Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies really should be a movie. Having finished it, I can think of no other conclusion other than it is tailor made for Hollywood to screw up somehow. (I still haven't forgiven Hollywood's horrific revisionism of U-571*.) The story of the British spies that played the most dangerous high stakes game of World War II in decieving the Germans as to the true date and location of the D-Day Landings, this book gives the unsung heros who worked with British intelligence their due and author Ben McIntyre spins a masterful, richly detailed tale of the web of deceit they wove and just how far it carried them.
Beginning with Agent Tricycle (Duskan Popov, a Yugoslavian businessman) and building up through Agent Garbo (Juan Pujol, a Catalan chicken farmer), Agent Bronx (Elvira Chaudoir, a bisexual heiress to a Peruvian Guano fortune with a gambling addiction. Seriously- I'm not making this up) Agent Treasure (a Frenchwoman who almost blew everything sky high because of the love of her dog and Agent Brutus (a Pole who had set up his own network of spies for the Allied Cause in Occupied France, was betrayed, agreed to double cross the British and promptly got to London and became a triple agent against the Germans) a capable and talented team of MI-5 Agent quietly rounded up every German agent in the UK and turned most of them- making them double agents.
That would be cool enough- but MI-5 quickly realized that, if played correctly, they could decieve the Germans into any number of things- and, as what the Germans thought were double agents needed money to carry out their missions, they could get the German government to pay for it as well. (Seriously cool.) But as plans for the invasion of Europe gathered pace, everyone soon realized that the true potential for this team of spies was to fool the Germans into thinking that the invasion was coming anywhere BUT Normandy- which they did and then some.
Not only did the Double Cross team thoroughly misdirect the German High Command (possible invasion sites were the Calais area, Bordeaux, Norway, the South of France or some combination of all of the above) but they managed to keep the Germans locked down in Calais for an expected second landing for nearly two weeks after D-Day (Eisenhower had wanted two days- by the time two weeks had passed it was far too late.) One of the most elaborate deceptions in history got seriously crazy when they concocted not one but two entirely fake armies- (one in Scotland, one in SE England- they gave Patton command of that one) and had an actor impersonating General Montgomery be seen in North Africa ostensibly preparing for an invasion of Southern France.
It's a fascinating, gripping tale marked by near disasters (Agent Treasure, whose beloved dog Babs had to be left behind to his fate (he got run over, poor guy) when she went to Britain came up with a control signal to send back to her German handler if she had ever been turned- to get revenge on MI-5 for abandoning her furry friend) and some truly scary moments (Agent Artist, a German Aberwehr officer who was turned later on was kidnapped, taken back to Berlin and subject to interrogation. He knew everything- and never broke. He vanished after the war, fate unknown- to this day) before pulling off the intelligence coup of the war in the run up and after D-Day.
Of all these agents, the most fascinating one to me was Agent Garbo- the chicken farmer who wanted to be a double agent, fed the Germans what was essentially made up information to get in with them and ended up spinning some truly elaborate tales for them working for the British. At one point, his network of entirely fictitious spies included a group of devoted Welsh Fascists who dreamt of bringing Nazism to the vallies of Wales.
OVERALL: This is a gripping, fascinating, totally readable book. If you think history is boring- think again. **** out of ****.
*U-571 was a turd of a film released about ten-twelve years ago now in which Matthew McConaughey and a crew of Americans hijacked a U-Boat during WWII to recover one of the fabled Enigma machines. Americans had absolutely nothing to do with it- horrible, horrible revisionism and distortion. Still annoys me to this day.
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