I am, finally, more thankful than I can say to my family – Sophie, Fraser and Cameron – for their love, support and patience in the writing of this book.

  About the Author

  Robert Hutton spent sixteen years covering the British government for Bloomberg and is now sketchwriter for The Critic. He is the author of several books, most recently Agent Jack: The True Story of MI5’s Secret Nazi Hunter (2018).

  Notes

  ‘All warfare is based on deception…’ Lionel Giles, trans. The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

  ‘It was all that the younger man could do…’ Papers of Lieutenant Colonel A. C. Simonds OBE. 2023. Imperial War Museums.

  ‘all we could do was wait to grow old…’ Dudley Wrangel Clarke, ‘A Quarter of My Century’. Unpublished.

  ‘roughly the right physique…’ Clarke, ‘A Quarter of My Century’.

  ‘He merely smiled sweetly…’ Private Papers of D. W. A. Mure. Imperial War Museums.

  ‘I recognised an original…’ Dudley Wrangel Clarke, Seven Assignments (Cape, 1948).

  ‘Here was a professional soldier…’ Clarke, Seven Assignments.

  ‘I feel more and more convinced…’ Private Papers of Brigadier D. W. Clarke CBE CB (Imperial War Museums). The author Tom Petch argues the word in Clarke’s handwritten diary is ‘subliminal’. The point is debatable – I think it looks more like ‘subterranean’, and this fits with Clarke’s use of ‘underground work’ to describe his ideas a couple of weeks later. It doesn’t make a huge difference.

  ‘by the ankles…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘a war of continual mosquito tactics…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘intelligence, self-reliance and an independent frame of mind…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘I meant: when did you join…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘cat burglar, gunman, poacher…’ A. P. Wavell, The Good Soldier (London: Macmillan, 1948).

  ‘war is not only a grim…’ A. P. Wavell, Other Men’s Flowers: An Anthology of Poetry (Jonathan Cape, 1944).

  ‘I soon learned to respect these silences…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘In his usual silent way…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘Wish to form special section…’ WO 169/24866. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘they sold daisy-chains…’ Dudley Wrangel Clarke, Golden Arrow (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1955).

  ‘as if he knew trouble well…’ Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, To War with Whitaker: the wartime diaries of the Countess of Ranfurly 1939–1945 (London: Bello, 2014).

  ‘slow, quiet manner…’ Clarke, Seven Assignments.

  ‘I have always believed in doing everything possible…’ Clarke, Seven Assignments.

  ‘The men of Ai looked back…’ Joshua 8: 20–21, New International Version.

  ‘Strong men fight their enemies…’ Quintus of Smryna, The War at Troy: what Homer didn’t tell (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1996).

  ‘As a nation we are bred up…’ Garnet Joseph Wolseley, The Soldier’s Pocket-Book for Field Service (Minneapolis: Franklin Classics, 1869).

  ‘for the ordinary general…’ T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, A Triumph (Jonathan Cape: 1935).

  ‘all the business of war…’ Duke of Wellington. Oxford Reference.

  ‘the greatest show ever seen in Olympia…’ Clarke, ‘A Quarter of My Century’.

  ‘Purely a matter of statistics, my boy…’ Thomas Ernest Bennett Clarke, This Is Where I Came In (London: Joseph, 1974).

  ‘Gave conjuring show in my bedroom…’ Edwin A. Dawes, The Barrister in the Circle (London: The Magic Circle, 1983).

  ‘The following is a picture of my plans…’ WO 169/24903. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘helped considerably to oil the wheels…’ Private Papers of Brigadier R. J. Maunsell CBE. Imperial War Museums.

  ‘A secure Egypt behind my back…’ Maunsell, Private Papers.

  ‘with the professional help of the Port Said Police…’ Maunsell, Private Papers.

  ‘had the air of a man…’ Clarke, Golden Arrow.

  ‘the not inappropriately named Mr Ohno…’ Maunsell, Private Papers.

  ‘3 July. Late in the night, the group is informed…’ WO 169/24904. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Colonel Clarke… HQ Airborne Division 20…’ ibid.

  ‘Ready to descend on Italy!’ ibid.

  ‘From tomorrow onwards…’ ibid.

  ‘We answered a lot of questions’, ibid.

  ‘Nobody could poke into what he was doing…’ Martin Young and Robbie Stamp, Trojan Horses: Extraordinary Stories of Deception Operations in the Second World War (London: The Bodley Head, 1989).

  ‘Nearly every conception of guerrilla warfare…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘an adventurous sound, with historic associations…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘If it had not been for your activities, the Green Beret…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘undefined secret activities…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘No casualties on our side…’ Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart, ed., The Rommel Papers (London: Collins, 1953).

  ‘Enemy probably knows we have a sea-borne expedition…’ WO 169/24905. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Mind your own tongue…’ Young and Stamp, Trojan Horses.

  ‘intended to avoid, in any circumstances, fighting a decisive action…’ Liddell Hart, ed., The Rommel Papers.

  ‘assume, incorrectly, that he would follow orders…’ Ralph Bennett, Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy: 1941–1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989).

  ‘living a double life in a state of near terror…’ Clarke, ‘A Quarter of My Century’.

  ‘unobtrusive rendezvous…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘more English than any Englishman…’ Robert Harling, Ian Fleming: A Personal Memoir (London: Biteback Publishing, 2022).

  ‘left in peace to get on with spying on the Middle East…’ Barry M. Rubin, Istanbul Intrigues (Istanbul: Boǧaziçi University Press, 2002).

  ‘We worked closely together…’ Clarke, ‘A Quarter of My Century’.

  ‘He has been in London a good deal and is pro-British…’ WO 169/24889. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘He is essentially a news hound…’ ibid.

  ‘He has contacts in Axis circles…’ ibid.

  ‘strong British sentiments…’ ibid.

  ‘He is very talkative and inquisitive…’ ibid.

  ‘There is a little man belonging to the Iraq consulate…’ ibid.

  ‘well-prepared trap…’ WO 169/24905. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘he still disseminated a faint atmosphere of barns and hayfields…’ Evan John, Time in the East: An Entertainment (London: William Heinemann, 1946).

  ‘I didn’t give a damn how they wore their uniforms’, Maunsell, Private Papers.

  ‘Since he was vouched for, he was treated in a friendly fashion…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘a natural liar, capable of inventing any story…’ KV 2/1133. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘It was quite obvious that his main concern in life was women…’ account from Kenyon Jones in Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘an intelligent, easy-going, lazy fellow…’ ibid.

  ‘Renato amused himself with his lady friends…’ ibid.

  ‘He seemed to have no idea that he might be risking his life…’ ibid.

  ‘Men of military age were in particular danger of being interned…’ BBC, ‘WW2 People’s War – Our journey from Turkey in 1941’.

  ‘It was impossible to sift the false from the true…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘The road followed the coast the whole way…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘does not come by any conceivable stretch within the scope…’ John Buchan, Greenmantle (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1916).

  ‘remain silent against ordinary raids…’ WO 169/24925. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘how can we undertake offensive operations on two fronts…’ Alex Danchev and Dan Todman, eds, War Diaries 1939–1945, Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2015).

  ‘capital of England…’ Hans-Otto Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign, 1941–1943 (London: William Kimber, 1985).

  ‘as they do not consider they deceive any German…’ WO 169/24925. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘who was known to be in touch with Japanese intelligence…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Don’t ask for less than one hundred Egyptian pounds…’ WO 169/24925. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Driver George Nathaniel Glover…’ Geoffrey Barkas in collaboration with Natalie Barkas, The Camouflage Story: From Aintree to Alamein (London: Cassell & Co., 1952).

  ‘Whatever Nature (or man) has placed upon the surface of the earth…’ Barkas, The Camouflage Story.

  ‘After the long strain you have borne…’ Jonathan Dimbleby, Destiny in the Desert: The road to El Alamein – the Battle that Turned the Tide (London: Profile Books, 2013).

  ‘I saw suddenly how sincere he was…’ Alan Moorehead, The Desert War: The Classic Trilogy on the North African Campaign 1940–43 (London: Aurum Press, 2009).

  ‘He needed just four months of steady preparation…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘It’s probably pure gossip…’ Liddell Hart, The Rommel Papers.

  ‘I work all day, and he works all night…’ Clarke, ‘A Quarter of My Century’.

  ‘valuable centre for the collection of information…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘no new experience or pleasure…’ Clarke, Golden Arrow.

  ‘for Jack from Mayhew…’ WO 169/24889. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘This was not without some profit…’ Clarke, ‘A Quarter of My Century’.

  ‘The aftermath will still be Communism…’ Clarke, Seven Assignments.

  ‘chief had contacts with Abwehr…’ David Mure, Master of Deception: Tangled webs in London and the Middle East (London: Kimber, 1980).

  ‘I said that if we had a really good liaison…’ KV 4/188. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘must be prepared to go to endless inconvenience…’ WO 169/24871. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Never give the Boche the thing on a plate…’ letter from Oliver Thynne in Mure, Private Papers.

  ‘must possess considerable ingenuity…’ WO 169/24871. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘who alone was conducting active operations…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘the news of “no desert offensive before Christmas”…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Abwehr employed between seventy and a hundred people…’ Walter Schellenberg, Walter Schellenberg: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Spymaster (London: Andre Deutsch, 2011).

  ‘arrested in a main street dressed, down to a brassiere, as a woman…’ FO 1093/252. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘It could not have been a worse affair…’ Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949 (London: Bloomsbury, 2011).

  ‘particularly struck by his intimate knowledge of military secrets…’ FO 1093/252. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Everything was always funny…’ Mure, Master of Deception.

  ‘Wrangal Craker, the Madrid correspondent…’ Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service.

  ‘I am afraid that after his stay in Lisbon…’ KV 4/188. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘confirmed homosexuals whose rehabilitation is unlikely…’ John Costello, Love, Sex and War: Changing values 1939–45 (London: Pan, 1986).

  ‘They all behaved in a perfectly civilised way…’ Maunsell, Private Papers.

  ‘nothing (repeat nothing) whatever compromised…’ Jeffery, MI6.

  ‘Auchinleck under pressure from Churchill…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘It is difficult to know what is going on by way of deception in the Middle East…’ KV 4/188. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magician…’ Dimbleby, Destiny in the Desert.

  ‘still in touch but I doubt future utility…’ WO 169/24847. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Reliable reports indicate that the reason for this replacement…’ WO 169/24905. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘with people like Rommel, if you suggested you were going to attack…’ WO 169/24874. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘dismissed the genuine papers as an obvious plant…’ M. R. D. Foot, The Oxford Companion to World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

  ‘as though the tentage had been accidentally torn…’ WO 169/24848. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘It is a source of real worry…’ WO 169/24872. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Clarke was running a racket…’ Mure, Master of Deception.

  ‘Knowing Dudley I accepted with alacrity…’ letter from Oliver Thynne in Mure, Private Papers.

  ‘One of our favourite people…’ Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, To War with Whitaker.

  ‘quiet and authoritative’, Joan Bright Astley, The Inner Circle: A View of War at the Top (Hutchinson, 1971).

  ‘If you made a mistake…’ Clarke, Private Papers.

  ‘one straightforward, perfectly simple object…’ WO 169/24871. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘the only purpose of any deception…’ WO 169/24848. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘The story must be complete enough to have a clear picture…’ WO 169/24871. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘a deception plan must never rely upon implementation by one method alone…’ WO 169/24848. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘This is a very cheap form of deception…’ WO 169/24874. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘The total strength of the Middle East forces…’ WO 169/24926. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘one of the biggest strategic problems facing the British was a shortage of troops…’ John Ellis, The World War II Databook. The Essential Facts and Figures for All the Combatants (London: Aurum, 1993).

  ‘no deceptive threat to any chink in the enemy’s armour…’ WO 169/24848. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘He had the most all-containing brain…’ letter from Oliver Thynne in Mure, Private Papers.

  ‘create from the written pages of a manuscript a living play…’ WO 169/24848. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘of no outstanding physique…’ The Times Archive.

  ‘unusual channels’, Evan John, Time in the East.

  ‘one of the most fascinating paper-games in the world…’ ibid.

  ‘is likewise very striking…’ KV 2/1133. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘unimportant tit-bits of information…’ WO 169/24891. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Ranfurly captured. Last seen in good health…’ Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, To War with Whitaker.

  ‘He was the ideal spy, touring battlefields…’ David Kahn, The Codebreakers: The story of secret writing (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966).

  ‘stupefying in its openness…’ Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign.

  ‘How did they know that we had told the Army in Egypt…’ C. J. Jenner, ‘Turning the Hinge of Fate: Good Source and the U.K.–U.S. Intelligence Alliance, 1940–1942’, Diplomatic History Vol. 32, April 2008, pp. 165–205. Oxford University Press.

  ‘Another long report to German Army in Africa from “Good Source”…’ C. J. Jenner, op. cit.

  ‘Training inferior according to American ideas…’ Gershom Gorenberg, War of Shadows: codebreakers, spies, and the secret struggle to drive the Nazis from the Middle East (New York: PublicAffairs, 2021).

  ‘I am satisfied that the American ciphers in Cairo are compromised…’ Jenner, op. cit.

  ‘Further information from Good Source reveals our future plans…’ Gorenberg, War of Shadows.

  ‘The battle has been won…’ Liddell Hart, The Rommel Papers.

  ‘The Arabs seemed to view the struggle with the Axis…’ Maunsell, Private Papers.

  ‘Today, I drive you to Groppi’s…’ Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers: Allied military deception in the Second World War (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004).

  ‘Look at this lady!’ Thaddeus Holt, The Deceivers.

  ‘US-made Grant tanks turned out to be far more effective…’ John Ferris, review of ‘Turning the Hinge of Fate’, H-Diplo 199, 4 November 2008.

  ‘suddenly forced to grope around in the pitch dark…’ Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign.

  ‘Be very active these days…’ WO 169/24848. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘He chose worthless officers…’ CAB 154/105. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘The whole organisation was permeated with “pins in the map syndrome”…’ Maunsell, Private Papers.

  ‘corrupt enough to see the necessity of preventing it…’ Undated. CAB 154/105. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘burning through their cash without anything to show for it…’ KV 2/1467. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Though the submarine quickly sank again, all 48 members of the crew were rescued…’ www.hmstetcott.co.uk/u-372.php.

  ‘It will be her role not willingly to reveal information…’ WO 169/24893. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Nicosoff’s a Russian name…’ Mure, Master of Deception.

  ‘This was balm to the soul…’ Barkas, The Camouflage Story.

  ‘carefully photographed by the watchful Boche…’ WO 169/24848. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘Ground that had been “firm and fast” was now labelled “generally impassable”…’ WO 201/2852. The National Archives, Kew.

  ‘It looks as if it probably helped…’ Sir Francis De Guingand, Operation Victory (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1947).

  ‘our own troops cannot be taken by surprise provided they keep their eyes open…’ Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign.

  ‘Nothing to report…’ Charles Richardson, Flashback: a soldier’s story (London: Kimber, 1985).

  ‘Enemy situation unchanged…’ Behrendt, Rommel’s Intelligence in the Desert Campaign.

 

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