• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The result of these investigations was to clear Captain SNEUM completely of any imputation against his loyalty to the Allied Cause and he was accordingly released.

Thereafter Captain SNEUM served in the Danish Section of the Royal Navy and was later transferred to the Royal Norwegian Air Force, in which he served as a pilot.

It is desired to emphasize that Captain SNEUM’s detention in Brixton Prison in 1942 does not in any way reflect adversely on his conduct. On the contrary, Captain SNEUM’s courage, energy and loyalty to the Allied Cause throughout the war are now beyond question.

So there it was, proof at last that Britain had unequivocally hailed Tommy a hero, and long before that moving service in St. Clement Danes in 2007. It had taken seventeen years to paint his wartime conduct and achievements in such glowing terms. And the fact that Tommy had seen fit to secure such a reference as late as 1962 was an indication of just how long the post-war smear campaign against him had continued. The King’s Medal for Courage, awarded to him in 1948, had been tantamount to damning him with faint praise, given his remarkable exploits, and certainly hadn’t been sufficient to silence some of his critics.

Major General Richard Eyre Lloyd’s tribute seemed to reflect the wartime opinion of Otto Gregory of Air Ministry Intelligence, who had argued that Sneum deserved something closer to the Victoria Cross for his achievements. However, since the vast majority of Tommy’s heroics had not come in open combat, and since his record had subsequently been clouded by suspicion, he would never receive the ribbons or the recognition due to him.

The letter in itself constituted something special, though. And I had to smile, because Tommy had been in possession of it on the first day I met him, and yet had allowed the debate about his loyalty to continue for years. Why?

Once he had told me: ‘Always keep something in reserve, close to your chest, never use all your ammunition unless you have to.’

He had followed his own rule to the end. Now it was as though Tommy had enjoyed a last little joke with me, from beyond the grave, mocking me for having doubted him. For it seemed inconceivable that he had simply forgotten about that letter, which he knew could provide the perfect answer to any suggestions of treachery. More likely he had cultivated my suspicions for his own amusement, and ensured that I would remain intrigued. That way he knew I would return for a fresh round of verbal chess, sometimes armed with a bottle of schnapps or whisky, on other occasions bringing a new document or discovery from the English war files.

None of this stopped me from feeling guilty about some of the questions I had asked of a man I had befriended. Then I remembered one of the last things he ever said to me: ‘You have always treated me very fairly.’ Tommy had faced plenty of questions in his lifetime, so a few more hadn’t made any difference. He knew deep down that he would always have the last laugh. The extraordinary letter of support from the Director of Military Intelligence guaranteed that.

Thomas Christian Sneum, the man who had flown to freedom in a Hornet, had saved his most potent sting for the very end.

NOTES

Some of the new information contained in this book is of considerable historical value, as reflected by the fact that the Imperial War Museum of London, England, has already requested copies of author Mark Ryan’s taped interviews with Tommy Sneum for its audio collection.

The author spent many enjoyable hours talking to Sneum between February 1998 and November 2006, that last visit coming just months before the spy’s death in February 2007. These interviews would often revisit ground that Ryan and Sneum had previously covered together. The consistency with which Sneum recalled events and conversations, time and again, added to the credibility of his account. Fortunately, Tommy still had a superb memory for detailed dialogue and also a natural gift for story-telling. Therefore he was able to reconstruct that dialogue,