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I talked about my work, my family, my sources for intelligence in Denmark and about the people who had helped me economically. Furthermore, I had brought 60 meters of 16mm film of German positions, batteries and airfields, and I also brought Leica films [stills] of the same kind. Then I had made drawings and sketches of the following airfields: Kastrup, Vaerleose, Avnoe, Esbjerg, Aalborg, Knivholt and Karup.

An army officer came in to interrogate me in connection with the messages they had earlier received in Stockholm. I painted a more-or-less correct picture of the situation in Denmark.

To the Admiralty, I gave all the positions of the coastal batteries I knew existed, the comings and goings in the Danish harbors and the result of the English mine-laying in Danish waters. I had brought with me a copy of the Danish Harbour Pilot, so I was able to explain to what extent the Germans had a presence in each place by using the maps.

At this point Tommy was placed in the hands of Squadron Leader Denys Felkin’s sharp and sceptical team of interrogators: Lieutenants Gregory and Siddons, accompanied by Flying Officer Sanky. The first two men, in particular, were experienced players, whose skills as inquisitors had been honed during their time with Air Ministry Intelligence. They had often dealt with foreign pilots who turned out to be exactly what they first seemed—brave souls who had escaped from occupied countries and were keen to fly against the Germans. However, the interrogators had also come across more complicated characters, men who seemed credible at first and then, after exhaustive forensic questioning, were exposed as German spies.

It wasn’t always easy to tell the difference between hero and traitor. MI5, the branch of British Intelligence that dealt with domestic security, believed that pilots, as a breed, made first-class spies because they invariably had a good eye for technical information. The interrogators from the Air Ministry had therefore been given a checklist to help them detect a secret agent:

Could the man be an enemy agent? In Sneum’s case the answer, in theory at least, was ‘yes.’

Does his general background make him a likely recruit or bring him within one of the categories that the enemy are known to favor in their search for recruits? Again, the answer in Tommy’s case was a strong ‘yes.’

Are there any possible points in his story suggesting recruitment, training, dispatch? Another affirmative. Sneum had admitted to friendly contact with the enemy, having thought it more dangerous to make a secret of it. As for the escape itself, the British were finding it hard to believe that the Germans hadn’t assisted Tommy in some way. It was regular German practice to suggest to a recruited agent an ‘escape route’ from Nazi-occupied territory, and then call off their patrols on the given day to make sure their man got through. That way, under interrogation, the agent could draw largely on fact when asked to describe how he had reached Britain.

Is his whole story of a pattern indicating a German agent? Sneum’s MI5 interrogators must have been tempted to answer ‘yes’ to this question, too.

One might have expected the sheer volume of intelligence that Tommy had brought with him to have worked in his favor. In his report, he said of Gregory, Siddons and Sanky: ‘They got my sketches of the German airfields, and information about Anti-Aircraft Batteries around the country.’ But in the same document, he admitted: ‘The British had extremely good aerial photographs of all the existing German airfields in Denmark already.’

At least Sneum was able to report a more enthusiastic response from the Air Ministry interrogators: ‘Those people were especially interested in my information, films and Leica pictures of the German direction-finders on Fanoe.’ And yet even the Air Ministry officials suspected that they were being sucked into an elaborate sting. In theory, the Abwehr might have audaciously allowed this