Keynes' Cruisers

[fester]

Even if her handler (controller is something slightly different) survives and even if he confirms her cover and alibi, she's still toast from the French side. The image of her being a collaborator will be far too ingrained for any outcome other than the expected come liberation.

The question I ponder is how many other Anna Maries the doctor is running. A handler running just one would be too inefficient for words.

The way I envision the network is that the doctor was connected pre-war to the French Communist Party (already mentioned in the abortion post). Those records mysteriously burned in a completely non-suspicious fire during the chaos of the collapse. He is someone who has a good reason to be seeing a lot of different people and more importantly, to be moving in between circles include those of trusted local elites.

He is a mid-level handler with at least another layer of control above him. His method of recruiting is through his medical practice. He has feelers/observers in several villages and a trio of actively seeking information assets. Anna Marie is his prize recruit. She was mostly an observer/feeler in one of the villages but now that she is a mistress of a German officer, her penetration into the German information cycle is fairly significant.

I also agree, that if/when liberation happens and she is alive at that time, Anna Marie will be treated like shit by her neighbors until/if her actual work is revealed and vouched for. Her best bet, if she is alive, is to run like hell until she knows no one and then keep on running another fifty miles.

 

[David Flin]

IF she survives the war, she's probably faced with emigrating to another country for her own safety? Or was there an internal apparatus for giving your own agent's a new identity?

I'm not familiar with how things worked precisely during WW2, and how much concern the controller had of the fate of field assets. There were periods when, to avoid any potential slippage of information, field assets were left hanging (sometimes literally). This avoided any potential contamination of other assets. At other times, the judgement was that a useful field agent could potentially be reused elsewhere, or at least pass on experience to handlers for future reference, and so attempts were made to spirit them out in the nick of time. This was usually a failure.

If you pulled them out, then you pulled them right out. In this case, that means out of France.

Timing was everything. Pull out too early, and you miss information just at the time you need it most. Pull out too late, and the asset is toast.

 

[Ramp-Rat]

AM's future is dependent on two basic factors, the first is how ruthless her handler is, and the second where her present provider is posted to. If her handler is totally ruthless, he will should her present position becomes redundant, her present provider is unable to take her with him, to his new posting. He, the handler will push her into a new position that serves his needs, and draws her deeper into the game. Should her present provider be able to take her with him, then the question becomes can a new handler be provided in her new location.

RR.

 

[fester]

AM's future is dependent on two basic factors, the first is how ruthless her handler is, and the second where her present provider is posted to. If her handler is totally ruthless, he will should her present position becomes redundant, her present provider is unable to take her with him, to his new posting. He, the handler will push her into a new position that serves his needs, and draws her deeper into the game. Should her present provider be able to take her with him, then the question becomes can a new handler be provided in her new location.

RR.

Yep, being an asset is a ruthless position to place oneself in. I don't think Anna Marie fully realizes that. She realizes that to some degree but she does not realize that she is ultimately disposable to the good Doctor and a means to an end instead of an end in and of herself. Her colonel will not be able to take her with him. I have a scene of their departure. She will have an excuse to stay in Paris and will be hooked up with a different distant controller... mainly through dead drops.

 

[fester]

She's been in loads of updates!!

I like it when my readers do my work for me

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

I also agree, that if/when liberation happens and she is alive at that time, Anna Marie will be treated like shit by her neighbors until/if her actual work is revealed and vouched for. Her best bet, if she is alive, is to run like hell until she knows no one and then keep on running another fifty miles.

Even if her status as an agent comes out after the liberation, she'll have to move away to build a life for herself. The nature of her spying will so taint her reputation that she'd have no choice. She may be a patriot but she'll be seen as a patriotic prostitute. It's unfair but that's how people will at least subconsciously see her.

 

[David Flin]

Even if her status as an agent comes out after the liberation, she'll have to move away to build a life for herself. The nature of her spying will so taint her reputation that she'd have no choice. She may be a patriot but she'll be seen as a patriotic prostitute. It's unfair but that's how people will at least subconsciously see her.

My best guess, assuming survival and proof of role (without both she is stuffed), is that the typical view would be that she did very nicely out of lying on her back, got better treatment by collaborating, and any patriotic reasons were secondary to getting better treatment. What else would you expect from a collaborating whore?

 

[AlanJWhite]

I envision the network is that the doctor was connected pre-war to the French Communist Party

sorry F, that really is not a practical idea.

OTL in 1939 French Communists were antiwar because of the Moscow-Berlin pact and joint invasion of Poland.
So vocal and active were their efforts that in late 1939 the Party was declared illegal and many members went underground (which might suit your idea for the handler setting up a cover)

However over even after the fall of France the next year almost all were passive at best and many were collaborators.
Only after Barbarossa did they begin any form of active resistance and then only on an individual basis.

So a true communist would not be running any agents in early 1941
and certainly NOT reporting to the British or even the Free French.

 

[Unknown]

I am not envying Anne-Marie in the slightest ITTL (assuming she even survives the war; remember how fester killed off one viewpoint character)...

 

[fester]

I am not envying Anne-Marie in the slightest ITTL (assuming she even survives the war; remember how fester killed off one viewpoint character)...

She survives through at least mid 1942

 

[fester]

sorry F, that really is not a practical idea.

OTL in 1939 French Communists were antiwar because of the Moscow-Berlin pact and joint invasion of Poland.
So vocal and active were their efforts that in late 1939 the Party was declared illegal and many members went underground (which might suit your idea for the handler setting up a cover)

However over even after the fall of France the next year almost all were passive at best and many were collaborators.
Only after Barbarossa did they begin any form of active resistance and then only on an individual basis.

So a true communist would not be running any agents in early 1941
and certainly NOT reporting to the British or even the Free French.

He could be a trotskyist... I will rethink his backstory

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Just because the mans a communist doesn't mean he agrees with all aspects of party policy, his love of country could prompt him to act.

 

[David Flin]

The other question is, if he is a Communist, who is he reporting to? Not Britain, they didn't start picking up Communist assets at that level until after the launch of Barbarossa. Not the Soviet Union, their assets were, at this stage, more likely to be working the other way, and were so riddled with leaks that they made MI6 of the 1950s look competent. If home-grown, he's not really got a structure he can report to.

One suggestion might be a Socialist who made contacts during the Spanish Civil War, and is now being run as an off-book seed agent (we've no idea what this will grow into, let's let it grow with limited resources on our part and see what happens). From the point of view of the handling organisation, that means that the doctor is deniable, he can be sacrificed without loss if one needs to boost another agent (a sacrificial lamb for your important asset to hand in for the brownie points), if discovered, it sends the opposition into a frenzy of trying to work out how bad the rot is, and seeking out infiltrations that are nothing to do with you.

Admittedly, the chance of A-M surviving to 1942 under these conditions is roughly equivalent to the survival chances of the last bowl of ice cream at a children's birthday party, but that's another matter.

 

[stubear1012]

It was my understanding that even after the MR pact, that Germany continued to hunt down Communists in Germany. If my understanding is true then the doctor may feel that he is at war with the Germans.

 

[fester]

March 3, 1941 Alexandria

“Bloody Hell, mate” the tall Australian rivet gunner shouted as a red hot rivet brushed his shirt for the third time in half an hour

“Watch it.” The rivet man waited a moment until his partner stopped hopping and starting to pay attention again to the Matilda tank. They were almost done with this tank’s repairs. A crew had replaced the engine with a new one earlier in the week. Now their primary responsibility was working on the armor. The tanks of the 7th Royal Tank Regiment had been evacuated from Benghazi almost a month ago. The men were exhausted and the machines were if anything in even worse shape. Troop ships had brought replacements to compensate for the wastage of lives and hopes and dreams of the men in the regiment since Operation Compass started.

And the Delta workshops were full of crews rebuilding the machines that had defeated the Italian army. Some of the tanks were beyond repair. Honey Pot had been salvaged from the fighting near Bardia and her damage was too great to repair. Instead she contributed her parts to seventeen separate tanks. Dust Devil, in front of them, received Honey Pot’s machine gun and two plates of armor.

Several miles south of the workshop where the regiment was being rebuilt for future operations, the New Zealand Division was exercising along the Nile River. They had returned from duty in the East Africa after an Indian division was made available. The three months of combat had toughened the men and shaken out the rot in the command structure. Most of the officers were decent enough but a few were too old, and far too many were unwilling or unable to make the hard choices needed to accomplish their missions. The average age of battalion commanders had already dropped seven years and it was likely to drop even more as the better older commanders were promoted and the ineffective men were shunted to training or supporting commands. The division’s equipment had arrived in fairly decent shape and they would be next in line for repair and reconditioning once the XIII Corps was fully brought back up to snuff.

 

[David Flin]

the ineffective men were shunted to training commands.

It may well happen, but it's less than ideal. Training bad habits isn't the best thing in the world.

 

[fester]

It may well happen, but it's less than ideal. Training bad habits isn't the best thing in the world.

There are some men who can command in combat, there are some who can not. If those of the second class survive their demonstration of unfitness, it is in the best interest of the army in question to get them to do something that does not involve commanding a combat formation. So what would you suggest?

 

[sloreck]

For those not up to the rigors of field service, training commands are fine. For those who lack leadership ability, doing the necessary paperwork somewhere is viable. The real issue is what to do with the truly incompetent or dangerous - who will screw up anything they touch. Find the means to get them out of uniform.

 

[fester]

For those not up to the rigors of field service, training commands are fine. For those who lack leadership ability, doing the necessary paperwork somewhere is viable. The real issue is what to do with the truly incompetent or dangerous - who will screw up anything they touch. Find the means to get them out of uniform.

dangle them as double agents or send them to oversee those who must count penguins

 

[David Flin]

There are some men who can command in combat, there are some who can not. If those of the second class survive their demonstration of unfitness, it is in the best interest of the army in question to get them to do something that does not involve commanding a combat formation. So what would you suggest?

It's one of those really difficult questions. Ideally, you want your best at the front leading, and training people to be the best, and organising everything so that the people doing the job has the tools they need. You also want your worst out of the way.

Some people make the decision easy; a cautious, thoughtful, OCD type might be best suited for staff work and not for front line, and so on.

More typically, the people who are good at one thing are pretty good at everything, and ditto for not good. That is where the Powers That Be have to make their choices. Put your best into training, and you'll give everyone basic skills and remove the bottom layers of competence going forward to do the work. Basically, this improves the basic skills of the force.

If you choose to put your best leading at the front-line, you'll have a wasting, high quality asset. Great for a short campaign or war, not so good for the long term.

As for what you do with the crap, and assuming you just can't dump them, then you have to find quiet zones where you don't expect anything much to happen and their lack of competence won't impact too much, freeing the competent up to do the actual work. So, at present, in the situation you have, SE Asia is looking like nothing much will happen there for a while; Persia and the Middle East look quiet. Garrison on Gibraltar - if the RN gets pushed out, there's not a lot the garrison can do. I'm sure there's plenty of other quiet zones where you need a presence, but it won't have to do anything. Of course, if something crops up, you're stuffed, but that's one of the risks you run. Probably better to put the crap where they may or may not have chance to screw up, rather than having them where they will screw up.