BY
Escaping and evading are ancient arts of war. In this field as in so many others modern technology has enabled new and harder edges to be put on old weapons. The story of how MI 9, the British escape service and MIS-X its later American equivalent protected and encouraged the activities of escapers and evaders has never before been told in full, nor have these secret departments’ own papers hitherto been explored.
Though I was lucky enough never to be taken prisoner, perhaps I had the escape side of the business in my blood. My maternal uncle, Maurice Johnston of the Royal Artillery, was taken in Kut-el-Amara in 1915 and got away from Yozgad in Anatolia in 1918, an adventure he describes in his book 450 Miles to Freedom; and my cousin Claude Templer of the Gloucestershire Regiment who was taken, unconscious, in December 1914 escaped successfully at his thirteenth attempt, only to be killed a few days before the Armistice.
I am proud to have been partially responsible for the setting up of MI 9, and delighted to find that the supposition I shared with others, that prisoners of war had considerable military potential, turned out correct. I am glad also to see that these secret services’ successes and rare failures, and the highly efficient example they provided of Anglo-American accord, are set out by men who were involved in the struggle at the time and understand it from within.
The authors have steadfastly refused to seek sensation at the expense of truth, in contrast to far too many books of wartime viiiadventure. Joint authorship has also helped to eliminate the personal bias that so often mars war autobiographies and the lives of individual sailors, soldiers and airmen. Moreover they have taken care, startling though many of their stories are, not to say anything that might endanger servicemen in the future.
I knew some of the early staff of MI 9, and am in no doubt that a tribute to them and to their American colleagues is long overdue.
I would also like to join the authors in recalling with pride and sorrow the prisoners who died in enemy hands, and the thousands upon thousands of men, women and children who gave their lives in enemy-occupied territory for freedom’s sake. There are many heroes and heroines in this book. This is the first time that a proper tribute has been paid to that splendid soldier, Norman Crockatt, who made so many of their gallant deeds possible.