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- [00:01]
Paul McGann
Hi listeners. While the Real Dictators team finishes the Pinochet story, here's a preview of a new show from the Neuser Network, hosted by me, Paul McGann. This is D Day. The Tide turns this June. It's 80 years since D Day itself, when the Allies landed in Normandy and pushed back against Hitler. The series follows the soldiers on the beaches, the paratroopers who landed from the air, the spies who gathered vital intel, and the commanders whose decisions touched the lives of millions. We'll hear contributions from expert historians and archive audio from those who were actually there on the ground at the time. It's a particularly poignant story for me because my dad was one of the first men to go ashore on Gold beach on June 6, 1944. If you enjoy this Taster episode, search D Day the Tide Turns in your podcast app and hit follow for weekly episodes. You'll find part two waiting for you now. Find out more@noiser.com It's New Year's Eve, 1943, a rough, moonless night in the English Channel. We're just a few hundred feet off the coast of Nazi occupied France. A small torpedo boat stealthily approaches the shore. As the rain streams down, another barrage of waves buffets the craft, drenching the small group of men on board. Among them are 24 year old British captain Logan Scott Bowden and his trusty sergeant Bruce Ogden Smith. They're on a mission of the utmost importance. Through the watery haze, the men make out a dark solid strip of land ahead. A broad sandy beach. This is as close as they dare take the boat. They cut the engine out of the darkness. Faint voices and music are just about audible in the distance. The Germans on land must be celebrating, preparing to welcome in the New Year. Hopefully that means their guard is down. Dressed in loose fitting diving suits, the two commandos prepare to disembark. They arm themselves with waterproof Colt.45 pistols, commando knives, and quite possibly their most important kit of all, a belt full of 10 inch sample tubes. Then, as quietly as they can, they slide into the water. Bitter cold envelops them. They do their best to steady their breathing treading water. Then they swim for land. As they draw closer, a nearby lighthouse casts its beam across the water, briefly illuminating the shoreline. In the low light they see the outlines of row upon row of barbed wire, piles of rubble, concrete walls interspersed with concrete bunkers looming out of the sand. They follow the hunched shapes of sentries against the skyline, patrolling the seawall. The current is strong. It threatens to drag the two Brits off course, but they manage to make it to the shore. Casting around, they get their bearings. They have landed on a stretch of Normandy coastline, near the resort town of Lux Sur Mer, otherwise known as Gold Beach. It's one of two earmarked by the British for invasion on D Day. Hearts pounding in their chests, eyes scanning frantically, the men get to work. They start filling their sample tubes with as much of the local sand as they can. Gather suddenly, a flash of light as the beam swings their way. They duck, flattening themselves on the ground. It passes overhead. The British commandos get back to their feet and continue transferring more and more sand into their containers. Their receptacles are full. Now they need to get the hell out of there. They steel themselves and then they run. They keep low, scampering back down the beach, weaving through the haze of rain. And then they're in the sea again, fighting through the surf and swimming with everything they've got through the frigid water. Their boat bobs in the gloom. The crew haul them aboard, checking that their samples are all intact. They've done it. Firing up the engine, they turn and head for England. A crucial intelligence gathering mission has just been carried out right under the Germans noses. The Allies now have vital information about the state of the beaches they'll be landing on later this year. The sand samples they've collected will indicate whether the terrain can bear the weight of armored vehicles. Because when the time comes to attack, a few grains of sand could quite literally be the difference between success and failure. From the Noiser network, this is D Day. It was the greatest battle of its age.
- [05:57]
Joshua Levine
Hundreds of thousands of men involved.
- [06:00]
Dr. Tessa Dunlop
Total high stakes, never been done before. This feels like a watershed. It is a watershed.
- [06:08]
Giles Milton
This was a really pivotal moment in not only World War II, but world history. This was really the time that we begin to break the back of this Axis coalition and shatter the Nazi regime.
- [06:19]
Sir Max Hastings
Of course there's heroics, but there's also a lot of blood and guts. Because the sad reality of D Day is that for many people, it was a horrifically brutal and violent experience.
- [06:39]
Paul McGann
May 1944. Europe is in the grip of the Nazi war machine. The Soviets are fighting Hitler in the east. In the west, following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, America has joined the fight. Hundreds of thousands of men and weapons have been amassed in Britain, just a short hop from continental Europe. But there's a problem. The Atlantic Wall, Hitler's fearsome coastal defenses, built by Russian slave labor at a cost of $200 billion in today's money. The Wall stretches all the way from Norway to Spain. It's loaded with soldiers, machine gun nests, anti aircraft artillery, landmines. It was built to be impenetrable. To stand any chance of success, the Allied forces will need to break through the war, establishing strongholds through which troops, arms and equipment can be funneled and the liberation of Europe can begin. And all this needs to happen before the Germans know what's hit them. Extensive intelligence gathering has identified two possible areas for the Allies to land, both in northern France, the Pas de Calais, across the sea from Dover in England's southeast corner, and the beaches of Normandy 200 miles down the French coast. Giles Milton is the author of D Day, the Soldier's Story.
- [08:19]
Sir Max Hastings
The Pas de Calais was in some ways the obvious choice because it was certainly a lot nearer to Germany than the beaches of Normandy, but it was extremely heavily defended and the Germans also thought the Allies were going to land there. And so Normandy was an attractive option, partly because of the beaches, these long, sandy beaches which would allow huge numbers of infantry to come ashore. And also it was slightly less well defended than the Pas de Calais area. And so it was decided that troops were going to land on five beaches which had been given code names. There was Omaha, Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword, and then try and link up into one large area which could then be used to bring ashore huge numbers of tanks, armored vehicles and, of course, infantry themselves.
- [09:10]
Paul McGann
After much deliberation, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American general in charge of the invasion forces, agreed. The attack will come in Normandy in June. This will be the largest seaborne invasion in history. Officially, it's known as Operation Overlord, a codeword chosen by Churchill personally. The naval component is Operation Neptune. Up until now, the term D Day was just standard military jargon used to describe when a given operation will commence. Jeff Warrow is professor of Military History at the University of North Texas.
- [10:02]
Giles Milton
You know operation torch, in November 41, it had a D Day, but we remembered as Torch, not D Day. Operation Husky. In the summer of 42, it had a D Day, but we remembered as Husky. Right. So why this one is just D Day? I think because it became almost a sacral object. This was when the Allied forces landed in the German solar plexus and started to punch.
- [10:28]
Paul McGann
The military operation will be supported by some incredible, highly unusual innovations. Floating tanks, artificial harbors, even a top secret undersea oil pipeline. The preparation is astonishingly elaborate and complex, with the official plans running to hundreds of pages and success won't just depend on those going into battle. Sir Max Hastings is author of Overlord D Day and the Battle for Normandy.
- [10:59]
Jeff Warrow
It was one of the greatest feats of planning and organization and logistics ever known, even before you started on the fighting. And all those staff officers who, they weren't soldiers, they were civilians in uniforms, they were clever accountants and mathematicians and anybody who could add and subtract. And they were sitting there day after day and month after month, solving all sorts of huge problems every day. And it was an extraordinary achievement.
- [11:27]
Paul McGann
Dr. Tessa Dunlop Historian and author of Army Girls if you have up to.
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Dr. Tessa Dunlop
2 million men based in Britain, training all over the country, who's feeding them, who's packing their kit bags, who's sewing their kit bags, who's typing up the troop orders and the marches, who's logistically shunting them from one end of the country to the other end of the country? Women. All that stuff is increasingly done by women.
- [11:55]
Sir Max Hastings
There were going to be 156,000 men landing on D Day itself. That required hundreds and hundreds of landing craft. And all of this had to be built from scratch.
- [12:11]
Paul McGann
But so strong is the German defensive line that the Allies need more than firepower alone. The element of surprise will be utterly vital. And so they decide to hatch a plan to throw the Fuhrer off the scent of the real invasion. A plan involving fake officers, fake spies, even an entire fake army. If they pull it off, it will go down as one of the greatest acts of subterfuge in history. If they fail, hundreds of thousands of men will die. This is the true story of how the Allies urdwinked Hitler.
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Joshua Levine
Deception goes back literally thousands of years. The Trojan Horse. What is the Trojan horse if not a military deception?
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Paul McGann
Joshua Levine is the author of Operation Fortitude, the greatest hoax of the Second World War.
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Joshua Levine
Strategic deception is kind of a step up because you're building up this overall plan which is trying to confuse the enemy on a huge scale. It's much more complicated, it's much more interlinked, it's much bigger. You are fooling the enemy about your entire political and military strategy.
- [13:40]
Paul McGann
By 1944, so called strategic deception is still a relatively new concept. It's the brainchild of Lt. Col. Dudley Clark, a veteran of the North African campaign. Working out of offices underneath a brothel in Cairo, he organized the construction of a fake Alexandria harbour, successfully diverting German bombers from the real one several miles away. With his slicked blond hair and piercing blue eyes, Clark is an enigmatic figure. A former pilot with the Royal Flying Corps who personally Led the first commando raid of World War II. He's always had a taste for the theatrical, writing and directing Christmas pantomimes at the Army's Staff College in Camberley. In 1925, he choreographed the Royal Artillery display for the Royal Tournament at Olympia, featuring elephants, camels and a cast of 680 men. In other words, despite his military accomplishments, Dudley Clark is not exactly a traditional army officer.
- [14:47]
Joshua Levine
He was a very untypical military man. He was very, very watchful. People say, you know, he came into a room, you didn't notice him at first, but he was watching you. And he was a man who was basically responsible for creating the whole idea of strategic deception. The rules, if you like, of strategic deception. You must have an idea what you want your opponent to do. It doesn't matter what they think. It's what they do that's important. And interestingly, he used to say this to generals. He used to say, okay, what do you want? Here's the phone. You're talking to Hitler. What do you want him to do? So that was his number one rule. Number two was drop in little bits of information. Don't give the whole story away at the beginning. Make them think for themselves. You know, if they've worked this out for themselves or they think they have, then they're going to believe it.
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Paul McGann
As it turns out, though, not everyone is susceptible to Clark's new approach. Many of his army colleagues are highly skeptical about strategic deception.
- [15:54]
Joshua Levine
There is genuinely a sense that this is not a gentlemanly way to go about fighting a war. Beyond that, because strategic deception is new and because it's carried out by some people that just aren't necessarily trusted. You know, people like Dudley Clark, people who are a bit too artistic, frankly. You know, they're not. They're not like us. I mean, it's interesting that one of the people who was involved in the Middle east in strategic deception was someone called Jasper Maskelyne, who was a stage magician. And it absolutely does have that element of psychological foolery that, again, was mistrusted. You know, we've worked this out so carefully. Are we really risking everything by allowing others onto the pitch?
- [16:46]
Paul McGann
For the Overlord planners, however, the answer is yes. With Dudley Clark occupied in Cairo, a new head office for strategic deception is opened in London. The joint planning staff promises to send representatives from each of the armed services. The Navy's man never turns up, while the Army's arrives two months late. The Air Force, claiming they can't spare an actual officer for such a dubious role, commissions a popular Novelist to fill the position instead. Evidently, strategic deception isn't seen as high priority military plans.
- [17:25]
Joshua Levine
Operational plans are black and white. They're serious and we formulate them and we carry them out. And there's no scope here for messing around for nonsense. And here they are involving, you know, sleight of hand and psychological games and trying to get inside the mind of your opponents. You know, we're dealing with a lot of very linear people who cares what's going on in their minds, let's just throw tanks at them.
- [17:58]
Paul McGann
But despite such misgivings, if ever an operation was perfectly suited to the dark arts of strategic deception, it's D Day.
- [18:07]
Joshua Levine
This is kind of the perfect arena for strategic deception to kick in.
- [18:15]
Paul McGann
Everybody knows the invasion will take place in one of two possible locations, the Normandy beaches or the Pas de Calais. The more troops the Germans pour into one area, the weaker they leave the other. If only they knew for sure where the Allies would be landing. For Germany's military intelligence, the Abwehr, it's like the old street magician's challenge. Watch your opponent's movements closely and pick the cup containing the prize, or in this case, the Allied invasion force. All the deceivers have to do then is fool them into picking the wrong cop.
- [18:55]
Joshua Levine
The deceivers know exactly what they have to do. The real D Day plan was an invasion of Normandy. The fictitious plan was to make them think that the attack was coming in the Pas de Calais. And so they knew what we've got to make the Germans think. The bigger question was, how do we do that?
- [19:20]
Paul McGann
Hi listeners, I hope you're enjoying this episode of D Day. The Tide Turns. Search D Day. The Tide Turns in your podcast app to find and follow the show. You can hear episode two straight after this one. So begins the most elaborate strategic deception in military history, Operation Fortitude. It's the shadowy, equally secret counterpart to the real deal, Operation Overlord. And just like the genuine invasion plan, the fake one is unbelievably complex. Less a simple piece of street magic, more an elaborate theatrical illusion. Think David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappeared. Or in this case, making a non existent army group appear out of nowhere. Jonathan Trigg is the author of D Day Through German Eyes.
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Jonathan Trigg
It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. They created the US first Army Group, this enormous military force that just didn't exist.
- [20:26]
Paul McGann
Sir Anthony Beaver is the number one best selling historian in Britain. A former army officer, his books include the Second World War and D Day, the battle for Normandy.
- [20:39]
Sir Anthony Beaver
They had a totally fake army group which was supposedly going to come down the east coast of England and from Kent and invade the Pala Calais. And I mean, it was actually a brilliant success.
- [20:53]
Sir Max Hastings
This was an era where fake news came into its own. To deceive the Germans, they created fake armies, quite literally making tanks out of rubber that were parked up on the coasts of Britain. So the Luftwaffe pilots would fly over the coast and see these huge formations of tanks on the coastline, go back and report back to German headquarters. My God, in Kent there are enormous numbers of tanks. What they didn't realise were that these were fake tanks.
- [21:26]
Paul McGann
It might all look convincing enough from the air, but up close, the fake vehicles wouldn't fool anybody. That's why huge screens have been erected in the port town of Folkestone, so the locals can't see what's happening on the beaches. There, safely hidden from prying eyes, a vast construction project is underway. A team of 30 men are hard at work assembling a flotilla of fake landing craft. They're made out of steel drums and tubes covered with canvas, but they still weigh a good five and a half tons each. The construction team spend their nights waist deep in the icy water, floating their phony fleet. Before long, there are more than 250 fake vessels dotted along the English coastline. But everybody knows D Day will require air support as well. And that means Fortitude needs planes too. Flimsy wooden aircraft are lined up on fake airfields with supposed landing strips marked out by lights. At night time, it even looks like the planes are moving. A team of burly men drag car headlamps back and forth to give the impression of activity on the runways. The logistics of Operation Fortitude are second only to the real invasion plans. No expense is spared to make the illusion as convincing as possible. There are fake army camps filled with empty tents, fake tanks made of inflatable rubber, even a fake dock facility in Dover put up by a team of set builders from Shepperton Studios. But the best props are nothing without a convincing performance. So a team of writers is also hard at work churning out little radio plays.
- [23:24]
Sir Max Hastings
Not only did they create fake tanks and fake regiments, but they actually created fake signals intelligence. The entire fake divisions with their own communications taking place, knowing that the Germans would be listening, in which they were. And so they were doing everything they could, really, to persuade the Germans that they were going to land in the Pas de Calais area.
- [23:45]
Paul McGann
In fact, it's not just the radio operators who are getting into character. To make the FUSAG lie even more convincing, the fictitious unit is graced with a bit of star power in the form of US General George S. Patton. It's an inspired piece of casting.
- [24:04]
Sir Anthony Beaver
General Patton was the general the Germans feared most.
- [24:09]
Jonathan Trigg
The Germans thought that Patton was the best that we had. So wherever Patton was, that was where the action was going to be.
- [24:16]
Giles Milton
German military intelligence, they got so many things wrong. And another thing they got wrong was their estimation of Patton. They compared him to their best panzer generals and he was aggressive. He got the job done. And so when the Americans put him in charge of this fake army for the deception campaign, the Germans just assume it's a real army because it's Patton, you know.
- [24:40]
Paul McGann
In fact, putting Patton in charge of FUSAG solves a thorny problem for supreme commander Dwight D. Eisenhower. A brash, old school army type, Patton has been causing headaches for the cooler, more diplomatic Ike. Less than a year earlier, at a hospital for wounded American troops in Sicily, Patton caused something of a scandal when he was introduced to a soldier suffering from nervous exhaustion, he exclaimed angrily, you ought to be lined up against a wall and shot. He then punched the man in the face and stormed out of the ward, bellowing, there's no such thing as shell shock. It's an invention of the Jews. Unsurprisingly, Eisenhower has come under pressure to send Patton packing all the way back to the usa. Instead, he decides to give him one last chance. But heading up the fictional few psych seems a curiously apt punishment.
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Joshua Levine
It did make him very angry. You know, he gave all these big speeches that were, you know, being reported and recorded, and he was going round the southeast, you know, being the big guy when he really wasn't the big guy. So that's what hurt him.
- [25:54]
Giles Milton
Oh, Patton was enormously frustrated. He really wanted to be in the front rank. He wanted to be first onto the beaches and racing to break out and get to Paris and across the Rhine. But on the other hand, you know, Patton was realistic and he realized that he had really trespassed. So he knew he was in the doghouse and so he, he was grateful for, to Eisenhower ultimately for giving him another chance and not sending him back in disgrace to the United States.
- [26:22]
Paul McGann
In fact, Patton's fake job is one in which his larger than life personality may actually be an advantage. For a start, no one would ever suspect him of hamming it up.
- [26:35]
Joshua Levine
I think it was in one of his letters to his wife. He said, you know, I'm playing the goddamned Sarah Bernhardt. I think was quite pleased to be playing the goddamn Sarah Bernard. I think he quite enjoyed the whole acting. He Just didn't like the fact that he wasn't, you know, top of the bill.
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Paul McGann
As it happens, Patton isn't the only army general who's been honing his dramatic skills. Bernard Montgomery, alias Monty, has turned acting coach. He's working with a man called Meyrick James who's been hired to impersonate him on a trip to Gibraltar. This latest bit of street theatre is the brainchild of Dudley Clark, godfather a strategic deception and former Royal Tournament choreographer. There are no elephants and camels this time around, but Clark knows it must be rehearsed just as meticulously.
- [27:30]
Joshua Levine
He'd gone to see a film and he noticed an actor in it called Miles Mander looked like Monty. And then he got thinking. The Germans know that Monty's going to be, you know, waist deep in all this, so if Monty shows up somewhere else in the build up to the invasion, then they're not going to think it's coming imminently. And of course Monty loved that because it made him seem important. So, you know, he couldn't get enough of it. So they found Miles Mander, the actor who'd been in this film. He did look like Monty but he was too short and so they had to find somebody else, so they cast somebody else and then he was involved in a traffic accident, broke his arm. So then I had to find a third person. And so they went on the books of the sort of London theatrical agents and they found another, you know, another proper Monty and he was serving in the pay corps, I think his name was Meyrick James. So he was cast as Monty and he spent time with Monty and he sort of captured his mannerisms and they had a nice time together. He was also, he was given Monty's pay for the time he was being Monty, which I think was ten pounds a day, so that was good as well.
- [28:40]
Paul McGann
Before long, Meyrick James is kitted out for the role. He's wearing his illustrious lookalikes, trademark beret, not to mention a prosthetic finger to replace the one he himself lost on the Western Front. On 27 May, James boards his flight to Gibraltar ready to give it the full Monty. His audience are ready and waiting.
- [29:09]
Joshua Levine
The British knew that the Germans had spies out there, you know, Spanish spies working for the Germans who would report everything back. And they even knew who these people were. So they were able to invite this guy, you know, to, to the airfield as Monty landed.
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Paul McGann
The local spy in Gibraltar is a man called Ignacio Molina Perez. He finds himself summoned to a meeting with the Colonial Secretary whose office just happens to Overlook the route the fake Monty is taking towards his staff car. That afternoon, Perez is straight on the phone to Berlin. But he's not the only one taken in by the doppelganger.
- [29:50]
Joshua Levine
This Merrick James Montes double actually was driven by a driver, female driver, who had not long before driven Monty and she couldn't tell the difference. She thought she had the real Monty in the back.
- [30:01]
Paul McGann
The starstruck driver even asks the fake Monty for an autograph. For Meyrick James, an aspiring actor who's never quite made the big time, it's a bittersweet moment, but he's part of an ensemble cast that includes some high powered stars, among them George vi, he of the famous King's Speech. For now, the monarch is limited to a non speaking role, doing his best to look impressed as he visits a fake storage facility in Dover. But the King isn't the only one enjoying a carefully stage managed tour of southeast England. With less than a fortnight to go before D Day, German General Hans Kramer is driven around the same area, or so he thinks. In fact, he's 100 miles down the coast.
- [30:57]
Joshua Levine
He was involved in a prisoner exchange. So what they decided to do was to drive him through the area where, you know, all of this activity, real activity for D Day was taking place. So, you know, they drove him basically through southwest England to have him repatriated. But what they did was to make him think he was driving through southeast England. So they put a corporal in the car with him who kept, you know, making references to different places they were which were in southeast England. They changed all the road signs on the way and, and so, you know, when Kramer got back to Germany, he hurried to see his old friend Rommel and, and told him it's coming in the Pas de Calais.
- [31:43]
Paul McGann
Using a German general to feed the enemy false information is an inspired move. After all, they're far more likely to credit intelligence that comes from one of their own. And it's this that forms the basis of the most important part of Operation Fortitude, the Double cross system.
- [32:02]
Jonathan Trigg
They relied an awful lot, far more than we did actually, on what the intelligence people called hum Int. So human intelligence agents in essence. And of course, every time the Nazis tried to put agents, you know, in Britain, they'd be caught incredibly quickly and usually we turn them into double agents and use them to feed back total misinformation, total rubbish back to German headquarters.
- [32:28]
Paul McGann
By the summer of 1944, more than 100 German spies have been successfully turned by British intelligence, many of them at Camp 020 A notorious spy prison in Surrey, O2O is run by Lieutenant Colonel Robert Stephens, known thanks to his distinctive monocle as Tin Eye Stevens.
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Joshua Levine
The spies were basically captured and brought there and he would gauge whether they were suitable to be double agents or not. If they were, they were brought into the system, and if they weren't, they were basically sent for trial, at which they would more or less certainly be executed.
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Paul McGann
A veteran of the Indian army camp Commandant Tin I Stevens is an experienced interrogator and he's developed some surefire techniques for breaking captured German agents. Among them, a little trick he's come up with that's since become a staple of modern detective dramas.
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Joshua Levine
Stevens did something which is really a sort of early version of good cop, bad cop. He would come into the room and sort of start shouting and then somebody else would come into the room and say, I'm not like him, I'm really, I want to help you, you know, but you've got to want to help yourself. And, you know, if you're not careful, he's really going to get nasty, so why don't you talk to me? And sometimes people would talk, but when.
- [33:59]
Paul McGann
That doesn't work, old Tin Eye has another trick up his sleeve. The Sinister Room 14 Campo Tour was.
- [34:08]
Joshua Levine
Actually in a building which was an old mental institution, so it already had a kind of aura to it. And what Stevens did, he pretended there was one particular cell which had been a padded cell and that somebody had committed suicide in it, was known as room 14. And so it created this whole sort of story around it, this almost, you know, supernatural story around it. And people were then put inside the dreaded room 14. And by creating this whole sort of idea of people having been tortured in this room and people having been, you know, killed themselves in this room and people having this, that and the other, you know, very often it actually got people talking.
- [34:58]
Paul McGann
Unsurprisingly, given the alternative. As a death sentence, Camp 020 boasts a high recruitment rate. But not all double agents require coercion. Some actually volunteer for the work. Among them is Juan Puyol, alias Garbo, a bespectacled chicken farmer from Barcelona. Puyol will become one of the most successful double agents in MI5's history. But to begin with, they want nothing to do with him. When he approaches the British Embassy in Madrid offering his services as a spy, they turn him away. But Pujol isn't a man to take no for an answer. The Brits might not want him as a regular agent, but as a Double. That could be a different story. So he makes a second bid for recruitment, this time by the Abwehr. Surely, once he's won their confidence, the Brits will have to take him more seriously. German intelligence gratefully accepts Puyol as an asset. But they do have one condition. He will need to relocate to London. He assures his new handlers he can do that. But once again, the Brits frustrate his plans. His visa application is denied. So Puyol does something remarkable. He begins sending intelligence reports from London without ever leaving Spain.
- [36:32]
Joshua Levine
He wanted to convince them that he was genuine. So he had gone to the public library. He used an old guidebook to Britain. He'd used old newspapers and magazines. And this was nonsense. The stuff he was sending, the military stuff was nonsense. The stuff about Britain was nonsense. He said Scottish men would do anything for a liter of wine. He said that it got so hot during the summer in Britain that people would have to escape to the coast. That was before global warming. Oh, he said that in Liverpool there were these centers of entertainment that turned into regular sort of sexual orgies, which may be true. I mean, you know, if you have anyone listening in Liverpool who can confirm that, I'm on my way. But I suspect it's not true. So he was sending this absolute nonsense. And still he was well believed. He wasn't doubted.
- [37:23]
Sir Anthony Beaver
The Germans were very bad on intelligence in the Second World War. The great victories of 1940 had made them incredibly arrogant. And as a result, their intelligence services were extraordinarily naive and gullible.
- [37:41]
Paul McGann
Tall tales about Liverpudlian orgies might not raise any red flags among the Germans, but they do at least get the attention of the Brits. Now, finally, they are willing to talk. In fact, MI5 and MI6 are soon fighting over who gets to claim Puyol as their asset.
- [38:01]
Joshua Levine
You know, MI6 are responsible for security outside of British territory. Well, what if someone is, you know, pretending to be inside of British territory, but he's actually outside of British territory? Who has jurisdiction over him then? Anyway, MI51. And they took him back to England, where he started reporting to the Germans, as he had been pretending to do for a year. But now he really was in Britain and he was put up in a house in Hendon, a little suburban house in Hendon. And the way it tended to work was that these double agents who were sending messages back to the Germans from Britain, really their handler, the MI5 handler, would write all of their messages, but there were a few that had more Autonomy than that.
- [38:52]
Paul McGann
Fujol is lucky. His MI5 handler is Thomas Harris, a Spanish artist living in London. And they turn out to be quite the creative partnership between them. They create a whole network of imaginary pro German assets scattered throughout the country, all of them supposedly feeding their intelligence to Puyo. There's a waiter from Gibraltar known as Fred, a Welsh fascist called Stanley, even an Indian poet known as Rags. Before long, Puyol is producing an elaborate soap opera for the Germans featuring no less than 27 separate fictional characters.
- [39:33]
Joshua Levine
I mean, it was an unbelievable script writing exercise that he was carrying out and that he had to keep in his head who was saying what and why. But sometimes he has to get rid of some of these people. So there's a point where somebody's basically served their purpose and the Germans are going to want them to see more and more and more, and it's not in the British interest to have this guy seeing more. So what they do is kill him and they plant an obituary in the local paper, which Garbo then sends to his German handlers and they send back, oh, can you send our commiserations to his wife? So these people become real.
- [40:14]
Paul McGann
For an operation like this, credibility rests on small details. One advantage of Puyol's large network of informants is that when the Germans discover he's fed them false information, he can blame the mistake on one of his assets. But to earn their trust, he has to offer them truths as well as falsehoods. What's known in the trade as chicken feed.
- [40:39]
Joshua Levine
The idea is, you know, you're tossing the enemy bits and pieces, little pieces of truth that they will eat, and they'll eat enough of it that they'll get quite full and they will believe whatever it is your agent is saying. Years of chicken feed did do a job, and these people were generally believed.
- [41:04]
Paul McGann
Fortunately for double agents such as Puyo, Abwehr handlers rarely seem to doubt their assets. But it's not that they're gullible by nature. They're just afraid of asking too many questions.
- [41:16]
Joshua Levine
People were so terrified of their position that they didn't want to seem to be failing. Their position depends on their spy being genuine, and they want their spy to be genuine. You know, if you made a mistake in the British army, you might well be kicked out of your position, but you weren't going to be killed. If you made a mistake in Nazi Germany, you might well pay for that with your life. And people were very scared. So, you know, a lot of the decisions that were made were not necessarily rational. They were made on the basis of not allowing anyone to discover if I'm wrong.
- [41:58]
Paul McGann
For the long con of Operation Fortitude, the Germans are the perfect marks. Intercepted communications decrypted by code breakers at Bletchley park suggest that they're falling for it, hook, line and sinker.
- [42:13]
Sir Anthony Beaver
They were sending all of this false information, Agent Garbo and all the rest of it, and the Germans swallowed it.
- [42:22]
Paul McGann
Nonetheless, as D day approaches, there are concerns that some double cross agents may have been compromised, while others are such mavericks that they're in danger of giving themselves away.
- [42:36]
Joshua Levine
Part of the problem with running a deception campaign like this one is that you are relying on some pretty volatile characters. The first double agent, a man called Snow, was just crazy. I mean, it was impossible to know who he was working for. He probably didn't know who he was working for. He just seemed to want to make life as complicated for himself as he possibly could. You know, these people are extreme. So you've got these examples of people going way off message and threatening to expose everything.
- [43:11]
Paul McGann
In fact, it's not just the agents themselves who are shooting their mouths off. Juan Puyo, alias Garbo, may be the jewel in the crown of Operation Fortitude, but his wife Aracelli, is the biggest thorn in its side.
- [43:27]
Joshua Levine
I think you get a sense of how single minded Garbo is. So he's living in Hendon with his wife, who's had to leave everything behind. She's a Spanish woman, no family, nothing here, so she's incredibly unhappy, and she threatens to blow the whole thing, and they have to then play a game on her.
- [43:50]
Paul McGann
With the help of his British handlers, Puyol orchestrates another deception. But this time the target is a lot closer to home. In fact, when one of his MI5 associates arrives to speak with her, she's slumped over their kitchen table. In Hendon, Aracelia is told that her husband has been arrested as a result of her reckless behavior. He's being held at the notorious Camp 020 the following morning. She's driven there to see him wearing a blindfold, soaked with tears. At the prison, Aracelli waits, distraught. Eventually, Puyol is brought in to see her. He's unshaven, wearing prison clothes, and it looks like he's been roughed up by the guards. For the staff at O2O, who are used to breaking German spies, Aracelli proves a soft nut to crack.
- [44:47]
Joshua Levine
She starts, you know, crying and saying, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I ever jeopardized anything. I know how important this is. I never meant to do anything. Please forgive him. Don't make him suffer. You know my mistakes. And the fascinating thing about this is that Garbo himself, you know he's behind the whole idea. But then again, to be fair, there's a lot at stake.
- [45:12]
Paul McGann
With his marital problems taken care of, Puyol can focus on his work, along with his complex network of imaginary friends. As D day approaches, those that haven't already been killed off are moved to strategic positions along the coast. The waiter from Gibraltar is now working in Southampton. The fascist Welshman is in Harwich. The Indian poet Rags, has taken up residence in Brighton. Between them, Puyol's assets should be well placed to observe the Allied invasion force, wherever it may be. Until now, those in charge of Operation Fortitude have been careful not to overegg the pudding. They've drip fed their false intel to the Germans, leaving them to draw their own conclusions. They can't afford to make it too easy for them.
- [46:03]
Joshua Levine
If the enemy smelt a rat, they would know that there was a deception going on and the real invasion must be happening in the only other possible location. You know, if they're trying to make us think it's happening in the Pas de Calais, it must be happening in Normandy.
- [46:18]
Paul McGann
But in fact, the Germans have begun to look more closely at the Normandy beaches. According to intercepted wireless transmissions, Hitler has developed a new theory. He now expects an attack in Normandy, but only as a decoy, an attempt to draw German forces away from the real target, the Pas de Calais. For Puyol and his handlers, the Fuhrer's fantasy of a second invasion turns out to be a blessing in disguise. After all. One of the key rules of strategic deception is to confirm what your enemy already believes. But first, Pouillon needs to give the Germans something that will prove his loyalty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Not so much chicken feed as a full blown Christmas dinner with all the trimmings.
- [47:17]
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- [47:45]
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- [47:51]
Paul McGann
That hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set. Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams. One of a kind. Ebay had it. And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you get your windshield wiper?
- [48:05]
Joshua Levine
Ebay has all the parts that fit my car.
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Paul McGann
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- [48:16]
Paul McGann
At 3am on the morning of D day, before the Germans have spotted anything unusual in the Channel, Puyol sends a message to his handlers in Madrid, warning them that several thousand ships are on their way towards France.
- [48:33]
Joshua Levine
So the invasion fleet has set off, but the Germans haven't seen it yet. They don't know it's coming. This is basically the biggest invasion in history and the Fortitude Deceivers have tipped the Germans off about it before it arrives. It's extraordinary that they're allowed to do this.
- [48:55]
Paul McGann
In fact, the risk to the operational plan plan has been carefully calculated. The message arrives too late for the Germans to actually do anything before the fighting begins. And in any case, as Puyol likely predicted, his handlers are fast asleep when it comes through. By the time they acknowledge receipt, British, American and Canadian boots are already on the beaches. For Puyol, it's the perfect setup for a bit more play acting.
- [49:25]
Joshua Levine
He's furious with them. I have just sent you notice that the invasion is coming and you weren't there listening to me. What have you done? You know, you have absolutely disgraced yourselves. You've let down the fatherland. You, this, that and the other. You listen to me next time. You listen to me in future.
- [49:44]
Paul McGann
Pjol's handlers are suitably contrite, but he isn't done with them yet. His credibility has never been higher. He decides to go for broke.
- [49:55]
Joshua Levine
And he sends this, you know, massive message. It takes over two hours and basically he says, all my sub agents have been called to London. They've given me a summary of all movements up till now. I can tell you categorically that this attack is diversionary, it's not the real one.
- [50:19]
Sir Anthony Beaver
And this was to keep the German 15th army, which was the really strong army, in the Pas de Calais, while we invaded Normandy, which were against the German 7th army, which was not quite.
- [50:32]
Paul McGann
So strong up to this point. Fortitude has stopped short of telling the Germans what to do. But now Puyol is the one giving the orders.
- [50:44]
Joshua Levine
Whatever you do, don't move your divisions away from the Pas de Calais because there's something still coming this message goes.
- [50:53]
Paul McGann
All the way to the top.
- [50:55]
Joshua Levine
We know Hitler saw it because it's got his seal on it, his stamp on it.
- [51:01]
Paul McGann
Tens of thousands of reinforcements already on their way to Normandy are stopped in their tracks. The specter of a second invasion will haunt the Germans for weeks to come. Even by the end of June, 22 German divisions will remain in the Palikale, squaring off against an army that doesn't exist.
- [51:31]
Joshua Levine
Operation Fortitude was an enormous success, and you know, they managed to keep this going. And it becomes clear that as time goes by, the Germans are still waiting for this invasion that doesn't come. And the amazing thing is that they never realized that it wasn't going to come.
- [51:59]
Paul McGann
In the next episode, a storm brewing in the Atlantic threatens to scupper the D Day invasion plans. Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower is faced with the toughest decision of his career. And the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of one Scottish weather forecaster. That's next time on D Day. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this first episode of D Day. The Tide Turns. To hear more, just search D Day the Tide Turns in your podcast app and hit follow or listen@noiser.com Episode 2 is waiting for you now, with new episodes every Thursday now.
- [52:59]
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