Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies
Ben Macintyre
Language: English
Pages: 399
ISBN: 0307888770
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A SPY AMONG FRIENDS
On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. A stunning military accomplishment, it was also a masterpiece of trickery. Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, tricked the Nazis into believing that the Allied attacks would come in Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring Allied victory at the most pivotal point in the war. This epic event has never before been told from the perspective of the key individuals in the Double Cross system, until now. Together they made up one of the oddest and most brilliant military units ever assembled.
The Forgotten Highlander: An Incredible WWII Story of Survival in the Pacific
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
Hitler's Atlantic Wall: Pas de Calais
Target: Patton: The Plot to Assassinate General George S. Patton
Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler
That the Gestapo seems now to be convinced that he is best left in Lisbon, and he may quite honestly fear that the Gestapo are behind the attempt to get him into occupied territory where they will arrest him. No immediate action can be taken by us. There is a risk that, despite our warning, Artist may continue to place some confidence in Brandes, but we cannot strengthen our warning without danger to our sources. They agreed to do nothing. The protection of Most Secret Sources was paramount.
Britain’s chief deceiver of a man with “the most highly polished shoes in the British army.” Colonel J. H. Bevan, the newest member of the Twenty Committee, was a straitlaced, cricket-playing, workaholic stockbroker of rare intelligence and impeccable attire. Johnny Bevan tended to judge others by appearances, taking particular exception to slovenly uniform, but there was probably no one in the British military establishment more acutely aware that appearances can be deceptive. From May 1942,.
Was exposed as a fraud. A more radical alternative would be to kill him, an option backed by the shark-eyed John Marriott: “If liquidation means the literal abolition of Ostro by doing away with him altogether … then I naturally consider that the best solution to the whole affair.” Garbo was a fabulist who had been welcomed into the MI5 embrace; Ostro was also making it up and might have to be murdered. “We should try to buy him up or bump him off,” thought Liddell. For reasons more practical.
Tapped out a message, she thought about the dash. “Every time, I know that I can destroy the work of three years. Just a dash, and the Germans will know that I work under the control of the Intelligence Service … and the British will suspect nothing. This is my revenge—they made me a promise and they didn’t keep it. Now I shall have them in my power.” 19. Jebsen’s New Friend Johnny Jebsen was a one-man production line of secrets. His reports, funneled back to Britain via MI6 in Lisbon,.
‘come back immediately’ this was a pre-arranged signal which in fact meant ‘do not come, the Gestapo are after you.’ ” He had also recruited a new bedroom mole within the Lisbon Abwehr station: Baroness Marie von Gronau, the twenty-three-year-old daughter of a pioneer aviator who was the Luftwaffe attaché in Tokyo. Marie was a secretary in the counterintelligence section and happily told Jebsen whatever was passing across her boss’s desk. In jest, he asked Marie to marry him. She turned him down.