Copyright © 2021 by Gershom Gorenberg
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First Edition: January 2021
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Gorenberg, Gershom, author.
Title: War of shadows : codebreakers, spies, and the secret struggle to drive the Nazis from the Middle East / Gershom Gorenberg.
Description: First edition. | New York : PublicAffairs, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020022031 | ISBN 9781610396271 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781610396288 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945—Africa, North. | World War, 1939–1945—Middle East. | World War, 1939–1945—Secret service. | Espionage—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC D766.82 .G575 2021 | DDC 940.54/850961—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020022031
ISBNs: 978-1-61039-627-1 (hardcover), 978-1-61039-628-8 (ebook)
E3-20201204-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Cast of Characters
The Mediterranean Theater (map)
Author’s Note
Curtain Rising: Last Train from Cairo
ACT I:
ALL QUIET ON THE NILE 1. “Report for Duty, in Accordance with the Instructions You Have Received”
2. The Seductive Curves of the Dunes
3. Next King of the Nile
4. The Machine Is the Future
5. The Flaw in the Machine Is the Man
6. The Oracles
ACT II:
THE WAGER 1. The Keystone in the Arch
2. War of Shadows
3. Sandstorm
4. Half-Shared Secrets
5. The Lady Who Spied on Spies
6. The Oracles Speak Gibberish
ACT III:
A PARTICULARLY RELIABLE SOURCE 1. The Woman of Daunting Intelligence
2. Mare Incognitum
3. Spies, Everywhere
ACT IV:
“THE MATTER BECOMES OF EXTREME URGENCY” 1. Compromised
2. Inside Information
ACT V:
LINE IN THE SAND 1. El Alamein
2. Unknown Soldiers
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Discover More
About the author
Notes
In memory of forgotten heroes
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We were eavesdroppers, strangers reading stolen scraps of other people’s correspondence.
—The History of Hut 3 (Top Secret Ultra)
God delivers his will as visible in events, an obscure text written in a mysterious tongue. People toss off instant translations of it, hasty translations that are incorrect, full of faults, omissions and misreadings. Very few minds understand the divine tongue. The wisest, the calmest, the deepest, set about slowly deciphering it, and when they finally turn up with their text, the job has been done; there are already twenty translations in the marketplace. From each translation a party is born, and from each misreading a faction; and each party believes it has the only true text, and each faction believes it holds the light.
—VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables
Cast of Characters
* Aristocratic titles appear only when the person was primarily known by that title.
** A list of intelligence and security agencies appears below.
UNITED STATES
Prescott Currier: officer and codebreaker in the US Navy’s OP-20-G signal intelligence agency
Dwight Eisenhower: general, deputy chief, then chief of army planning; later commander of Operation Torch
Bonner Frank Fellers: military attaché in Egypt
William Friedman: codebreaker, director of the US Army’s Signal Intelligence Service
James Fry: assistant military attaché in Egypt
Genevieve Grotjan: codebreaker, Signal Intelligence Service
Solomon Kullback: codebreaker, Signal Intelligence Service
Alexander Kirk: ambassador to Egypt
Charles Lindbergh: aviator and isolationist leader
George Marshall: general, army chief of staff
Russell Maxwell: general, commander of US military supply mission in Egypt
William Phillips: ambassador to Italy
Franklin Delano Roosevelt: president
Leo Rosen: officer and engineer, Signal Intelligence Service
Frank Rowlett: codebreaker, Signal Intelligence Service
Henry Stimson: Republican politician, secretary of state under Herbert Hoover, secretary of war under Franklin Roosevelt
Sumner Welles: undersecretary of state
BRITAIN
Jean Alington: Bletchley Park translator
Claude Auchinleck: general, British commander in chief, Middle East
Ralph Bagnold: army officer and explorer, founder and commander of the Long Range Desert Group
Alan Brooke: general, chief of the Imperial General Staff
Herbert Cecil Buck: army officer, commander of the Special Interrogation Group, SIG
Neville Chamberlain: prime minister until May 1940
Winston Churchill: prime minister from May 1940
Joan Clarke: codebreaker at GC&CS
Dorothy (“Peter”) Clayton: aviator and explorer, wife of Robert Clayton
Pat Clayton: explorer, later officer in the Long Range Desert Group
Robert Clayton: navy pilot and explorer, husband of Dorothy Clayton
Alan Cunningham: general, commander of the Eighth Army in Libya, 1941
Andrew Cunningham: admiral, commander in chief, Mediterranean Fleet
Alastair Denniston: naval officer, codebreaker, first director of GC&CS, Government Code and Cipher School, British signal intelligence
John Dill: field marshal, chief of the Imperial General Staff, later British military’s representative in Washington
Russell Dudley-Smith: naval officer, codebreaker at GC&CS
Aubrey (Abba) Eban: army officer, Special Operations Executive liaison in Palestine
Anthony Eden: Conservative politician, secretary of state for war, then foreign secretary
Ian Fleming: assistant to the director of British naval intelligence, younger brother of Peter Fleming
&n
bsp; Peter Fleming: author and army officer
Lord Halifax (Edward Frederick Lindley Wood): foreign secretary, afterward ambassador to the United States
John Haselden: army intelligence officer
John Herivel: codebreaker at GC&CS
Harry Hinsley: codebreaker and traffic analyst, GC&CS
Dillwyn (Dilly) Knox: codebreaker, original head of the Enigma section of GC&CS
Jacqueline Lampson: half-Italian wife of Miles Lampson
Miles Lampson: ambassador to Egypt
Mavis Lever: codebreaker at GC&CS
Percy Loraine: ambassador to Italy
Harold MacMichael: high commissioner of Palestine
Raymond Maunsell: army officer, head of Security Intelligence Middle East, SIME
Stewart Menzies: director of MI6, alias “C,” after Hugh Sinclair
Alan Moorehead: war correspondent
Philip Neame: general, commander of British forces in Palestine, later commander of British forces in Libya
Francis D’Arcy Osborne: envoy to the Holy See
Reg Parker: codebreaker at GC&CS
Hubert Penderel: aviator and explorer
George Pollock: director of Special Operation Executive’s Middle East office
Guy Prendergast: explorer, Bagnold’s successor as commander of the Long Range Desert Group
Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly
Daniel Knox, Earl of Ranfurly: Hermione’s husband, army officer
Neil Ritchie: general, commander of the Eighth Army
Hugh Sinclair: admiral, director of MI6, alias “C,” until his death late in 1939.
Margaret Storey: enemy intelligence analyst, GC&CS
Arthur Tedder: air marshal, commander in chief of the Royal Air Force in the Middle East
John Tiltman: army officer, veteran codebreaker, GC&CS
Edward Travis: naval officer, deputy director, then director of GC&CS
Alan Turing: codebreaker, GC&CS, inventor of the British version of the bombe
Peter Twinn: codebreaker, GC&CS
Valentine Vivian: head of MI6’s counterespionage unit
June Watkins: cipher officer, Women’s Auxiliary Air Force in Egypt
Archibald Wavell: general, first commander in chief, Middle East, replaced by Auchinleck
Gordon Welchman: codebreaker and head of Hut 6 at GC&CS
B. T. Wilson, general: “number one” for Palestine in the Special Operations Executive
Henry Maitland (“Jumbo”) Wilson: general, commander of British Troops in Egypt, later of the Ninth Army
NEW ZEALAND
General Bernard Freyberg: commander of New Zealand forces in North Africa
POLAND
Marian Rejewski: codebreaker
Jerzy Rozycki: codebreaker
Henryk Zygalski: codebreaker
FRANCE
Gustave Bertrand alias Godefroy: army officer, director of cryptological services in French military intelligence
Pierre Koenig: general, Free French commander in North Africa
Philippe Petain: leader of the collaborationist Vichy regime after France’s surrender to Germany
Susan Travers: British-born Free French soldier, Koenig’s driver
EGYPT
Abdul Rahman Azzam: politician, diplomat, and cabinet minister
Kemal el Din: prince and explorer, cousin of Farouk
Farouk: king from 1936
Fouad: king, father of Farouk
Hassan Gaafar: half brother of Johann Eppler
Abbas Halim: prince, cousin of Farouk
Nevine Abbas Halim: princess, daughter of Abbas Halim, cousin of Farouk
Ahmed Hassanein: explorer, later diplomat, mentor of Farouk, chamberlain of the royal household, and head of the royal cabinet
Ali Maher: politician, adviser to Farouk, prime minister
Aziz el-Masri: military figure, mentor to Farouk, briefly army chief of staff
Khaled Mohi El Din: army officer
Mustafa Nahas: leader of the Wafd party, prime minister
Gamal Abdel Nasser: army officer
Nazli: queen, wife of Fouad, mother of Farouk
Antonio Pulli: Italian-born palace electrician, Farouk’s close confidant and reputed procurer
Anwar al-Sadat: signals officer
Ernesto Verucci: Italian-born architect at the royal court, confidant of Farouk
Youssef Zulficar: Farouk’s father-in-law, ambassador to Persia
PALESTINE
Yisrael Galili: socialist Zionist political and military figure
Eliahu Gottlieb: German-born soldier in the British Special Interrogation Group, SIG
Hajj Amin el-Husseini: exiled former mufti of Jerusalem
Moshe Shertok: head of the political department of the Jewish Agency
Maurice Tiefenbrunner: German-born illegal immigrant to Palestine, soldier in the British Special Interrogation Group, SIG
IRAQ
Rashid Ali al-Gailani: politician: prime minister after 1941 coup, afterward in exile
GERMANY
Werner Best: deputy to Heinrich Himmler
Wilhelm Canaris: commander of the Abwehr
Hans Entholt: actor, later junior officer, lover of Laszlo Almasy
Johann Eppler, alias Hussein Gaafar: Abwehr agent
Erwin Ettel: ambassador to Iran, afterward Middle East expert in Foreign Office
Hermann Göring: senior Nazi figure with multiple positions, confidant and personal envoy of Hitler
Reinhard Heydrich: head of the Gestapo and the SD, later of the RSHA
Heinrich Himmler: head of the SS
Adolf Hitler: the Führer, Nazi dictator of Germany
Albert Kesselring: Luftwaffe field marshal, commander of German forces in the Mediterranean
Franz von Papen: German ambassador to Turkey
Walther Rauff: SS officer, inventor of the mobile gas chamber
Joachim von Ribbentrop: foreign minister
Nikolaus Ritter: Abwehr officer
Erwin Rommel: general, later field marshal, commander of Axis forces in North Africa
Heinrich Gerd Sandstede, alias Sandy, Peter Muncaster: Abwehr agent
Alfred Seebohm: army officer, commander of frontline signal intelligence company under Rommel
ITALY
Pietro Badoglio: field marshal, governor-general of Libya, army chief of staff
Italo Balbo: prominent Fascist, aviator, air marshal, governor-general of Libya
Ettore Bastico: general, nominal commander in chief in Libya
Ugo Cavallero: field marshal, army chief of staff after Badoglio
Galeazzo Ciano: foreign minister, son-in-law of Mussolini
Italo Gariboldi: general, briefly commander in Libya after Graziani
Rodolfo (“the Butcher”) Graziani: general and vice governor of Libya; later field marshal and commander of Italian forces that invaded Egypt
Orlando Lorenzini: officer in Libya
Pietro Maletti: general, commander of an army group in Libya
Serafino Mazzolini: ambassador in Egypt
Paolo Monelli: war correspondent
Benito Mussolini: the Duce, Fascist dictator of Italy
Umberto Piatti: general and landowner in Libya
Manfredi Talamo: commander of the paramilitary Carabinieri’s counterespionage center and of its Removal Section, the P Squad
HUNGARY
Laszlo Almasy: explorer, aviator, later officer in the German army in North Africa
Gyula Gömbös: fascist and anti-Semitic politician, premier 1932–1936
Laszlo Pathy: honorary consul in Egypt
INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY AGENCIES
Abwehr: German military intelligence
B-Dienst: German Navy signal intelligence
GC&CS: Government Code and Cipher School, British signal intelligence
GCHQ: Government Communications Headquarters, previously GC&CS
ISLD: Inter-Services Liaison Department, MI6 station in Cairo
MI5: British domestic security and counterintelligence
MI6: British overseas intelligence, officially the Secret Intelligence Service
OKW/Chi: German High Command signal intelligence
OP-20-G: US Navy signal intelligence
RSHA: Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Nazi roof body of the SS, Gestapo, and police
SD: Sicherheitsdienst, Nazi Party intelligence bureau
Sezione Prelevamento: Removal Section (P Squad) of Italian counterintelligence, responsible for thefts from foreign embassies
SIG: Special Interrogation Group, German-speaking British commando unit
SIM: Servizio Informazioni Militari, Italy’s Military Information Service
SIME: Security Intelligence Middle East, British counterintelligence in the Middle East
SIS: Signal Intelligence Service, US Army signal intelligence
SOE: Special Operations Executive, British agency responsible for training and directing partisans in Axis-occupied countries
SS: Schutzstaffel, feared Nazi security, combat, and genocide force that grew out of Hitler’s personal guard
Note on Names and Spellings
NAMES OF PLACES and countries are given in the form common at the time of the events. There are many ways to spell Arabic and Hebrew names in English. The spellings here are ones commonly used at the time or, when available, that individuals used when writing in English.
Not only do British and American spellings vary, but in some cases more than one form was used. For instance, both cipher and cypher appear in direct quotations from British documents.
THE MEDITERRANEAN THEATRE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
OVER LUNCH IN Jerusalem, my friend Daniel Avitzour mentioned that his father had been a British officer in Palestine during World War II, and that the British army offered to evacuate his mother to South Africa. Or perhaps it was a demand that she leave the country, since Palestine was likely to soon be a battlefield. In either case, she refused.
That conversation set me on a journey that lasted years—to Rome, to Cairo and the sands of El Alamein, to London and the once-secret huts of Bletchley Park, to archives in places from Tel Aviv to Palo Alto, to the homes of the children and grandchildren of people whose names have been forgotten though they changed the direction of history. It was also a journey of the mind, of countless long days and nights spent fitting together the recently declassified or long-lost or long-secret documents of one country with espionage reports of another, of following one lead to another to find someone who still remembered the face and voice of a mysterious woman who’d once tracked spies—obsessed, I admit, amazed as I watched established facts unravel and new ones take their place. In the end, I was able to create a distinctly new portrait of one of the great turning points of the last century.