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The Hornet's Sting_ The Amazing Untold Story of World War II Spy Thomas Sneum - Mark Ryan [99]

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and a superb new radio, so why did they need a ham-fisted wireless operator whose nerves were shot to pieces?

Duus Hansen calmly transmitted Sneum’s coded message about the potential for an atom bomb in a fraction of the time it would have taken Christophersen to perform the task. The new recruit felt confident that he must have succeeded, even though, yet again, they received no acknowledgement from England. Sneum had already warned him that the British might not see fit to reply.

There was a sense of satisfaction as Sneum and Duus Hansen left the apartment to make their way back to Copenhagen. For the first time, all their problems seemed conquerable; they were alive, they were free and they had done an outstanding job. It was the start of a highly productive phase in Tommy’s mission for Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.

With Duus Hansen’s increasing help and guidance, Sneum sent the British a treasure trove of information over the coming weeks: ship and troop movements, the names of key German intelligence officers in Copenhagen, lists of their treacherous assistants among the Danish police; all were detailed and dispatched across the radio waves to London with unrivalled speed and skill. In his communications, Sneum pointed to the strategic importance of certain bridges, the destruction of which would do most damage to German transport links. He also used his political background and contacts to keep Britain informed of any subtle shifts among Denmark’s major parties, with particular regard to their relations with the occupiers.

Duus Hansen later recalled this period:


Sneum had told me that people in England would be listening to receive our transmissions at certain times on certain days, calculated from the date of his parachute drop into Denmark. We were not able to get an answer during those early transmissions to Britain, but Sneum told me that he had been instructed to continue sending the messages, even if he didn’t get an answer. They would be able to receive those signals even if we in Denmark couldn’t receive the English answer. And Sneum told me later that he, through other channels, had learned that the telegrams had been received.

The enmity between Sneum and Christophersen built up so much that further work between the two men was no longer possible. As Sneum saw that the technical questions were now solved, and being independent of Christophersen, he decided that with or without Christophersen’s agreement, the latter should be stripped of his duties and sent back to England.

One of the reasons for this decision was also that Christophersen never obeyed orders, rented a room for himself in town, never showed the required care for security, contacted his family, and included his brother in all the details. In this context I can make a remark: it hit me very hard when I realized that Christophersen never dared to be in place personally for the radio transmissions, and yet he asked for all kinds of security measures regarding when a radio should be used. Furthermore I realized that he had very poor training in Morse telegraphy.

Sneum saw Christophersen’s brother as being dangerous too, because he also knew all the details, so Sneum considered it to be the right thing to do to get them both out of the country—one way or the other.


Duus Hansen’s reference to Christophersen renting a room suggests that he had alternated for a time between his brother Thorbjoern’s apartment and a bolt-hole in Copenhagen city center. Now he was back with Oxlund, where Sneum could at least keep an eye on him, but this soon created more tension than any of them could bear.

Just when the radio problems were solved, another crisis emerged: Sneum ran out of places to hide. Hagedorn made it clear that, on reflection, he didn’t want a British agent living in his basement. Understandably, he feared reprisals against his family if they were caught. Although Skodsborg was safe, Tommy risked losing touch with important events in Copenhagen if he based himself so far out of town. Reluctantly, therefore, he moved in with Oxlund

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