| Operation Jungle | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theCold War and theanti-communist insurgencies in Central and Eastern Europe | |||||||
 Three GermanSilbermöwe-class motorboats, used during the last phase of Operation Jungle | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 United Kingdom West Germany Sweden Denmark United States | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Harry S. Truman Henry CarrJohn Harvey-Jones Hans-Helmut KloseReinhard GehlenGustaf VI AdolfFredrik IX |  Viktor AbakumovLavrentiy Beria Bolesław Bierut | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 2E-boats 3 motorboats | Soviet patrol boats | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 3 agents killed[2] Several agents captured | Unknown | ||||||
| Part ofa series on |
| History of theCold War |
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Operation Jungle was a programme by the BritishSecret Intelligence Service (MI6) early in theCold War from 1949 to 1955 for theclandestine insertion of intelligence and resistance agents intoPoland and theBaltic states. The agents were mostlyPolish,Estonian,Latvian andLithuanian exiles who had been trained in theUnited Kingdom andSweden and were to link up with the anti-Soviet resistance against the communist governments (thecursed soldiers, theForest Brothers). The naval operations of the programme were carried out by German crew-members of theGerman Mine Sweeping Administration under the control of theRoyal Navy. The American-sponsoredGehlen Organization also got involved in the draft of agents from Eastern Europe. However, theMGB penetrated the network and captured or turned most of the agents.
In the late 1940s MI6 established a special center inChelsea, 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 headAlexander McKibbin. The Estonian group was led byAlfons Rebane, who had also served as aWaffen-SSStandartenführer duringEstonia's occupation byNazi Germany, the Latvian group led by former Luftwaffe officerRūdolfs Silarājs and the Lithuanian group led by history professorStasys Žymantas.[3]
TheGehlen Organization, an intelligence agency established by American occupation authorities in West Germany in 1946 and manned by former members of the Wehrmacht'sFremde Heere Ost (Foreign Armies East), also recruited agents from East European émigré organizations for the operations.[4] The agents were transported under the cover of the "British Baltic Fishery Protection Service" (BBFPS), acover organization launched fromBritish-occupied Germany, using a converted former World War IIE-boat. Royal Navy CommanderAnthony Courtney had earlier been struck by the potential capabilities of former E-boat hulls, andJohn Harvey-Jones of theNaval 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 toPortsmouth 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 intoSaaremaa, Estonia,Užava andVentspils, Latvia,Palanga, Lithuania andUstka,Poland, typically viaBornholm,Denmark, where the finalradiosignal was given fromLondon for the boats to enter theterritorial waters claimed by theUSSR. The boats proceeded to their destinations, typically several miles offshore, under cover of darkness and met with shore parties indinghies; sometimes returning agents were received at theserendezvous.
The operation evolved into a number of phases. The first transport of agents occurred in May 1949, with six agents boarding the boat atKiel. 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 inSimrishamn, SouthernSweden. The German crew then proceeded via the cover ofÖland Island, then east to Palanga, north ofKlaipėda, 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 toGosport, picking up the British officers at Simrishamn and refueling atBorkum.[1]
Following the success of the initial operation, MI6 followed up with several more improvised landings via rubber dinghy. Two agents were landed atVentspils 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,British Naval Intelligence and MI6 created a more permanent organisation with Klose hiring a crew of 14 sailors and basing the boat atHamburg-Finkenwerder. The "British Baltic Fishery Protection Service" was thus invented as a credible cover story given the harassment of West German fishermen by the Soviets. The operation evolved with a secondary task of visual and electronic reconnaissance of the Baltic coast fromSaaremaa in Estonia toRügen inEast Germany. For this purpose the boat was re-fitted with additional fuel tanks for extended range and an extensive antenna suite and American equipment forCOMINT andELINT. 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 theSIGINT 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 theSilbermöwe class replaced the old E-boats.[1] They were christenedSilvergull (German nameSilbermöwe, commanded by H. H. Klose),Stormgull (German nameSturmmöwe, commanded by E. G . Müller) andWild Swan (German nameWildschwan, commanded by D. Ehrhardt).[6][1] They were built at theLürssen dockyard inBremen-Vegesack for theWest German Border Police, but under the pretense that the boats exceeded the speed allowed by thetreaty of Potsdam, French and British authorities confiscated the vessels for Klose's missions. In February 1955, during a SIGINT sweep fromBrüsterort toLiepāja, there was a 15-minute engagement off Klaipėda with a Soviet patrol boat; Ehrhardt'sWild Swanwas fired on by the Soviets but the German boat slipped away at top speed.[1]
The operation was severely compromised bySovietcounter-intelligence, primarily through information provided by the British "Cambridge Five". In the extensive counter-operation "Lursen-S" (named forLürssen, the manufacturer of the E-boats), theMGB/KGB 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 autobiographyA Tangled Web: A British Spy in Estonia, which was published in 2001, three years after his death, and has been translated into English in 2008. 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.[8] While the overall MI6 operation inCourland is regarded as a fiasco, Klose missions are considered successful, as far as theSIGINT and the naval aspects of his incursions are concerned.[1] The motorboats were handed over to the newGerman Navy in 1956.[1]
