War of Shadows Read online

  Copyright © 2021 by Gershom Gorenberg

  Cover design by Pete Garceau

  Cover image copyright © AP/Shutterstock

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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

  Bibliography

  Notes

  In memory of forgotten heroes

  Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

  Tap here to learn more.

  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

  Stuart Milner-Barry: codebreaker, GC&CS

  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&CSr />
  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.