The Hornet's Sting (41 page)

Under this plan, SOE’s field chief for Denmark, Ronnie Turnbull, would have authority from the very top to receive on behalf of Britain whatever information the Princes chose to provide. In return, the British would essentially leave Denmark alone for the foreseeable future, and SIS’s involvement would end.

Tommy Sneum, working for the wrong covert organization, therefore became expendable in the eyes of the power brokers in London. If the Princes wanted him locked up and kept out of the way, that is how it would be. Rabagliati’s hands were well and truly tied.

Oblivious to the political games being played in London, Tommy was concerned about striking the right note during his vital interrogation in Odmar’s presence. He wanted to appear as cooperative as possible, so that he and Helvard could avoid bei delivered into the hands of the Germans. He had by now given his real name to the Swedes, and freely admitted that he was Sigfred Christophersen’s spy partner. He did this because he knew that the Copenhagen police had worked out as much already. At the time, he thought he was beyond the clutches of the Nazis in Denmark. But then Palm told him that Sweden’s neutrality might not count for anything. So Tommy knew he was going to have to give his captors a little bit more.

When the interview with Odmar began, Sneum was clear in his own mind where he would draw the line. Surviving police records show just how far he went.

‘Thomas Christian Sneum declines to give any information about what happened to him in England after he had volunteered for the Royal Air Force. And he declines to talk about what happened to Kjeld Pedersen,’ began Odmar’s report.

Tommy did admit that the British had dropped him, along with Christophersen, near Brorfelde in September 1941. He was also happy to reiterate that his relationship with Christophersen had broken down due to the latter’s incompetence and lack of nerve. Since Kaj Oxlund was dead, Tommy then implicated his late friend in most of his activities. He admitted that he had known about Oxlund’s attempted escape across the ice with the Christophersen brothers before it had happened. As the police seemed to have independent verification from Helvard’s neighbors that Tommy had stayed with Arne during their final days in Denmark, there seemed no point in denying that, either. However, Sneum continued to insist that Helvard had no knowledge of his spying activities on behalf of Britain, claiming that his friend had wanted to escape to England for his own reasons.

Unbeknown to Tommy, though, Arne had already confessed that he was a spy. The police report stated: ‘Under questioning, Helvard admitted that he had spied against the Germans after being employed at Kastrup Airport. He was collating all sorts of information about the airport with regard to manpower, hangars, airplanes, numbers and types, anti-aircraft artillery, and so on. All this information he says he gave to Oxlund, and didn’t know what he did with it.’

The logic of both men exaggerating poor Kaj’s role was flawless. But why Helvard admitted to being a spy is a mystery. One can only assume that he thought he would take some of the heat off Sneum. Perhaps he was assured that their chances of avoiding the Gestapo would improve if their confessions could be extracted in a more civilized manner in Sweden. Whatever his reasoning might have been, the Danish police didn’t need much brainpower to realize that Kaj, Arne and Tommy were all part of the same spy ring, even if the latter two never confirmed their own relationship within the set-up.

Their partial cooperation gave them a fighting chance of survival, but in itself it wasn’t enough. Odmar demanded to know the whereabouts of the radio that the British-run spies had brought with them. He explained that he had to be able to give the Germans something tangible, or else he would be obliged to escort the culprits back to Denmark for some brutal interrogation. Fortunately, of course, Tommy had prepared for just such an eventuality. He told Odmar that if he looked among his personal effects he would find a receipt for locker number thirteen at Copenhagan railway station.

Effectively, he had just handed the Nazis a British radio. On the face of it, this seems a terrible betrayal. As far as Tommy could see, however, the discovery would only lull the Germans into a false sense of security. If theyt British spies had to rely on such cumbersome and old-fashioned equipment, the enemy would probably feel confident that they were well ahead in all aspects of radio communication. Whereas in reality, partly thanks to Duus Hansen, the Allies now held the advantage.

‘When your life is in danger, you do what you can to save yourself,’ admitted Tommy later. ‘But there were still things I wouldn’t have done.’

For example, Odmar’s report noted: ‘Sneum declines to give any information about whether the radio transmitter which they brought with them has been used. And he declines to give any information about codes, signals or transmission times. He doesn’t say if he was able to transmit himself, but says it was necessary for Christophersen to leave Denmark because he had lost his nerve.’

Sneum wasn’t going to betray his friends. He admitted that he had met Werner Gyberg, but claimed he had posed as an innocent radio ham, using a false name—‘Lieutenant Wolff.’ That, he hoped, would clear the still-imprisoned Gyberg of all charges that he had been involved in any attempt to get hold of a radio receiver. And it worked: Gyberg was subsequently released. Even more significantly, Tommy did not name the man who represented the future of resistance radio technology—Duus Hansen. It would take more than a persuasive Danish policeman to extract the names of the key people Tommy had left behind, or indeed any confirmation that he had seen his wife during his mission. Odmar’s report added: ‘Sneum insists that no one—especially not his wife, his parents-in-law, his parents or other members of his family—had any idea that he had been back in Copenhagen, since he knew the police would look for him at family addresses.’

Only time would tell whether trading the old radio would help to win Tommy his freedom. Meanwhile, his wife Else was coming under almost as much pressure to talk at her parents’ house in Harald Jensensgade, Copenhagen. Thomas Noerreheden led the questioning again and, supplied with an up-to-date file by Odmar, he showed Else mugshots of Tommy, taken by the Swedish police since his capture and transfer to Malmo. ‘Is this your husband?’ the detective asked.

Else confirmed that it was. There was no point in denying the obvious.

Noerreheden closed in for the kill. ‘Else, enough is enough. The truth now. When was the last time you saw him?’

Else must have been very angry at the way she and Marianne had been abandoned, but the safety of her parents would also have come into the equation as she weighed up what her response should be. Finally, she delivered her answer: ‘June last year,’ she said defiantly.

On 31 March, Odmar and Noerreheden opened locker number thirteen at Copenhagen railway station. They were not disappointed by what they found. As Sneum had promised, inside a case were a primitive-looking radio transmitter and receiver along with some English-made headphones. On closer inspection, it became apparent that the radio crystals were absent, rendering the equipment useless. So the British frequencies would remain a mystery. But here was solid proof that the spy ring had existed. It was the sort of evidence which would make these two detectives look competent in German eyes. Odmar decided to search the surrounding lockers. In one he found a travel case containing various items of khaki uniform, which appeared to belong to a lieutenant in the Army Reserve. In another were a capngling boots belonging to the same man—Kaj Oxlund.

The following day Odmar authorized Noerreheden to hand over the most interesting items from the haul to the Abwehr, and Oberleutnant von Grene duly welcomed the Danish detective at the Hotel Cosmopolit. The English-made radio transmitter and receiver were said to be of particular interest. A delighted von Grene then informed his superior, Fregatten-Kapitan Howoldt, of the find. In time perhaps they could persuade the Swedes to hand back the original owners of this equipment, Thomas Sneum and Sigfred Christophersen. If that happened, Roland Olsen’s vision of Sneum being machine-gunned up against a wall would become reality.

T
HE SWEDISH AUTHORITIES were worried about sending British agents back to Denmark, when there was every chance that such a move could result in their torture or execution in Germany. The Danes were equally concerned about German reprisals if Sneum and his colleagues were allowed to reach Britain. So Tommy, Arne and Sigfred, each in his own cell, continued to suffer in Malmo Prison.

Meanwhile, Christian Michael Rottboell, the friend who had wanted to join Tommy and Kjeld Pedersen in the Hornet Moth, parachuted back into Denmark on behalf of SOE. Rottboell therefore effectively became Tommy’s replacement as Britain’s representative in Copenhagen. The Princes of Danish Intelligence were no happier about his arrival than they had been about the presence of his predecessors, Sneum and Christophersen. Hans Lunding thought he had persuaded Ronnie Turnbull to put an end to the night-time parachute jumps, but Turnbull really had no influence over such critical policies. It was his Danish Section boss in London, Commander Ralph Hollingworth, who insisted they should continue.

Once on the ground, Rottboell achieved one notable success: he managed to persuade John Christmas Moeller, the chairman of the Conservative Party, to escape to Sweden. The politician, who had known Tommy Sneum and his family since before the war, didn’t leave Denmark alone. He packed his family into a secret compartment on the escape boat, and the voyage to freedom went like clockwork. They later flew from Stockholm to Scotland and arrived in London in mid-May 1942. Christmas Moeller was soon elected chairman of the Free Danish Council, which became the closest thing to a Danish government-in-exile during the war.

Rottboell remained in Copenhagen, working with Duus Hansen. Their activities would soon become more hazardous than ever.

By late May, Sneum’s imprisonment in Sweden had reached a critical phase. It was clear to Tommy that, for whatever reason, the Princes had been unable to keep their promise to have him freed. He explained: ‘I had planned to go back to England, give them my reports and then parachute back into Denmark, all inside three months. But it wasn’t turning out that way.’ He wondered whether the cautious old professionals of Danish Intelligence had exerted enough pressure to secure his release. In reality, the Princes had used all their influence in the other direction—to ensure that he was kept under lock and key in Sweden, so that he could never threaten their cosy existence again.

Tommy and Arne had spent a total of eight weeks in jail by now. Tommy felt his spirits sink by the day, as the monotony and solitude began to get the better of him: ‘I was let out of my cell to empty my piss-pot in the morning but I wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone. Twice a day all the other prisoners went out for exercise surrounded by guards with machine-guns, rifles and pistols. I was just taken to a back yard to walk on my own with a policeman watching me. There was no way out.’