A land of spies and espionage

When the first novel of the series ‘Land of Broken Promises’ opens,  its central character Patsy, aged 21,  is working ostensibly as a civilian typist for a Special Ops outfit based in Cairo. The outfit’s purpose is to co-ordinate guerrilla operations in Palestine in the event of an enemy invasion.

I chose preparations  for a WW2 guerrilla  force in Palestine,  as a starting point for  a series spanning the years 1932-1948 because I was following the advice given to all Newbie authors ‘Write what you know about best.’

Incredible as it seems to many modern parents, as a British child aged  8 and 9, I was  heavily involved, mostly unwittingly, but on occasions knowingly,  in British  preparations to set up Jewish guerrilla groups to resist a likely German occupation of Palestine.

During WW2,  spying in one form or another was the favourite occupation of  Palestine’s residents, whatever their cultural background.  

My father, a British telecommunications engineer,  was recruited by MEIC (Mediterranean East Intelligence Centre) in 1940.  MEIC’s initial assumption  was that Germany would invade Palestine from the north via Bulgaria, Turkey and Vichy-controlled Syria.

Israeli Michael Gottschalk standing in one of the wartime trenches in Haifa his father helped dig on the assumption the Germans would invade from the North.
(Since retirement one of Michael's hobbies has been excavating these trenches)

 In early 1941 my father’s first major espionage task was to ascertain whether the telephone lines the Germans were laying in Bulgaria were genuine or fake.
'Real' meant invasion from the north, 'fake' meant invasion from sea or south. 

My unwitting role in this enterprise was to convey misinformation to our Arab maid of all work, who was suspected of having a Nazi sympathiser brother.

  My father told me  that he was going to neutral Turkey . His special job,  and this was a great secret, would be putting telephones down the chimneys of hotel rooms in Istanbul where German generals were staying.

Over a year later I played a more straight forward role.  The allies had insufficient army and police personnel to patrol the whole of Palestine's Mediterranean coast. Our family spent September camping in Army tents on a restricted area beach near the Crusader Castle at Athlit, pretending to be a military unit guarding against invading spies. We had orders to make our camp as visible as possible despite the blackout in the rest of the country.

Crusader Castle at other end of beach from our camp

 Unfortunately after the first fortnight  my father had to rush my mother into  hospital in Haifa, leaving me, aged 9, in charge of  both the camp and my younger sister and brother for two days.  I took my responsibility as the sole obstacle to the Nazi invasion of Palestine very seriously, lighting up kerosene lamps in all the tents at night and along the pathway to the rather posh trench latrine  dug deep into the sand for privacy.

During that month my father frequently left us for two or three days at a time. One day he returned to camp, his knapsack covered in blood and filled with a sheep’s back leg. I have used the cryptic explanation he gave us in the third novel of the series.

In fact I have handed over his wartime role but not necessarily his personality to the fictional character, Jim Shepard, who plays an important part in all the first three novels.