Operation Trojan Horse; Part I

Operation Trojan Horse

C. Gary Lopez

©2013 by C. Gary Lopez

Smashwords Edition

Forward

I realize people hate to read the Forward of a book but I sincerely hope you take a few moments to read this one so that you can get a little better insight into Operation Trojan Horse. I have always believed that a historical novel is the most intriguing type of method to tell a story. For most people history is a dry subject. This makes many of us ignorant of our history. However I believe history can be made more interesting when brought to life as seen through fictional characters in a novel. James Michener was a master at this type of writing. I am not claiming to be the next Michener but I agree with his approach of teaching the reader history while he spins a great tale. It is my great hope that you find the story in these pages informative as well as entertaining as well as informative.

Although many of the characters in the book are fictional many are historical figures as are many of the events. As an example, the enigmatic Admiral Canaris was very real, as were Mikhail Suslov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Wild Bill Donovan and many others. Naturally my portrayal of them, especially Suslov’s role in the story is purely a figment of my imagination. As for some of the chapters covering real events in the war, I attempted to stay historically correct. The chapter on the surrender of Paris and the comic opera events surrounding the taking of the city by the Allies are not exaggerated. Erich Weichs role is fictional, but the rest of the characters are very much historical figures who almost botched the surrender of that beautiful city. Also historically accurate is the description of the OSS headquarters, the details of how parachutists were trained and the tragic end of BOAC flight 777.

Operation Trojan Horse is actually two books. Book One starts at the beginning of World War II and carries through to the end of the war in 1945. Book II begins in the Cold War era and ends with events that introduce the collapse of the Soviet Union. When I considered the World War II portion of the book I realized I could not possibly capture a fraction of the events that took place in that fascinating period of the 20th Century. I doubt that any period of history has received more literary attention than 1939 to 1945 when the world was at war. Lost on many of us is the fact that the world we live in today was shaped because of that global conflict. It is one of those great ironies of mankind that science and innovation prosper while we are trying to destroy each other. From World War II we got computers, jet flight, rocket flight, the first helicopters and of course atomic energy. We should all ponder why so many of man’s greatest innovations come from a desire to destroy his fellow man.

The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from World War II as two superpowers, which neither was when the war began. What followed the wars end was unique for both the United States and the Soviet Union. Instead of the routine demobilizing that followed most past wars the military in both our countries remained robust. This was especially the case in the Soviet Union. When the war ended the Soviet Union continued to maintain a huge standing army and produce tanks like another war was going to break out at any moment. This maintenance of a huge army and tank force continued right up to their collapse.

This collapse is still debated today. What really caused it? Certainly I never thought I would see it in my lifetime. The truth is that communism is one of those theories that looks great on paper but simply does not work in the real world. Collapse should be preordained. However many countries that start as communist nations simply turn into dictatorships under the sham of a communist government. Look no further than Korea or Cuba for examples of this. But even these countries eventually realize that their people eventually tire of building more tanks when what they really want are a decent pair of Levis, (I call this my Levi Jeans Theory as is best exemplified by what is going on in China).

I have made up an alternative theory of what caused the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union. It probably does not even deserve to be called a theory. It is more a flight of fancy I devised while having a lively political discussion over cocktails one evening with friends as we watched the Berlin Wall being torn down. Although my theory was tongue in cheek I warmed to my topic. I surmised that Gorbachev was a CIA mole that ended up in the top job in the Soviet Union. I liked my theory so much that I decided to turn it into a book. Admittedly I have not a single shred of evidence that supports this conclusion, but why kill a good idea just because you have no facts to support it? Hopefully this will discourage old KGB agents and the CIA from showing up at my doorstep. Sorry guys. I made it all up.

In summary I would be remiss if I did not point out to my readers the paradox that was Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Admiral Canaris and his Abwehr play the leading role in Book I. In my original concept for the book I had not even planned to use Canaris and his Abwehr. But all great plots need to start somewhere and it seemed like the ideal place. Admiral Canaris is truly one of those enigmatic figures of history. Stealing a quote from Winston Churchill he was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

Canaris was the head of the German Abwehr, which was roughly analogous to the British MI6 and our OSS (the precursor of the CIA). There is much we do not know and may never know about this complex man. What is true is that depending on one’s viewpoint you might call him a traitor or a hero. Perhaps a little of both is true. Nevertheless as one looks at his mysterious past he begins to emerge as one of the unsung heroes of World War II

Canaris hated Hitler, the Nazis and everything they stood for. We will never know the full extent of just how much he was responsible for sabotaging Hitler’s mad schemes, but we do know that he threw more than one monkey wrench into Hitler’s plans. Some of these operations I refer to in the book. They are based on fact. He did discourage Hitler from occupying Switzerland and did all he could to keep Spain out of the war. This latter achievement was a considerable feat. One must remember that in the late 1930’s Hitler backed Francesco Franco’s side in the Spanish Civil War. If not for Hitler, Franco would have been stranded across the Mediterranean and probably ended up a footnote in history. It was Hitler’s Luftwaffe that ferried Franco and his troops into Spain to begin the fight. Franco owed Hitler for his position of power. Furthermore, Franco had fascist leanings and by all rights should have fallen in with Hitler and Mussolini as part of the Axis Pact. However for some reason he did not do so. There are those that attribute this to Canaris and his behind the scenes manipulations. Why was keeping Spain out of the war significant? One has only to glance at a map of Europe to realize the strategic position Spain held as the gateway to the Mediterranean. Britain occupied Gibraltar, but it could hardly have held on to Gibraltar with an Axis Spain. Franco could easily have closed the Mediterranean to Allied shipping. More to the point we can only speculate what the addition of Spain’s considerable army would have done to bolster Hitler’s hold on Western Europe. Spanish troops assisting in holding France would have presented a significant obstacle to the Normandy invasion. One must remember that in 1939 (when World War II was considered to have officially started), Spain had just emerged from its civil war. In truth it had the only battle tested army on the continent when the balloon went up in Poland in 1939. Any speculation that the Spanish soldier is not that tough can quickly be put to rest by looking at the record of the volunteer Spanish Blue Division that went off to fight for Germany in Russia. They equaled the best of the Wehrmacht divisions. Had Franco’s legions been added to Hitler’s armies in France, D-Day may have looked very different.

The question remains. Why would Canaris do these things? Did he realize that in the end Germany would lose and his duty was to protect his country from extinction? Did he foresee the world falling into a new Dark Ages if the Nazis won? Did he foresee the Nuremburg trials? Perhaps we will never know. He was executed in 1944 by the Gestapo. Consequently we have no memoirs or testimony from this mysterious man of why he did what he did.

For my part I am on the side that thinks of him as being an unsung hero. The definitive evidence of his heroism and character would be the end he met. It was determined by the Gestapo that he either knew about and condoned, or was part of the plot to assassinate Hitler. If ever there was a circumstance in which being called a traitor to your country was justified, being part of the plot to eliminate one of the most evil men in history would rank right up at the top.

We must remember that it is always easier to go along with the frenzied mob than to be the voice of reason. Canaris refused to be part of the mob. When one is in a position of power such as Canaris, blind obedience is the easy path. He chose otherwise. He choose not to follow the rest of the lemmings off of the cliff and stand at the Nuremburg trials saying he was just following orders like the rest of the Nazi rabble. His type of courage should never go unrecognized.

C. Gary Lopez

2014

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 To Build a Horse

Chapter 2 A Dance with the Devil

Chapter 3 Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Chapter 4 For the Sake of the Party

Chapter 5 The Making of a Mole

Chapter 6 A Hero of the Soviet Union

Chapter 7 As Though Angels Were Pushing

Chapter 8 Spies and Lovers

Chapter 9 A Leap of Faith

Chapter 10 The Escape Clause

Chapter 11 The Mousetrap

Chapter 12 Paying the Devil His Due

Chapter 13 A Fox in the Pripet Marshes

Chapter 14 Escape Across the Pyrenees

Chapter 15 Last Flight Out

Chapter 16 One Hell of a Story

Chapter 17 Greeks Bearing Gifts

Chapter 18 Is Paris Burning?

Chapter 19 A Cup of Expresso

Chapter 20 Champagne and Flowers

Chapter 21 Sinon’s Tale

Chapter 22 The Swallow

Chapter 23 End of the Thousand Year Reich

Epilogue

Prologue

November 29th, 1989

Berlin, Germany

The old man stared at the wall. Snow was beginning to fall in large flakes. He watched the people chipping at the wall with screwdrivers, chisels and hammers. People were using any tool they could find that would tear down the evil blemish. An evil blemish that had plagued the German landscape and represented the divided Germany of the last 47 years. He understood. The wall was a metaphor. They were not simply tearing down a wall in Berlin that had divided their city for a generation. They were tearing down the most visible evidence of their recently politically divided country. They were tearing down the artificial schism that had been forced on them by the victors of World War II. They were saying we are once again one country. A proud country, with a proud people. They were celebrating no longer being a beaten people, but a people who were declaring We are one again.

His gaze followed the wall to the space where the old Reichstag had stood. He remembered listening to Hitler speak there. He wondered what it must have been like for Hitler during those last terrible moments in the Fuhrer Bunker. Huddled beneath the building realizing his Thousand Year Reich was crumbling with each Russian artillery shell that dropped outside.

The old man pulled his collar up against the cold and began to walk toward the Brandenburg Gate. He smiled as he stared at the gate. You will no longer be divided by the ugly wall my old friend. As soon as the thought passed through his mind he spoke out loud to the Brandenburg Gate as if it could hear him. If only the Admiral were here to see this. A young man beside him thought he was talking to him. He gave the old man a quizzical look. Excuse me? The old man just looked at him saying nothing, but giving him a cryptic smile he had learned long ago. The Admiral did it for you. The young man was caught up in the excitement of the crowd. He smiled back at the old man. I’ll bet you never thought you would see this in your day did you old timer? The old man just kept his enigmatic smile at the young man. Shaking his head the young man ran off to join his friends. The old man watched him melt into the crowd of people in their celebratory mood. He thought of everyone who had made this possible. And how close a thing it had been at times. He half whispered and half thought, 47 years……47 years in the making….but the plan worked.

He watched a bit longer and found tears running down his cheeks. By nature he was not an emotional man. But he had seen more than any man should have seen in one lifetime. He had lost so much making this moment realized. He grew suddenly sad thinking what he had given up. Then his mood shifted. He watched the young people singing and starting to pass around bottles of schnapps. He shifted his stare back to the Brandenburg Gate then he looked up to the heavens. He shouted out loud. We did it. We really did it.

Book One

Hot War

"Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fall, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour!

Winston Churchill

Chapter 1

To Build a Horse

January 20th, 1942

Berlin, Germany

Oberst Erich Weichs stared at the building in front of him to make sure he had the right address. There were no grandiose signs, statues, swastikas or architecture like the Nazis loved to display to announce a building’s importance. It could have been any office building in what passed for a business district in this small town. He looked again at the paper in his hand to make sure the address was correct. He was in Zossen, a small town approximately 30 minutes south of Berlin. Not being familiar with the area he was late for his appointment. As Erich Weichs stood in front of the nondescript building he thought, What am I doing here?

His presence here was the result of an unorthodox summons by the office of the Abwehr to appear at precisely 0900 for a briefing. What made it odd was that Colonel Weichs had no earthly idea why the Abwehr would need to brief him on anything. He was working in the personnel section of the German Oberdommando der Wehrmacht, or as it was known, the OKW. Although on paper the Abwehr was technically a part of the OKW it acted as a totally separate entity. An entity concerned with military intelligence, not personnel decisions. The work that Weichs currently performed was so far removed from anything dealing with German intelligence activities that he wondered what earthly interest the Abwehr might have in his current duties.

If this meeting had been a few months earlier he could simply have walked to it. However, the Abwehr was beginning to move their operations to Zossen from the OKW headquarters on 72 Tirpitzufer in Berlin where Weichs office was still located. The excuse for the move was that they were running out of space. Weichs suspected it had more to do with the Allied bombings that had begun routinely striking Berlin. Despite Hermann Goering’s boast that an Allied bomb would never drop on the city, since August of 1940 that boast had proven to be hollow by the nightly visits of the Royal Air Force bombers.

Weichs sighed, shrugged his shoulders and moved toward the front door. As he entered the building Weichs immediately detected the odor of fresh paint. Scanning the entry he observed that indeed it could have been an office for an accounting firm or bank so plain was the layout. Weichs walked up to a glass partition in what was obviously an old reception area which was still being used for the same purpose. A very beautiful blonde female in a custom fitted uniform of the German Luftwaffe was bent over a desk speaking with another woman who was in a navy uniform. She looked more like a model than a receptionist. Weichs noted that the uniform she wore had the shoulder flashes of a lieutenant and even more surprisingly sewn on her generous bosom were pilot’s wings. Weichs was aware that it was commonplace to hand out commissions for administrative jobs, but to hand out Luftwaffe wings to receptionists? That was ridiculous even by Luftwaffe standards. Her position over the reception desk caused her skirt to hike up giving Weichs a very good view of her shapely legs. The uniform complimented her figure, especially those breasts he had noticed immediately upon entering the reception area. Under normal social circumstances Weichs might have spent more time dwelling on the more esoteric qualities of this beauty at the desk. However this was supposed to be the offices of the Abwehr. Weichs frowned. What kind of whorehouse have they brought me to? Weichs cleared his throat to attract the blonde’s attention. She turned toward Weichs revealing crystal blue eyes. As if reading his mind the corner of her mouth turned slightly upward into a smirk that made her even more attractive. In a very formal voice that did not match her looks she spoke to Weichs. Name please?

In an equally formal tone Weichs snapped back Herr Oberst Erich Weichs of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht here to see Colonel Ewin von Lahousen. He was sure this would impress her. After all the OKW was the high command of the German army. However, it seemed to have the opposite effect on this lovely lady. The smirk simply turned into a full blown smile. But of course you are. Weichs reddened slightly. Before he could respond to this insolence and lack of military formality he heard a door behind him open. Weichs turned to face a stately balding man who entered the room. Colonel Weichs I am Colonel von Lahousen. Thank you for coming on such short notice.

Weichs turned to von Lahousen still irritated about why the shapely young lieutenant had gotten his goat so easily. Von Lahousen stuck out his hand to Weichs. Weichs automatically returned the gesture taking his hand and shaking it. Well at least he is not making my morning worse by greeting me with that silly Nazi salute accompanied with a clicking of the heels and shouting Heil Hitler. Weichs viewed the Nazi salute as silly and unmilitary. The Nazi salute reminded him of something out of a comic opera used by men trying to play at being soldiers. Weichs also took note that the uniform of Colonel von Lahousen was lacking the black and red swastika button that members of the Nazi party displayed proudly on their lapels. Maybe these are professionals after all and not more of Hitler’s yes men. Von Lahousen got the hint of smile on his face as he watched Weichs appraise him. He continued to shake Weichs hand as if he was a long lost friend. I hope what we have heard about you is true colonel, we have need of your skills.

This last statement generally perplexed Weichs. Although he was a member of the OKW intelligence section in the past he was no longer doing such work. In point of fact he currently was not held in particularly high esteem within the German high command structure. His current post in the OKW was in their Personnel section shuffling papers in the never ending German Army bureaucracy. In short his current job was somewhat of a punishment assignment. Weichs somewhat non-conformist views of the strategies that the Axis powers were employing had not been well received by the crowd of toadies surrounding Der Fuehrer.

It had not started out that way for Erich Weichs. As a matter of fact he was what one could call a victim of his success. Erich Weichs could have been a recruitment poster for the German armed forces. He was tall, blonde, blue eyed and extraordinarily handsome. The epitome of the master race Hitler promoted. At 33 he was young even by wartime standards to be a full colonel, but he had earned his promotions legitimately on the battlefield. In the opening stages of the war he had won recognition serving with the 7th Panzer division in both Poland and France. This was Rommel’s panzer division. The famous Ghost Division, named so because of how fast they moved and seemingly appeared out of nowhere during the defeat of the allies in the Battle of France in 1940. Weichs was a professional soldier before the war started. He started the campaign in Poland as a lieutenant, but between battlefield attrition of officers and his brilliant handling of any unit he commanded he rose quickly to the rank of major by the time the invasion of France in 1940 was finished. He was an exceptional field commander, but Rommel noticed that Weichs had an uncanny knack for understanding the battlefield on a more strategic level than your average junior officer. So it was that Rommel himself suggested that Weichs be promoted to full colonel and reassigned to intelligence.

Soon Erich Weichs found himself as the military attaché to the German embassy in Tokyo. He had resented the assignment from the start. Weichs viewed himself as a combat commander. Not an embassy party denizen. Upon arrival in Tokyo his worst fears were realized. He soon found that his main duty consisted of attending endless cocktail parties and listening to the gossip and bombast of the diplomats and military martinets. Naturally the attendance at such parties had a hidden agenda. His primary objective was to worm his way into the confidence of their Japanese allies so that it would enhance his real mission which was intelligence gathering.

Despite Weichs abhorrence of his assignment he was perfectly suited for this task. He was all a German officer should be. Although Weichs hated the endless cocktail parties that went with his new assignment, it helped him in quickly learning the Japanese language. This was unusual for a European officer and endeared him to the Japanese. Weichs exceptional military mind did not go unnoticed among the Japanese. No less than Admiral Yamamoto, who would plan the attack on Pearl Harbor, took Weichs under his wing. Yamamoto loved poker, a vice he had acquired while being educated in America. Weichs also had a love of the game and was an exceptional player. Consequently it was through a mutual love of this very American of games that the two men bonded. His association with Yamamoto led to him being accepted completely as one of the boys by the Japanese. So much so that he had been part of the small inner circle that was brought in on the greatest Japanese military secret of the time; the planned attack on Pearl Harbor.

This was an extraordinary move by the secretive Japanese. However Yamamoto wanted an outsider’s opinion. More to the point he wanted an unbiased outsider’s opinion from someone he respected. Most colonels exposed to this type of information would have been supremely flattered and simply complimented the operation on its brilliance and shut up. However, Weichs was not most colonels. Weichs had that special strategic insight that Rommel and Yamamoto had noticed. He had a clear understanding of the strategic aspect of fighting a modern war. He understood the long term strategic implications that could result from brash and even successful tactical actions. Because of these traits he clearly saw that the planned Japanese attack on the Americans was suicidal, rash, senseless, ill-timed and stupid. Unbeknownst to Weichs, Yamamoto felt much the same way. His view of the attack was that it could backfire and be the catalyst to ignite the American people into action. A people he had come to admire in his time spent in the United States.

As a professional soldier Weichs admired the staff work and daring of the plan. Weichs began by complimenting the proposed plan to bomb the Americans as a brilliant naval blitzkrieg. Weichs thought the employment of air power by the navy to wipe out an enemy fleet in what was thought to be a safe impregnable anchorage was brilliant. Weichs had seen air power at work in Poland and France. He was well aware of how it was changing how modern war was being fought. Clearly Yamamoto was not an admiral stuck in the past. The great battleship sea battles of Jutland and Tsushima Strait were from a day gone by. Weichs appreciated that in the vastness of the Pacific Ocean the aircraft carrier would become the queen of the fleets. Like the knights at Agincourt who were made obsolete by the long bow, the airplane was the modern longbow that would make the battleship as obsolete as those armored knights of long ago.

After praising the operational portion of the plan Weichs made it clear to Yamamoto that the whole idea was strategic suicide. Weichs thought of the attack as another example of the uncoordinated war plans of the Axis powers and searched desperately for a way to thwart the plans for the attack. However, although he was Yamamoto’s friend he knew there was only so much honesty a lowly colonel could offer in such circumstances. So he did the only thing he could think of doing. He drafted a report for his superiors, the main thrust of which was that the Japanese and German high commands were failing to grasp the concept of mutual strategic planning and coordination of action between the Axis powers. As Weichs pointed out in his analysis, the attack if successful would knock out the American offensive capabilities in the Pacific for a year, maybe two. But to what end? At the present time America was an isolationist nation. A nation the British would love to see enter the conflict. America with its massive industrial production capacity and considerable manpower could alter the war.

Many of the Japanese, as well as his fellow German officers, viewed the Americans as a soft race that could not handle modern war. Weichs disagreed. Despite Americans continuously claiming they were anything but warriors Weichs saw them as savage fighters and a true warrior race. In Weichs view all the Japanese would have accomplished with the attack was to do President Franklin D. Roosevelt a huge favor by knocking the isolationists out of the debate and bringing America into the war with a vengeance. All for what? Sinking a bunch of old battleships which the very operation would show were obsolete in the first place? The backlash of this attack would be an inflamed America that would use its considerable industrial power to build a modern formidable navy to crush Japan and an equally formidable army to attack Germany.

Out of respect to his friend Weichs showed a draft of his report to Yamamoto. Yamamoto read the report and nodded. He looked at Weichs. You do not disappoint me my friend. These are all arguments I have made to my own high command. However my opinions were rejected as defeatist. Yamamoto looked hard into Weichs eyes. If you send this report you will ruin your career. It is too late. Too many of my fellow officers would lose face if we called it off now. To air such thoughts on the eve of the greatest Japanese operation in the history of our nation would be viewed as somewhere between sacrilege and insanity. Yamamoto handed the report back to Weichs. Burn it.

Weichs sensed his friend was correct. But he also knew he was standing at a crossroads in history and he could not simply stand by and say nothing. He sent the report. As so often happens in these circumstances it is much more convenient to shoot the messenger of bad news than to address the truth. Yamamoto was correct. In short, with one report Weichs managed to insult both high commands and ruin his career. Weichs was summarily dismissed from his post.

He may have survived that blunder, but it only got worse from there. On his way back from Japan the OKW asked Weichs to tour the Russian front and bring his opinions of the situation back to the OKW planners in Berlin. They were currently making adjustments for the next phase of Operation Barbarossa and wanted a front line view of the action. Operation Barbarossa was the code name that had been given to the German invasion of Russia which had been launched the previous June. The operation was named after the great German general Fredrick Barbarossa.

It had been successful in many ways. During the summer offensive the German army had wrecked the Soviet army. The panzer divisions had taken thousands of prisoners, captured enormous amounts of material and territory. However, the plan had not met its timetable for the completion of the final invasion line. Operation Barbarossa had never been a plan to conquer all of Russia. This task was simply too big for the resources available. The plan had been to hold a defensive line from Archangel in the north to Astrakhan in the south. In effect the idea was to take and hold all of European Russia. The great breadbasket of the Ukraine and the rich oil fields of Baku were the prizes.

When he arrived in Russia Weichs met with the commander of his old unit, the 7th Panzer Division. Major General Hans Freihar von Frunck had taken over for Erwin Rommel who was building his fame with the Afrika Corps smashing the British in North Africa. Von Frunck was no Rommel but he was a very capable and no nonsense commander. He had taken his division within sight of St. Basil’s spirals in Moscow before being beaten back. Weichs was shocked to see the condition of the division. It was worn out. Clearly they needed to be pulled out of the line and refitted. For his part von Frunck was delighted to see Weichs and share any intelligence he could with him. Von Frunck was one of the first to realize that there was a huge disconnect between the reality in the field and the OKW map room in Berlin. Desperate for a way to deliver the reality of the situation to Berlin von Frunck minced no words with Weichs. He informed Weichs that the 7th Panzer was like the rest of the German army. It was worn out and in need of rest. Von Frunck simply confirmed Weichs assessment. They had accomplished miracles over the summer, but they were now exhausted and in desperate need of refitting and supplies. In short they needed to retreat and regroup. It was a simple confirmation from a respected commander of what Weichs had observed in other units. Despite the fact that the Wehrmacht was at the gates of Moscow, it was a spent force.

It was also immediately apparent to Weichs that in an unforgiveable omission to the operational plan, the planners of the invasion had made little to no provision for a winter campaign. After the quick victories in Poland and France they actually