The Secret History of MI6 - Keith Jeffery [292]
Elsewhere, the price of discovery was equally grim. After Axis troops had occupied Corsica in November 1942, a number of SIS agents were infiltrated on to the island from North Africa. In April 1943, while waiting to rendezvous with a submarine, two agents from group ‘Auburn’ were arrested by Italian troops. One of the men, a British-born Belgian merchant navy officer called Guy Verstraete (cover-name ‘Vernuge’), who had unfortunately been carrying plans of the island defences as well as some English-language intelligence reports, was very badly treated by his Italian captors. ‘In spite of three months of the severest interrogation and the foulest tortures,’ reported a French colleague, ‘he never gave anything away.’ For a fortnight he was forced to use his chamber-pot as a container for food. His right leg was broken at the ankle, fingernails and toenails were torn out and cigarettes stubbed on his chest. He was sentenced to death by firing-squad in July. A report received in London the following October said that he placed his right hand on his heart and told the soldiers to ‘aim well’. Then, raising his left hand and declaring ‘Vive la Grande Bretagne,’ ‘he died a brave man [“il est mort en brave”]’.14
The Torch invasion of French North Africa precipitated not only the despatch of German troops to Tunisia, but also their entry into unoccupied France. This fatally undermined the Vichy regime and its hold (such as it was) over French overseas territories. Over the next few months there was an awkward period of uncertainty over who would assume the leadership of what had now become known as the Fighting French. Churchill had thrown his support behind Charles de Gaulle in 1940, but the United States, which had recognised the Vichy government and whose first major commitment to the war in the west was in North Africa, regarded him with suspicion. After Admiral Jean Darlan, the Vichy-appointed Commander-in-Chief of French armed forces, called a ceasefire on 11 November 1942, the United States commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had him confirmed as the political head of French North Africa, a move which disgusted the Gaullists. In the wings, moreover, was General Henri Giraud, who, having been taken prisoner at the fall of France, had escaped from Germany to Vichy in the spring of 1942 and appeared (especially among Americans) to represent an acceptably anti-Axis French leader.
Algeria was the first part of metropolitan France (as it was regarded by the French) to be liberated from Axis control, and after the ceasefire the political and military focus shifted to Algiers where Eisenhower established his headquarters. Giraud, having been smuggled with SIS help out of southern France on a British submarine, arrived on 9 November. By 12 November SIS had established a presence there under the code-name ‘Orange’, and Menzies in London pressed the unit for news: ‘in particular we wish to know nature of Giraud’s relations with Eisenhower, his attitude towards Darlan and the latter’s general orientation’. Two days later Algiers signalled that the Americans were backing Darlan as they hoped that through him Vichy supporters could be brought round to the Allied cause. Meanwhile Giraud was ‘somewhat unwillingly’ to be kept in the background. His staff were reported as being ‘fully aware grave danger [to Giraud’s ambitions] if Darlan can continue to convince 48-landers [the Americans] his value’. On 17 November, having managed to get out of France, the Deuxième Bureau