Mutt and Jeff were two Norwegian

spies Spies most commonly refers to people who engage in spying, espionage or clandestine operations. Spies or The Spies may also refer to: * Spies (surname), a German surname * Spies (band), a jazz fusion band * Spies (song), "Spies" (song), a song by ...

who worked for the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...

and were members of the

Double Cross System The Double-Cross System or XX System was a World War II counter-espionage and deception operation of the British Security Service (a civilian organisation usually referred to by its cover title MI5). Nazi agents in Britain – real and false – w ...

. In April 1941 two

Norwegians Norwegians ( no, nordmenn) are a North Germanic ethnic group and nation native to Norway, where they form the vast majority of the population. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegians are descended from the N ...

, John "Helge" Moe (Mutt) and Tor Glad (Jeff) fetched up on a remote

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

beach in Scotland, having travelled by seaplane and rubber dinghy. They immediately turned themselves in to the local police as German spies. MI5 soon 'turned' them, assigning them their codenames, which were the names of a pair of

cartoon strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st c ...

characters (see

Mutt and Jeff ''Mutt and Jeff'' was a long-running and widely popular American newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Fisher in 1907 about "two mismatched tinhorns". It is commonly regarded as the first daily comic strip. The concept of a newsp ...

). 'Mutt and Jeff' is also

rhyming slang Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhymin ...

for 'deaf'. Mutt and Jeff's mission was supposed to be one of sabotage, as well as having a secondary intelligence role, reporting (via wireless) military locations, deployments and civilian morale. MI5 used Mutt and Jeff's radio sets to relay false information, leading the Germans to believe that the United Kingdom intended to invade Norway (this activity was a component of

Operation Fortitude Operation Fortitude was the code name for a World War II military deception employed by the Allied nations as part of an overall deception strategy (code named ''Bodyguard'') during the build-up to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was di ...

). To ensure the German handlers did not suspect Mutt and Jeff of having sold out, MI5 arranged for fake sabotage operations - supposedly the work of the pair - to take place, in one case going so far as to set off a controlled explosion at a power plant which was widely reported in the local media as a genuine attack. Doubts about Glad's reliability led MI5 to eventually

intern An internship is a period of work experience offered by an organization for a limited period of time. Once confined to medical graduates, internship is used practice for a wide range of placements in businesses, non-profit organizations and gover ...

him in 1943, and his radio transmissions were carried on by Moe until February 1944. By then MI5 believed that the Germans may have learned of Glad's detention, and so the operation was brought to a close.

References

External links

IWM Interview with John Moe
{{Authority control Double agents Double-Cross System Norwegian people of World War II World War II spies for Germany World War II spies for the United Kingdom

References

Further reading

External links