FINAL SCRIPT

Series Title: SECRETS OF WAR

Episode Number 10: ROMMEL’S ENIGMA

Contact Name: Chip Proser

TEASE: 01:00:00

ANNOUNCER

Next on Secrets of War… In the critical battle for North Africa. German General Irwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, seemed unstoppable, a warrior with a mystical feel for the battle. But how did he really get his intelligence. The British countered with secrets of their own; phony spies, phantom armies, and battlefield “magic.” The story of “Rommel’s Enigma” is next on Secrets of War.

MAIN TITLE SEQUENCE

Chyron: ROMMEL’S ENIGMA

Chyron: NARRATED BY CHARLTON HESTON

ACT ONE

NARRATOR

In February 1941 Hitler’s favorite General, Erwin Rommel, landed in North Africa to take command of the Afrika Korps. The German General’s mission was to bail out their Italian Allies. Italian forces had been driven from their Libyan colonies by the British General Sir Archibald Wavell, who had taken Cyranaica, captured Tobruk and now threatened to throw the Italians out of North Africa.

Rommel’s secret orders were to drive west to Cairo and Suez, destroy the British, continue into Palestine, Arabia, Persia and link up with a Northern pincer coming down from the Crimea. If successful, this campaign would give the Germans control of the Arabian and Caspian oil fields and the entire Middle East.

Rommel’s first order was one of deception. He paraded his forces through the streets of Tripoli. In a classic move, he drove his tanks in a giant circle. The Panzers passed the reviewing stand again and again...a massive show of exaggerated force... a force that then disappeared into the Desert.

Rommel had long been a hero. He had won the Pour le Merite, Germany’s highest award for valor in the First World War. He wrote the best-selling book Infantrie Grief An, expressing the doctrine of mobile attack which was required reading for German Officers. When he led Hitler’s bodyguard he attracted the attention of the Fuhrer. In the battle for France, his 7^th Panzer Division became known as the “Ghost Division” for its ability to appear behind enemy lines without warning.

Rommel had advantages in the proven revolutionary doctrine of Blitzkrieg and in his own personal energy, drive and brilliance. He had what his troops called “Fingerspitzengefuhl”... a feel in his fingertips for the ebb and flow of battle.

CHYRON: ANTHONY CAVE BROWN, AUTHOR, “BODYGUARD OF LIES”

TC: 01:03:53;00

HE WAS A WARRIOR, THERE WAS NOTHING ARTISTIC ABOUT HIM AT ALL. HE EXISTED TO KILL, AND HE EXISTED ENTIRELY FOR VICTORY. HIS JOB WAS TO MARCH INTO CAIRO AS THE NEW CONQUEROR, AND THAT WAS WHAT HE PLANNED TO DO.

The Africa Korps was made up of veterans, the best infantry in the world, and the Panzer doctrine of rapid tank thrusts, supported by mechanized infantry, mobile artillery and air support had swept all before it in Europe. Now Rommel saw before him, the vast deserts of North Africa, a perfect battleground for his tanks.

His weapons were the best in the world. The German tanks outgunned the British while the rounds from the light British guns bounced harmlessly off German Armor. Rommel had taken the high-velocity 88 antiaircraft gun and adapted it to anti-tank service where it was a deadly, destructive surprise.

The British forces in the western desert were scattered at the end of a long supply line stretching back to Alexandria. Rommel sensed their weakness and quickly attacked, driving east through Mersa Matruh.

Rommel led from the front, hopscotching the battle from his Storch aircraft, directing quick thrusts into the belly of the British, leaving open flanks and relying on speed and shock to freeze his enemy while he cut into its flanks. He would feint and withdraw...drawing the pursuers onto his antitank gun screen. His lightning tactics earned him a new appellation, “The Desert Fox”.

CHYRON: SIR HARRY HINSLEY O.B.E., SIGNALS ANALYST, BLETCHLEY PARK

TC: 01:05:47;04

ROMMEL’S ADVANCES ABSOLUTELY ASTOUNDED THE GERMANS YOU KNOW. BERLIN WAS OFTEN HAVING TO REPRIMAND HIM. HE WOULDN’T WAIT FOR THAT KIND OF THING. IF HE SAW A CHANCE, AND HE KNEW HOW WEAK THE BRITISH FORCES WERE, DISORGANIZED, HE WOULD TAKE IT.

Rommel's tactics and strategies seemed to be mystically brilliant. His uncanny ability to anticipate British strategy seemed to be a supernatural gift. But in this campaign he had a secret weapon... one which would eventually be used against him by his enemies...with devastating results. That weapon was the intelligence he gathered through various means. But the British too had covert weapons…

In Bletchley Park, outside of London, a secret army of cryptographers worked on breaking the German Enigma. This encoding machine used by every command in the Wehrmacht generated codes which were considered to be unbreakable. They were not. Polish cryptographers had been working to break the machine since the 1920’s. With the help of Hans Thilo Schmidt, a spy in the German Coding Office, they’d had some success.

Now, with the Nazi occupation of Europe, brilliant mathematicians gathered at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park to attack the machine code. On May 22^nd, 1940 they had their first breakthrough into the German Air Force code.

Luftwaffe signals revealed an Italian plan to attack British convoys shuttling between Piraeus in Greece and Alexandria. The message was passed to the British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham who set a trap.

Off Cape Matapan, British Cruisers struck. Unbeknownst to the Italians, Cunningham had a second secret weapon. The first ship-borne radar directed his fire to an Italian fleet in darkness and fog. Unable to return fire...unable even to find their enemy, the Italians were helpless as British gunfire sank the pride of their fleet.

The Italians were demoralized. Benito Mussolini’s hopes of turning the Mediterranean into an “Italian Lake” were sent to the bottom of the Sea.

HARRY HINSLEY

MATAPAN WAS IMPORTANT OF COURSE BECAUSE IT LEFT THE ITALIAN FLEET NOT PREPARED TO SAIL AS A FLEET FOR THE REST OF THE WAR

At sea, the Italians ceded dominance to the British, but on land, Rommel retook the initiative. In April he captured Benghazi, Bardia, Sollum and the vital Halfaya pass. Tobruk alone stood.

The British were on the defensive. The Luftwaffe code couldn’t tell them anything about Rommel and his tanks. They had very little with which to defend themselves, but if the Germans had a wily fox, the British had a cagey lion.

Winston Churchill wrote “Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter. there is required, for the composition of a great commander, an element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch which leaves the enemy baffled as well as beaten.” The British embraced this need for deception.

CHYRON: PROFESSOR M.R.D. FOOT, AUTHOR, “S.O.E.”

TC: 01:09:33;26

THE IDEA DERIVED FROM GENERAL WAVELL WHO SPOTTED HOW WEAK THE BRITISH EMPIRE HAD BECOME AND HOW NECESSARY IT WOULD BE FOR IT TO WORK SOME SORT OF DECEPTION ON THE ENEMY TO PERSUADE THE ENEMY THAT IN FACT IT WAS A GREAT DEAL STRONGER THAN IT WAS. THE TECHNICAL TERM IS CREATING AN NOTIONAL ORDER OF BATTLE.

It was not enough to conceal what he proposed to do, It was necessary to persuade the enemy that Wavell was going to do something else...to have a complete cover plan. A cover plan called “Camille” sought to convince the Axis forces that Wavell had weakened his forces by sending troops to Cyprus. It was a ruse.

CHYRON: LORD ANNAN, AUTHOR, “CHANGING ENEMIES”

TC: 01:10:37;27

THERE WAS SOME SPLENDID, PHANTOM HEADQUARTERS BEING SET UP, ONE OFFICER WENT BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS OVER CYPRESS PRETENDING TO BE THE HEADQUARTERS OF THIS, AND THEN PRETENDING TO THE HEADQUARTERS OF THAT,.

The Germans and Italians were misled that the British had been weakened. Wavell then attacked and achieved tactical surprise. He drove through a split in the Italian defensive line, re-took Bardia and Sollum.

ACT TWO

By April 1941, under relentless German attack, the British were forced to evacuate their troops in Greece to Crete and to Alexandria. Then the codebreakers at Bletchley broke further news. Crete was next on the Axis list.

LORD ANNAN

ULTRA, THE MATERIAL FROM BLETCHLEY, GAVE US ABSOLUTELY THE WHOLE GERMAN PLAN. WE KNEW WHERE THEY WERE GOING TO LAND, WE KNEW WHICH AIRFIELDS THEY GOT TARGETED, AND WHERE THEIR PARACHUTIST WERE COMING IN,

Allied General Bernard Freyberg’s forces were too weak to repel the attack, but his few gunners deployed around the drop zones decimated the German paratroopers.

For the Paratroops Crete was a Pyrric victory. Over 4000 men of Hitler’s elite assault troops were killed, another 2000 wounded. The Paras would never fight as an airborne assault force again. But again the British faced defeat. They were driven from the island, as relief forces were sunk at sea.

Now Malta stood alone astride the critical sea lanes to the East. Malta, a British colony, stood only sixty miles from Italian bases on Sicily. The Regia Aeronautica, the Italian Air Force, should have had an easy conquest. The convoy routes from Gibraltar to Alexandria passed within air range of Axis forces in North Africa and Sicily. Should the British lose control of the island and the choke points between it and the coasts, they would have to ship supplies to Cairo around the Horn of Africa, dogged all the way by German subs.

If the Italians took Malta, Rommel’s supply lines would have been protected, British supply lines extremely vulnerable. Malta’s fate depended on Britain’s ability to supply it by convoy from Gibraltar in the West and Alexandria in the East.

British strategists thought Malta indefensible and urged Churchill to abandon it and save his forces. But Admiral Cunningham knew that Malta was an ideal base for a striking force…an unsinkable aircraft carrier that controlled the Mediterranean.

HARRY HINSLEY

WE STARTED READING THE ITALIAN CONVOY CIPHER, THE C-38, AND WERE KILLING SO MANY AXIS SHIPS, THAT THEY DECIDED THAT IT WASN’T SAFE FOR ROMMEL TO GO FORWARD UNTIL THEY KNOCKED MALTA OUT.

Operation Hercules was Hitler’s next secret plan for the invasion of Malta. But the unexpected and devastating losses in the Paratroop forces threw doubt on the German designs and had a marked effect on Hitler. The Germans had no idea the British were reading their message traffic. They had no idea why they took such heavy losses. They came to believe that paratroop assaults were suicidal . Ultra decoded their messages.

HARRY HINSLEY

THE FIRST DISCUSSIONS THAT CAME IN OUR ULTRA WERE THAT THERE SHOULD BE AN INVASION. THERE WAS THE QUESTION OF WHETHER IT SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY PARACHUTE FORCES. GERMANS RULED IT OUT. IT HAD TO BE DONE BY ITALIAN SHIPS, GERMAN AIR COVER, BUT NO PARACHUTES.

Ultra had weakened their resolve. The Germans couldn’t decide what to do with Malta, whether to starve it, invade or bomb it into submission. Goering announced that Malta would be destroyed by massive attacks from the air.

CHYRON: H.E. DR. MARK A MICALLEF, AMBASSADOR, MALTA

TC: 01:15:16;14

ONE OF THE GREATEST STRATEGIES OF THE, BRITISH EMPIRE ALSO CENTERED AROUND A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF BLUFF. AND SIZE OF THE BRITISH FLEETS WAS, SELF EVIDENT WHAT WAS NOT QUITE REALIZED WAS THE WEAKNESS OF THE AIR DEFENSES, AND THE WEAKNESS IN THE EVENT OF, OF A LANDING

The island’s hopes rested on its air defense. This defense rested on three obsolete biplanes, Gloucester Gladiators…”Faith, Hope and Charity” were all the aircraft left to defend against the might of the Italian and German air forces until modern planes arrived.

Bombs plunged down on Malta’s airfields and harbor eight times a day. Virtually every British convoy sent to supply the rock was destroyed. Food and munitions grew scarce. Bombers and subs were forced to withdraw to Alexandria.

Sailing on the surface was suicidal. Submarines were pressed into “Magic Carpet” an underwater supply service from Alexandria. By August the Maltese were near starvation...near defeat...

A fast convoy was ordered, codenamed...Operation Pedestal. Attacked by subs, dive bombers, torpedo bombers, e-boats, aerial mines and destroyers, the convoy was decimated, The carrier Eagle, the cruiser Cairo and several merchant ships were sunk, other cruisers, destroyers and transports damaged. Off Sardinia, the escorting carriers and cruisers pulled out, leaving the unescorted convoy to face the Italian Fleet. They had no real defenses when Air Vice Marshall Keith Park, operating from Malta, pulled a bluff. Unable to mount a real attack, he sent only two bombers but then faked massive air forces using wireless deception. The Italian fleet, intimidated by the torpedo bombers...withdrew...

MARK MICALLEF

THE TANKER OHIO, FINALLY REACHED GRAND HARBOR, HEAVILY BOMBED, AND RELIEVED THE ISLAND WITH FIFTY FIVE THOUSAND TONS OF VITAL FUEL SUPPLIES,

Then Hitler’s secret, Operation Barbarossa, suddenly gave the Maltese relief. The invasion of Russia drew air crews off to the east.

By late 1941 Malta- based sub and air-crews were destroying three-fourths of Axis shipping. German General Albert Kesselring and Rommel argued Malta’s fate. Rommel demanded forces for his advance into Egypt. He reasoned that if he took Tobruk and Alexandria, Malta would fall on its own. Backed by Hitler, Rommel’s view prevailed.

In November Wavell was replaced by General Sir Claude Auchinlech who planned “Operation Crusader”, a battle to drive Rommel back to Cyrenaica. But while they prepared, they still had to forestall Rommel’s attack.

A Force’s mission was to mislead the enemy with an appearance of strength carried out through wireless deception and an orchestra of notional Axis spies throughout the middle-east. During the summer months A Force faked preparations to attack three times and each time, at the last minute, they stood down. To outfox the Desert Fox, they were “crying wolf”.

To delude Axis aerial reconnaissance, the British turned to magic. Jasper Maskelyne was Britain’s foremost stage magician. Maskelyne, Colonel Geoffrey Barkus, a film-set designer and the “Magic Gang”, a ragtag outfit of film technicians, writers, painters and other odd sorts were brought together to deceive Rommel’s eyes.

“The war, to me, involved something very strange and rather alarming, the focusing of my whole imagination and knowledge on the problem of how best to mobilize the world of magic against Hitler.... Jasper Maskelyne

Maskelyne understood the use of light, shadow and illusion. He knew how to hide things. He’d built his life around misdirection and now used night as his black velvet. In his desert workshop known as “Magic Valley” Maskelyne’s magicians turn out all sort of visual illusions. Maskelyne used canvas and plywood to create tanks. From the air they looked real. He even found a way to make tank tracks look like those made by truck wheels.

CHYRON: DAVID FISHER, AUTHOR, “THE WAR MAGICIAN”

TC: 01:20:32;08

HE CREATED TRUCKS, THAT FIT RIGHT OVER THE TOP OF A TANK AND COULD BE DETACHED WITH ONE LITTLE, THING AT THE TOP, AND FROM THE SKY, THESE THINGS LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE TRUCKS, AND THEY CAST PRECISELY THE RIGHT SHADOWS, THEY WERE CALLED SUN SHIELDS, AND THEY COULD BE DETACHED FROM A TANK IN LESS THAN A MINUTE,

In desert warfare the critical issue was supply. Axis bombers were pounding Alexandria harbor. A Force was asked to help. Maskelyne and his Magic Gang set to work defending the harbor. They decided the best way was to move it.

DAVID FISHER

HE TOOK PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PATTERN OF GROUND LIGHTS AT THE HARBOR. AND THREE MILES DOWN THE BEACH HE RECREATED THE LIGHT PATTERN WHERE THERE HAD BEEN SHIPS IN THE HARBOR WITH TALL MASTS. THEY PUT UP STICKS WITH LIGHTS ON IT. HE BUILT BOMBS THAT WOULD LOOK FROM THE AIR LIKE THEY WERE AERIAL BOMBS DETONATING.

As German bombers flew over the Magic Gang blacked out the harbor and turned on their lights. They set off their explosives. The German fliers saw what looked like an attack. They made a right turn and dropped their bombs in the water.

The Suez canal was the only means to move supplies from the east. It was impossible to camouflage so they gave the job to Maskelyne. If he couldn’t hide the canal from the ground he must obscure it from the air.

DAVID FISHER

HE TOOK THE SEARCH LIGHT AND HE TURNED IT INTO A STROBE LIGHT AND THEN HE MADE IT SPIN. ANY TIME A PILOT LOOKED DOWN AND SAW THIS STROBE LIGHT SPINNING, IT MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO GET YOUR BEARINGS. IT CERTAINLY MADE IT IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE ANYTHING.

Now, in the west, at the far end of his supply lines, General Auchinleck’s Operation Crusader” ground to a halt. Rommel again seized the initiative.

HARRY HINSLEY

HE ATTACKS AGAIN, AT THE BEGINNING OF JANUARY ‘42. BY NOW WE HAVE ENIGMA ON HIM, BUT IT’S LATE, IT’S LATE IN BEING BROKEN, AND OF COURSE IT’S LATER EVEN GETTING TO THE FRONT

To support Rommel’s new campaign, Malta was hit by tremendous bombardment. Ships were sunk in the harbor, the defenses blasted, Maltese destroyers sunk by mines. There was no fuel. Maltese forces couldn’t interrupt Rommel’s supplies. The Desert Fox was on the move again, probing, feinting and building for a major attack.

ACT THREE

1942... North Africa... As Field Marshal Rommel attacked the British achieved a breakthrough...not on the field of battle, at sea or in the air...but in the ether and in the mind...

HARRY HINSLEY

DURING THE BATTLE OF GAZALA THE AMOUNT OF TRAFFIC GOES UP, THE CARELESSNESS IN GERMAN SIGNALING NATURALLY GOES UP, WE BEGAN TO READ EVERY CIPHER IN USE IN NORTH AFRICA, AND TO READ THEM CURRENTLY.

Rommel pushed forward from the Egyptian frontier. Auchinleck fought him to a stop on the Alamein line.

HARRY HINSLEY

THAT USE OF ENIGMA MINUTE BY MINUTE, DAY BY DAY, BY AUCHINLECK, TO KEEP ROMMEL ON THE HOP, TO KEEP HITTING HIM AND PREVENTING HIM FROM CONSOLIDATING, UH, WAS A BRILLIANT USE OF INTELLIGENCE.

But, by March 1942... ever dangerous, Rommel was about to attack. The British had to hold him by deception. Their target was the Wehrmacht intelligence section located in a secret underground bunker complex hidden under a meadow at Zossen, near Berlin. Here, analysts tracked the British forces.

LORD ANNAN

WE WERE VERY SUCCESSFUL IN PERSUADING ROMMEL THAT THE NUMBER OF TROOPS WE HAD IN THE DELTA AREA WAS FIFTY PERCENT HIGHER THAN INDEED IT WAS

Zossen also encrypted its message traffic with Enigma. The British commanders read Rommel’s orders... sometimes before he did. And now Ultra made them increasingly suspicious. Rommel seemed to have a preternatural knowledge of British dispositions, strengths and intentions. Rommel simply was the man who knew too much...

HARRY HINSLEY

THE BEGINNING OF ‘42 WE BEGAN TO NOTICE IN, ESPECIALLY KESSELRING’S SIGNALS, BUT ALSO IN SOME OTHER DECRYPTS THEY WERE REFERRING TO INFORMATION ABOUT BRITISH INTENTIONS, OR CONDITIONS FROM A SPECIAL SECRET SOURCE,

U.S. Military Attache for Cairo, Colonel Frank Fellers toured the British positions in the desert. The British, desperate to have the US enter the war, showed the American everything. Fellers sent detailed messages to the US from the Cairo telegraph office. He used "the US diplomatic Black Code", a code he believed was absolutely safe. It wasn't.

HARRY HINSLEY

OUR SECURITY PEOPLE IN LONDON TIDIED UP WITH THE DISCUSSIONS THAT THE MIDDLE EAST PEOPLE WERE HAVING WITH THE U.S. MILITARY ATTACHÉ SUFFICIENTLY TO REALIZE THAT THIS WAS THE SOURCE.

The Black Code had been stolen from the safe of the American embassy in Rome by the Italian Secret Service. Rommel was reading the Allies’ mail... And worse…his radio intercept company, led by Captain Alfred Seebohm monitored British radio traffic.

A.C. BROWN

HE HAD A COMPANY THERE OF A HUNDRED EXPERTS IN WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY, MEN WHO COULD SORT OF READ WHISPERS IN THE HEAVENS AND MAKE THEIR CORRECT DEDUCTIONS FROM THEM.

M.R.D. FOOT

A FRIEND OF MINE WAS IN A CAVALRY REGIMENT WAS TAKEN PRISONER IN THE DESERT AS MIGHT HAPPEN TO ANYBODY. AND THE FIRST QUESTION IS THAT HIS INTERROGATION WAS NOT THE USUAL NAME, RANK AND NUMBER BUT HOW'S THE COLONEL'S DOG TODAY?

Loose chatter by British operators gave away more than idle gossip, but Rommel had another secret weapon...Rommel’s field intelligence was reading British book ciphers at the division level.

Seebohm was a brilliant and ambitious officer, By gauging the strength, direction, the times and the call signs of signals and by his own intuition he was able to give Rommel a complete picture of the forces opposing him and their positions and movements in the field.

But to capture the signals Seebohm’s company had to be on high ground close to the front. For the coming battle he found a forward position just off the sea. It was called Tel el Eisa...the Well of Jesus. The British decided to eliminate this post.

On July 10^th an Australian battalion wrapped their boots in burlap for a silent night assault. Led by Colonel H.H. “Hard as Nails” Hammer, they silently stalked uphill.

A.C. BROWN

THEY MOVED UP ONTO THE “HILL OF JESUS,” AND ENCOUNTERED A REGIMENT OF ITALIAN INFANTRY. THEY WERE ALL ASLEEP. THEY MANAGED TO WORM THEIR WAY THROUGH THE SLEEPING ITALIAN INFANTRYMEN AND TOOK SEEBOHM BY SURPRISE.

The Germans fought back viciously but they had gotten too far out front. They were taken so fast the Germans didn’t have a chance to destroy their papers. Gravely wounded, Seebohm was taken to a field hospital, but without revealing his methods, he died. In morning light, British Intelligence examined their find.

A.C. BROWN

THEY KNEW WHERE WE CONCENTRATED OUR ARTILLERY, WHERE WE HAD OUR TANKS, HOW MANY AIR CRAFT WERE AVAILABLE FOR EMPLOYMENT. THE STATE OF REPAIR OF OUR ARMORED FORCES WHERE THE FIGHTING INFANTRY, WERE CONCENTRATED, AND OF COURSE THIS WAS THE SORT OF INTELLIGENCE THAT IT APPEARS ON A GENERALS BREAKFAST TABLE, MAKES IT VERY DIFFICULT FOR HIM TO UH, LOSE A BATTLE.

They saw that Seebohm had gotten a complete picture of the British forces. But Seebohm was dead and his company destroyed. Rommel’s loss was great.

A.C. BROWN

THE WHISPERS IN THE HEAVEN HAD VANISHED. HE WAS NOW VIRTUALLY A BLINDED MAN.

With his main source of intelligence eliminated, Rommel now only heard what the British wanted him to hear. The British saw that they could use what they had learned about German radio intercept operations to plant a great deception.

ACT FOUR

In the destroyed headquarters of Rommel’s radio intercept company on Tel El Eisa, among the code papers, British Intelligence found a book; a best seller by Daphne DuMaurier... but one thing was strange...it was in English... and on the flyleaf... the price...in Escudos... was in Portuguese.

Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, a neutral country, was a nest of spies. British Intelligence paid a visit to the bookstore. Yes, the book was available in English... Twelve copies had been sold. To the German Embassy.

Why would the Germans want twelve copies of a book in English? To British Intelligence, multiple copies could only mean one thing...a book code. The Germans had a spy somewhere. The fact that the book was in English meant that it was somewhere where a German book would cause suspicion. The Germans had a spy. Among the British... but where?

CHYRON: ANTHONY CAVE BROWN, AUTHOR, “BODYGUARD OF LIES”

TC: 01:31:15;22

A GERMAN DESERT EXPLORER WENT DEEP DOWN INTO THE SOUTHERLY PART OF THE DESERT, IN THE WORST POSSIBLE CONDITIONS, GREAT HEAT, NO WATER AND MADE HIS WAY DOWN TO THE NILE ONE OF THE GREAT EXPOSITIONS OF ALL TIMES, HE TURNED NORTH MAKING HIS WAY TO CAIRO. HIS PURPOSE TO SET UP AN ESPIONAGE FORWARD INTELLIGENCE POST FOR ROMMEL

Cairo was a divided city filled with intrigue. The British Colonial power was deeply resented and secretly undermined by Egyptian nationalists. At night the city sought relief in revelry. The famed belly dancer, beautiful Hekmeth Fahmy performed her exotica nightly at the Kit Kat Café and lived in a house boat of the Nile.

Hekmeth Fahmy was an Egyptian nationalist. If she heard anything which would weaken the British, she passed it along to nationalist officers. As the toast of Cairo, Fahmy heard a lot. At the club she was introduced to a free-spending gentleman named Eppler. He had a lot of money. His English pounds came from SS counterfeiters. He was the German spy, trained at Abwehr Intelligence Headquarters in Berlin he had trekked a thousand miles through the southern desert.

Fahmy wanted to weaken the British hold over her land. The Germans would help her do that. She would use her exotic means to charm information from the British which would be transmitted to Rommel’s forces through Eppler’s radio. Eppler moved in to the houseboat next door to Fahmy on the Nile.

Dressed as a British officer, Eppler would frequent Shepheards, the Turf Club, and other British watering holes, listening, and paying for drinks with counterfeit notes. But with the destruction of Rommel’s intercept company the British knew of a spy in Cairo and were watching for counterfeit bills.

...While Fahmy had no trouble enticing lonely officers with her nightly gyrations at the Kit Kat Club.

A.C. BROWN

A RATHER FLABBY ENGLISH MAJOR HAD BECOME A CLOSE FRIEND, SO FRIENDLY WAS HE THAT HE WAS SEEN TO BE VISITING THE HOUSEBOAT ON THE NILE TO CONSULT WITH HIS BELLY DANCER FRIEND

Fahmy’s beauty attracted many men, among them a Major from British Headquarters. In her houseboat bedroom she pumped him for secrets which Eppler then transmitted.

A bar bill paid in counterfeit notes alerted British counterintelligence. They rushed the houseboat. Eppler was gone, but they found papers and a book. They found the radio...but they still had no means to break the code.

At headquarters they let the book fall open...It opened to the same page as the book found in Seeboch’s outpost. They had found the Key to Rebecca. Daphne Du Maurier’s potboiler was the basis of the simple book code. They were ready to play the Double Cross.

The British were slowly building up their forces. Breaking the Naval Enigma, they safeguarded American convoys of new Sherman tanks, which would outnumber Rommel’s Panzers.

In August 1942 Churchill replaced Auchinlech with General Sir Harold Alexander and placed General Bernard Montgomery in command of the 8^th Army arming him with Ultra intercepts of Rommel’s messages to Kesselring in Rome.

El Alamein was a natural defensive line bordered on a North by the Mediterranean, on the south by the Quattara Depression, impassable to tanks… a forty mile wide choke point, which if breached would open the road to Cairo. Key to the field was a series of ridges, the key ridge ..called Alam Halfa.

CHYRON: PROF. NIGEL HAMILTON, AUTHOR, “MONTY”

TC: 01:35:15;08

MONTY WAS PRIVY TO ULTRA INFORMATION THE MOMENT HE ARRIVED IN THE DESERT. ULTRA SHOWED THAT ROMMEL WAS REBUILDING HIS FORCES AND WAS EXPECTED TO LAUNCH A MAJOR ATTACK. ULTRA DID NOT TELL HIM WHERE THE ATTACK WOULD COME. THEREFORE IT WAS UP TO MONTY'S UH, JUDGMENT THERE AS TO WHAT THE ENEMY WOULD BE LIKELY TO DO.

Rommel would have to capture the high ground. Montgomery’s plan was to put his forces on the ridge and site his anti-tank guns. Rommel would break through and discover these forces, but then what would he do?

In the desert, there are two types of ground…hard going…packed sand and rock suitable for tank travel… and soft sand. Jasper Maskelyne was ordered to prepare a map.

CHYRON: DAVID FISHER, AUTHOR, “THE WAR MAGICIAN”

TC: 01:36:00;09

MASKELYN CREATED A MAP THAT LOOKED LIKE A VERY OLD MAP, IT HAD COFFEE STAINS, IT WAS TORN,

This map would appear to be ancient and accurate. It would depict the ground before Alam Halfa as “hard going”. But how to play the map into German hands?

In the First World War, British General Sir Edmund Allenby had played a deception into Turkish hands. He had presented them with false attack plans in an intentionally lost officer’s briefcase and had conquered Gaza. Now they would try that ploy again…with the use of the unfortunate Major who had fallen to the charms of the belly dancer Hekmet Fahmy. Its unclear what happened…whether the Major sacrificed himself or was deceived by British Intelligence.

A.C. BROWN

HE WAS EXPECTED TO ALLOW HIMSELF BE CAPTURED SO THAT THE MAPS WOULD BE FOUND ON HIS PERSON. IF HE UNDERTOOK THAT MISSION AND IT SUCCEEDED, UH, THEN HE WOULD BE EXCUSED HIS SINS, AT THE HOUSEBOAT ON THE NILE.

German forward observers saw a British armored car driving toward them … driving directly into a minefield. Moments later, there was a terrific explosion. In the destroyed car was one dead major…now restored to honor…and a briefcase with a map.

But Rommel had secret agents in Alexandria and Cairo. The rumors and messages were numerous but contradictory. By what he had learned through phony and doubled spies and through deliberately misleading radio traffic it seemed the British line was weakest in the south. Rommel was enticed to attack.

On August 30 Rommel’s 15^th and 21^st Panzers drove south with the Italian Ariete Division. They breached the first minefields and drove the British back.

As the Panzers drove toward Alam Halfa ridge, hidden guns erupted. Rommel turned toward the region marked “hard going” on the map. The Panzers were suddenly up to their hulls in soft sand. As they wallowed helplessly, pre-sited guns and a bomber attack destroyed them. Rommel had fallen into Monty’s trap.

Rommel had drawn up on “The Wire”... the Egyptian border and now the British built up their forces for the critical Battle for North Africa.

The British realized that brute force could not create an advantage. They would have to turn to deception once again.

ACT FIVE

October 1942, Field General Irwin Rommel faced the British Forces on the Alamein line. To the enemy facing him his forces seemed strong as ever. But he had made a critical error over Malta and he was losing the Battle of the Mediterranean.

HARRY HINSLEY

MALTA HAVING SURVIVED THE BOMBARDMENT WE’RE BACK IN ACTION. THOSE SUPPLY LINES WERE ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING. FORTY EIGHT SHIPS WERE SUNK WITH C-38M, MOST OF THEM TANKERS, OR AMMUNITION SHIPS. THIS NOW COMPLETELY RUINED ROMMEL. HE COULDN’T MOVE HIS FORCES.

Short of fuel, ammunition and food, Rommel watched the British build for an attack. Rommel expected the assault in the North and had created an enormous minefield, called “The Devil’s Garden,”... over 500,000 mines, with interlaced hard points, and antitank guns. An attacking force would be caught up in the mines while Panzer forces in reserve would destroy them. The British realized they would have to hold these forces in place for 48 hours while engineers cleared paths through the defenses.

Operation Bertram was a sleight of hand, a misdirection in both place and in time. It’s goal was to convince Rommel that the main attack would come in the south, and that it would come later than a diversionary attack in the North. To do this, the Allies would need to disguise their forces. One of Montgomery’s aids put it to A Force:

“You must conceal one hundred fifty thousand men with a thousand guns, and a thousand tanks, on a plane as hard and flat as a billiard table, and the Germans must not know anything about it, although they’ll be watching every movement, listening for every noise, trodding every track. You can’t do it, of course, but you bloody well got to.”

Guns and tanks were moved to the south to staging areas. An old trench system was packed with petrol cans. Aerial reconnaissance revealed that the new stockpile was invisible, the trenches threw the same shadows as before. The fuel necessary for the attack had been hidden in plain sight on the field of battle.

DAVID FISHER

THEY BUILT A RAILROAD IN THE SOUTH OUT OF BULL RUSHES, AND THEY WOULD LAY TRACK OUT OF JERRY CANS EVERY DAY, AND MOVE THEM THE NEXT DAY.

The Magic Gang built obviously phony guns out of telephone poles. German reconnaissance recognized them as phony. Just before the battle the British replaced them with real guns.

DAVID FISHER

MASKELYN BUILT DUMMY MEN, UH, FROM THE WAIST UP. THEY CAST THE RIGHT SHADOW SO IT MADE IT LOOK LIKE THEY WERE HUGE TENT EMPLACEMENTS, AND CAMPS IN THE SOUTH.

A phony fuel pipeline was started from the rear areas to the south. Its construction rate was calculated to be finished no earlier than weeks after the start date for the actual battle, October 23^rd.1942.

DAVID FISHER

THE GERMANS KNEW THAT THE BRITISH COULD NOT POSSIBLY MOVE UNTIL THE RAILROAD WAS COMPLETED BECAUSE THAT WAS THEIR SUPPLY LINE, UNTIL THE PIPELINE WAS COMPLETED. SO THEY WATCHED EVERY DAY.

Trucks and transport were moved to the North. Some of these trucks were dummies, some were not vehicles at all, but stores of fuel and ammunition disguised so that from the air they looked like trucks.

DAVID FISHER

THEY HAD ALL OF THEIR TANKS IN THE SOUTH, AND ALL OF THEIR TRANSPORT VEHICLES IN A NORTH. TWO NIGHTS BEFORE THE BATTLE WAS TO BEGIN, THEY MOVED THE TANKS BACK TO A STAGING AREA, AND REPLACED THEM WITH MASKELYN’S DUMMY TANKS

At night, they brought the tanks up, slipping them under shields. Little by little, with tracks swept clean, forces were moved forward. In the glare of the morning sun nothing seemed to have changed. But the British were creeping imperceptibly forward. Rommel was so unaware of the subtle deception that he left the front for a much-needed rest cure in the Alps.

The Desert night of October 23rd, 1942 erupted as shells from the British 8^th Army tore into German positions. Monty’s artillery walked across the Devil’s Garden, ripping gaps in the defenses. Minesweeping tanks led sappers into the minefields carrying lamps and white tape to mark lanes for the infantry.

Reports filtering into Panzerarmee Headquarters indicated that the British were attacking all along the front. But the attack was faltering. The defenses were formidable, the minesweepers were breaking down. Infantry was clearing mines by hand...probing with bayonets into the sand.

The Germans held their reserves. Suddenly, another front opened on the sea. The British had launched an all-out amphibious landing. The thunder of naval guns and rockets…the sounds of anchor chains, the smell of fuel oil... signs of a massive attack …and off the coast an enormous smoke screen obscured the forces.

The German 90^th Light Infantry’s reserve and the Luftwaffe were diverted from the front lines to the beach.

As the 90^th prepared to meet the landing, German planes dropped tons of bombs into the smoke. But as the smoke cleared, the entire invasion force had disappeared. Only a few drifting barges floated harmlessly offshore. The Magic Gang had struck again...and the non- existent British landing had, in fact, gone up in smoke.

Then on October 24^th a critical convoy of five ships with crucial supplies for Rommel left Naples. The British Navy wanted to sink all five. But that might give the game away. The rule was that no ship could be sunk without being sighted by aircraft and having the Germans, in turn, sight the aircraft which had discovered their position. There was no time for this, and sinking all five ships would raise suspicions. These ships were critical but so was the Ultra secret. The decision must go to Churchill. The great deception pondered...

Then, in the British code rooms in Cairo and Malta Headquarters a message from London decoded… “Sink them.” One by one the ships were tracked down and sunk, the last one within site of the coast...

The Germans could not fail to take notice... Had Ultra been lost? To misdirect, A Force sent a congratulatory message to their harbor spy in Naples. They gave him a bonus for targeting the convoy. He never spent it. He didn’t exist. But he was all too real for the Germans, who, as the British intended, had decoded the message and…believed it.

On October 25^th a German tank force tried to attack through a dummy battery at Munassib. The real guns, which had lain silent through two days of battle, now opened up and devastated the attackers. 21^st Panzer was held by the diversion.

Field Marshal Rommel returned to his desert headquarters to take command of the battle. The reports were confusing. British were attacking all along the line. But to Rommel it was clear. The most dangerous gains had been made in the north and threatened his supply lines. He ordered the Panzers north. The deception, Operation Bertram, had delayed their entry into the battle for two critical days.

Now, as Rommel drove his forces north to meet the main threat, Montgomery countered with Operation Supercharge, an attack to cleave the Axis forces at their weakest point: where the Panzerarmee met the Italians. As the 21^st Panzers raced north, Monty slipped his 30^th Corps south, to the seam.

To cover his movement the general wanted the enemy to see tank groups in the North. But it was impossible, the dummy tanks were scattered, destroyed. There was no time. The Magic Gang gathered as many as they could find and set out for the desert. They set and moved the dummy tanks, a dozen times a day...they laid tank tracks in the desert. Dummy depots and tank groups were created. And finally, they resorted to the Magician’s favorite trick. They did it with mirrors. Plywood with aluminum paint. Presto! In the desert, Maskelyne had produced a new mirage… Multiple tanks.

El Alamein was won and Rommel's march to Cairo was stopped… forever. He would fight a delaying retreat and inflict casualties, but the German threat to the middle-east was finished.

Secret Intelligence helped create the Legend of the Desert Fox and helped destroy it. And him. What foiled Rommel was precisely what gave him such meaningful advantages in the first place: Secret Information. Eventually Rommel turned against Hitler, was implicated in the 20^th of July, 1944 assassination attempt on the Fuhrer…and was forced to commit suicide as the Reich crumbled.

When the British stood alone against the Nazi’s, the decrypted Enigma messages and Y Service intercepts were used in concert with “A Force” operations. This campaign of deception was the Ultra Secret weapon. Wavell’s “A Force” became the London Controlling Section and used many of the same stratagems in Operation Fortitude, the D-Day deception and in other covert operations throughout the war.

The people of Malta, for their courage and dedication under fire, were awarded the George Cross. German Field Marshal Kesselring, later said “Malta was the Rock upon which Axis hopes in the Mediterranean foundered”

After the war Jasper Maskelyne retired from “stage performing but not from magic”. He moved to Kenya and aided the Police Forces against the Mau Mau rebellion…devising new means of deception.

The German spy Eppler moved back to Europe and became a wealthy businessman. Hekmet Fahmy was considered by her Egyptian countrymen to be a heroine of the nationalist rebellion. She lived in honor and luxury and died of natural causes in Cairo.

The Allies won the war, but Britain lost her empire. Gamal Abdul Nasser and Anwar Sadat, two of the Egyptian nationalist officers, became leaders of an independent Egypt.

The war that saw the defeat of the greatest threat to civilization in the 20^th century also saw the beginning of the end of colonialism and the start of a new world order of independent modern states.