JUAN PUJOL GARCÍA, known as “GARBO”

“THE SPY WHO SAVED THE WORLD” — as Winston Churchill called him

Here, in summary, is what I have learned about the extraordinary and yet entirely true story of a man who achieved what the most powerful armies in the world could not have accomplished: to outwit the Nazi machine and lead it toward defeat.

This man was a Spaniard, one more hero far too long forgotten by History.

It is the story of the agent codenamed “Garbo” by the British and “Arabel” by the Germans—an adventure so incredible and improbable that it deserves to be known and brought to light.

The high point of his actions came in 1944, when he succeeded in diverting German defensive forces toward the Pas-de-Calais while the Allies landed in Normandy, thus preventing a terrible bloodbath.

To achieve this, he created a vast network of 27 fictitious sub-agents living in different parts of Great Britain, who would provide him with information born entirely from his imagination, yet convincing enough to interest and manipulate the Germans.

Garbo became an essential link in the great deception known by the codename “Fortitude,” designed to make Hitler believe that the Allied landings of June 6, 1944, were only a diversion masking a full-scale invasion through the Pas-de-Calais.

Operation Fortitude was not, strictly speaking, a military operation in itself. It consisted of gathering countless means used by the Allies to mislead the enemy about the location and date of Operation Overlord.

In other words, the operation can be summed up in a single word:

DECEPTION.

Garbo sent hundreds of messages supposedly coming from his “fictitious” agents. He created a scenario worthy of the greatest film directors, for he was a master in the art of manipulation, which earned him recognition from British intelligence as “the greatest actor and spy of all time.”

Based on this scenario, the British set the stage on the ground. They created phantom divisions, deployed fake military equipment (inflatable trucks and tanks, wooden aircraft, moving dummy vehicles, civilians dressed as soldiers). They even brought in Patton to lend further credibility to the operation.

All this staging—with troop movements on the roads around Dover—gave weight to Garbo’s reports to the Germans, who, completely deceived for several weeks, kept two armored divisions and nineteen infantry divisions in the Pas-de-Calais awaiting an invasion. This gave the Allies precious time to establish their beachhead in Normandy.

In this strategic episode, the German Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal von Rundstedt, was among those most thoroughly deceived, to the point of disregarding the advice of General Rommel, who, not being listened to, left the front to celebrate his wife’s birthday and meet Hitler to request additional divisions to be stationed in Normandy.

Rommel could not understand the Führer’s obstinate determination to maintain a major military force in expectation of a landing in the Pas-de-Calais, announced by what was considered a reliable source: Garbo.

Thus Rommel was absent at the very moment the Atlantic Wall was about to face “the apocalypse.”

On the eve of D-Day, Garbo sent a message warning the Germans that the invasion would take place on June 6 in Normandy.

But he calculated that his message would reach German hands only after the landings had begun, because he knew the German radio operator based in Madrid would fail to keep the scheduled contact.

Only the following day did the Germans grasp the full significance of the missed message—while granting even greater credibility to their agent Garbo for his reliability.

This earned him the enduring trust of the Germans, who decorated him with the Iron Cross, Second Class (an award reserved for frontline combatants and requiring Hitler’s personal authorization).

The British, for their part, were no less appreciative and awarded him the Victoria Cross, knowingly.

As a result, he remains the only man ever to have received a decoration from both opposing sides.

After the war, Pujol (Garbo), fearing reprisals from surviving Nazis and with the help of British intelligence, went to Angola, where in 1949 he staged his own death from malaria.

From there he moved to Venezuela, where he lived in anonymity.

Only in 1984, after years of investigation, did British politician Rupert Allason trace him and persuade him to come to London, where, during the commemorations of the 40th anniversary of Operation Overlord, the essential contribution of Juan Pujol García — alias Garbo — to victory was finally made known to all.

Prince Philip of Edinburgh received him at Buckingham Palace and invited him to stand beside him during the D-Day ceremonies on the beaches of Normandy.

Pujol (Garbo) died in Caracas in 1988 and was buried in a National Park.

Such is the extraordinary story of a man of ordinary appearance who never held a pistol in his hand and whose only weapon was his extraordinary imagination.

Jean Ocana — December 2017