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Revision as of 01:25, 15 May 2007
Operation Jungle was an early-Cold War MI6 program for the clandestine insertion of intelligence and resistance agents into the Baltic states between 1948 and 1955. The agents were mostly Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian emigrants who had been trained in the UK and Sweden and were to link up with the anti-Soviet resistance in the occupied states.
The agents were transported by the "British Baltic Fishery Protection Service (BBFPS)", a cover organization that used high-speed German E-boats (crewed by ex-Kriegsmarine) launched from British-occupied Germany to spy on the Soviet Navy's Baltic Fleet. Agents were inserted into Saaremaa, Estonia, Užava and Ventspils, Latvia, Palanga, Lithuania, and Ustka, Poland, all typically via Bornholm, Denmark where the final radio signal was given from London for the boats to enter the territorial waters claimed by the USSR. The boats proceeded to their final destinations, typically several miles offshore, under cover of darkness, and met with shore parties in dingys. Returning British agents were received at some of these rendez-vous.
The operation was severely compromised by Soviet counter-intelligence, primarily through information provided by British double agents. In the extensive counter-operation "Lursen-S" (named for Lürssen, the manufacturer of the E-boats), the NKVD/KGB captured 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.
See also
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
- British Military Powerboat Trust, Detailed account of covert E-boat operations (2004)