From an Italian point of view, the total control of SOE’s lines from Switzerland was an outstanding success. For a good two years, the Italians consistently misdirected British energies and intentions and routinely soaked up British money, explosives and devices. As the head of SIM’s counter-espionage section, Colonel Mario Bertacchi, later wrote, they had also gained a ‘pretty comprehensive picture’ of British methods. Careful monitoring of correspondence from Switzerland had provided unique insight into ‘how agents were treated, how they were paid, how they communicated with them (invisible writing), etc.’ The Italians had learned, too, about British procedures for infiltrating material: ‘across the borders in suitcases … dropped by plane in lake areas … disembarked by submarine … placed in the seas near the coast … Very important too was the examination of the technical means used in the drops and in written reports and in particular the knowledge of the various sabotage materials, which were studied [and] tried out.’77 Other gains were details of genuine anti-Fascists and of British objectives and projected plans, the latter deduced from lists of desired targets sent to McCaffery’s contacts in northern Italy, as well as the ability to deceive the British by planting misleading information coming purportedly from anti-Fascists. In Bertacchi’s opinion, SIM’s hoodwinking of the British was its greatest counter-espionage achievement of the war and might have lasted years if the Armistice had not interrupted it. Another man who acknowledged what the Italians had done was Raymond Rocca, post-war deputy head of the CIA’s counter-intelligence staff. In 1945, when the Allies finally caught up with Eligio Klein, Rocca was his American interrogator. What the Italians had achieved, Rocca recorded after learning the details, ‘must be regarded as a classic example of a deception operation’.78
Notes
1 J. McCaffery, ‘No Pipes or Drums’.
2 ‘Interference with Italian Railway Communications: Extracts from Paper prepared by Railway Research Service, dated 30 August 1940’, TNA HS 6/1010.
3 Minute, Prime Minister to Secretary of State for Air and the Minister of Economic Warfare, 26 January 1941, TNA HS 6/1010.
4 J. McCaffery to Sir Frank Nelson, 27 March 1941, TNA HS 6/1006.
5 Information provided by the SOE Adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
6 J. McCaffery to Sir Frank Nelson, 27 March 1941, TNA HS 6/1006.
7 Information provided by the SOE Adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
8 ‘Work into Germany from Switzerland’, by R. [sic] Jellinek, c. 1945, TNA HS 7/145.
9 Information provided by the SOE Adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
10 J. McCaffery to Sir Frank Nelson, 24 April 1941, TNA HS 6/1006.
11 J. McCaffery to Sir Frank Nelson, 27 March 1941, TNA HS 6/1006.
12 J. McCaffery to Sir Frank Nelson, 24 April 1941, TNA HS 6/1006.
13 ‘Report from JQ’, 9 October 1941, TNA HS 6/1005.
14 This was the story that Silone told in January 1943 to G. M. Mayer, an associate of Allen Dulles, the newly arrived representative in Switzerland of the OSS. Silone ‘spoke very bitterly about John McCaffery (Assistant Press Attaché, British Legation, Bern)’, Mayer noted. Memorandum, G. M. Mayer to Mr A. W. Dulles, 8 January 1943, NARA RG 226, Entry 125, Box 8, Folder 124, (Bern – OSS).
15 Handwritten note, undated (but probably c. February 1943), NARA RG 226, Entry 125, Box 8, Folder 124.
16 Note by C. M. Woods on conversation with Peter Jellinek, June 1992, Woods papers.
17 J. McCaffery to Sir Frank Nelson, 24 April 1941, TNA HS 6/1006.
18 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/262.
19 J. McCaffery to SOE London, 17 April 1942, TNA HS 6/1005.
20 J. McCaffery to G. K. Logie, 30 January 1941, TNA HS 6/884.
21 Report by J. Dobrski, 15 April 1941, TNA HS 6/884.
22 Lieutenant-Colonel S. H. C. Woolrych to Commandant, 30 April 1941, TNA HS 6/884.
23 Captain P. Cooper to Ensign M. Sample, 5 September 1944, TNA HS 9/1311.
24 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/230.
25 Captain P. Cooper to Ensign M. Sample, 5 September 1944, TNA HS 9/1311.
26 Cipher telegram, Major C. Roseberry to SOE Cairo, 4 June 1942, TNA HS 9/1311.
27 Cipher telegram, Major C. Roseberry to SOE Cairo, 10 June 1942, TNA HS 9/1311.
28 ‘Brief read by Rossi,’ 2 October 1942, TNA HS 9/1311.
29 G. Sarfatti to Flight Lieutenant H. G. Crawshaw, October 1942, TNA HS 9/1311. Written when he and his companions were about to embark on the last sea-bound leg to France, Sarfatti’s letter also provides an interesting glimpse of how Odette Sansom was seen by some of her peers. ‘[T]he three women, except the eldest one, have been rather annoying on the whole,’ he wrote. ‘The youngest one [Sansom] is enough to drive anybody crazy. Anyhow she gets nice and sick quite easily, so she will be quiet.’ Cecil Roseberry passed a copy of that note to Maurice Buckmaster, head of SOE’s F Section. Buckmaster underlined the penultimate sentence and wrote: ‘We thought so too!!’ M. Buckmaster, pencil annotation to C. Roseberry to M. Buckmaster, 12 November 1943, TNA HS 9/1311.
30 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/262.
31 Cipher telegram, SOE Berne to SOE London, 19 December 1942, TNA HS 9/1311.
32 Information provided by the SOE Adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
33 SIM report No. 82385, 27 August 1943, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 229, Folder 66 (1350).
34 P. Jellinek to C. M. Woods, 12 May 1992, Woods papers.
35 Petitioner’s statement, 5 September 1934, TNA J 77/3332/1751.
36 ‘Report from JQ’, 2 October 1941, TNA HS 6/1005.
37 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/221.
38 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/222. Roseberry had even wondered in London whether McCaffery should be replaced. He had been reading the files, he explained in October 1941, and had noted that ‘results so far achieved were disappointing’. This could be due to ‘McCaffery’s policy of advancing slowly’, Roseberry thought, but his channels appeared ‘to be capable of development … [He] had not done enough in recruiting individuals or in establishing safe houses.’ SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/221.
39 By the end of the year, McCaffery was being instructed by London ‘that SOE material could be used in Italy by Pellegrini, [the] Tigrotti or anybody else, without restriction as to targets’. SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/224. In February 1942, on the eve of the momentous first delivery of a suitcase of stores to Milan, McCaffery told London that he wanted more time to ensure that every link in the chain was secure. London told him to press on. Risks were ‘always attendant on such operations’, he was told, while ‘a start must be made and moreover the Tigrotti might lose confidence if the opportunity were missed’. SOE War Diary, HS 7/265.
40 SIM reports, 7 and 27 March 1941, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 201, Folder 8 (H) (1292).
41 ‘2-Schwerd [sic]’, undated note, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 224, Folder 55 (D).
42 SIM summary report on the British ‘I.S.’ (Intelligence Service) in Switzerland, with covering note dated 14 August 1941, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 202, Folder 10 (G) (1294).
43 SIM report No. 81924, 26 October 1941, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 220, Folder 48 (K). Schwerdt’s excesses may help explain why several Italian reports describe him as ‘old’ and one estimated his age at fifty when he was still only thirty-nine. ‘1.65m tall, wrinkled bony face, thick reddish eyebrows, reddish-blond hair mixed with grey,’ one report adds. ‘He has stated that he is divorced and has children in London. He plays the piano a lot, also composes music and is writing a novel.’ SIM report No. 82283, 9 June 1943, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 221, Folder 49 (A).
44 SIM report No. 81175, 21 February 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 220, Folder 48 (K).
45 Ibid.
46 Annex No. 3 to SIM report No. 81175, 21 February 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 220, Folder 48 (K).
47 SIM report No. 81175, 21 February 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 220, Folder 48 (K).
48 ‘P
reliminary Interrogation Report on Osteria, Ugo Luca, Alias Parodi, Giovanni’, 15 March 1945, TNA HS 6/823.
49 ‘Translation of a report (undated) made to Rossi [J. McCaffery] by Ugo’, TNA HS 6/823.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 This was not the only curious incident that came to the attention of the British and could have justified deeper investigation. Possibly the most significant was a warning passed along by MI6 in London to SOE in July 1942 that the Tigrotti were ‘in the hands of the Fascists’. SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/262. When SOE asked for the source of that information, MI6 replied simply that it came from a report received from France. Available files suggest that little if any effort was expended in exploring the report further.
53 ‘Translation of a report (undated) made to Rossi [J. McCaffery] by Ugo’, TNA HS 6/823.
54 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/238.
55 ‘Translation of a report (undated) made to Rossi [J. McCaffery] by Ugo’, TNA HS 6/823.
56 Cipher telegram, J. McCaffery to SOE London, 12 May 1943, TNA HS 6/901.
57 SIM report No. 81126, 22 March 1944, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 208, Folder 23 (1307). On behalf of the British, Cavadini delivered suitcases of explosives and other supplies to a socialist lawyer in Chiasso called Giuseppe Borella whose activities the OVRA was controlling. These supplies included, to quote from Italian documents, ‘packets of inert gunpowder to sabotage train wagons and switchblades to cut car tyres’. SIM, too, appears to have run Cavadini for a while. Eventually, however, Italian counter-espionage officers came to doubt his loyalty and had him arrested. By then the Wolves had successfully requested a drop of stores into Lake Garda. SOE agreed to arrange it and six watertight containers were duly dropped from an RAF Halifax flying from Blida, in Algeria, on the night of 15/16 July.
58 ‘Interrogation report on Klein, Eligio’, 11 June 1945, TNA HS 6/809.
59 SIM report, 31 March 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 178, Folder 28 (1243).
60 ‘Interrogation report on Klein, Eligio’, 11 June 1945, TNA HS 6/809.
61 Interrogation report on Eligio Klein, 15 October 1945, NARA RG 226, Entry 215, Box 4.
62 Information provided by the SOE Adviser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.
63 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/262.
64 ‘Elenco del materiale contenuto nei recipienti metallici lanciati dall’aereo nemico la notte dal 13 al 14 aprile 1943 sul Lago di Viverone (Vercelli)’, 18 April 1943, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 236, Folder 5 (1361).
65 A. Croft, A Talent for Adventure (Hanley Swan, Worcs: Self Publishing Association, 1991).
66 ‘Report on Operation “Burrow”’, by Captain A. R. McClair, included in ‘H.M. Submarine “Seraph” – Report on Patrol’, 15 September 1943, TNA ADM 199/1345.
67 SOE War Diary, TNA HS 7/232.
68 SIM report No. 81539, 19 May 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 237, Folder 6 (B) (1362).
69 SIM report, 2 June 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 237, Folder 6 (B) (1362).
70 ‘Azione di doppio gioco verso l’I.S. (Elda–Giusto)’, SIM report No. 33408, 31 December 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 221, Folder 49 (A).
71 ‘Azione di doppio gioco verso l’I.S. (Elda–Giusto)’, SIM report No. 33122, 26 December 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 221, Folder 49 (A).
72 ‘Relazione’ by E. Klein (‘Almerigotti’), 30 December 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 221, Folder 49 (A).
73 Ibid.
74 ‘Azione di doppio gioco verso l’I.S. (Elda–Giusto)’, SIM report No. 33122, 26 December 1942, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 221, Folder 49 (A).
75 ‘Azione “E–G”’, SIM report 2087, 12 February 1943, NARA RG 226, Entry 174, Box 221, Folder 49 (A).
76 Ibid.
77 ‘Part 2. Mission E/G’, 11 August 1944, TNA HS 9/9/3.
78 Interrogation report of Eligio Klein, 15 October 1945, NARA RG 226, Entry 215, Box 4.
10
‘As much alarm as possible’
On a cold and very dark night in January 1943, three weeks after Giacomino Sarfatti had crossed the Swiss–Italian border on his mission to Milan, a British submarine surfaced half a mile off the southeast coast of Sardinia. A hatch opened. Figures appeared on the gun platform. A rubber dinghy was hauled out, inflated and lowered over the side. Then four men climbed in with weapons and kit and began paddling for the shore, aiming for a secluded spot on a wide flat beach flanked by a watchtower and two little houses. It was ten to three in the morning. At four o’clock they reached the beach.
Two of the party were young Cornish sailors trained to land agents and stores on enemy coasts. The other two were SOE agents with orders to stay ashore. One of the Cornishmen, Seaman Webb, now stayed with the dinghy while the other, Leading Seaman Taylor, helped the agents carry their kit through the dunes and a mile and a half inland and bury it. When that job was done, Taylor returned, alone, to the beach. He and Webb re-launched the dinghy and began paddling back out to sea, peering hard into the darkness for the submarine.
There was no sign of it. With a brisk wind behind them, Taylor and Webb kept paddling. Still there was no submarine. By now it was broad daylight and they were miles out to sea. Frightened and desperate, they turned again for the shore. ‘We get to about a mile within the land when a sailing ship comes bearing down on us,’ Taylor wrote afterwards in a little scribbled note, ‘so we decided to get rid of our guns maps and everything [and then] … layed [sic] down in the boat and waited and he passed.’ At midday the two sailors were still at sea, ‘just about knocked up and trying to get to shore and hide’, when they suddenly spotted a periscope poking out of the water about five hundred yards astern, ‘so we turn round to meet the S/M [submarine] and just as we get there he surface [sic] and only about three hundred yards from the shore’.1
Taylor and Webb scrambled aboard. A knife was put into the dinghy to make it easier to pull inside, while the submarine’s first lieutenant leapt into the sea to rescue the paddles as they began to float away: it was vital to leave no clues that men had gone ashore that night. Four minutes after surfacing and with everyone safely on board, the submarine dived. Its commander, an experienced officer who had landed his first agents on Guernsey in 1940, was Lieutenant Ian McGeoch, a 28-year-old Scot. ‘1223 [hours],’ reads his report of his role in the landing; ‘Embarked boat and its occupants who were understandably relieved to find that we were not an enemy U-boat, the periscope having looked at them, they said, in a hostile way.’2
The two SOE agents whom McGeoch had put ashore were, after Giacomino Sarfatti, the next to set foot on Italian soil; they were also the first and last to be sent to Sardinia while Italy was hostile. Their orders were to reconnoitre sabotage targets, gather intelligence, transmit reports, and recruit locals willing to put up resistance to the island’s Axis occupiers. It was a mission that had little to do with Emilio Lussu’s earlier plan for a Sardinian rebellion. Rather, its immediate origins lay in the fast-changing course of the Mediterranean war where the balance of power was shifting firmly in the Allies’ favour: with Allied control of North Africa seemingly imminent, British and American planners were eager to maintain the offensive and had instructed SOE to explore, with some urgency, the ways and means of causing trouble in southern France, southern Italy and the Italian islands. It was also a mission whose ultimate outcome would prove of value to one of the major Allied deception schemes put into practice in the Mediterranean. Yet it began so disastrously that, if anything had been learned from MI6’s recent efforts to put agents into Sicily and Italy, few lessons seem to have been heeded when SOE came to land these two on Sardinia.
One of the agents who went ashore that night was Salvatore Serra. He was a native Sardinian, tall and swarthy. ‘Black hair; black eyes,’ reads a physical description in his SOE personal file; ‘full mouth with firm square teeth, but definitely too many’.3 ‘Heavy shaving mark,’ records another pen-portrait; ‘Chest covered with thick black hair. Legs also hairy.’4
According to the file he had been born in February 1909 in Solarussa, a little town in the west of Sardinia, and was the son of a farmer. After some local schooling he had joined the Carabinieri with which he served for ten years before deserting in Abyssinia in 1938 and fleeing to British Somaliland. There he had been allowed to live at liberty until detained in 1940 when Italy entered the war. Then, destined for an internment camp, he was shipped to India.
Serra had come to SOE’s attention in December 1941 while languishing at Dehra Dun, the same camp from which Heinrich Harrer, the Austrian author of Seven Years in Tibet, would famously escape. More precisely, Serra had come to the attention of Colin Mackenzie, a highly capable Scot who had been sent out from London to establish an SOE presence in India. One of Mackenzie’s early instructions was to search the camps for prospective Italian recruits; he himself had learned Italian while a young businessman in Milan in the twenties. ‘We were careful to paint the job we were offering him in pretty dark colours,’ Mackenzie told London as he dispatched to Britain for specialist training ‘this first volunteer to be shipped’.
We pointed out to him that it was extremely dangerous, that, in the moments of extreme danger, he would be entirely alone, that there could be no glory attaching to the work during the war, and that, once he was in a thing of this kind, he was in for the duration whether he liked it or not.5
Arriving in London in March 1942, Serra’s first stop was the Royal Victoria Patriotic School, close to Wandsworth prison. Known also as the London Reception Centre, it was a screening centre for incoming aliens of intelligence interest. ‘This is a somewhat unusual and difficult case,’ wrote Serra’s investigating MI5 officer. ‘The man himself is an unusual Italian, unemotional and quiet, not very talkative. We have no means of checking up his background, and his statements as regards his political tendencies we must either take or leave.’ Doubt was cast on aspects of Serra’s account of fleeing Abyssinia to escape arrest for making anti-Fascist propaganda. Possibly, the MI5 officer mused, Serra had fled for some other reason. Perhaps he was even ‘an escaped criminal’.6 SOE decided to take him anyway. Soon enough he was enlisted as a private in the Pioneer Corps and had started his training.
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