WW2 transatlantic travel for spies?

April 18, 2015 6:55 PM

For purposes of writing a novel, need to know what were the most likely method(s) used by SOE & OSS to move agents from US to Europe in mid-1942. Any information, no matter how small, would be appreciated. It seems that the Clipper was no longer an option. If you know of other closed-out options in '42, please advise. Air drops are out due to the plot. Thanks in advance.

For the purpose of this question, I only need to move this character from NY to Lisbon (or to some other neutral country, like Sweden). The rest of the journey is all set. The ocean crossing is the part I'm having trouble with.

posted by winterlight to Travel & Transportation (7 answers total)

The Clippers may not have been taking civilian passengers (they had been pressed into military service) but they were definitely still flying across the Atlantic. FDR took one to the Casablanca conference in 1943.

In my brief research I'm not seeing any specific references to civilian passenger service across the Atlantic, but I did find references to Guy Liddell (head of British Counter-Intelligence) using British Overseas Airways Corporation flights to move intelligence assets between the UK and Lisbon, so it sounds like these flights were fairly routine.

So if your character has the backing of the Allied intelligence services, it shouldn't be too hard for them to get from the US to the UK on a military plane, and from the UK to Lisbon via BOAC.
posted by firechicago at 7:29 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

If they weren't in a super-hurry, I'd say they'd be carried on a warship. There were of course many many ships heading across the Atlantic, and a generous number of them were getting sunk, but the 1942 was the year in which the Battle of the Atlantic began to turn against the U-boats as the (surface ship and aircraft-based) antisub technologies and techniques started to bear fruit. It would be 1943 before the U-boats would start losing in earnest, though. I'm not clear on whether warships escorting convoys were targeted by U-boats over cargo ships, but as it was their role to destroy shipping to cut supplies, and because they were, up until '42 at least relatively immune from counterattack by Allies, I think that a warship would be a low-risk ship compared to the others. It's hard to say.

Another option was US Submarine, which likewise would take about a week to cross the Atlantic but could do so without risk attack except from the most random encounter with an enemy fleet or U-boat. At this stage of history, submarines couldn't fight each other while submerged, except possibly by ramming, which is not something subs were built for. I'm not sure if sonar was developed enough for the so-called "sonar-lashing," which is a kind of undersea harassment which doesn't damage the subs, but can demoralize submariners.
posted by Sunburnt at 8:08 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

Plenty of USAAF (US Army Air Force) aircraft were making the ferry flights over with materials and equipment movements.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_air_ferry_route_in_World_War_II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_air_ferry_route_in_World_War_II
posted by nickggully at 8:12 PM on April 18, 2015

There was plenty of shipping between neutral countries throughout the war. For example, a German U-boat would not be likely to target a Mexican ship traveling between Mexico and Spain, or a Brazilian ship traveling to Lisbon. Let's say you have a small freighter traveling between Cuba and Africa along the 23rd parallel. That is likely to go completely unnoticed by German U-boats prowling the north Atlantic. Even it were noticed, it would not be worth the U-boat's time, as they are going after large ships and disrupting big convoys.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:26 PM on April 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

From my reading of this site German U-boats would have started attacking Mexican ships sometime between January and May of 1942, at which point they formally joined the war with the Allies.
posted by traveler_ at 12:22 AM on April 19, 2015

Air ferry would have been the quickest. Aboard a warship escorting a convoy would probably be the most common, though that would be subject to possible sinking, of course.

This Wikipedia entry talks about the PanAm Clippers' service during WWII.

The US Navy did operate subs in the Atlantic at the start of the war, but had pretty much moved all submarines to the Pacific theater by 1943.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:21 AM on April 19, 2015

Read Double Cross by Ben MacIntyre for some ideas. I think a route through Lisbon is most likely. However, if something picturesque is better, look into how warplanes were ferried to Europe by female pilots.
posted by SemiSalt at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2015