Operation Jungle

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Operation Jungle
Part of the Cold War

Three German Silbermöwe-class motorboats, used during the last phase of Operation Jungle
Date1949–1955
Location
Result Overall operational failure[1]
Naval success[1]
Belligerents
 United Kingdom
 West Germany
 Sweden
 Denmark
 United States
 Soviet Union
Poland Polish People's Republic
Commanders and leaders
Gustaf VI Adolf
Denmark Fredrik IX
Soviet Union Viktor Abakumov
Soviet Union Lavrentiy Beria
Poland Bolesław Bierut
Strength
2 E-boats
3 motorboats
Soviet patrol boats
Casualties and losses
3 agents killed[2]
Several agents captured
Unknown

Operation Jungle was a programme by the British

MGB
penetrated the network and captured or turned most of the agents.

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

E-boat. Royal Navy Commander Anthony Courtney had earlier been struck by the potential capabilities of former E-boat hulls, and John Harvey-Jones of the Naval Intelligence Division was put in charge of the project and discovered that the Royal Navy still had two E-boats, P5230 and P5208. They were sent to Portsmouth where one of them was modified to reduce its weight and increase its power. To preserve deniability, a former German E-boat captain, Hans-Helmut Klose, and a German crew from the German Mine Sweeping Administration were recruited to man the E-boat.[1][5]

Agents were inserted into

USSR. The boats proceeded to their destinations, typically several miles offshore, under cover of darkness and met with shore parties in dinghies; sometimes returning agents were received at these rendezvous
.

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,

ELINT. During this phase, four landings were performed between 1951 and 1952 with 16 agents inserted and five agents retrieved.[1]

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

treaty of Potsdam, French and British authorities confiscated the vessels for Klose's missions. In February 1955, during a SIGINT sweep from Brüsterort to Liepāja, there was a 15-minute engagement off Klaipėda with a Soviet patrol boat; Ehrhardt's Wild Swan was fired on by the Soviets but the German boat slipped away at top speed.[1]

Operation compromised

The operation was severely compromised by

captured or killed nearly every one of the 42 Baltic agents inserted into the field. Many of them were turned as double agents who infiltrated and significantly weakened the Baltic resistance.

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.

SIGINT and the naval aspects of his incursions are concerned.[1] The motorboats were handed over to the new German Navy in 1956.[1]

See also

Notes

References