Peterson. On his person Peterson had a
After the arresting officer discovered a blood-group number tattooed under his arm, Peterson was put under close arrest as a suspected member of an illegal organization: the S.S.
The S.I.B. went on, ‘In the garage adjoining was found a Mercedes staff car with WM (Wehrmacht-Marine) registration. There were 108 litres of petrol in the garage and car. The car (which was the object of the visit) was handed over to the German Command Organization under Field-Marshal Busch in Schleswig-Holstein.’ It also could be made available to the court. Lt James, in answer to a question, said that Peterson’s only comment on being placed under close arrest as a member of the S.S. was that ‘the battle started in Seville in 1936 and it’s not yet over’, or words to that effect. Lt James said that in spite of Peterson’s excellent English he did not suspect him of being anything other than a member of the German Armed Forces. He had encountered many German soldiers who had lived and worked in England and as a consequence spoke good English.
I turned the discoloured pages of the dossier. Peterson after capture by the Germans had been approached by two members of the ‘Legion of St George’ (later renamed the ‘Britische Freikorps’). Its members were mostly English or Irishmen who had been in the British Union of Fascists before the war. Many of them had what are now described as personality disorders, and all were of the opinion that England would soon see sense and join a German-occupied Europe on a ‘crusade’ against Russia. The verbatim record said:
PROSECUTOR: You never uttered a treasonable word?
PETERSON: On the contrary, England was much loved. The name of Nelson was invoked on every side, as were the names of all Britain’s heroes.
PROS.: You felt that Britain was being deliberately misled by its leaders.
PETERSON: I did sir.
PROS.: Even though these leaders were elected by public free ballot?
PETERSON: Yes.
PROS.: A ballot which your German masters never thought it expedient to institute in Germany or any of the small nations it conquered.
PETERSON: France wasn’t a small nation.
PROS.: No further questions.
The defence requested permission to offer as evidence the details of Peterson’s task in the Norwegian operation but this was denied. He admitted joining the Britische Freikorps and going to their training unit at Hildesheim. The transcription said:
PROS.: And what were you wearing at this time?
PETERSON: The uniform of the B.F.K.
PROS.: I put it to you that you were wearing the uniform of the Nazi S.S., a uniform that the members of this court have cause to remember with disgust and loathing.
PETERSON: It was …
PROS.: A uniform which had the notorious Death’s Head symbol as its cap-badge, did it not?
PETERSON: Yes, but we wore a Union Jack armband.
PROS.: In other words, you wanted to serve two masters at once, you wanted the best of both worlds. You wanted to be on the winning side — a Hauptsturmfuhrer SS
PETERSON: No, certainly not.
PROS.: The court will no doubt form their own opinion. I shall be returning to that point later.
Much of the trial dealt with the technical knowledge that Peterson put at the disposal of the German Navy, who came to the frogman and human torpedo scene very late in the war.
The German Navy had first seen a ‘frogman style’ demonstration at the Olympic swimming pool, Berlin, in the spring of 1943. Peterson was screened after his capture and went to a block of flats that the German Navy had in Berlin. There he met Loveless, John Amery, and Joyce (Haw-Haw), ‘but they considered themselves Germans’, while ‘we were loyal Englishmen anxious to convert our fellow-countrymen into allies of Germany’. Peterson was persuaded by Loveless to give his services to the Germans as a frogman-instructor. He said O.K. soon enough to be at Heiligenhafen, at the eastern end of Kiel Bay in the Baltic, when the first of K force (
PROS.: I put it to you, that you at this time had
PETERSON: No.
PROS.: You were wearing a German naval officer’s uniform. Yesterday you said that the German Navy ‘relied on you’. I am quoting: ‘relied on you in their training of K force’. Did you say that, or didn’t you?
PETERSON: Yes, but …
PROS.: You said it. Very well. As an officer of the Royal Navy you were drawing pay. That is to say that you knew that pay was being credited to you.
PETERSON: Yes.
PROS.: Furthermore, this pay was not just the pay of a Lieutenant R.N.V.R. of the Executive Branch, but included an extra allowance payable to you in respect of the hazard of undersea warfare and the technical nature of those duties.
PETERSON:
PROS.: Is that not so?
PETERSON: I suppose so.
PROS.: The same technical knowledge that your new German masters were so anxious to learn. Knowledge that they
PETERSON: Yes.
PROS.: What is the name given to citizens who grant reliable aid with the declared aim of overthrowing their own lawful government?
PETERSON:
PROS.: Speak up, Herr Hauptsturmfuhrer Putz, or should I say Lieutenant Peterson?
PETERSON: Traitor, I suppose you mean.
PROS.: That’s right, Sub-Lieutenant Bernard Thomas Peterson, R.N.V.R., it’s called Constructive Treason.
The result was penal servitude and cashiering. I flipped through the accompanying documents; a certified true copy of the sentence signed by the President of the Court; and the confirming officer’s letter after agreeing the sentence.
I closed the file.
About the Author
Len Deighton was born in 1929. He worked as a railway clerk before doing his National Service in the RAF as a photographer attached to the Special Investigation Branch.
After his discharge in 1949, he went to art school — first to the St Martin’s School of Art, and then to the Royal College of Art on a scholarship. His mother was a professional cook and he grew up with an interest in cookery — a subject he was later to make his own in an animated strip for the
