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By Root 586 0

while Tommy supposedly established himself in Aalborg. When she recognized the handwriting on the envelope, it is likely that she thought he had finally got round to summoning the two of them to join him. Instead, the letter, posted locally on 5 July, was much more shocking. Sneum didn’t keep a copy, but remembered more or less what he had written:

Dear Else,

This is a difficult letter to write because I know the news will break your heart for a while. You will think me a terrible husband and father to our baby. But a man has his pride and there was no work for me here in Denmark. I had to get away so that I can earn us some good money during these lean times, away from the restrictions imposed by the Germans. I sail for America tonight, so don’t try to find me because I am already far away. I have been promised a job in New York and I will write again when I have something more positive to report.

Of course, I will understand if you don’t want to wait for me. Ours has not been an ideal marriage. The changing events in Denmark have put an awful strain on us. We are both young and I am about to embark on a new adventure. Kiss our little Marianne for me and try to stay strong. Perhaps one day you will understand.

Love, Thomas

Else didn’t know what to think. Had her husband gone off to war or simply left her for a new life in America? Either way, the news was dreadful, and left her with a small child to raise without any prospect of help from her husband.

When a stunned Else and her angry parents contacted Christian Sneum, he apologized on behalf of his son and regretted that he could add nothing to the confused picture. Only Thomas could explain his actions when he was ready; until then, the Sneum family would offer all their support in raising their granddaughter.

If Tommy’s heroics caused a strain in relations between the Jensens and Sneums, they didn’t help relations between Ronald Turnbull and his SOE bosses back in England either. SOE Denmark’s quiet beginning under Turnbull was in marked contrast to the shock waves Thomas Sneum was creating in the A2 (Danish) Section of SIS. Turnbull had regarded as premature SOE founder Sir Charles Hambro’s demand for a campaign of sabotage against Nazi interests in Denmark. For the moment at least, the tentative Scot wanted to act merely as a channel for information coming from the established Danish Intelligence services. But Tommy’s sparkling performance as an intelligence-gatherer was starting to make Ronnie’s more measured approach look weak by comparison.

Turnbull worked methodically as he built the foundations of his operation, and explained why he followed such a conservative strategy much later: ‘I regarded myself as a young amateur in the intelligence game and these Danish staff officers were experienced professionals.’ His main contacts were Colonel Einar Nordentoft, Major Hans Lunding and Captain Volle Gyth. This trio formed the backbone of a group of Danish Intelligence officers who called themselves ‘the Princes.’ They were exceptionally cautious and made it clear they would be prepared to go into action against the Nazi regime only when the British attempted to liberate Denmark. In the meantime, they promised to prepare a secret army which would rise up in coordination with any planned British attack.

This assurance suited the Princes because it gave them the perfect excuse to do virtually nothing, perhaps for years. However, Turnbull concluded early in his reign as operational head of SOE Denmark that it would be worth far more to the Allies to have these men waiting passively on the inside than to risk aggravating them with a few spectacular but ultimately trivial sabotage missions. And if the Princes said they had established a secret army to help drive out the Nazis when the time was right, Turnbull saw little point in provoking them by setting up a rival network.

In London, though, Turnbull’s bosses were rightly wary of relying on assurances from Danish military figures who had done nothing when Hitler had invaded their country and were, in