The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [235]
Another network, code-named ‘Johnny’, provided good intelligence about the naval base at Brest, from March to June 1941 reporting on the positions, condition after bombing and state of seaworthiness of the German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, while ‘Felix’ was the first to report the arrival of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in June 1941. Human intelligence of this type was especially valuable, as it was only from the early summer of 1941 that the code-breakers at Bletchley Park were able to crack the German naval and dockyard Enigma cyphers. But the A.4 networks suffered a series of setbacks in 1942. In February Felix was disbanded after the capture of its wireless operator, and in April the Germans raided the Fitzroy headquarters at Sartrouville, capturing another radio operator. Lamirault was back in England at the time and insisted on being dropped blind into France, where he salvaged the remains of his group and managed to evacuate six important agents out through Spain and Gibraltar.
After the fall of France Dunderdale re-established contact with Rivet and Bertrand, who, although continuing to work for the Vichy regime, offered to supply SIS with information. Dunderdale, travelling as ‘John Green’, flew to Lisbon where on 5 September 1940 he met Rivet’s representative, ‘Victor’, in the church of St Geronimo. Victor expressed his willingness to work on a reciprocal basis and also help the British with potential sabotage work in Spain and Libya. Dunderdale gave him a wireless transmitter and codes and reported to Head Office that for him reciprocity meant sending the French ‘harmless stuff’ while ‘exploiting every opportunity of obtaining information’. Dansey, responsible for developing work with the Free French, meanwhile warned Menzies that liaison with anti-Gaullists could cause friction and political complications (as in fact it did), but SIS’s contacts with the established French intelligence community had been so close and productive that, as Menzies put it in the spring of 1941, ‘although my policy was queried, I insisted on renewing W/T contact with the French Deuxieme Bureau’, after the fall of France.15 It was a good decision, since through his unique position Bertrand (or ‘Bertie’ as he was referred to in telegrams) was able to provide advance warning of Abwehr and Gestapo intentions against SIS agents, as well as information on Italian and German troop and ship movements to North Africa, German dispositions in the Balkans and losses on the Russian front.
The false passport used by ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale (travelling as ‘John Green’) when meeting a representative of the Vichy French intelligence service in Lisbon in September 1940.
Back in England Kenneth Cohen at the head of A.5 had the difficult task of liaising with Colonel André Dewavrin - whose nom de guerre was ‘Colonel Passy’ - the head of the Free French Forces’ Intelligence. Agents infiltrated into France through Spain included Gilbert Renault, an ardent Gaullist, who by mid-1941 had started networks along the French Atlantic coast and established a courier line to Spain. One agent, employed by the Germans in Brest, sent him complete plans of the harbour defences and reported movements of German naval craft. Renault’s organisation, which became known as the Confrérie de Notre-Dame, eventually covered most of France. Another extensive