 Safe-blower who became the
wartime double agent Zig-Zag and outfoxed the GermansEDDIE Chapman, who has died aged 83, was known under the codename Zig-Zag as
one of the most colourful of the Double Cross agents run by British Intelligence during
the Second World War.
A safebreaker who was liberated from jail in St Helier by the German
occupation of the Channel Islands, Chapman was sent back to Britain to carry out acts of
sabotage on behalf of the Nazis.
He was immediately turned by the British and, with the aid of a
professional illusionist brought in by MI5 and of carefully placed newspaper reports, gave
the Germans the impression that he had carried out his mission to the letter. Chapman made
his way back to Germany where he was welcomed as a hero and, after being briefed on the
workings of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organisation, was sent back to
Britain on another mission, allowing him to pass his newly-acquired knowledge on to MI5.
Edward Chapman was born in 1914 and brought up in Sunderland. He
found work in the shipyards there, and at 18 showed his mettle by rescuing a man from
drowning off Roker. For this he won a certificate from the Humane Society.
Chapman then served in the Coldstream Guards until the mid-1930s,
when he embarked on a second career as a safecracker. He enjoyed some success until 1939,
when the police discovered him trying to blow open a safe in Glasgow. While awaiting
trial, he broke out of jail and made his way to Jersey where he was arrested. He was about
to be returned to Scotland when the Germans occupied the Channel Islands.
Chapman always claimed that his offer to carry out sabotage for the
Germans in Britain, using his knowledge of explosives, was motivated by a desire to return
home. But one of the British Intelligence officers who later handled him was probably
closer to the mark when he suggested that it was at least in part because Chapman
"loved an exciting life".
After training, he was given the codename Fritzchen. On the night of
Dec 20 1942 he was dropped by parachute near Ely, equipped with a wireless, an automatic
pistol, a cyanide suicide pill and £1,000. His mission was to blow up the De Havilland
aircraft factory at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, where the new Mosquito fighter-bomber was
being built.
The Germans promised him that, if he succeeded, he would be given
£15,000 and sent to America to carry out further acts of sabotage. But by now MI5 had set
up the Double Cross system, whereby German agents arriving in Britain were intercepted and
offered the stark choice of facing execution or working for the British.
A key part of the scheme was the interception by Bletchley Park of
the Abwehr's communications with its agents. As a result, MI5 knew a great deal about
Chapman's impending arrival. Immediately after landing, he telephoned Wisbech police
station but had some difficulty persuading the police that he was a former safecracker
turned German spy who now wanted to work for the British.
MI5 rechristened him Zig-Zag and allowed him to radio to the Abwehr
that he had arrived safely. The Double Cross committee then set about creating the
illusion that would allow him to claim that his mission had been accomplished. The first
problem, a legitimate explanation of how he acquired the necessary explosives, Chapman
solved by returning to a quarry near Sevenoaks with which he was familiar from his
previous career.
On the night of Jan 29 1943, Zig-Zag and an MI5 officer scaled the
fence of the Mosquito factory and laid a series of notional charges around the power
plant. Jasper Maskelyne, a celebrated magician and illusionist, then used a controlled
explosion to blow out part of the roof. At the same time, he released smoke bombs and
scattered pieces of transformer around the plant to give the impression of a much greater
blast.
The explosion was reported in The Daily Telegraph and other national
newspapers and Chapman's Abwehr controllers sent him a message of congratulations. They
told Chapman to make his own way back to Germany from where he would be sent on the second
mission to America.
Hoping to use him to take similar control of this operation, MI5 put
him on a British ship bound for Lisbon, having firmly declined his numerous offers to
assassinate Hitler. On arriving in the Portuguese capital, Chapman reported to the local
Abwehr representative who gave him a piece of "coal" and offered him a large sum
if he would go back to the ship and place it in its coalstore.
MI5 was horrified to discover from the intercepts of Abwehr traffic
that the coal was explosive designed to detonate when placed in a fire, but Chapman had
handed it to the ship's master and asked him to give it to the War Office. The mission to
America never materialised and Chapman spent the next year blowing his Abwehr pay on an
extended holiday in Norway before being recalled to Germany.
Chapman was now given a series of briefings on Abwehr operations.
Before being sent back to Britain on another mission he was awarded the Iron Cross. He was
then dropped on to the main road at Six Mile Bottom, Cambridgeshire, in the early hours of
June 27 1944. When he reported to the nearest police station and told his story, the duty
officer replied: "Don't be silly. Go to bed." Chapman's response was:
"That's exactly what they told me last time. Ring up your station in Wisbech. They'll
remember me from last time."
After giving MI5 a breakdown of Abwehr operations, he was installed
in a flat in Kensington. But the temptations of the £6,000 that the Abwehr had given him
proved too much. Chapman was less than discreet to his friends among the criminal
fraternity about the source of his new-found wealth, and MI5 was forced to abandon him.
After the war, he wrote an account of his wartime experiences, which
was serialised in a French newspaper. He again found himself in court, this time on a
charge of breaching the Official Secrets Act.
A second attempt at publication was thwarted by a D-Notice, but, as
MI5 had found out during the war, Zig-Zag was not easily discouraged, and The Eddie
Chapman Story eventually appeared in print. A film, Triple Cross in which Chapman was
played by Christopher Plummer, came out in 1967.
Chapman leaves a wife Betty and a daughter.
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