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As German tanks rolled over the border and occupied Poland on 1 September 1939, one of Britain’s most senior spymasters MI6 intelligence officer Thomas Joseph Kendrick arrived at the Tower of London. Within a special compound, away from the public eye, he opened a unit that would secretly bug ...
MI9 is best known for the daring exploits of escape and evasion by soldiers and airmen in the Second World War. New research uncovered in declassified files by Eye Spy associate editor and historian Dr Helen Fry now adds to the superb histories of MI9 written after the war by Airey Neave, and ...
It was the 1st Duke of Marlborough (1715) who once said: ‘No war can be conducted successfully without early and good intelligence.’ That was also the belief of Hugh ‘Quex’ Sinclair (the head of MI6) in 1938 as Britain faced the escalating threat of war from Nazi Germany. Sinclair believed ...
In autumn 1940 British intelligence, MI9, opened a secret interrogation centre on behalf of in the heart of the millionaire enclave of London’s Kensington Palace Gardens. Taking over Nos. 6-7 and 8 & 8a, its commanding officer Colonel Alexander Scotland ensured that the mansion houses were ...
Book Reviews
In the 1950s and 60s, Word War Two was a recent memory for most families who had nearly all been involved in the struggle one way or another. At that time, escape stories and the daring exploits of servicemen who had been captured regularly appeared on shop bookshelves. Films were released like
British Intelligence operations of the Second World War have been the frequent subject of both scholarly and creative attention, often appearing in popular culture in films such as The Imitation Game and A Call To Spy. Some might argue that there is little left to uncover on the topic, but ...
Most of us have probably never heard of Operation Foursquare, a top secret operation into Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War. On the night of 4th May 1945, an RAF plane takes off from Dijon in France, with four Czech soldiers on board, who have been given secret instructions. The
On a Saturday in 2012, journalist Simon Kuper had the highly sought-after opportunity to interview the last surviving traitor of the Cold War, George Blake, in his dacha (home) outside Moscow. As it turned out, Kuper is believed to have been the last Western journalist to interview Blake. Kuper
Recent years have seen a welcome recognition of the many women who worked in top secret roles with the intelligence services, particularly during the Second World War. Helen Fry’s highly impressive new book on Women in Intelligence goes even further, describing how the two world wars, with men ...
Author Interviews
What first attracted you to the period or periods you work in?I have always been interested in history – inspired from a charismatic and quirky history teacher at school. As a teenager I loved to read historical fiction from the Tudor period. I was obsessed with Elizabeth I. However, doing A level history nearly killed my love ...
Helen, Women in Intelligence was very well received when first published. Is this an area of espionage history that is under-developed?
Most definitely. It is an area where historians still need to research deeply in declassified files and record what the women did in