27 Sep Agent Zigzag
Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal by Ben Macintyre is the amazing story of World War II double agent Eddie Chapman. During the war, the indefatigable British intelligence captured and turned every German spy. That included Eddie Chapman, German codename Fritz, MI5 codename Zigzag.
Chapman was a small time crook and conman. He was handsome, charming, and he loved the ladies. Unfortunately, he was in prison in the British Channel Islands when the Germans took over. Chapman fast-talked his way into becoming a spy. The Abwehr trained him and sent him to England where Chapman immediately contacted MI5 and agreed to become a double agent. It’s amazing how easily the Germans were duped.
One of Zigzag’s jobs was to come to London for damage assessments of the V-1 and V-2 bombings. The V-1s were the buzz bombs. the vengeance weapons that Hitler sent to Britain right after the Normandy invasion. This was while my mother was working for the Office of Strategic Services in London, and she was right in the middle of it all. The misinformation that Chapman sent back to Berlin led the Germans to believe that their aim was perfect when in fact they were off. If they had corrected their aim, many more lives could have been lost.
Eddie Chapman next to a Rolls Royce. Was it his? Declassified from the UK National Archives.
I am a huge Ben Macintyre fan: Operation Mincement and A Spy Among Friends are two other espionage book I have read and reviewed. The 1966 movie Triple Cross, starring Christopher Plummer and Yul Brynner is based on the life of Eddie Chapman. I need to go back and watch it again. I wrote that “The true story is better than the movie.” That’s for sure.
Author Macintyre has pulled it all together with extensive research of the many now-unclassified MI5 files about Chapman. It’s one of the most fascinating espionage stories of the war.
Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal at amazon.com
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