The Second World War in 100 Facts

by Clive Pearson

  As the end approached he put out peace feelers to the Swedish Red Cross, but Hitler heard of his betrayal and dismissed him. He committed suicide when he was arrested by British military police in May 1945.

  74. IAN FLEMING WAS A WOULD-BE JAMES BOND

  Everybody is familiar with the books (and films) of the author Ian Fleming; however, few realise that the wartime experiences of the writer were the inspiration for his novels. His work in naval intelligence led him to become involved in many daring and behind-the-scenes operations.

  Fleming had a wealthy family background and went to Eton before making a failed attempt to enter the Foreign Office. Later he tried working as a financier and stockbroker but found he was unsuited to the roles. None of this prepared him for the position he was to assume just prior to the outbreak of war in September 1939. However, he did have a gift for languages and had worked as a journalist, and this may have had a bearing on his first appointment.

  He was recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, head of the Naval Intelligence Division, to be his assistant. Godfrey later became his model for ‘M’. Fleming was given the code name ‘17F’ and worked in Room 39 in the Admiralty. He immediately showed a talent for administration and writing reports. He was also a fount of ideas. One of these was a proposal to help Bletchley get hold of some enigma code books. He suggested that some British servicemen (dressed in enemy uniforms) should land a German bomber in the sea off the coast of Nazi-occupied France. It was then hoped that a German motor torpedo boat would be lured out to the rescue, which could then be ambushed. The boat and the enigma code book could then be brought back to England. Unfortunately, it was impossible to locate any enemy boats in the area and so the plan was abandoned.

  Another idea was floating a corpse off the Continent with some false documents on it. This indeed became reality with Operation Mincemeat (Fact 60). Operation Goldeneye in 1941 was a plan to carry out sabotage and spying missions should the Germans occupy Gibraltar but this never required implementation.

  Fleming’s greatest contribution was the creation of an elite commando unit called 30 Assault Unit (30 AU). Its remit was to move ahead or behind advancing armies and to ‘pinch’ any useful document or assault strategic points. Fleming determined the unit’s missions and these included Dieppe in 1942 and later Sicily and Italy, where it distinguished itself. Finally, 30 AU took part in D-Day and immediately thereafter.

  After D-Day Fleming helped create T-Force (the T is for target). This was a special group whose task was to secure important equipment and documents as Allied forces moved into Germany. Its greatest success was to seize the German V-2 rocket and jet engine research establishment in Kiel. Fleming used the activities of this unit as a basis for many of his books, in particular Moonraker.

  Fleming never did take part in any of the exciting daredevil schemes he helped draw up. However, the imagination he displayed was later deployed in his now famous works written in the 1950s and ’60s.

  75. THE FRENCH RESISTANCE PLAYS ITS PART

  After the fall of France in June 1940 open resistance to Nazi occupation was slow to get going. By 1943, however, resistance groups were becoming a thorn in the side of the Germans. This had not come about unassisted. As mentioned before (Fact 65) the SOE in London was very much involved in building up the movement by supplying weapons, trained fighters, and wireless sets etc. By the time of D-Day (the Allied invasion in Normandy) the resistance were providing vital information as well as leaving a trail of havoc.

  The situation after the defeat of France was a complex one. To begin with the country itself had become split into two parts. Nazi-occupied France lay in the north and west and Fascist Vichy France was under the control of the dictatorial Marshall Pétain in the south. This somewhat divided the loyalties of the French people as some supported the right-wing marshal.

  The resistance also was not one united body. General Charles de Gaulle had first raised the banner of resistance from London in June 1940. He had made his famous ‘Appeal of 18 June’ exhorting his countrymen to continue the fight, and those who joined de Gaulle became known as the Free French. However, another strong resistance group grew up based in Algeria called the AMF and there were also the communists who the British refused to support.

  Hundreds of agents were dropped into France in support of the resistance. The different ‘circuits’ gave themselves coded names such ‘Farmer’ or ‘Prosper’ and London communicated with these groups via Morse code sent on wireless sets. The BBC also sent out pre-agreed nonsense messages over the air waves, which could be the trigger for action; for example, ‘Aesculape n’aime pas le mouton’. (Aesculape doesn’t like mutton). An indication of the success of these groups was the actions of ‘Farmer’ in 1943 (in north-east France), which claimed to have destroyed forty railway trucks and to be derailing fifteen to twenty trains a week! Meanwhile, ‘Prosper’ was assassinating at least one German every day in Paris.

  On the ‘Night of Neptune’, the code name for D-Day, the resistance carried out 950 ‘interruptions’ or acts of sabotage on the French railway system alone. Perhaps the most celebrated action was that on the Second SS Panzer Division ‘Das Reich’, which was resting and refitting near Toulouse in the south of France at the time of the Allied landing. The unit was desperate to get to the beachheads and stop the Allied advance. The quickest method was by train, but the resistance had placed ground carborundum instead of axle oil in the rail transporters. The result was that the wheels soon seized up. Infuriated, the elite forces had to go by road, where they encountered further delays courtesy of the resistance. The SS troops arrived thirteen days late – too late to stop the Allied breakout.

  Despite the dangers of daily arrest, torture and execution, the resistance made a massive contribution to Allied success on D-Day.

  76. THE ALLIES LEAVE NOTHING TO CHANCE

  Allied military leaders realised that only meticulous planning would guarantee success for the planned invasion of France. Attacking well-manned defensive positions had historically been fraught with difficulty and the outcome had often been uncertain – one only has to think of the traditional problem of seizing a castle in medieval times. Added to this the Allies were attacking from across the sea. Failure to break through would mean utter disaster.

  The Allies had learnt a great deal from recent events, in particular from the Anglo-Canadian raid on Dieppe in 1942, which had gone badly due to poor planning and insufficient reconnaissance and research beforehand. They were not about to make the same mistake again. To begin with they had an advantage not open to any invading armies previously, which was the information from Bletchley Park regarding the strength and dispositions of nearly all enemy forces in the area of the Normandy beaches. The local French resistance was also helpful in this regard. Aerial surveillance added information about the numerous beach defences and the heavy defensive fortifications and gun emplacements. These were part of Hitler’s fortress Europe, which the Allies would have to smash through.

  A further Allied concern was the nature of the beaches. They intended to use tanks to help prosecute the advance on the beachheads. However, the wrong kind of sand could leave tanks stranded. As early as December 1943 British submarines had secretly dropped off small units that had taken back sand samples and parts of the beach defences themselves under the very noses of the enemy. The results of tests confirmed the viability of using heavy vehicles in the invasion.

  The invading Allied forces would have to deal with heavily mined beaches strewn with various metal obstructions. The British came up with a solution to this problem by placing various attachments onto the fronts of their tanks. These became known as ‘Hobart’s funnies’, named after a certain Major-General Percy Hobart. Examples were the Crab, which was a Sherman tank with a flail of weighted chains for mines, and the AVRE, which was fitted with a large mortar device capable of destroying bunkers. There were many more.

  A major preoccupation was how to keep the forces supplied once ash
ore. Normandy presented a problem as there was no harbour there. The Allies came up with a clever solution, which was to bring two of their own ones with them – they were called Mulberry and were composed of massive steel and concrete structures. They also brought along Pluto an undersea pipeline, which carried oil all the way across the Channel.

  The Allies, of course, had two aces up their sleeves: complete control of both the air and the sea. On D-Day itself they would be able to field 10,000 planes against an almost non-existent Luftwaffe. Both this and a myriad of battleships would give the attacking forces overwhelming firepower on the day.

  Nevertheless, the Allies would only be sure of success if they could retain one key element: surprise.

  77. HITLER EXPECTS VICTORY OVER THE ALLIES

  As early as September 1942 Hitler had set out his plans for an Atlantic Wall that would run from the Arctic Circle to the Pyrenees. Despite decreeing that it should be ready in under a year, by the time of the Normandy Landings it was still not completed. Nevertheless, as the summer of that year approached the Führer had felt confident that his ‘fortress’ was now sufficiently prepared and that he could repel any invasion attempt. His generals, though, were feeling less sanguine.

  One reason his generals felt uneasy is that the whole strategy was surely wrong. Hadn’t Hitler created his own Maginot Line? It would be difficult to defend the whole length of the wall in equal strength and the Allies could choose when and where to attack with massive force. His generals would have much preferred to hold back their forces and retain some kind of flexibility of response.

  On the other hand, the German High Command could point to the quality and strength of the army units available for the defence of northern France. Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt, the Commander-in-Chief West, had as many as 850,000 troops under his control. Some of these represented the best the German Army could field; for example, there were several panzer divisions of the Waffen SS with a total of 16,000 tanks available and some of these included the mighty Tiger tanks, however, several of the infantry divisions were definitely of rather indifferent quality. After years of warfare the high command had had to use men who were either relatively old or very young. In a monument to German efficiency there were ‘ear and stomach battalions’ in the coastal defence. Bizarrely, these units were made up entirely of those with stomach wounds or who had suffered loss of hearing. Perhaps most surprising were the Osttruppen. These were Russian and Polish recruits who had sworn loyalty to the Nazi regime to save themselves from the death camps. Their reliability was highly suspect.

  How to deal with the impending invasion was a problem that vexed the minds of Hitler’s generals. Rommel wanted the panzer units close to the beaches so that they could quickly snuff out the enemy forces, while von Rundstedt wanted the tanks held back. In the end Hitler came up with his own solution, which was to keep them in reserve but under his own control.

  The timing of the attack remained an enigma. Some German commanders had predicted the landing in May, which indeed was the original month set for it. When this didn’t happen there was a general feeling that it might be the end of June or in August. The poor weather at the beginning of June had led them to believe a landing was unlikely at that moment. Or maybe it was all a hoax?

  The timing of the landings added an extra element of surprise for the Allies.

  78. XX AGENT GARBO IS DECORATED BY BOTH KING GEORGE VI AND ADOLF HITLER

  As in all wars throughout history the combatants have tried to secretly infiltrate themselves into the enemy camp and discover exactly what the opposition are planning and thereby steal an advantage. In the Second World War the German secret service, or Abwehr, made several attempts to get their agents set up in Britain – all without success!

  The Head of German intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, was in fact anti-Nazi and secretly plotting against Hitler. This no doubt had some bearing on the sheer ineptitude of German espionage efforts. Spies planted by the Germans in Britain before the war were soon rounded up as they were well known to the authorities. Further attempts made in the early years to infiltrate were also easily dealt with. For example, typically, would-be spies were dropped off by submarine or by boat in some quiet coastal area. They would immediately arouse suspicion due to their wet clothing, the large amount of money they were carrying and incorrect documentation. All those captured were offered a choice by Britain’s own secret service, MI5. They could either become double agents working for the British or face execution. Some agreed to work for MI5, and this was the beginning of the double-cross network that was to have profound consequences.

  Once German spies had been ‘turned’ they would be given the messages they were to transmit back to their handlers in Berlin. A story was usually built up of how the German spy had managed to get work and the information he had allegedly ‘picked up’ was fed to the credulous Abwehr.

  There were also other double-cross spies who were nationals of third countries who managed to convince the German authorities of their desire to spy for Germany while in fact working for the Allies. Three of these were Dusko Popov (code-named Tricycle), a Polish officer named Brutus and a Spaniard called Garbo. All three had an important part to play in the deception plans leading up to D-Day.

  Garbo’s real name was Juan Pujol Garcia. At first he operated by himself from Lisbon before moving to the UK. He built up a collection of twenty-seven fictional sub-agents who were supposedly supplying him with important snippets of information. The Gestapo believed him and paid out vast sums of money as gratitude for his help. When it came to D-Day Garbo and his ‘agents’ had plenty of disinformation to relay, particularly in relation to FUSAG, an imaginary army lined up in Kent for a supposed attack on Calais. Garbo did eventually tell the Germans the truth about the Normandy Landings, but only when it was too late. Hitler was so impressed with his copious detailed messages about Allied armies that he awarded him (over the radio) the Iron Cross Second Class in July 1944. Later the same year King George VI awarded him an MBE as well. Not many spies in the Second World War could boast of being so handsomely rewarded.

  79. THE FÜHRER IS LED ON A WILD GOOSE CHASE

  One of the most fascinating elements of the story leading up to D-Day is the web of misinformation fed to the Germans by the Allies. As Hitler increasingly took all the key military decisions these deceptions were targeted specifically at the German leader. While he remained isolated in his mountain retreat of Berchtesgaden or in his ‘Wolf’s Lair’ in East Prussia he increasingly became the dupe of the Allies.

  The aim of the deceptions was to get Hitler to divert his forces away from Normandy and to spread them around his empire. The code name for this was ‘Bodyguard’ after a comment by Churchill that truth was so precious that it should be surrounded by ‘a bodyguard of lies’. One part of this deception plan was called ‘Zeppelin’. This was an operation designed to convince the Germans that an Anglo-American attack was imminent on Yugoslavia and Greece designed to link up with the advancing Soviet armies. This was a vulnerable area for Germany as Bulgaria and Rumania were trying to wriggle out of the Axis alliance – the latter was a key supplier of oil for the Wehrmacht. Hitler became convinced after a pro-German Turkish spy code named ‘Cicero’ brought photographs of top-secret documents from the British embassy in Ankara. They were in fact a plant. However, Hitler fell for the stunt and moved twenty-five divisions that could have been available on D-Day into the Balkans.

  Meanwhile Operation Fortitude was a two-pronged deception. Fortitude North focused on trying to convince the German warlord that an attack on Norway was being planned. The airwaves became filled with false messages sent out from radio operators in Edinburgh and elsewhere in Scotland. Supposedly, an impending attack was being prepared by two non-existent Allied armies. The Germans consulted their ‘reliable’ agents Tricycle and Garbo (Fact 78), who confirmed the increase of military activity north of the border. Again Hitler became convinced of the threat and decided to stati
on nearly half a million troops in Norway. Von Rundstedt contemptuously observed that by trying to hold on to everything Hitler would eventually lose everything.

  Fortitude South, on the other hand, was designed to get the Germans to believe that the D-Day attack would come against Calais. A fictitious Allied army group called FUSAG was built up in Kent, headed by the eminent American general George S. Patton. Again the Germans were bombarded by increased radio traffic. Luftwaffe flights were allowed over the area so that they could photograph real-looking inflatable Sherman tanks and landing craft made of plywood and canvass. Hitler was persuaded and kept his massive 15th Army in readiness behind Calais. Incredibly, even after D-Day the Nazi leader kept to the view that the real attack was still to come and that the Normandy landings were merely a diversion.

  It is remarkable that Hitler was so easily persuaded by Allied subterfuge, especially as he had fallen for similar tricks previously. However, the fact that these ruses were consistently confirmed by double agents made them all the more credible for the beleaguered dictator.

  80. JAPANESE FORCES ARE DEFEATED ON THE TENNIS COURT

  After the epic withdrawal of British forces from Burma in 1942, the following year saw a kind of standoff. The Japanese completed the Burmese railway line, which would permit them to bring up more forces while the Allies were slowing rebuilding their armies after endless defeats. However, by the beginning of 1944 both sides felt able to launch their own offensives: the British to throw the Japanese out of Burma and the Japanese to invade India.

  The Commonwealth armies under General ‘Bill’ Slim had been reinvigorated and given a new strategy for taking on the enemy. Instead of retreating if surrounded, Allied troops were expected to hold a ‘defensive box’ and await supply drops from the air and a relieving army. The aim was to defeat the Japanese at their own game – jungle warfare.