Eddie Chapman

Arnold Edward Chapman, a patriotic crook, died on December 15th 1997, aged 83

The film, called “Triple Cross”, was made in 1966 but it was a lively yarn and turns up occasionally on late-night television. A crook, Eddie Chapman, becomes a spy in the second world war, pretending to work for the Germans but really employed by the British. The Germans award him the Iron Cross and the British acclaim him as a hero, happily pardoning him for his crimes.

The film was almost true. But the real-life tale of Mr Chapman was even better, for those who like real life. Christopher Plummer, who played Mr Chapman, made him a Bond-like character, shrewd, attractive to women, handy with his fists. But Eddie Chapman was, at least in his early life, far from being an elegant figure. He grew up in Sunderland, in the industrial north of England, and for a time worked in the shipyards. But when work became scarce in the 1930s, he joined the army. He was not considered a good soldier and, after several spells in army prisons, he was thrown out. He took up crime; at first smashing shop windows and grabbing what he could, and then learning the more profitable trade of safe-breaking.

In 1940, when the Germans occupied the British-owned Channel Islands, Eddie Chapman was in a local jail. The Germans took an interest in him. Here was a man who appeared to have a grudge against Britain. Would he like to work for the fatherland? Mr Chapman said he would, very much. He was sent to France to be trained as a spy, and one night in December 1942 he parachuted out of a German aircraft over eastern England. He was equipped with a radio transmitter, a pistol, a bottle of invisible ink, a wallet full of British money and, just in case things got desperate, a cyanide pill.

The British were waiting for him. For all the Germans’ much-vaunted efficiency in other enterprises, their wartime spy organisation, the Abwehr, was a dud. The Germans’ codes had been broken. British intelligence already knew a great deal about the man the Germans called, not very originally, Fritzchen (Little Fritz). As German agents arrived in Britain they were arrested and given a choice: work for the British or be hanged. Did Mr Chapman want to work for the British? He did, very much. In any case, he told Sir John Masterman, an intelligence chief, his whole purpose in pretending to collaborate with the Germans was to get to Britain to fight for king and country.

The task Fritzchen had been given by the Germans was to blow up a factory which was making an aircraft called the Mosquito. This was one of the war’s most revolutionary aircraft, made of wood for lightness and the fastest thing in the air. Using the services of Jasper Maskelyne, who in civilian life had been a conjuror, the British faked extensive damage at the Mosquito factory. Newspapers were allowed to report the “explosion”, and aerial photographs taken by a German aircraft convinced the Abwehr that Fritz had done extraordinarily well. They had no reason to doubt the truth of subsequent messages that flowed from Mr Chapman’s radio, compiled by the creative minds of the intelligence service.

The Abwehr told him to return to Germany to be briefed for further missions, and offered to fetch him in a U-boat. The British preferred to allow him to return via Portugal, formally a neutral country but under the thumb of Germany. In Lisbon Mr Chapman picked up his German salary and a bonus for good work, went on a long holiday in Norway and then to Berlin to get his Iron Cross.

In 1944 he was again dropped on to England. The Germans wanted to know whether their missiles – the forerunners of the space rockets – were reaching the cities they were aimed at. The misleading information Mr Chapman sent them probably saved many civilian lives. The British were grateful and, within the confines of wartime, Mr Chapman lived a comfortable life. He received a pardon for any crimes committed before the war. But as an agent he had one great drawback. He could not keep a secret. To his old cronies he would hint of his daring exploits. Whether they believed him or not, a talkative agent was a menace to the intelligence service. Mr Chapman was retired. In any case, Germany was almost beaten.

After the war he wrote about his experiences. An account was published in a French newspaper, but Mr Chapman found himself in a court of law when he sold his story to a British newspaper. He was accused of disclosing official secrets and fined. He was again in trouble for a currency offence, but a government official softened the heart of the judge by stating that Mr Chapman was “one of the bravest men who served in the war”. He was in the news again when he was deported from Tangier for smuggling. And in 1966 he had his moment ofglory in the Christopher Plummer film. In a war that has produced many extraordinary stories, Mr Chapman’s was among the oddest. Just how much glory there was is a matter of conjecture. But this is the season of goodwill.