The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [257]
Described as an ‘outstanding personality’, Jones was an Egyptian Jew who had served in the Italian colonial army and ‘could pass for an Italian’. With ‘the help of Jewish colonists’, and equipped with both Tunisian and Fascist Italian identity cards, he was to penetrate Libya through Tunisia. But the operation started very badly. In late November, having safely landed Jones and another agent off a submarine, the British Commando who had rowed them in was forced to swim ashore after his boat capsized. As they attempted to get him some dry clothes, the alarm was raised and French police arrested all three, along with weapons, two suitcases, one containing a wireless set, and the other ‘200,000 lire, 300,000 francs, £5,000 sterling, some gold louis, two bags with about eleven diamonds and a bag of turquoises’, as well as ‘a brown wooden box containing chemicals for the production of invisible ink’. The two agents were tried, convicted and sentenced to twenty years’ hard labour. Six days after the Anglo-American landings in North Africa (Operation Torch) on 8 November 1942, which prompted the Germans to occupy Tunisia, the SIS men and a large number of pro-Gaullist prisoners were released by the French authorities, enabling Jones to organise an intelligence network which was to be especially productive over the following four months.
Working from Egypt, Cuthbert Bowlby was involved with the Africa Bureau project, by which the SIS Middle East station (ISLD) and those at Cairo, Casablanca and Dakar co-operated in penetration operations, many of which were implemented by the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG), which had been formed in the summer of 1940 for reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering and special operations deep behind enemy lines. Throughout 1942 the LRDG delivered ISLD agents into enemy territory to carry out SIS tasks in North Africa.11 Late in April 1942 it was reported that a group led by ‘52901’, a Jewish academic in his sixties, was about to leave Siwa near the Libyan frontier and be taken by the LRDG to El Abiar, where 52901 ‘had introductions to friendly sheikhs’. From here, close to Benghazi, the group was to report on enemy troop deployments. Two other groups, planned to go during May, were targeted on Tripoli. One was led by an Italian Communist who had lived in Libya for ten years; the other mostly comprised Free Frenchmen who were to be airlifted into Tunisia and reach Tripoli from the west. Demonstrating that the Africa Bureau remit was not confined only to the north of the continent, plans were being worked on for a fourth group, also Free French-led, to penetrate Madagascar. This plan was overtaken by the British invasion of the island early in May, and the North African operations were disrupted by Rommel’s two counter-offensives, though 52901 and his group managed some reporting in May-June 1942. Rommel’s first offensive, in January 1942, pushed the British past Benghazi. The second began on 26 May and was not halted until the beginning of July when the Afrika Korps reached El Alamein, just fifty miles from Alexandria. Fearing that Cairo might fall, along with the bulk of Middle East Command, SIS moved all but a skeleton staff to Jerusalem where it remained until the end of the year.
As it existed in 1942 the structure of the regional SIS headquarters in the Middle East - ISLD - echoed that of SIS headquarters in London. GC&CS and the Radio Security Service had a regional office which came under Bowlby’s command. The various SIS stations collected intelligence which ISLD distributed, mostly through the inter-service Middle East Intelligence Centre.