A wartime spy who settled in Shenley became a double agent after being sent by the Germans to destroy a British aircraft factory, according to newly-released files.

Eddie Chapman, who went on to buy a health club at Shenley Lodge, now Manor Lodge School, was in prison in the Channel Islands at the start of the Second World War.

When the Germans occupied Jersey, where Chapman was awaiting trial for burglary, he offered to spy for them in return for them granting his freedom.

But when he parachuted into Britain in 1942 to blow up the factory he handed himself in to MI5 and went back to Germany as a double agent to gather information.

Intelligence files on Chapman's activities which were kept under wraps for more than 50 years have just been released into the public domain at the national archives.

A spokesperson for the Public Record Office said: "Eddie Chapman, alias Zig-Zag, was without a doubt the most flamboyant double agent during the war."

Chapman was born in Co. Durham in 1914 and during the 1930s he formed the 'Gelignite Gang', a group of safe-breakers who were the first to use the new explosive.

The gang carried out a series of raids on Odeon cinemas across the country, then fled to Jersey, where they were apprehended by Scotland Yard detectives.

In 1940 he agreed to join the Germans and they staged his death, by placing him in front of a firing squad, to prevent the British from finding out the truth.

He was sent back to Germany for training and, two years later, was dropped in Cambridgeshire with orders to blow up the De Havillands Mosquito factory in Hatfield.

British intelligence, having enlisted Chapman as double agent, staged a fake explosion at the factory and he returned to a hero's welcome in Germany.

The Germans awarded him the Iron Cross military honour, a fortune of 110,000 Reichsmarks, his own yacht and a job teaching at a spy school in occupied Norway.

Chapman, known to MI5 as Zig-Zag, was sent back to Britain in 1944 to report on V1 rocket damage, and he brought with him vital intelligence for the Allies.

But, after he confessed to telling his Norwegian girlfriend that he was a British agent, MI5 decided to retire him, fearing it would be too dangerous for him to continue.

In recognition of his intelligence work, Chapman was given £6,000 by MI5 and the outstanding criminal charges against him were dropped.

After the war Chapman, and his wife, Betty, bought the health farm at Shenley Lodge, in Rectory Lane, which they continued to run until the late 1970s.

The story of Eddie Chapman, who died four years ago, was portrayed in a film called Triple Cross, which was made in 1967 and starred Christopher Plummer.

July 18, 2001 13:56

By MARK FOY