An outstanding ‘spy catcher’s’ M.B.E. group of six awarded to Major A. W. Sansom, Intelligence Corps, a long served Head of British Field Security in Cairo and the author of I Spied Spies - an extraordinary story embracing all manner of cut-throats and the occasional belly dancer, one of the latter - ‘no Mata Hari’ - being blessed with ‘sensational green eyes’

Among other achievements, he was responsible for the capture of Nazi agent Hans Eppler, who had been sent to Cairo by Rommel to infiltrate British Army H.Q., his subsequent reports using a code based on Daphne du Maurier’s pre-war novel Rebecca: Eppler’s desert journey to Cairo was aided by the Hungarian explorer Laszlo Almasy, better known today as the protagonist for Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient and the subsequent film adaption of the same name

From the release of the film Foxhole in Cairo - ‘the Greatest Spy Story of the Desert War’ - to a spate of related publications, most recently The Rebecca Code by Mark Simmons (2012), Sansom’s part in the intelligence war continues to impress and entertain an international audience

The Most Excellent Order of The British Empire, M.B.E. (Civil Division), 2nd type breast badge; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, with M.I.D. oak leaf; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Malaya, G.VI.R., with M.I.D. oak leaf (Major. A. W. Sansom, Int. Corps.) mounted loose style as worn, together with sets of related dress miniatures (2) and identity bracelets (3), one in gold, dated 15.7.1940’, and two in silver, good very fine (Lot) £2400-2800

M.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1953.

Alfred William Sansom was born in Cairo in December 1909 and was educated at the city’s English School, and at King’s School, Ely in Cambridgeshire. His father was manager of the Egypt office of the Gresham Life Assurance Society and it was upon a similar career in insurance that young Alfred embarked on leaving school: ‘As I had to travel all of Egypt and in other Arab countries selling insurance I was able to indulge my hobby, passion, and almost obsession of learning the various tribal dialects of Arabic.’

On the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939, he was drafted by British Embassy to the Anglo-Egyptian Censorship, dull work that prompted his application for employment in the Military Police on Italy’s entry into the war in June 1940. Having then attended a training course, he was commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in the British Field Security Service and sent to Mersa Matruh.

Early experiences in the field included an enemy aircraft attack in which his batman suffered a mortal chest wound; deeply moved by the latter’s suffering and courage, Sansom later wrote that his example sometimes made him ‘braver than it was in my character to be.’

The following extract, taken from The Cat and The Mice, by Leonard Mosley, states:

‘His job in the desert was to intercept the bands of wandering Bedouin, who often strayed with their camels over the battle-lines, and check their bona fides; for both sides tried to infiltrate agents among them. He wandered about the desert on his own, calling in at Siwa Oasis and Giarrabub, sometimes in uniform, sometimes in native clothes, keeping his ears and his eyes open. He enjoyed the life, and he was sorry when G.H.Q. called him back to Cairo and gave him the job of guarding security in the capital itself.

But here too he found ample scope for his talents. He could be a Greek one day, a Copt the next, or slip easily into the role of an Armenian visitor from neutral Turkey, and long before Eppler came on to the scene he had achieved quite a few triumphs in tracking down and arresting the dissidents and traitors whose activities were hindering the war effort.’

And by way of an overview of his new post as Chief Field Security Officer for Cairo, Leonard Mosley continues:

‘Major Alfred William Sansom was a familiar figure to all those officers on leave from the Eighth Army who frequented the men’s bar of Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo. They undoubtedly looked upon him with that mild, tolerant contempt with which front-line soldiers regarded the desk-holders at G.H.Q., cynically known to them as “chair-borne types” or “gabardine swine.”

He was small and dapper and elegant. His uniform always looked as if it were fresh from the tailor’s; his moustache was trim; he smelled of expensive after-shave lotion and hair-tonic; and, to give him the last touch of smartness, he carried a slim switch-cane under his arm. Sansom, in fact, looked as if he had never heard a gun fired in anger in his life, but had spent his military career fighting a deft but hardly gallant war exclusively on paper. 

But appearances can be deceptive, and in the case of Major Sansom they were definitely so, for he was undoubtedly one of the shrewdest counter-espionage agents of World War II.

It would be true to say that he spent none of it actually firing bullets or shells at the enemy. He did not need to, for he was engaged in shooting down much more important targets with a rather more subtle and complex weapon, his intelligence. He had spent the early part of the war in North Africa acting as a security officer in the Western Desert ...

In Cairo Major Sansom had under his command a force of 2000 men to help him in his job of preserving security. They were a heterogeneous lot. The body of the force was composed of Egyptian policemen who had gone through a special training course in Intelligence and had been drafted to Field Security. Working with them were Greeks, Yugoslavs, Turks, Armenians, Syrians, Irakis, Israelis and even Kurds, plus a small, tight group of British N.C.Os who were all fluent in German or French and at least one other language.

Sansom had his agents in most places where they were likely to be useful. There was one British General who talked too freely about the plans in the Western Desert to a charming Free French journalist whom he took out to dinner; and he lived to regret it, for she was one of Sansom’s staff and made a full report on his indiscretions. In most cabarets and restaurants in the city one of the waiters was sure to be working for him. One of King Farouk’s most trusted servants was on the payroll and performed to some purpose, particularly in reporting upon the activities of another servant who was in the pay of the Axis powers.

But whatever success Sansom had had so far was not going to help him much with his present case. Though he did not know it at the time, he had already met John Eppler and was suspicious of him. He had watched him in the Kit Kat cabaret. He knew the name, Hussein Gaafer, under which he was living, and had even asked for a dossier on his activities to be prepared. But for the moment he was just another suspect Egyptian with a rather too European manner, and it was for a completely different person that he thought he was searching.

Out in the Western Desert the forces were beginning to take their positions for the great battle which was inevitably coming. Somewhere in Cairo was a spy who might well possess the vital information that could give the Germans a decisive advantage in the struggle. And all Sansom could do was send out his men, to watch and wait for the break they needed.

It was a piquant situation, though they did not realise it and it did not help either of them at the time that in fact spy and spy-catcher had already met each other - the one disguised as a playboy Egyptian and the other as a bibulous Greek. But it was going to be some time, and some complicated manoeuvres were destined to take place, before they confronted each other in their true colours … ’

As it transpired, it was an alluring belly dancer who provided Sansom with his much needed break, for Eppler, a German who had been raised in Egypt by his Egyptian stepfather, frequented the city’s nightclubs on a regular basis.

Eppler’s mission and capture

Eppler’s mission to infiltrate British Army H.Q. was enacted under the Abwehr code names ‘Sallam’ and ‘Kondor’. ‘Salaam’ was the means of delivering him to Cairo, with the assistance of the Hungarian desert explorer Laszlo Almasy, better known today as the the protagonist for Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient (1992) and the subsequent film adaption of the same name (1996).

Travelling ‘Long Range Desert Group style’, Alamsy successfully delivered Eppler, and his wireless operator, Hans-Gerd Sandstede, to Assiut in Egypt, after crossing the Gilf Kebir and Kharga Oasis. Thus commenced the second part of the operation, ‘Kondor’, namely their task to infiltrate British Army H.Q. and gain access to maps and plans to assist Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Unbeknown to Eppler and his companion, Bletchley Park had intercepted related wireless transmissions, as a consequence of which Cairo - and Sansom - were duly warned of the imminent threat.

Thus ensued a game of cat and mouse, much assisted by Eppler’s and Sandstede’s weaknesses for Cairo nightlife. The former adopted the identity of a wealthy merchant, Hussein Gaffar, and the latter posed as an American businessman, ‘Peter Monkaster’. In fact the intelligence gathering side of ‘Kondor’ proved to be next to useless, Eppler’s outings in the uniform of an officer of the Rifle Brigade gaining him little information. Moreover, Sandstede’s transmissions never reached a dedicated Abwehr team who had been ordered to take on a new initiative by Rommel. Thus the codes based upon Daphne du Maurier’s pre-war novel Rebecca served no real purpose other than to compromise the Germans when a search was undertaken of their hideout; Sandstede’s wireless transmitter was discovered hidden in a gramophone cabinet.

Just how Sansom rumbled the Germans is a complex story, imbued as it is with an extraordinary cast of characters; his first big break came via his investigations into underground nationalists, among them the country’s future president, Anwar el Sadat. In common with other members of the Egyptian Army’s Free Officers’ movement, Sadat had offered Rommel’s forces active support in the event of invasion. The sister of one of Sadat’s cohorts, Zahira Ezzet, had unwittingly befriended one of Sansom’s undercover operatives, believing him to be a fellow nationalist with access to British Army G.H.Q.: the moment she asked him to obtain a plan of G.H.Q., she set in motion ‘Kondor’s’ collapse.

Another cast member who helped Sansom to bring together vital clues was the aforementioned belly dancer with ‘sensational green eyes’, one Hekmat Fahmy. She may have been a looker but, as Mark Simmons observes in The Rebecca Code, she was no Mata Hari. It was through her that Sansom - acting out the role of a Greek money launderer - gained his first meeting with the Germans, Eppler being keen to exchange large quantities of forged British currency which had been supplied by the Abwehr. Another meeting ensued at the Kit Kat Cabaret, followed by an invitation back to Fahmy’s boathouse on the Nile.

Another visitor to the Fahmy’s boathouse that night was Anwar el Sadat, who had been asked by the Germans to improve their wireless communications. Just before midnight, he and Sandstede made their way to the Germans’ nearby boathouse, an abode that Sadat later likened to ‘a place straight out of the Thousand and One Nights, where everything invited indolence, voluptuousness and pleasure of the senses. In this dissolute atmosphere the young Nazis had forgotten the delicate mission with which they had been entrusted.’

As a consequence, Sadat refused to offer his assistance, the two men returning to Fahmy’s boathouse in poor humour. Unbeknown to them, their fellow guest, the Greek money launderer - Sansom - had noted the time of their earlier departure with much interest: for by now it was known from intercepted radio signals that midnight was the allotted hour for ‘Kondor’ transmissions.

A day or two later, and having placed a watch on the Germans’ houseboat, Sansom got his final breakthrough. Another cabaret dancer was picked-up after spending the night there. She claimed to be working for a Palestinian underground movement and was a willing interviewee: thus confirmation of Sandstede’s wireless transmitter hidden in a gramophone cabinet and the fact that he was using Daphne du Maurier’s pre-war novel Rebecca as a code book.

The waiting game over, Sansom and his men quickly set in motion a plan to arrest the Germans in their boathouse. The raid was fixed for 0200 hours on 25 July 1942, a raid supported by the river police. It was a complete success. Eppler - naked and armed with a Luger - was overpowered, Sandstede likewise on the upper deck, where he had thrown his code books overboard. They landed conveniently in one of the river police’s craft. Sansom, having retrieved them, returned to the boathouse, only for Eppler to rush forward in an attempt to grab them: Sansom punched him to the ground and, as the two Germans were being taken away, he coolly advised them, ‘Take my tip and talk, if you want to live.’

Meanwhile, a similar raid was mounted on Fahmy’s boathouse, who was furious when she realised who Sansom really was. He removed bundles of love letters from her numerous British admirers, some of which contained breaches of security.

Within days of their arrest, Eppler was nursing a broken nose and Sandstede botched a suicide attempt by slashing his throat. A large number of their accomplices, including Sadat, were likewise rounded-up. However, contrary to the fate usually afforded spies, both of the Germans were held as political prisoners and survived the war; an attempt to try them as war criminals on their repatriation was curtailed by the intervention of M.I. 6.

Sansom continued to lend valuable service as Chief Security Officer in Cairo until the War’s end, among other tasks overseeing security arrangements for Churchill’s visit in August 1942; see his I Spied Spies for further details.

He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 6 April 1944, refers), in addition to being awarded Middle East Forces C.-in-C’s certificates of appreciation for ‘outstanding service’ in June 1946 and January 1947.

Post-war

Remaining in Egypt after the War, Sansom was employed by the Foreign Office at the British Embassy in Cairo as a Security Officer - with rank of First Secretary on the Diplomatic List - from early 1947 until being expelled from the country in May 1953. Shortly before his departure, he was put under 24-hour ‘watch’ by the authorities, an unhappy chapter that culminated in nasty injuries when his car was forced off the road. He was awarded the M.B.E.

Re-employed by the Intelligence Corps, Sansom was embarked for Malaya in early 1954, where he served until April 1956 and is believed to have been awarded another mention in despatches; verification required.

Placed on the Army Reserve of Officers as a Major in May 1957, he met Eppler again in London for the premiere of the film ‘Foxhole in Cairo’ in 1960, and in 1965 he published I Spied Spies. He died at Balzan, Malta in February 1973.

Sold with a quantity of original documentation, including the recipient’s M.B.E. warrant, with related Statutes; his M.I.D. certificate, dated 6 April 1944; Middle East Forces C.-in-C’s certificates of appreciation for outstanding service (2), dated June 1946 and January 1947; three large format group photographs; copies of the recipient’s autobiography, I Spied Spies (1965), The Cat and The Mice, by Leonard Mosley (1958), and The Rebecca Code - Rommel’s Spy in North Africa and Operation Kondor, by Mark Simmons (2012); together with a gilt metal cigarette case, the lid engraved, ‘A.W.S.’ and ‘Best Wishes From B.E.S.C., Cairo, 1949.’