Jason Webster - The Spy with 29 Names: The story of the Second World Wars most audacious double agent

Contents

Many thanks to Mavis Batey, Nigel West, Arne Molfenter and Juliet Wilson-Bareau for sharing their insights into this wonderful story with me.

Ana Domnguez Rama proved to be an excellent researcher and assistant when delving into the labyrinths of the Barcelona city archives. My thanks to the ever resourceful Enrique Murillo for facilitating things.

Nigel Jones and Roger Moorhouse gave useful background information and advice on Second World War matters, for which I am very grateful.

My father, John, leaped gleefully out of retirement to become my research assistant for much of the writing of the book. My thanks for his input and advice.

Thanks also to Lisa Abend, Sabine Kern, Francisco Centofanti, William Ryan, D.E. Meredith, Mike Ivey and Gijs van Hensbergen.

This book would probably not have been written without the support of Peter Ettedgui, who has shared my fascination with the Garbo story from the start. Many years have passed since our first conversation about it at a terrace caf in the Plaa de Catalunya, and now, finally, here we are. Grcies.

Everyone at Random House has been very helpful and patient. Thanks to all there. Mary Chamberlain remains the best copy-editor one could wish for. And Jenny Uglow, as ever, gracefully helped guide things along.

My thanks to Peter Robinson, for his unwavering support and good advice.

And finally to Salud, por todo.

He fought on both sides in the Spanish Civil War. He was awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler and an MBE by Britain. To MI5 he was known as Garbo. To the Abwehr, he was Alaric. He also went by Rags the Indian Poet, Mrs Gerbers, Stanley the Welsh Nationalist and 24 other names. He tricked Hitler over D-Day. He was the greatest double agent in history.

But who, exactly, was Juan Pujol?

Jason Webster tells of Pujols early life in Spain and how, after the Civil War, his determination to fight totalitarianism took him on his strange journey from Nazi spy to MI5 star. Working for the British, whom he saw as the exemplar of freedom and democracy, he created a bizarre fictional network of spies that misled the entire German high command. Above all, in Operation Fortitude he diverted German Panzer divisions away from Normandy, with a pivotal message transmitted from a small house in north London, through to Madrid, then to the German secret service, the German High Command and then finally to Hitler himself in the Berghof. Historians are agreed that, without Garbo, D-Day would almost certainly have failed and our world would be a very different place indeed.

Meticulously researched, yet told with the verve of a thriller, The Spy with 29 Names comes from one of our leading writers on Spain. It uncovers the truth far stranger than any fiction about the spy behind one of recent historys most important and dramatic events.

Brought up in England, Jason Webster lived for many years in Spain. His acclaimed non-fiction books about Spain include Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco; Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain; Guerra: Living in the Shadows of the Spanish Civil War; and Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain. He is also the author of the Max Cmara series of crime novels set in Spain, the first of which, Or the Bull Kills You, was longlisted for the CWA Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards New Blood Dagger 2011. This was followed by A Death in Valencia and The Anarchist Detective.

Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco

Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain

Guerra: Living in the Shadows of the Spanish Civil War

Sacred Sierra: A Year on a Spanish Mountain

Or the Bull Kills You

A Death in Valencia

The Anarchist Detective

Most of the communications on the German side are being decrypted by Bletchley Park and fed back into the Allied intelligence system, creating a loop.

Below, in CAPS, are listed the 29 names that made up Pujols network of agents, along with their code names and numbers as used by MI5, and Pujols personal group of informants (known as Js network).

Juan Pujol, known as:

1. GARBO by the British

2. ALARIC by the Germans (head of the Arabal/Arabel spy network)

Js network:

3. J(1) THE COURIER: official on the regular LisbonUK flight during the war, carrying Garbos letters to Lisbon, thereby avoiding the British censors. German codename: Smith.

4. J(2) THE AVIATOR: RAF officer who provided Garbo with his first piece of genuine intelligence passed on to the Germans from London.

5. J(3) THE WORK COLLEAGUE: Garbos boss at the Spanish Department of the Ministry of Information. In time the Germans were led to believe that THE WORK COLLEAGUE was W.B. McCann, the real head of the department. German codename: Ameros.

6. J(4) THE CENSOR: employee at the Ministry of Information who passed on Stop and Release press notices to Garbo.

7. J(5) THE MISTRESS: secretary in the Secretariat of the Ministry of War with whom Garbo started an affair in September 1943. Pujol described her as the most important member of the Garbo network. German codename: Amy.

8. Agent 1 Senhor CARVALHO, the Portuguese: Pujols first invented spy, based in Newport. A commercial traveller, he mostly reported on south-west England.

9. Agent 2 William Maximilian GERBERS: German-Swiss living in Bootle, Liverpool; reported on shipping movements in the Mersey.

10. 2(1) Mrs Gerbers THE WIDOW: after her husbands death, Mrs Gerbers moved to London and became Garbos assistant, firstly as a housekeeper and later as an encriptor.

11. Agent 3 PEDRO the Venezuelan: last of the spies invented before Pujol left Portugal for England. An independently wealthy man who had studied at the University of Glasgow. He became Garbos deputy and effectively ran the spy ring towards the end of the war, when his role was played by Toms Harris.

12. 3(1) THE RAF NCO: drunkard and gambler based in Glasgow who passed on information to PEDRO.

13. 3(2) THE LIEUTENANT in the 49th Infantry Division: talkative officer whom PEDRO met on a train; passed on information about troop movements in Scotland.

14. 3(3) THE GREEK SEAMAN: communist deserter from the Merchant Navy who gave information to PEDRO because he believed he was working for the Soviets. German codename: Ben.

15. Agent 4 FRED the Gibraltarian: waiter who had been evacuated from the Rock and resettled in England. He was sent to work in the Chislehurst Caves for a while before ending up in the NAAFI on the south coast. German codename: Camillus.

16. 4(1) THE OPERATOR: left-wing wireless technician who sent Garbos radio messages to the Germans believing that he was communicating with Spanish Republicans. He was played by MI5 radio operator Charlie Haines.

17. 4(2) THE GUARD: working at the Chislehurst Caves, this man passed information on to FRED about who was allowed in and out.

18. 4(3) THE AMERICAN NCO: Franco-sympathiser who befriended FRED in Soho in order to practise his Spanish. Usefully for Garbo, he was happy to show off how much he knew about US formations and their battle plans. German codename: Castor.