The WWII Jailbird Who Screwed Hitler
Agent Zigzag, real name Eddie Chapman (1914 – 1997), was a safebreaker, thief, crook, and all around career criminal. He became the only Englishman ever awarded a German Iron Cross. It was ironic on many levels, because he was also one of history’s most colorful double crossers. He fed the Germans false information throughout much of WWII, that derailed the effectiveness of their “Vengeance Weapons”. That probably saved the lives of thousands of Londoners. Chapman was raised in a dysfunctional family, and became a delinquent at a young age. He enlisted in the British Army when he was seventeen, but within a few months he grew bored and deserted. When the military authorities caught up with him, he was sent to prison and dishonorably discharged.
After his release, Chapman turned to fraud and crime to support a gambling habit and a taste for fine drinks. He was on the lam in the Channel Islands when WWII began. A botched burglary earned him a two year sentence in a Jersey prison, and that was where the Germans found him when they captured the Channel Islands in 1940. To get out of jail, he offered to work for them, and they accepted. Chapman was freed and trained in the use of explosives, sabotage, and other clandestine skills, before he was parachuted into Britain in 1942, tasked with destroying a bomber factory.