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Camp 020
Camp 020 at Latchmere House in southwest London was a British interrogation centre for captured German agents during the Second World War. It was run by Lieutenant Colonel Robin "Tin Eye" Stephens. Although other wartime interrogation centres were alleged to have used torture to extract confessions, Stephens denied claims that torture had been used at Camp 020. His instructions for interrogators ordered: “Never strike a man. In the first place it is an act of cowardice. In the second place, it is not intelligent. A prisoner will lie to avoid further punishment and everything he says thereafter will be based on a false premise.” It is known that Stephens punished those who disobeyed this order, and in one case ejected a senior War Office interrogator from the camp. After the war, Stephens ran another in Bad Nenndorf in Germany but was tried for the maltreatment of prisoners, some of whom died. He was tried in a British military court of inquiry in Germany and found not guilty, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Larratt Battersby
James Larratt Battersby (5 February 1907 – 14–29 September 1955) was a British fascist and pacifist, and a member of the Battersby family of hatmakers of Stockport, Greater Manchester, England. He was forced to retire from the family firm due to his politics and was interned by the British government during the Second World War along with other British fascists. During his detention he came to believe that Adolf Hitler was Christ returned, and after the war wrote ''The Holy Book and Testament of Adolf Hitler''. He committed suicide by leaping into the paddle wheels of a ferry. Early life and family James Larratt Battersby was born in Stockport in 1907. His father was James Johnson Battersby of the old-established Stockport firm of Battersby Hats and James junior was a director of the firm. His father was travelling as a first class passenger on the at the time of her sinking in 1915, after the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat, and was the last to be rescued before t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Cage
The London Cage, also known as Connor McCracken's room, was an MI19 prisoner-of-war facility during and after the Second World War to mainly interrogate captured Germans, including SS personnel and members of the Nazi Party. The unit, which was located within numbers 6, 7 and 8 Kensington Palace Gardens in London, was itself investigated following accusations that it often used torture to extract information. It was wound down in early 1948. History The United Kingdom systematically interrogated all of its prisoners of war. A "cage" for interrogation of prisoners was established in 1940 in each command area of the United Kingdom, manned by officers trained by Alexander Scotland, the head of the Prisoner of War Interrogation Section (PWIS) of the Intelligence Corps (Field Security Police). The prisoners were sent to prison camps after their interrogation at the cages. Nine cages were established from southern England to Scotland, with the London cage also being "an important ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 – were captured, turned themselves in or simply announced themselves, and were then used by the British to broadcast mainly disinformation to their Nazi controllers. Its operations were overseen by the Twenty Committee under the chairmanship of John Cecil Masterman; the name of the committee comes from the number 20 in Roman numerals: "XX" (i.e. a double cross). The policy of MI5 during the war was initially to use the system for counter-espionage. It was only later that its potential for deception purposes was realised. Of the agents from the German intelligence services, ''Abwehr'' and ''Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD), some were apprehended, while many of the agents who reached British shores turned themselves in to the authorities; others were a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gastão De Freitas Ferraz
Gastão de Freitas Ferraz was a Portuguese spy working for the Abwehr. He was one of two radio operators on board the ''Gil Eannes'', the codfish fleet support ship on the Atlantic. Ferraz almost succeeded in alerting the German military leadership to the imminent "Operation Torch" in 1942. The British HMS ''Duke of York'' stopped the ''Gil Eannes'' on 1 November 1942 and a commando arrested Freitas. During interrogation Freitas was shown a photo of the Abwehr resident in Lisbon, Kuno Weltzien. Freitas became nervous at this moment. The British had picked up radio traffic indicating naval espionage, possibly compromising the secrecy on "Operation Torch". On 15 October MI5 had asked for permission to arrest the neutral Portuguese fishermen, since they knew about two radio contacts of the fishing fleet to the Germans. Freitas was interned in "Camp 020" at London with 500 other spies, some of whom then radioed false messages to the Germans as double agents. The ''Gil Eannes'' had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duncan Scott-Ford
Duncan Alexander Croall Scott-Ford (4 September 1921 – 3 November 1942) was a British merchant seaman who was hanged for treachery after giving information to an enemy agent during the Second World War. Early life Scott-Ford was born in Plymouth, Devon, with the name Duncan Alexander Croall Smith, the son of Duncan Scott Smith who worked as a sick bed orderly in the Royal Navy. His father died on 23 March 1933 after catching pneumonia from the effects of taking an overdose of morphine in a suicide attempt, and Smith changed his surname to Scott-Ford in an attempt to improve his social status. He was educated at the Royal Hospital School, Holbrook from 1933 to 1937, and then on turning 16, enlisted in the Royal Navy and joined the shore establishment HMS ''Impregnable'' in Devonport in December 1937. Service career Royal Navy In June 1939 Scott-Ford was serving on HMS ''Gloucester'' which had called at Dar-es-Salaam on a goodwill visit. He met and became infatuated by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wulf Schmidt
Wulf Dietrich Christian Schmidt, later known as Harry Williamson (7 December 1911 – 19 October 1992) was a Danish citizen who became a double agent working for Britain against Nazi Germany during the Second World War under the codename Tate. He was part of the Double Cross System, under which all German agents in Britain were controlled by MI5 and used to deceive Germany. Nigel West singled him out as "one of the seven spies who changed the world." Career as a double agent Schmidt was sent to Britain by the Abwehr in September 1940, landing by parachute. He was arrested immediately, as a captured agent had divulged the time of his arrival in return for a promise that Schmidt, a friend, would not be executed. Schmidt broke down under interrogation and became a double agent, making contact with Germany by radio in October 1940. He was one of the longest running agents in the Double Cross System; his last contact with Germany was on 2 May 1945. He operated his radio himself unti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karel Richard Richter
Karel Richard Richter (29 January 1912 – 10 December 1941) was a German spy who was executed by hanging at Wandsworth Prison. Richter was captured on 14 May 1941 after parachuting into the United Kingdom during the Second World War.West, p.259 He was convicted of espionage at the Old Bailey on 24 October 1941, sentenced to death and hanged on 10 December 1941 at Wandsworth Prison. Early life Richter was a Czechoslovak citizen born in 1912 in Austria-Hungary, in Kraslice in the Sudetenland.MI5 file, KV2/30, folio 4a His parents were Richard Richter, a metal worker, and Marie Burgert. Richter had one sister, Gertrude, who later married a Totzauer and one brother, František.MI5 file, KV2/30, folio 15a From 1918 to 1923, Richter attended the State School in Kraslice. When he was 11 years old, Richter attended the Staats-Oberreal-Gymnasium in the city of Most (Brüx in German). Richter graduated in 1927 at the age of 16 years and spent the next two years working as an apprentice a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christiaan Lindemans
Christiaan Antonius Lindemans (24 October 1912 – 18 July 1946) was a Dutch double agent during the Second World War, working under Soviet control. Otherwise known as Freddi Desmet, a Belgian army officer and SOE agent with security clearance at the Dutch Military Intelligence Division of the SOE (MID/SOE). He was known by the soubriquets "King Kong" (for his height and build) or in some circles as "''le Tueur''" ("The Killer") as he was reportedly ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. There is speculation that Lindemans was a member of Colonel Claude Dansey's Z organisation. He has been blamed for betraying Operation Market Garden and as a result helped the Germans win the battle of Arnhem in 1944. The loss of this battle prolonged the war for six months and allowed the Red Army to enter Berlin first. Krist, as he was called by comrades, had worked for the Allies, being personally responsible for the death of at least twenty-seven Germans during the guerrilla war i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Werner Von Janowski
Werner Alfred Waldemar von Janowski, (Abwehr-codenamed "Bobbi"; Allied-codenamed WATCHDOG), was a captured German Second World War Nazi spy and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's first double agent. He is believed to have been a triple agent by some, underscoring the RCMP's inexperience in espionage. Due to power struggles between the Canadian and British intelligence agencies during the Second World War and the RCMP's inexperience, Operation Watchdog was a failure. Janowski provided little significant intelligence to the Allies: no Abwehr agents were arrested and no U-boats were captured, despite his apparent cooperation. Within a year the operation was shut down and Janowski was sent to a prison in Britain. Espionage career Janowski disembarked from the submarine at Chaleur Bay, four miles (6.4 km) west of New Carlisle, Quebec, around 5 a.m., on November 9, 1942. His destination was Montreal, having first to stop in New Carlisle so he could take the first train out. At 6 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Jakobs
Josef Jakobs (30 June 1898 – 15 August 1941) was a German spy and the last person to be executed at the Tower of London. He was captured shortly after parachuting into the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Convicted of espionage under the Treachery Act 1940, Jakobs was sentenced to death and subsequently shot by a military firing squad. He was not hanged since he was captured as an enemy combatant. Early life Jakobs, who was a German citizen, was born in Luxembourg in 1898. During the First World War, he served in the German infantry, rising to the rank of ''Leutnant'', in the 4th Foot Guards. In June 1940, ten months after the outbreak of the Second World War, Jakobs was drafted into the ''Wehrmacht'' as an '' Oberleutnant''. However, when it was discovered that he had been imprisoned in Switzerland from 1934 to 1937 for selling counterfeit gold, he was forced to resign his commission in the Wehrmacht. Jakobs was demoted to a ''Feldwebel'' ( NCO) and placed in the ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacques De Duve
Ancient and noble French family names, Jacques, Jacq, or James are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over one hundred identified noble families related to the surname by the Nobility & Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland. Origins The origin of this surname ultimately originates from the Latin, Jacobus which belongs to an unknown progenitor. Jacobus comes from the Hebrew name, Yaakov, which translates as "one who follows" or "to follow after". Ancient history A French knight returning from the Crusades in the Holy Lands probably adopted the surname from "Saint Jacques" (or "James the Greater"). James the Greater was one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles, and is believed to be the first martyred apostle. Being endowed with this surname was an honor at the time and it is likely that the Church allowed it because of acts during the Crusades. Indeed, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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