The Hornet's Sting (58 page)

Note 2: Page 311, Lines 8-9: “ ... he was shot dead.” Turnbull’s account is contained in the SOE Files, National Archives, London.

Note 3: Page 311, Line 10:“Hollingworth was furious.” Turnbull’s claim to author, 1999- 2003.

Note 4: Page 311, Line 28: “Major Blunt ... ” Ironically, given the search for a double agent, this was the infamous Anthony Blunt, later exposed himself as a double agent and Russian spy. He was nicknamed “The Fourth Man” is a spying scandal that had exposed not just Kim Philby but also Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, men Blunt had recruited to the Russian cause.

Note 5: Page 312, Lines 3-4: “None of this was told to us until today . . . ” Wethered’s reflections on his meeting with Hollingworth can be found in the KV6 series of documents at the National Archives in London.

Note 6: Page 312, Lines 25-26: “visited Sneum in Milton Ernest to interrogate him . . . ” Again Wethered mentions this in the KV6 series at the National Archives in London. Sneum also told the author about a visit to Milton Ernest by unknown agents and how he defended his record under interrogation.

Note 7: Page 313, Lines 13-14: ‘the gist . . . regarding TABLE TOP.’ MI5—Britain’s domestic

Security Service—wrote to author Mark Ryan directly to reply to his queries, subsequently called the author and then promised further information, before falling strangely silent.

Note 1: Page 315, Lines 3-4: “You run around with too many girls, Sneum ...” Dialogue as recalled by Tommy Sneum during his many interviews with the author.

Note 2: Page 317, Lines 3-4: “Anita’s father was a horticultural contractor . . . ” Much of this information is contained on Sigfred and Anita’s wedding certificate, a copy of which is in the author’s collection.

Note 3: Page 317, Lines 13-16: “He also warned her . . . Sneum would probably be behind it.” Sneum told the author that Anita Christophersen later challenged him with this claim.

Note 4: Page 318, Line 16: “At midnight on 21 June, 1943 . . . ” This account is to be found at the National Archives in London, along with the circumstances behind the loss and the outcome of the relevant mission.

Note 1: Page 321, Line 19: “ . . . SIS suddenly awarded him £2,750.” This is the amount specified by Sneum in interviews with the author, 1998-2006. SIS (MI6) has never denied the payout.

Note 2: Page 322, Line 21: “You learned to fly . . . ” Dialogue as recalled by Tommy Sneum during his many interviews with the author.

Note 3: Page 322, Line 31: “He had been there since 6 December . . . ” This is from Pedersen’s official RAF war service record.

Note 4: Page 324, Lines 5-6: “ . . . Can you report on activity at Peenemunde . . . ” This message as specified in “Inside SOE” by EH Cookridge.

Note 5: Page 325, Line 15: “Just before midnight on 9 August 1943 . . . ” Source: The official crash investigation documents, to be found in the National Archives, London.

Note 6: Page 327, Line 6: “Tommy Sneum might be behind it . . . ” It was Sneum who, during interviews with the author, revealed Anita Christophersen’s claims.

Note 1: Page 328, Lines 16-17: ‘It wasn’t a question of “stealing SIS’s thunder,” as one historian claimed,’ ... That was how EH Cookridge put it in his excellent book “Inside SOE.”

Note 2: Page 329, Lines 11-12: “ . . . Turnbull, who was able to say later: Turnbull made these remarks during interviews with Mark Ryan between 1999 and 2003.

Note 3: Page 332, Lines 3-14: Dialogue reconstructed with the help of Tommy Sneum, whose memories of this conversation with Gyth—and their showdown later than night—remained consistent from 1998 to 2006.

Note 1: Page 337, Line 1: “ . . . Reichsmarschall Herman Goering.” On 31
^st
January 1943 105 Squadron became the first Mosquito unit to bomb Berlin. They disrupted plans for Goering and Goebbels to address parades in the morning and later Goering expressed his fury in a way that only boosted the standing of the Mosquito. Goering’s humiliation that day was compounded by a boast that had come back to haunt him. He had insisted that Allied planes would never fly in the skies above Berlin and leave in one piece. Now he had to admit he was wrong.

Note 2: Page 340, Line 12: “ . . . Kastrup airport,” RV Jones clearly thought he had succeeded in arranging this, because he wrote in his book, “Most Secret War,” ‘ . . . I persuaded the Royal Air Force to let [Sneum] lead his squadron into the airport at Copenhagen as the first of the Allied Forces to take it back from the Germans.’ Sneum insisted to Mark Ryan that this had never happened, however honourable Jones’ intentions had been.

Note 3: Page 340, Line 17: “ ... Hiroshima and Nagasakil, who was. ” The bombs were dropped on August 6 and August 9, 1945. Around 140,000 had died on Hiroshima by the end of the year as a result of the bombing there. On Nagasaki the figure was closer to 80,000. But around 250,000 people had lost their lives on the tiny island of Okinawa alone that summer, during fierce fighting between US and Japanese forces. Therefore it was deemed that the use of the atom bombs would save lives in the long run, even though the world was shocked by their destructive force.

Note 4: Page 340, Line 32: “ . . . doing similar work for us during the German occupation.” This document is in the author’s possession.

Note 5: Page 341, Line 16: “ . . . posted to 1 Squadron . . . ” From Kjeld Pedersen’s official RAF record.

Note 6: Page 342, Line 14: “ . . . their favourite tale time and again . . . ” Sneum’s story was still being told on internet websites dedicated to flying, by former RAF Acklington servicemen among others, at the start of the 21
^st
century.