English Criminal Gains Hitler’s Confidence, Derails Hitler’s Rocket Assault on London
The only Englishman ever awarded a German Iron Cross was Eddie Chapman (1914 – 1997). He was a thief, safebreaker, crook, and all around career criminal, who was recruited by German intelligence during WWII. Unbeknownst to them, Chapman was actually working for the British. He fed his German handlers false information that wrecked the effectiveness of Hitler’s “Vengeance Weapons” assault on London, and saved the lives of thousands of Londoners.
Chapman was raised in a dysfunctional family, and was a delinquent from the start. He enlisted in the British Army age 17, but deserted after a few months. When the army caught up with him, he was convicted, sentenced to prison, and given a dishonorable discharge. Upon his release, Chapman turned to crime to support a gambling habit and a taste for fine drinks.
In 1940, the Germans captured the British Channel Islands, and there, they found Chapman in a prison, serving a two year sentence for burglary. He volunteered to work for them, so the Germans freed him, and trained him in explosives, sabotage, and other clandestine skills. They then parachuted him into Britain in 1942, with orders to destroy a bomber factory.
Chapman was arrested soon after landing, and immediately offered to become a double agent for British intelligence. He was given the codename “Agent Zigzag”, and a plan was hatched to fake the bomber factory’s destruction. It convinced the Germans, and raised Chapman in their esteem. From then on, Chapman’s reports, carefully fed him by British intelligence, were treated as gospel by his German handlers.
The Germans eventually recalled Chapman, and gave him a hero’s welcome. Soon after D-Day, he was awarded an Iron Cross, then sent back to Britain to report on the effectiveness of the German V1 and V2 rocket strikes on London. Under British control, Chapman sent the Germans inflated figures about deaths from their rockets, while deceiving them about their actual impact points. That caused the Germans to shift the rockets’ aim points, causing them to fall on lower population density parts of London, with correspondingly fewer casualties.
After WWII, Chapman continued his colorful life. He got into smuggling, moved to the colonies, and started a farm. Then, in violation of the Official Secrets Act, he published his wartime exploits in The Eddie Chapman Story (1953); Free Agent: Further Adventures of Eddie Chapman (1955); and The Real Eddie Chapman Story (1966). Those books formed the basis for a 1967 movie, Triple Cross.