Eppler in his book claims that they garnered information on British troop and vehicle movements with help from a nationalist-inclined belly dancer Hekmet Fahmy (Eppler's friend from his younger days), as well as other dancers and escorts in the bars and nightclubs of Cairo - a very lively city during the war and the destination of thousands of Allied service personnel 'on leave' (R&amp;R). Eppler claimed to have often posed as a lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade of the British Army and used expertly forged British and Egyptian banknotes. Using a prearranged system of codes based on Daphne du Maurier's book "Rebecca" he claims to have managed to make temporary radio contact with a German forward radio interception post near Alamein (the nearest to Cairo Axis forces had reached before the Battle of El Alamein). However communication problems forced them to request assistance from the Cairo-based Free Officers Movement, who were at the time nominally pro-Axis in the belief that they would 'liberate' Egypt from the British. A young Anwar El Sadat (who much later would become Egyptian President) was sent to help with Eppler and Sandstede's radio equipment.