organisation, reporting first GARBO’s detention, and later his release. Berlin, on hearing the news, described the loss of GARBO as ‘particularly regrettable precisely at the present state of affairs’. They instructed Madrid to tell GARBO’s deputy to stop transmitting for fourteen days, and to suspend all activities in investigating the effects of CROSSBOW. The Service was resumed after ten days under the auspices of GARBO’s deputy, who is now handling not only W/T communication, but also the notional GARBO network. We were able, when we renewed contact, to pass over immediately the revised deception threat to the Pas de Calais area.
For the moment GARBO will content himself with writing secret ink letters giving details of the progress in the re-organisation of the network which includes the strengthening of the notional network already existing in Canada and its extension to India.
It appears from this experience that the Germans have complete trust and confidence in the ability of GARBO’s notional deputy; indeed he is so well established that, should the necessity ever arise, the network could continue to operate with no great loss without GARBO, who is the only real character in the whole piece.
2) On July 15th TATE was asked whether the building of new transformer stations in connection with existing overland high tension lines was taking place in various parts of South-Eastern England, and, if so, what the new building looked like. On July 26th, not having answered the question, he was asked whether he had still found out anything about these buildings, and was instructed to send over ‘even partial results’. These questions are thought to be connected with German theories regarding our possible counter-measures to V-2.
C. DIPLOMATIC.
1) There is evidence from Most Secret Sources that the German Secret Service still have easy and speedy access to the reports sent back from this country from the Spanish Embassy to the Spanish Foreign Office. This is illustrated very clearly in the case of the first report made by the Duke of Alba at the end of June on the effect of CROSSBOW. A verbatim copy of the despatch, which was a fair and objective account, was obtained by the Head of the German Counter-Espionage Section in Madrid within four days of its receipt there. Its contents were sent at once to Berlin.
2) Most Secret Sources reveal that the bull-fighter turned spy, Alcazar de Velasco, mentioned in previous reports, has had to flee from Spain, and is now taking refuge in Munich. Alcazar has recently been responsible for recruiting agents for the Japanese for despatch to the Americas. The principal reason for his expulsion was the exposure of one of his agents, Fernando Kobbe, the Spanish Consul in Vancouver. A protest was made to the Spanish Foreign Office on this case, causing them to investigate Alcazar, who, threatened with arrest, fled the country.
D. SABOTAGE.
Our representative has arrived in Rome to investigate sabotage equipment left behind by the German Sabotage Service for the use of post-occupational agents. The equipment discovered has proved to be of considerable interest. Our representative estimates that there must have been, or still are, fifty such dumps. One, which has been fully investigated, being hidden in the Emperor Caracalla’s baths. He is shortly expected back in England, bringing with him a number of ‘exhibits’, knowledge of which may prove highly useful to those who may have to handle similar material coming to light in France.
1st August 1944
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The reference to enemy spies planted in Cherbourg must have intrigued Churchill, even if no further details were provided. In fact, Petrie probably had in mind Alfred Gabas, a French former ship’s wireless officer whose experience was a classic example of stay-behind espionage. Born in August 1909, he was an electrician by trade and completed his military service in the navy before joining the Paris Metro to work as a rolling stock and electrical inspector at the Gare du Nord. In 1939 he had been called up as a reservist and posted to an auxiliary minesweeper, the Angele Marie, based in Boulogne.
Having been evacuated from Dunkirk, Gabas had been placed aboard the SS Moknes in Southampton for repatriation to France but his ship was torpedoed in the Channel and the survivors were rescued and landed at Weymouth. Finally, in November 1940, he was repatriated to Toulon from Gourock at the second attempt and made his way home to his wife and three children in Paris. However, in June 1943 he was called up for compulsory labour in Germany and attempted to flee to Spain. He was caught at the border, imprisoned in Bordeaux, and then recruited by an Abwehr officer named Norberd. He took him to Paris, where he underwent two months of training, supervised by Sonderführer Stockmann, in an office at 32 rue de Varennes in preparation for his mission. Obligingly, Gabas identified five other agents who had attended the same courses in secret writing, enciphering and radio procedures.
When cross-examined, Gabas changed his story and admitted that he had been assigned a mission to Oran, and had been entrusted with a cover address in Madrid: Señora Lary de Badal, 44 Calle de Cartagena. His task was to cross into Spain from Perpignan and reach French North Africa posing as a refugee, but he was arrested by the Spanish police and in September 1943 interned at the Miranda del Ebro camp. In February 1944 he was allowed to return to San Sebastián, having been escorted through the frontier controls at Irun by German consulate staff. A second mission was prepared for him, but following the Allied invasion his Abwehr controller gave him a new objective, reporting from behind the enemy lines in Normandy under the alias André Dumont, accompanied by his second wife, Marcelle.
Having failed to reach Cherbourg, Gabas was arrested on 22 August by the American CIC in Saint-Pair-sur-Mer as he attended a rendezvous with another stay-behind spy, Juan Frutos, unaware that he was being run by an SCI as a double-agent code-named DRAGOMAN. Once in custody Gabas admitted his role and led his captors to the garden of his rented house, the Villa Mary-Lou, where he had buried his transmitter concealed inside a green wooden suitcase. He also admitted that he had intended to work in tandem with two other agents in Cherbourg, Frutos, alias John
Eikens, who lived at 30 rue Victor Grignard, and Jean Senouque, at the Villa Philomele in Saint-Pair. Evidently Gabas never suspected that he had been betrayed by Frutos, a Portuguese interpreter employed by American Express who would be delivered to Camp 020 in August 1944, having been arrested by 104 SCI’s Christopher Harmer and Neil MacDermot. Under interrogation, Frutos admitted that he had been recruited by the Abwehr’s Johannes Bischoff in Bremen in 1936.
According to ISOS, dating back to September 1943, Gabas was an Abwehr agent code-named DESIRE and on 29 August 1944 Gabas was shipped from Arromanches to Shoreham and accommodated at Camp 020, where he provided his third and most comprehensive confession. He was returned to Paris from Southampton in November 1944.
Gabas was important partly because of his accumulated knowledge of Abwehr operations, procedures and personalities, but also because of his involvement in the very active DRAGOMAN double-agent case, one of six Abwehr transmitters controlled by SCI units. DRAGOMAN established his radio link in July 1944 and by the end of the war had exchanged some 200 messages without arousing the enemy’s suspicion. Gabas also compromised an Abwehr agent in Le Havre who, code-named SKULL, was one of seven assets in that city managed by an energetic Abwehr officer, Richard Kaulen.
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Angel Alcazar de Velasco was indeed well known to MI5, and had been the intermediary responsible for recommending the recruitment of Henri Chambard to the Japanese embassy in Madrid in April 1943. That episode, referred to in Petrie’s earlier report, dated 3 April 1944 (see Chapter 13), showed that the Spaniard had shifted his attention from the Abwehr and developed a relationship with Tokyo.
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The brevity of the passage mentioning Robey Leibbrandt, who had been sent on a mission to South Africa with Hans Scharf, deserved more detail. Leibbrandt was a former Empire Games heavyweight boxing champion who had attended the 1936 Olympic Games and met Adolf Hitler. In 1938, having worked as a boxing instructor at a police college in the Transvaal, and transferring to the railway police with the rank of lance-sergeant, he returned to Germany to train gymnasts, qualified as a glider pilot and joined the Wehrmacht.
