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’s P.5 section, the surviving reports give a flavour of the intelligence his agents were sending back. In October he reported telegrams from ‘Bertie’ (Gustave Bertrand) giving the names of the heads of French armed forces intelligence and the Vichy French Intelligence Service itself. The next month he stated that his ‘Vichy France Section’ was providing ‘outstanding’ information on French North Africa, including photographs of beaches on the Moroccan Atlantic coast from Agadir to Mazagan; the boom and net defences at the port of Oran; ‘description, equipment and cargo movements’ at Nemours in Algeria; from occupied France ‘a scheme and report of coastal defences’ around Bayonne, and a report about construction work on a submarine shelter in Bordeaux; and from the then still unoccupied zone a report detailing the difficulties of recruitment for the Vichy army. A telegram from his Polish source ‘Rygor’ (Major Mieczysław Słowikowski) on 8 November stated that from 6 November all shipping movements in the port of Algiers had been suspended. Clearly the authorities there had got a sniff of the impending Torch offensive. Ships at sea had received orders to return to the nearest port, while the French submarines Caiman and Marsouin were being held at readiness in Algiers.15

During November 1942 P.5 agents reported on coastal defences at Toulon and Marseilles; the names of commanders of all ships of the French naval forces larger than minesweepers taken from a secret document held by the French Ministry of Marine; details of a German staff headquarters in the Château de Kerlivio near Brandérion in Brittany, with a sketch showing strongpoints which should be destroyed in the event of operations; changes in the armament of the destroyers Gerfaut and Guépard and the cruisers Algérie and Dupleix at Toulon, with plans; reports on the arrival of the Italian Piave and Legnano divisions in France (with the Italian headquarters at Cannes and staff headquarters at Nice), along with the general Italian order of battle; German troop movements on the French Mediterranean coast and air order of battle across France. From Germany itself, Dunderdale’s agents reported on the output of the Schichau shipyards at Elbing in East Prussia, and details of ships under construction or repair in Kiel, Stettin and Lübeck. There were also reports of extensive preparations being made in Germany for gas warfare, including one that ‘Infantry Battalion 151’ had carried out exercises with poison gas at Białystok in Poland; positions of U-boats and their bases in Danzig, with yard serial numbers of submarines under construction; and an OKW appraisal of Soviet and German intentions and the Eastern Front situation dated 30 November 1942.

In 1943, there were reports on Italian naval units on the south coast of France (‘a prompt reply to a query’, according to Dunderdale); the position of ships and air-raid damage in Genoa; more reports on German preparations for gas warfare; and submarine construction at Gdynia, Königsberg and Katowice. In France there were reports on the coastal defences in the Marseilles region and the political situation in both France and North Africa following the Allied landings of Operation Torch. In February 1944 reports arrived on German troop movements to the Eastern Front and a survey of the situation in Italian-occupied Corsica, giving the strength of the occupation forces (20,000-25,000) and identifying units and their locations, with notes on coastal defences, accompanied by two maps and twelve photographs. In March there were reports on the state of the French fleet at Toulon after scuttling; Gestapo arrests in the French Foreign Ministry; a copy of a questionnaire submitted to German SS agents in France; and the drinking-water supply in Tunisia. From Germany came reports on the shipyards at Pillau and Königsberg in East Prussia; the position of the German naval headquarters at Copenhagen; and military convoys for the Eastern Front.

During the spring reports came in on coastal defences along the Mediterranean west of Nice; the defences