The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection

The Second World War “self-made spy’s” D.C.M. group of four awarded to Battery Quarter-Master Sergeant J. H. O. Brown, Royal Artillery, who, as a P.O.W., fooled the Germans into believing he was a staunch supporter of the “British Free Corps”, thereby obtaining freedom of movement in Berlin and elsewhere - in point of fact he had established contact with British Military Intelligence and, at the risk of discovery by the Gestapo, regularly sent back important information to London: one of his coded messages was hidden in the costume of an opera singer who performed before Hitler at the Berlin Opera House

Distinguished Conduct Medal, G.VI.R. (1445560 B.Q.M. Sjt. J. H. O. Brown, R.A.); 1939-45 Star; War Medal 1939-45; Efficiency Medal, G.VI.R., 1st issue, Territorial (1445560 B.Q.M.S. J. H. O. Brown, D.C.M., R.A.), together with his identity discs (2), good very fine (6) £6000-7000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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D.C.M. London Gazette 27 September 1945. The original recommendation states:

‘This N.C.O. was serving with the B.E.F. in France when he was captured on 29 May 1940, at Caestre. After a few weeks at Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf, he was sent to Blechammer, E. 3 Kommando, where he devoted his energies to the welfare of the men and general escape work until he was returned to the main camp in January 1942. Shortly afterwards he was transferred to a working camp in Berlin (No. 806 attached to Stalag IIID). Five months later he was again sent to Blechammer and in June 1943, he was appointed Camp Leader to Genshagen holiday camp.

Realising that the Germans intended to use this camp subversively for their own ends he determined to thwart them. Despite the very real danger involved, he pretended to be working for the Germans, whilst at the same time he was really using the comparative freedom accorded him to further the cause of the Allies. Even when the Gestapo became suspicious B.Q.M.S. Brown did not hesitate to continue work. Acting as he did entirely on his own initiative, he fully realised that in all probability he might be suspected of betraying his own country. This did in fact happen, but it has now been established without question that he did acquire and transmit to this country valuable information.

Through his continuous efforts the British Free Corps, which the Germans hoped to expand from the men sent to Genshagen, gained few recruits and eventually the project became a complete failure. In addition B.Q.M.S. Brown used the frequent change of personnel at the camp to establish inter-camp communication, passing on information and escape aids. It is remarkable that whilst busy with all these activities, he did not neglect his duties as senior N.C.O. Genshagen which was excellently run and men who had been there have shown marked respect and esteem for B.Q.M.S. Brown.

When the camp closed in December 1944, B.Q.M.S. Brown was again sent to Lamsdorf, and with the other personnel was later evacuated to Hehenfels (Stalag 383). On 22 April 1945, this camp was liberated by an American unit.’

John Henry Owen Brown’s extraordinary wartime story is recounted at length in his memoirs, In Durance Vile (London, 1981), but for a more succinct and independent assessment of his activities it is best to turn to Adrian Weale’s fascinating history, Renegades, Hitler’s Englishmen (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1994). Weale uncovers a number of important errors that appear in Brown’s own account, not least that his coded messages were being delivered to M.I.9, not M.I.6 as he thought, and that he did not in fact get involved in such clandestine exchanges until 1942. He was, too, as a result of his work as a “self-made spy”, the beneficiary of better rations, living conditions and even a girlfriend in Berlin, all of which point to a certain degree of “opportunism” but which, nonetheless, take nothing away from the highly dangerous nature of his chosen course - namely to hoodwink the Germans into believing he was a genuine fascist and to pump them (and real British traitors) for all they were worth for the benefit of British intelligence, whilst also providing, via a black market racket, vital supplies for his fellow P.O.Ws.

Brown, an Oxford graduate, was taken P.O.W. in late May 1940, while serving in 226/57th Anti-Tank Regiment, R.A., and, in common with thousands of other British prisoners, was marched to Trier on the German border, and thence - by cattle truck - transported to Stalag VIIIB at Lamsdorf.

A few weeks later, he was moved to E.3 Kommando at Blechammer, to work on the construction of a factory for artificial oil and rubber, and it was here, via the camp interpreter, that he began to ingratiate himself with the Germans, a task no doubt assisted by his pre-war membership of Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (B.U.P.). In truth, however, Brown used his apparent liking for the Nazi cause to establish a profitable black market racket for the benefit of his fellow P.O.Ws, a highly dangerous enterprise that resulted in the acquisition of a radio set, extra clothing and rations, and, at a later date, vital surgical equipment for the camp medical officer, a New Zealander.

By early 1942, he had established sufficient confidence in the Germans for them to summon him to an interview in Berlin, at which they intended to assess his promise as a full-blown renegade. Shortly afterwards, he had his first meeting with William Joyce (a.k.a. “Lord Haw-Haw”), whom he had known by sight from before the war. Such introductions gained him the freedom to “see the sights”, albeit in the company of a guard, and he was therefore disappointed to be returned to Blechammer that August without means of passing on his newly acquired knowledge to British intelligence. Fortuitously, however, on his return, he made the acquaintance of a newly arrived inmate, Captain Julius Green, a Jewish Glaswegian who had concealed his religion from the Germans and was an M.I.9 operative, and he taught Brown a series of M.I.9 codes that could be used in letters he wrote home - the door was now open for the regular transmittal of intelligence to London and Brown engineered his way back to the Berlin area by enacting a serious row with his fellow senior N.C.Os, and seeking the assistance of the commandant, Prinz zu Hohenlohe, with whom he was on good terms.

His ruse succeeded and in the summer of 1943 he was moved to a small hutted “holidaying” complex near Gross Buren railway station, Genshagen, where he found he was to be appointed the British camp leader. He also discovered that this was the establishment where the Germans intended to “work-up” the nucleus for a British Free Corps (B.F.C.) for service on the Russian front - his subsequent coded report to London, which was forwarded by M.I.9 to M.I.5, sent shockwaves through the corridors of power, the implication of British troops being engaged against Stalin’s forces causing obvious alarm. Amazingly, the edict announcing the formation of the B.F.C. was read out for the first time in Brown’s quarters, by Thomas Cooper, a genuine traitor who had fought in a Totenkopf unit of the S.S. - Cooper made the error of confessing to Brown that he had committed assorted atrocities in Poland while in the S.S., information that the latter was pleased to divulge at the end of the War, when he gave evidence at the Old Bailey Treason Trials - Brown also accumulated evidence against William Joyce and John Amery, in addition to less well-known traitors such as Roy Purdy, a Sub. Lieutenant, R.N.V.R., who had made anti-Semetic broadcasts from Berlin.

Meanwhile, and more importantly in terms of supporting the immediate Allied cause, Brown used his relative freedom to move around to gather valuable information regarding enemy airfields, barracks, A.A. defences, and other camouflaged sites, on one occasion discovering the whereabouts of an underground tank factory - it was successfully bombed by the Allies. By and large his intelligence reports were despatched in coded form in his correspondence home, but from time to time he made use of other avenues of delivery, thus a Dutch civilian or a Swedish sea captain, or for that matter the British-born opera singer, Margery Booth, who on one occasion hid one of his messages in her costume prior to appearing on stage in front of Hitler at the Berlin Opera House.

Genshagen remained in use until December 1944, when, because of the obvious failure of the British Free Corps plan, it was closed down. Yet so well had Brown ingratiated himself into the enemy’s camp that even the Gestapo were unable to bring him to account for the undoubted sabotage he had inflicted on the formation of this renegade corps, let alone for being a regular M.I.9 contact. Indeed he was virtually allowed to roam Berlin at will over the coming months, acquiring a girlfriend and meeting with the likes of traitor John Amery. Eventually returned to Lamsdorf as the Allies closed the net in North-West Europe, he was liberated after further adventures in April 1945 - taking possession of a fleeing S.S. Colonel’s staff car, he used it to motor 300 miles of his homeward bound trip.

Yet his deliverance into the hands of the Americans, and even his safe arrival back in the U.K., were moments of celebration marred by accusations of treachery from his fellow P.O.Ws, and his remarkable bravery was not really made common knowledge until he appeared as a prosecution witness at the Old Bailey Treason Trials: thereafter, he was quickly recognised as one of the most successful British agents of the War.

Brown, who described his wartime exploits in a fascinating series of articles published in the Sunday Sun in 1950, died at Poole in September 1965, aged 56 years. Fortunately for posterity’s sake, he had earlier completed the manuscript for his more detailed memoir In Durance Vile, which was posthumously published in 1981.

Sold with a large file of original documentation, including a printed “British Free Corps” statement of intention, a mass of newspaper cuttings and several wartime photographs from Brown’s time as a P.O.W., together with assorted letters, including correspondence between the recipient and Swiss Y.M.C.A. in August 1943, with Kommandantur Stalag III D stamps, a typewritten note to Brown, dated at Berlin 23 December 1944, in which the writer states that some confiscated wine would be returned to him and his fellow inmates, three letters (1949-50) addressed to him from an ex-P.O.W. camp commandant, Prinz zu Hohenlohe (who was eventually removed from his post), a copy of Brown’s statement, on behalf of Margery Booth, to be reinstated to British citizenship, and War Office (Room 055) reply, dated 8 May 1950; together with copies of his memoirs, In Durance Vile (London, 1981), Renegades, Hitler’s Englishmen, by Adrian Weale (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1994), and a privately bound copy of Brown’s typescript for his memoirs, with presentation inscription from his widow and daughter.

Provenance: Ex Sotheby’s 8 July 1982 (Lot 521), when consigned by the recipient’s widow; Dix Noonan Webb, 22 September 2006 (Lot 69), as part of the Ron Penhall Collection.