The Double Agent Spy Who Helped Win D-Day (With Stephen Ambrose)

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Ambrose passed in 2002, but his epic storytelling accounts can now be heard here at our American stories thanks to those who run his estate. On June 6, 1944, the largest invasion in military history occurred. It was D-Day and some 156,000 Allied soldiers landed in Normandy, France, beginning the liberation of Western Europe.

Here's Stephen Ambrose with a story about the spies who set the stage for Operation Overlord. The Allies knew that the Germans regarded Patton as the best officer in the Allied camp. And that they were certain Patton would lead the attack on France. That was a judgment with which George S. Patton Jr. heartily agreed. He certainly thought of himself as the best general the Allies had.

And in some ways he was, but not at all. And Eisenhower thought for the set piece battle that was going to be D-Day, Bradley was superior. And Eisenhower had put Bradley in command of the American forces for D-Day. But he used the German perception of Patton to put Patton in command of this fictitious army group. Now, how do you build a fictitious army group? One way was to assign divisions to it that wouldn't be coming into France until later.

They weren't scheduled for the first day or even the first week. Another way was to just invent divisions for the Germans edification. Many had a string of spies in England who they thought were the best spies in the world. They did not realize that every single one of those spies had been turned by the British Secret Service. And that they were now working as they pounded away on their Morris code, tap, tap, tap, to send the messages over to their controller in Hamburg that there was a British officer sitting beside him literally with a gun at their head.

Sending the messages that the British told them to send. The most important of these agents, there were a couple of dozen of them, the most important was his code name was Garbo. Garbo was not an ideologue.

He wasn't in this because he hated Nazism or anything like that. Garbo was after the money. And when he was parachuted into England as he was a Spaniard to work for the Germans, he was picked up thanks to the Enigma. The British always knew when these guys were arriving.

Picked up and given a choice. And he took the obvious choice, rather than die, sure I'll work for you guys. Garbo became the German's favorite spy. He sent messages out for three and a half years and he never lied. Every single piece of information that Garbo sent to Hamburg was authentic. This was a very delicate, very tricky game. The British would send out information, it had to have a number of qualities to it. It had to impress the Germans. Geez, he must be a hell of a spy to have found that out. It always absolutely had to be accurate.

It always had to arrive just a little bit too late to make any difference. And for three and a half years these messages went out and Garbo's reputation went up and up and up with the Abwehr. To the point that the British Secret Service in the Second World War paid its bills with German gold. Because Garbo had convinced his controllers that he had dozens of sub-agents working for him and they were all in it for the money. And they were always asking for more money. So Garbo was always asking for more money and the Germans would arrange to ship gold bars via Spain into Portugal and from Portugal to England. And that's how the British Secret Service paid their bills during the war with German gold.

Now as the British displayed remarkable patience here, that was a bad first three and a half years of war for them. But they never utilized this asset of these turned spies, the double cross system they called it, until the spring of 44 and then they sprang the trap. Garbo and the other agents in England started sending messages to the Abwehr saying things like, I saw a softball game yesterday outside Dover between men who were wearing the patch of a new division, the 131st Infantry Division, and men from another new division, the 129th. There weren't any such divisions.

They were entirely fictitious. Through that method, the Allies and Operation Fortitude were able to build up in the German mind a reading of Eisenhower's order of battle that credited Ike with twice as many divisions as he actually had, three times as much landing craft as he actually had. And they reinforced this with, again, utilizing the movie set people to have these paper mache tanks and these rubber tanks and wooden airplanes all around Dover. And Patton very much in the spotlight. And dashed around southern England and eastern England making speeches, talking to troops, getting his name in the paper.

And they remember in Berlin they got the London papers that night because they went down to Portugal or they went over to Ireland and from there they got back over to Germany. So it was known that Patton was there, it was known that this great force was building up. And the best part of the deception of all, the Allies had convinced the Germans that they were twice as strong as they actually were. Eisenhower, by way of contrast, had an almost exact reading on Rommel's order of battle, thanks to the ultra-assessment. And thanks to Allied control of the air, which meant that the Allies could fly thousands and thousands of reconnaissance missions and take tens of thousands of photographs while the Germans could sneak a plane through every once in a while to take photographs of the build up in England. The deception plan was fabulously successful.

The Germans kept building up their forces across from Dover and the Pas de Calais and in a relative sense, neglecting their defenses down in Normandy. And a terrific job on the editing by our own Greg Hengler. And a special thanks to Stephen Ambrose, whose stories are here on account of the marvelous people who run his estate.

He passed in 2002, but his storytelling is still with us. And what a story he told about the importance of spy craft. And my goodness, the patience it required to develop confidence in this spy over three and a half years. This German's favorite spy, as Ambrose put it, Garbo, always providing accurate intelligence, but just a little too late until finally, finally, the great deception could be had.

The story of American spy craft in World War II. One great example here on Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, the host of Our American Stories. Every day on this show, we're bringing inspiring stories from across this great country.

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This is Matt Rogers from Los Cultures with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Have you ever felt that uneasy anxiety when the 4 p.m. hour strikes, the creeping meal related distress that happens when you don't quite feel prepared? You know, dinner dread. Let's get rid of that unpleasant feeling forever with one word, Stouffer's no matter what happens. You'll have a dinner plan that everyone loves with Stouffer's.

Some chicken enchiladas are a cheesy chicken and broccoli pasta bake is always welcome, whether it is plan A or plan D. Delicious. Not going to lie. I eat the lasagna once a week.

And that's a fact. When the clock strikes dinner, think Stouffer's. Shop now for family favorites. This is an iHeart podcast.