Double Cross

D-Day 6 June 1944 the turning point of the Second World War was a victory of arms. But it was also a triumph for a different kind of operation: one of deceit aimed at convincing the Nazis that Calais and Norway not Normandy were the targets of the 150 000-strong invasion force. The deception involved every branch of Allied wartime intelligence: the Bletchley Park code-breakers MI5 MI6 SOE Scientific Intelligence the FBI and the French Resistance. But at its heart was the Double Cross System a team of double agents controlled by the secret Twenty Committee so named because twenty in Roman numerals forms a double cross. The key D-Day spies were just five in number and one of the oddest military units ever assembled: a bisexual Peruvian playgirl a tiny Polish fighter pilot a Serbian seducer a
wildly imaginative Spaniard with a diploma in chicken farming and a hysterical Frenchwoman whose obsessive love for her pet dog very nearly wrecked the entire deception. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is here revealed for the first time. Under the direction of an eccentric but brilliant intelligence officer in tartan trousers working from a smoky lair in St Jamess these spies would weave a web of deception so intricate that it ensnared Hitlers army and helped to carry thousands of troops across the Channel in safety. These double agents were variously brave treacherous fickle greedy and inspired. They were not conventional warriors but their masterpiece of deceit saved countless lives. Their codenames were Bronx Brutus Treasure
Tricycle and Garbo. This is their story. See Judys Review See Richards Review Download A Sample Chapter Of Double Cross Read about the Author Exclusive Bonus Content Write a Review for Double Cross Judys Review I was both captivated and taken aback by Double Cross. Captivated by the sheer colourfulness and eccentricities of the small team of foreign double agents so carefully assembled by British spymasters; taken aback by their courage and determination in the face of a dangerous enemy - an enemy who if the deception was discovered would deliver a ferocious rebuke. The shadow of torture and execution hovered close. There were only five D-Day spies and they were a strange bunch - a bisexual Peruvian playgirl a tiny Polish fighter pilot a Serbian playboy a Spanish chicken farmer with an
out-of-control imagination and a highly-strung Frenchwoman whose bizarre obsession with her pet dog almost capsized the whole enterprise. Macintyre is clearly very fond of them and as we are introduced into his undercover freak show we take them to our hearts as well. They were far from perfect human beings - most were blatantly on the make happy to pocket wages from both sides; they could be two-faced sulky and infuriating - but they were the beating heart of the most crucial intelligence operation of the"