| Blogs > Rentier1 > What? Me worry? |
|
The Polish North African spy ring of WWII It's amazing how much stuff is little reported and little known about so many aspects of The Last Good War. I ran across a book in the Vancouver public library by a Polish intelligence officer who ran a spy network in North Africa right up to the time that US troops landed in late 1942. Despite my decades long interest in the late unpleasantness, I was completely unaware of this network. Some items of interest that I learned were: - The US was supplying the German army in North Africa with fuel even after Germany declared war on the US. This happened because the US traded oil to the Vichy regime that ran Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. This supply was supposed to be used only by the French for industrial and agricultural purposes, but Herr Rommel managed to get his hands on a good deal of it. - Polish intelligence was sending information to their London HQ using the US embassy in Algiers. The ambassador there put it in the diplomatic bag and had it sent to the Madrid embassy. In Madrid the intelligence data was held up and thoroughly examined by the military attache there. The information thus obtained was highly useful in the planning of the landings in North Africa. - The North African spymaster sent his material to Polish intelligence in London. After he went to London in December '42 when the network was no longer needed, he learned that Polish intelligence had had little interest in what he sent. They passed it on to the Brits who were very interested. So all the time he thought he was working for Poland, it turns out he was working for Britain. |
|||
3/11/2015 3:21 pm |
I am doing well. I would like to share my pain as so many do here, but I don't seem to have any.
| ||
3/11/2015 6:33 am |
As I stated up front, neither did I, and I have been reading voraciously on this topic for decades. One has to wonder how much more stuff is hidden simply because nobody took any interest writing about it. And, of course, there is all the material that is kept from the public on purpose. One example I can think of is the matter of the Rudolf Hess flight to England in 1941. Much of the documentation on that is still classified, and is likely to be released during my lifetime.
| ||
3/10/2015 10:35 pm |
Interesting revelation, many years hence. "The Fog of War" is an apt euphemism as it is usually shrouded in half-truths.
|
×
×