We are still with the intelligence operations and the men who changed the face of the world.. and with Germany, which was occupying 15 states.. and bringing down most of Europe, except the Soviet Union and England, which were trying to liberate Europe from the grip of the Nazi, with the help of Canada.. and to halt the terrifying German expansion across the world.
The Allies begin one of the strategic deception operations of the war.. an operation they called "Operation Bodyguard".
The building of the English Ministry of Finance, on "Horse Guards" street in the heart of London, one of the most lively, noisy and crowded streets.. people coming and going, and they do not know that beneath the building, in a special barracks made in the basement, one of the largest, most complex and most difficult strategic deception operations in the history of the world was being run.
In this basement, all the espionage operations that the Allies carried out in the world war were run.. and "Montagu" and "Cholmondeley" prepared the corpse of the drowned spy that we spoke about before.. and everything you could possibly imagine.
Extremely complex spy networks, in which only five were of extreme importance, two women and three men.. British intelligence "the Sixth Office MI6" coded them with the names "Treasure" and "Garbo" and "Brutus" and "Bronx".. and "Tricycle".
And it is the last one in particular that we will pause at for a while.
The spy "Tricycle".. his real name is "Duško Popov".. the one in this picture.. a Serbian lawyer from an extremely wealthy family, and one of those from whom the English intelligence man and author "Ian Fleming" drew the character of "James Bond".
"Popov" drank alcohol in a terrifying way.. but like "James Bond" in the films.. he was slim and muscular, and he could drink 4 litres of wine, and smoke 300 cigarettes one after the other.. and then sit and talk to you in calm and focus while perfectly calm and alert.. and then get up and race you on foot or swim across the Channel.. and win....!
He was a womaniser of the first order, handsome, charming and captivating, quick with a joke, as if he read women's thoughts, he knew what a woman wanted to talk about and when.. or what to do and when.. and this made women seek him out and race after him madly.. a gambler who loses thousands and wins thousands at the gambling table all the time without a care.. and a well-known face and a public figure, who knew diplomats and journalists.. and artists.. and even ministers.
To recruit a figure this well known in the world of intelligence in wartime you would have to be a donkey.. the spy is preferably someone who is not known and not prominent on the surface and does not attract attention.. for this very reason the Germans chose him to spy for them.. because no one would suspect for a moment that an intelligence service could recruit someone of this fame in wartime.
Anyway, German intelligence recruits him, and he agrees reluctantly.. and he leaves them at once.. to carry out what they ordered him to do, and travel to London.. and because he loathed Nazism madly.. he makes sure he is not being watched.. and then he goes from the airport straight to the British intelligence office.. and tells them the whole story.
They investigate him thoroughly and decide to recruit him.. he becomes a double agent.. he tells them the information that German intelligence had asked him to collect.. so they begin preparing it for him, and they decide to sacrifice a few real secrets.. in return for him gaining the Germans' trust.
And "Popov's" meeting with his Nazi contact officer took place in an innovative way, from "Popov's" own world.. one that never attracted attention at all.. all he had to do.. was go and gamble in a certain hotel as he did all the time.. and spend a pleasant evening among beautiful women and glasses of drink.. so an old wealthy man would come up to him.. asking for a lighter to light a fine cigar, and he would try to light it 3 times and fail because of the trembling of his hands, so he would awkwardly ask "Popov" to light the cigar for him.
After that this man will sit calmly around the gambling table, and bet on a certain number on the "Roulette wheel".. and win or lose, no matter.. after that he will choose a second, third, fourth and fifth number.. these numbers "Popov" must memorise by heart.. because they are the number of the street and the building and the date of the day and the hour at which they will meet. In a car that will stop for seconds.. and "Popov" jumps in.. and hands them the information and is assigned a new task.
He will gamble a second, third and tenth time.. and the old man comes after they have become gambling companions, but they only greet each other.. they never talk.. and "Popov" memorises the numbers the old man bet on.. and the meeting is repeated.
As "Popov" becomes regular with the Nazis.. they trust him more.. and they assign him more dangerous tasks.. without knowing that they are supplying themselves with a stream of studied information.. which the Allies provide him with... some of it entirely real.. and some of it studiedly fake.
And "Popov's" value rises with the Nazis, and "Hitler" takes a special interest in him.. and a very important request is made of him.
To travel to the United States, to establish a new spy network there, whose role would be to get close to the political centres, and to ascertain the conditions of American society and the army, and to feel the pulse, as to whether the United States would enter the war against Germany or not.. and to give immediate warning if that were decided.
And indeed "Popov" travels to the United States, and sets about establishing the network exactly as the Nazis requested, under the patronage of Allied intelligence.. and during that, he gets to know a certain American lady whom the British Sixth Office asked him to make fall in love with him.. and to conduct a relationship with her specifically.
And "Popov" gets close to the woman.. whose brother was an officer in the American navy, and who was at the same time the mistress of the Japanese spy.. whom Japan had planted in the United States.. the assistant consul "Takeo Yoshikawa".
And although the woman was infatuated with "Takeo".. she does not hold back from "Popov" for a moment and a chance meeting.. and she falls in love with him at once, and meets him dozens of times in secret, without cutting off her relationship with her original lover.. as "Popov" himself had asked her.
England was trying to push America into entering the war at any price.. the virgin state with its enormous resources and its armed forces sound and unexhausted. And America was neutral.
At the time England resorts to every possible media means, and begins to move American public opinion.. so that the people there would pressure their government to enter the war.
The influence of the media was strong.. and the United States began to study the idea of entering the war in fact.. nevertheless all of "Takeo's" reports that went to Japan confirmed that the American navy was in a state of relaxation, and the ships needed maintenance anyway.. and consequently there was no indication that the Americans would enter the war.
And with the Americans hesitating, the Allies' plan began to be carried out by "Popov".
And suddenly "Popov's" girlfriend began to pass on to her lover "Takeo".. on "Popov's" own instructions.. how the navy was preparing, and that it would probably strike the Japanese fleet, stationed in the Atlantic.
And relations between the Japanese and the Americans had been tense even before the war, and the story began with Japan sinking an American military boat in China, while Japan and America were not at war.. and two months later a Japanese soldier slapped the American ambassador in the face publicly.. and America was funding China in its war against Japan.. so things were not very nice.
So when the new reports reach Japan, anxiety begins.. would America enter the war or not?
With the mounting reports charged with tension, which affected "Takeo" himself, so he went and passed them on to his superiors without realising, Japan decides the timing and the date of the attack on the American port "Pearl Harbor".
And the information reaches the Allies, so they raise their glasses in victory.. now America will enter the war with its full weight.. but they must still preserve its aircraft carriers and its soldiers.. so they order "Popov" to inform the authorities there a very short time before the strike.. because the Americans were at the negotiating table with the Japanese.. and it was possible that if they knew early.. they would put the matter to them and accuse them.. and the strike would be stopped.
And the aim of the English in informing the Americans, was to make them leave the port, and save the soldiers and the equipment.. and at the same time for the strike to fall on an empty port, and for America to enter the war.
But "Popov" could not, in this charged time, and because of the successive Japanese and American meetings at the diplomatic and military level, reach anyone except his friend the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation "J. Edgar Hoover", who mocks the matter and ignores it completely.
And only ten hours after "Popov" informed them of the strike, on 7 December, 1941, and at the time when the American and Japanese diplomats were shaking hands in Washington, on the basis that America would not fight and in return Japan would not attack it.. the Japanese planes take off from the decks of the aircraft carriers, to swoop down on the American port of "Pearl Harbor", and turn it into a mass of flame.. with everything in it and everyone in it.
And a few hours later, on the same day, the United States declares war on the Axis states, and joins the Allied front officially.
This was not "Popov's" only operation, he had another extremely dangerous operation, that likewise changed the course of the war.. but it seems that time has stolen us today.. so we will talk about the rest of his work, and the team of "Operation Bodyguard", later.
And the conversation will have a remainder.
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The picture is of "Duško Popov"
Previous posts in the first comment.