Proceed to Peshawar. George J. Hill
British and Americans against the Germans and Italians, but not against the Japanese. The fortunes of the Allies looked grim in 1941 and 1942, and Burma—and India itself—appeared to be in peril. Under Rommel the Germans and Italians drove to just outside Cairo. The Germans then turned on the Soviet Union and pushed the Russians back to Stalingrad and Moscow. The Afghans wanted to be on the winning side, and it took all of Enders’ skills to persuade them that the Allies, led by America, would turn the corner. His insouciance, which irritated some of his colleagues, was just right for this mission.
Enders traveled widely in Afghanistan from the time he arrived in December 1941 until he was reassigned to New Delhi in December 1943. Most of his letters are in the archives of Military Intelligence (RG 165), but some are in the State Department archives, on microfilm. As an example, Enders, by letter of 30 March 1943, requested a Dodge carryall for the Afghan king, at the king’s request, and Enders requested it be the U.S. Army Air Force’s Dodge, diverted to be used by the king.14
Some of Enders’ military intelligence reports were reviewed by one or two and sometimes three different people, using a red pencil and occasionally ink, in different handwriting. They critically, and sometimes sarcastically, reviewed Enders’ comments on geography, history, and politics, with global statements like “False.” They frequently corrected his spelling and distances, sometimes very sharply. I do not know if Enders ever saw these comments, but if he did he must have been furious. The reports show that Enders had many, many problems with the various Afghan factions, foreign diplomats, Axis operatives, the OSS, his counterparts in the American diplomatic service, and the British.
One of Enders’ reports was dated 6 September 1943, on “Afghanistan’s Strategic Geography.” This report describes the area that Enders planned to visit in India in November and December 1943. It implies that he already knew what he planned to see in India. The most relevant portion is Part IV, “Attack from the South”: “Tribal Complications: Any advance from India is complicated by the Tribal Areas which contain uncertain elements of riflemen, totalling some 50,000, who are well known for their warlike qualities and readiness to fight. In order to cope with this potentially dangerous threat in the rear, the sub-bases at Parachinar, Miram Shah, Wanna [corrected in red pencil to Wana] and Fort Sandeman would be necessary.”15
Other reports in this folder show problems that Enders encountered, some of which were of his own making, and others resulted when he needed to be confrontational. For example, on 20 October 1943 Enders drove in a two-car caravan to Kabul from Peshawar with Sir Aurel Stein, who was eighty-one and in poor health. Because of Stein’s advanced age and illness, Enders went on ahead with Stein and arrived in Kabul at 4:30 p.m. When the other car did not arrive by 6:00 p.m., he went back to look for it. The other car had mechanical problems, and needed assistance. His memo to the minister on 22 October gives the harrowing details of the trip to recover the other vehicle.16 Stein died on 26 October and was buried in Kabul. Another memorandum for the minister, this one on 4 November 1943, provides details of a trip by a two-car caravan to the border with India at Torkham, where “the Afghan soldiers attempted to stop the car by hanging onto the fenders.” He shook them off and drove on to Quetta.17
If Enders had the chance to talk about his plans for the trip, he would surely have discussed them, or even bragged about them, to Louis Dreyfus, the U.S. minister to Iran. Charles Thayer stayed with Dreyfus in Tehran on his way into Afghanistan, and Enders met him in Tehran to escort him to Kabul. Dreyfus would later be the host of the successful Tehran Conference of FDR, Churchill, and Stalin that took place while the trip to the NWFP province was under way. Dreyfus left Iran for his next post on 12 December, just before the trip ended. Dreyfus would return to Afghanistan as ambassador in April 1949.18
Enders arrived in Peshawar to meet the other travelers—Bromhead and Zimmermann—on 15 November 1943, a day later than expected. He was alone in his jeep, nicknamed “Ma Kabul.”
The Baronet: Bromhead
Sir Benjamin Denis Gonville Bromhead, Bart., OBE, IA, known as “Sir Benjy,” was a hereditary knight, the fifth Baronet Bromhead.19 He was about to make the trip on the NWFP that Enders had been waiting to take ever since he came to Peshawar in 1941. But no matter how much Enders wanted to make the trip, Bromhead’s consent for it was essential.
Benjy Bromhead was born on 7 May 1900 and was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire, England. He went to India as a young man and spent his military career mainly in the NWFP. He fought in the Iraq Campaign in 1920 and in the Waziristan campaign from 1922 to 1924, where he was wounded. He fought in the NWFP in 1930, where he was mentioned in despatches. He fought in the Waziristan campaign in 1937, where he was again mentioned in despatches. He was commandant of the Zhob Militia, Baluchistan, between 1940 and 1943. He was invested as an officer, Order of the British Empire (OBE), in 1943.
Bromhead was taking on a new role as assistant public relations officer for the province, working out of the governor’s office in Peshawar. He planned to take an orientation trip along the entire border at the end of November 1943, from the northernmost semi-independent principality, Chitral, to the key southern city, Quetta. The trip would include visits to all of the tribal areas. He knew most of this region already, but the leaders needed to be visited regularly, and he needed to introduce himself to them in his new capacity. He was asked to take Enders along to show him the problems that the British had with the frontier tribes, and how they dealt with them. He and the intelligence officer in Quetta discussed this, and decided that, if possible, a third person ought to be added to the mission. The person selected would be from the naval liaison office (NLO) in Karachi.
Bromhead and his wife, Lady Nancy, and their two young daughters were living at the Services Hotel on Fort Road, near the Governor’s House. She was pregnant with their third child, who they expected would be born at about the time the trip ended.
The Socialite: Zimmermann
The intelligence bureau in Quetta (IB Quetta) asked Bromhead if he could also take one of the Americans from the NLO in Karachi, to be added as a third traveler. Bromhead agreed, subject to the governor’s sanction “which he said he thought would certainly be forthcoming.”20 The man who was picked for this was Albert Walter Zimmermann, USNR. Zimmermann, who for the sake of simplicity is often referred to hereafter as AZ, appears to have been picked at random. However, there are good reasons to believe he was a specific choice, and the message from IB Quetta was carefully written to ensure that he, and only he, would be sent.
Al Zimmermann was the second ranking officer at the NLO in Karachi. He would ordinarily have been the executive officer, but had not been officially named to that position; he would later become the commanding officer (CO). His position as a naval liaison officer (ALUSLO) was analogous to an assistant naval attaché. Like all naval attachés, naval observers, and ALUSLOs, he was trained as an intelligence officer. And, like most of them at this point in the war, he was a reservist.21
Albert W. Zimmermann was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 11 June 1902, the youngest of seven children of John Zimmermann and Eva Katherine (Kellenbenz) Zimmermann. John Zimmermann had come to America from Gussenstad in the kingdom of Württemberg in 1874 as a nearly penniless man of eighteen with no close friends. He was, however, a member of the hardworking and close-knit German community in Philadelphia, and he achieved the American Dream. As a weaver, he started by selling his own carpets from a push cart on the streets of Philadelphia, where he was spotted by the owners of the Philadelphia Tapestry Mills. They took him in as an employee, and he later rose to be their partner. His patents made it possible to weave enormous carpets, and their company, renamed Artloom Corporation, became one of the largest of its type in America. In his later years, he was a very wealthy but charitable man, and he was bishop of the reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints in the eastern United States. John Zimmermann made each of his children a gift of $1 million when they married.
Albert Zimmermann received a degree in electrical engineering when he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1923, where he had been a member of Sigma Tau (Honorary Engineering Fraternity), a member of the Sphinx Honorary Senior Society, and president of the Glee Club. He entered the family carpet and fabric business and eventually became a vice president of the company.