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son with Canaris, this seems unlikely. Anyway, the amount of significant
HUMINT on PAIFORCE obtained by Turkey-based AB agents was, of
course, miniscule when contrasted with the product derived by British
intelligence on regional German activities from TRIANGLE and
human sources.
Operation TEL AFAR was executed by non-German personnel; its
objectives were entirely at odds with those of either RSHA VI or Mil D;
and its operational region (Iraq and Palestine) was no longer relevant to
the German war effort.^73 The Wehrmacht were involved only in training
and transporting the mission participants, which they seem to have done
relatively efficiently, having doubtless learnt much from previous bungled
major Middle East operations (e.g. MAMMUT, FRANZ, ANTON). The
aerial insertion, which from the description of the oxygen-equipped air-
craft used must have been carried out by the Gartenfeld Squadron, was a
textbook Luftwaffe blind drop.^74 It involved a high-risk, ten-hour, non-
stop flight at a 5000-metre altitude across the Balkans and Turkey from
Vienna to Mosul, which was at the extreme limit of the aircraft’s operating
range. This was clearly the main reason for choosing Vienna, in the far
south of Germany, as the departure point and Tel Afar as the dropzone, in
far northern Iraq barely across the Turkish border, because no German
aircraft, even if equipped with extra fuel tanks, could possibly fly any fur-
ther without refuelling. By late November 1944, the Luftwaffe had no
suitable refuelling stops available, so a direct flight had to be attempted. It
was also an unusual insertion in that it occurred on a brightly moonlit
night, contrary to the Luftwaffe’s normal practice of making agent drops
on moonless nights. With the war’s end looming, the ex-Mufti must have
realized that he was confronting a now-or-never situation, so waiting for
ideal landing conditions was not an available option. The group was
accompanied as far as the dropzone by a Wehrmacht liaison officer attached
to the AB, Hugo Ernst Reichert (codenamed RICHARD), who for some
reason seems to have been known to CICI: they were certainly able to
identify him from a photograph. Perhaps he was related to Franz Reichert,
the notorious Sicherheitsdienst (SS Security Service [SD]) agent who had
had dealings with the ex-Mufti before the war while undercover as a
journalist in Palestine. It definitely seems likely, as this young artillery sub-
altern apparently claimed to have lived in Haifa, and he spoke Arabic with
a distinct Palestinian accent.^75
The four Arab parachutists—three Iraqis and one Palestinian—who
landed at the tiny hamlet of Hayouoglukoy (al-Ubra), 11 miles west of Tel
A PLACE IN THE SHADE