David Tremain

Mathilde Carré, notoriously known as La Chatte, was remarkable for all the wrong reasons. Like most spies she was temperamental, scheming and manipulative – but she was also treacherous. A dangerous mix, especially when combined with her infamous history of love affairs – on both sides. Her acts of treachery were almost unprecedented in the history of intelligence, yet her involvement in the ‘Interallié affair’ has only warranted a brief mention in the accounts of special operations in France during the Second World War. But what motivated her to betray more than 100 members of the Interallié network, the largest spy network in France? Was she the only guilty party, or were others equally as culpable? Using previously unpublished material from MI5 files, Double Agent Victoire explores the events that led to her betrayal, who may have ‘cast the first stone’, and their motivations, as well as how the lives and careers of those involved were affected. It reveals a story full of intrigue, sex, betrayal and double-dealing, involving a rich cast including members of the French Resistance, German Abwehr and British Intelligence.

Two German defectors who were to serve British Intelligence from 1942 to 1945 were, in many ways, two of a kind. One was a Nazi, having served in the Waffen-SS and given the code name COLUMBINE as a double agent under the Double-Cross System, while the other was not. Both had become disillusioned with the way things were going with the war and generally disgusted with the Nazi regime and resolved to try to change the course of events. One was an adventurer who claimed after the war to have been a British agent and parachuted into France, yet nothing could have been further from the truth. He even tried his hand at acting in an American B-movie. There was also a family connection with a future British prime minister. Like many spies, they both had large egos and were good at manufacturing information or distorting the truth. One of them ended up working for the Political Warfare Executive, so it is perhaps not surprising that he exploited his craft in post-war West Germany, mostly for his own ends. Between them, they were to cause MI5 a lot of headaches both during the war and afterwards into the Cold War period.

Compared to many of MI5's other double agents, HARLEQUIN’s career was very short-lived, lasting only for a few months in 1943. However, during that time he provided insights into the various parties involved in the Appeasement process in 1938; the Czech crisis of 1939; the enterprises of a Franco-American businessman who hosted the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s marriage in France; the espionage activities of an aristocratic German family; Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr – many of the Abwehr’s personalities with whom he had come into contact or had known about and the agents he employed – as well as relations between the disparate organisations of the German intelligence services – the Abwehr, Gestapo, and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the SS. Furthermore, he revealed the German Armistice Commission’s involvement in espionage and their links to the Abwehr. MI5 shared this intelligence with the FBI and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) before HARLEQUIN requested that he be returned to American custody where he remained for the rest of the war. His effectiveness as a double agent will be examined using newly-released official files as a primary source.

Dickie Metcalfe was not your typical secret agent, but he was larger than life in more ways than one. Unlike many other agents who were part of the Double Cross System during the Second World War, he did not defect; nor was he blackmailed into becoming a spy. Instead, using his father's connection with Sir Vernon Kell, the first Director of MI5, Metcalfe volunteered his services. Recently cashiered from his infantry regiment, he had an ulterior motive - by supplying MI5 with titbits of information about weapons and arms deals in his newfound profession as an arms dealer, he hoped they would be able to help him get his commission reinstated. Metcalfe became BALLOON, a sub-agent of double agent TRICYCLE's Yugoslav spy ring. Concurrent with his spying activities, he collaborated with the co-inventor of the Bren gun to develop a new submachine gun for British forces. After the war, he was also a celebrated motor racing driver and continued to compete until shortly before his death. His success as a double-cross agent in the eyes of both his masters - British and German - is examined in this book, using official documents as a primary source.

There have been many remarkable women who served British Intelligence during the Second World War. One whose dubious claim to have worked for them is a fascinating tale involving three marriages - the first, to a spurious White Russian prince; the second to a playboy-turned-criminal involved in a major jewellery robbery in the heart of London's Mayfair in the late 1930s. After the war she became romantically involved with a well-known British Fascist, but finally married another notorious criminal whom she had met earlier during the war. The descriptions variously ascribed to her ranged from 'remarkable' and 'quite ravishing' to '...a woman whose loose living would make her an object of shame on any farm-yard'. Until now, very little has been recorded about Stella Lonsdale's life. She doesn't even merit a mention in the two official histories of MI5, even though she managed to tie them up in knots for years. This book will explore the role this strange woman may or may not have played in working for British Intelligence, the French Deuxieme Bureau, or the Abwehr - German military intelligence - during the Second World War, using her MI5 files as a primary source.

Early in the morning of 18 May 1942, three Dutchmen were captured in the North Sea and taken to MI5. It soon became clear that one in particular, Johannes Marinus Dronkers, was no mere refugee escaping the Nazi occupation. He had a hidden agenda: to betray secrets about the state of Britain’s war preparedness to the German Abwehr. It was to be an intriguing episode in the cat-and-mouse game played between German and British intelligence. But was Dronkers guilty, or was he made an example of by the British authorities, his fate pre-determined by the climate of war-torn Britain? And why wasn’t he turned, as MI5 had done and would do to many other enemy spies? The Dronkers case raises important questions about the process of dealing with wartime spies and the punishments meted out by British authorities. Using newly available official files and other sources, this book examines the details of Dronkers’ recruitment, capture and interrogation by MI5, as well as his trial at the Old Bailey. David Tremain compares the Dronkers case with that of other wartime spies, reveals the Abwehr’s lost recipe for secret ink, and exposes exactly what made a Dutchman escape to England in 1942 betray his country. This unsettling story has remained a little-known episode of the Second World War until now.

In September 1940 a beautiful young woman arrived by seaplane and rubber dinghy on the shores of Scotland accompanied by two men – one of Germany’s many attempt to penetrate British defences and infiltrate spies into the UK. This seems to be one of the few established facts in the otherwise mysterious tale of Vera Eriksen. Even the origins of the woman described as ‘the most beautiful spy’ remain hazy, as does her ultimate fate. David Tremain delves into the archives, and in doing so begins to reveal glimpses of her fascinating life story: her career as a dancer in Paris; a tumultuous and violent dalliance with a White Russian officer of uncertain identity; her time in England with the Duchesse de Château-Thierry, an Abwehr agent; the suspicious and untimely death of her husband, and a rumoured pregnancy. The Beautiful Spy also grapples with perhaps the biggest mystery of all: what happened to Vera after she was released by the British?

Mathilde Carré, notoriously known as La Chatte, was remarkable for all the wrong reasons. Like most spies she was temperamental, scheming and manipulative – but she was also treacherous. A dangerous mix, especially when combined with her infamous history of love affairs – on both sides. Her acts of treachery were almost unprecedented in the history of intelligence, yet her involvement in the ‘Interallié affair’ has only warranted a brief mention in the accounts of special operations in France during the Second World War. But what motivated her to betray more than 100 members of the Interallié network, the largest spy network in France? Was she the only guilty party, or were others equally as culpable? Using previously unpublished material from MI5 files, Double Agent Victoire explores the events that led to her betrayal, who may have ‘cast the first stone’, and their motivations, as well as how the lives and careers of those involved were affected. It reveals a story full of intrigue, sex, betrayal and double-dealing, involving a rich cast including members of the French Resistance, German Abwehr and British Intelligence.

What made a Dutchman escape to England in 1942 ostensibly to betray his country to the Germans? This story has remained a mysterious episode of the Second World War until now.