" Send your questions to `Scorpion FPN 00020' " he invited the comrades on each sheet. "If they are questions of particular importance which seriously concern the soldier then the `Scorpion' will reply. He will always tell the unvarnished truth." It was a very tempting invitation and it was not Nansen's fault that our first `Scorpion' nearly caused havoc on our own side.

" Send your questions to `Scorpion FPN 00020' " he invited the comrades on each sheet. "If they are questions of particular importance which seriously concern the soldier then the `Scorpion' will reply. He will always tell the unvarnished truth." It was a very tempting invitation and it was not Nansen's fault that our first `Scorpion' nearly caused havoc on our own side.

Donald Mc Lachlan had sent me several examples of the German `Scorpion' together with the intriguing suggestion that we might be interested in contributing a `Scorpion' produced at MB. " The splendid part is that the Germans are not delivering these `Scorpion' leaflets to their troops by road," he wrote, "they are dropping them from the air. I can arrange for our counterfeit `Scorpion' to be dropped to them in the same way and knowing your skill and Hull's, I see no reason why the troops should not be completely taken in."

I must explain that Donald, with a small team from MB consisting of Squadron-Leader Eliot Hodgkin (`the Squodgkin' to all at MB) and my admirably efficient P.A., Betty Golbourne, had followed SHAEF to France in order to be able to continue servicing us with intelligence, captured documents, and operational requests. Now he had gone forward and had temporarily attached himself to the staff of the U.S. 12th Army Group's intelligence chief, Brigadier General Edwin L. Sibert. The P.S. to Donald's note was most revealing: "I know you are terribly busy, but please try and do this and make a specially good job of it. I am anxious that we should impress Sibert with what we can do. He could be very useful to us.-D."

Impress Sibert we certainly did, but I rather doubt that his impression was favourable. Not that this was due to any shortcoming in our `Scorpion'. What with the Corporal writing the text, Nansen vetting it for the correct SS style of language, and Hull doing a perfect job with type and paper, it was a useful contribution to the `Himmler for President campaign'. For it clearly held out the possibility that Hitler should be deposed and his place taken by Himmler.

The question it answered was-"May the Fuhrer capitulate?" Our `Scorpion' reply was-"No! If the Fuhrer shows the slightest sign of wanting to give in, then in accordance with the order of the Reichsfiihrer SS of October the i8th, 1944, the command must be taken over by the next highest Fuhrer who is willing to carry on the fight. The Reichsfuhrer SS knew what he was doing when he issued that order."

And the leaflet made it more than clear that the situation was grave enough for any Fuhrer to capitulate.

We delivered a nice big batch of the MB Scorpions to Donald in the middle of November, and very shortly after Donald's friends in the U.S. Air Force dropped them on and around the regular readers of the genuine `Scorpion'. Donald rubbed his hands in glee and so did his U.S. accomplices. And then, as always happens when we feel too pleased with ourselves, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, stepped into the scene.

In this instance she was disguised as a German peasant who sometimes crossed the lines and had already brought the Americans valuable information about the German units opposite them. This time, too, the peasant had some interesting information. But he also had a bunch of German papers with him, among them our `Scorpion'.

" Vurry, vurry interesting," I can hear the G.z Captain Stone commenting when the `Scorpion' was brought to him, "and vurry significant. This is a vurry serious situation. We ought to take advantage of it."

Captain Stone was not among the very restricted number of American officers whom Donald had taken into his confidence. Moreover, this was the period when it was the fashion for Intelligence Officers in the 12th Army Group sector to take the view that the German forces facing them were in a state of progressive disintegration-a view that had been deliberately fostered by subtle German deceptive moves in preparation for Hitler's `do or die' offensive in the Ardennes.

So the captain, never questioning the genuineness of the document for one moment, rushed it by special dispatch-rider to General Sibert's H.Q. And, there, on the following morning, it was the subject of a full scale intelligence inquest with political experts analysing it and General Sibert himself deciding that he would suggest to the Ops. people that they should make an attack on this front in view of the parlous state of German morale. The irony is that Sibert was making this recommendation at the very time when Hitler, impressed by the sparseness of the American forces in the Ardennes sector-only four American divisions were holding a front of eighty miles-was just about to complete the build-up for his last counter offensive.

Poor Donald sat in on this conference nervously turning his gold-braided naval commander's cap round and round and asking himself, should he speak up and tell the meeting the truth, or should he keep quiet. In the end he decided it would be tactless for him to speak before so many officers. He would get hold of Sibert privately later, and warn him. That, however, was not altogether easy for a mere naval commander and a British one at that. When at last Donald managed to break in on the general, Sibert glowered displeasure.

" Yes, what is it ?" he barked, and there was none of his usual affability in his welcome."

It's about that `Scorpion' leaflet, sir," said Donald as nervous as a schoolboy talking to his headmaster."

Yes, vurry interesting and significant," said General Sibert, now rather more mollified. "

I am sending it on to General Bradley with a suitable recommendation." And he made as though to wave Donald away. But Donald stuck it out.

" I did not want to mention this at the conference this morning, sir," he said in that precise, academic voice of his.

I, "But that leaflet is not evidence of German morale, sir. It is one of ours, made in Britain. What we call a `black' operation, sir. The sort of thing I told you about when I first had the privilege of being presented to you."

Sibert stared at Donald in angry disbelief, and then his face relaxed into a shout of laughter.

" Well, I'll be goldarned," he said. But suddenly he realised the non-humorous aspects of Donald's revelation. He called his aide, "Get me Hansen on the 'phone," he said. "I must stop ' that German leaflet getting through to Brad." I Then he turned to McLachlan again. "

Really Commander, I think I should have been warned about this operation in advance. Supposing you had not been present at this morning's conference . . ."

Donald explained that he had informed a small and select number of U.S. officers, but that he had not felt it right to ; bother the General himself about what was really just a routine `black' operation. General Sibert accepted that, good sportsman that he is. But I do not think that we won in him a great friend and supporter for `black'. At least not for British `black'. ,

We went on and did three or four more `Scorpions', less , complicated than this first one, but each telling the truth in its most naked and unvarnished state. I wondered how long it would be before Himmler found out what was happening and stopped his bright lads dropping leaflets on the German units from the air. And sure enough by the time our third leaflet had been received the Germans had abandoned this dangerous form of news supply. They issued special orders that only `Scorpions' passed by hand were genuine. And in a new edition of the `Scorpion' they announced that `Scorpions' lying on the ground were to be ignored as `enemy poison'.

Even though Sibert had not been too pleased, this `Scorpion' operation made a great impression on the other intelligence officers of General Bradley's 12th Army Group whom Donald had put into the know. Donald, thinking that von Virchow was the wizard behind it, told them a little about this remarkable young German officer from the true German `Resistance'. The result was that about a week after the incident, I was visited by two American Intelligence officers from General Sibert's staff.

They asked me whether they could borrow Virchow from me for a few days for a most important operation. The German commander opposite one of the American units had signified his readiness to negotiate a surrender if the Americans would send him as a negotiator an American officer accompanied by a German. Apologetically I told my American visitors that I could not jeopardise anyone so deep in our secrets as Virchow. What a pity I did not offer them `Nansen'. For the German commander's readiness to negotiate surrender was, of course, just a variation on the `Venlo trick,'* designed to lull the Americans into false confidence before the Ardennes offensive.

Poor Nansen. I am being a little unkind. After all he is not such an unusual phenomenon as all that. Though I must confess he is the only one among the Germans that worked with me.

* On November 8th, 1939 the German SD man Walter Schellenberg, masquerading as an emissary of the German `Resistance' lured the British Intelligence agents, Captain Payne Best and Major R. H. Stevens to the German-Dutch frontier at Venlo and with the aid of a commando of SS troops shanghaied them across the border.

 

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