Operation Jungle
Operation Jungle | |||||||
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Part of the Cold War | |||||||
Three German Silbermöwe-class motorboats, used during the last phase of Operation Jungle | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United Kingdom West Germany Sweden Denmark United States |
Soviet Union Polish People's Republic | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Viktor Abakumov Lavrentiy Beria Bolesław Bierut | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
2 E-boats 3 motorboats | Soviet patrol boats | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
3 agents killed[2] Several agents captured | Unknown |
Part of a series on |
History of the Cold War |
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Operation Jungle was a programme by the British
History
In the late 1940s MI6 established a special center in Chelsea, London, to train agents to be sent to the Baltic states. The operation was codenamed "Jungle" and led by Henry Carr, director of the Northern European Department of MI6, and Baltic section head Alexander McKibbin. The Estonian group was led by Alfons Rebane, who had also served as a Waffen-SS Standartenführer during Estonia's occupation by Nazi Germany, the Latvian group led by former Luftwaffe officer Rūdolfs Silarājs and the Lithuanian group led by history professor Stasys Žymantas.[3]
The
Agents were inserted into
Phases
The operation evolved into a number of phases. The first transport of agents occurred in May 1949, with six agents boarding the boat at Kiel. The vessel was manned by Klose and a German crew. The British officers on board, Lieutenant Commanders Harvey-Jones and Shaw, handed over the command of the boat to Swedish officers in Simrishamn, Southern Sweden. The German crew then proceeded via the cover of Öland Island, then east to Palanga, north of Klaipėda, arriving around 10:30pm. Within 300m of shore the six agents disembarked in a rubber dingy and made their way to shore. The boat returned to Gosport, picking up the British officers at Simrishamn and refueling at Borkum.[1]
Following the success of the initial operation, MI6 followed up with several more improvised landings via rubber dinghy. Two agents were landed at Ventspils on 1 November 1949; three agents landed south of Ventspils on April 12, 1950 and two agents in December at Palanga.[1]
In late 1950,
In August 1952, a second E-boat was put into service as a refuelling and supply vessel and consort for the SIGINT operations, under the command of Lieutenant E. G. Müller, a former executive officer who served under Klose during World War II. Eight Polish agents were inserted during this period using sea-borne balloons.[1]
During the period 1954-55, three new German-built motorboats of the
Operation compromised
The operation was severely compromised by
One of the agents sent to Estonia and captured by the KGB, Mart Männik, wrote an autobiography A Tangled Web: A British Spy in Estonia, which was published after his death and has been translated into English. The book gives an account of his experiences throughout and after the unsuccessful operation.[7]
MI6 suspended the operation in 1955 due to the increasing loss of agents and suspicions that the operation was compromised. The last mission was a landing on Saaremaa in April 1955.
See also
- Albanian Subversion
- Bay of Pigs invasion
- Contras
- Forest Brothers
- Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit
- Luis Posada Carriles
- Omega 7
- Operation Cyclone
- Orlando Bosch
Notes
- ^ S2CID 162499902.
- ISBN 0743217780
- ISBN 0-929590-08-2.
- ISBN 0698104307
- ISBN 1-59114-660-7.
- ^ "Die Schnellboot-Seite - S-Boats Federal GE Navy". s-boot.net. Archived from the original on 2016-01-15. Retrieved 2016-01-15.
- ISBN 978-9949-448-18-0. Archived from the originalon 2017-02-05. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
- ISBN 9780810855434.
References
- Hess, Sigurd. The British Baltic Fishery Protection Service (BBFPS) and the Clandestine Operations of Hans Helmut Klose 1949-1956. Journal of Intelligence History vol. 1, no. 2 (Winter 2001) abstract full text
- Account of covert E-boat operations British Military Powerboat Trust, (2004)
- Operation Jungle: the failed British SIS mission in the Baltic states 1945 - 56 from latvianhistory.com
- (In Lithunaian) ISBN 9786094800610