43 Facts About Eddie Chapman

Edward Arnold Chapman was an English criminal and wartime spy.

Eddie Chapman had a number of criminal aliases known by the British police, amongst them Edward Edwards, Arnold Thompson and Edward Simpson.

Eddie Chapman was born on 16 November 1914 in Burnopfield, County Durham, England.

Eddie Chapman's father was a former marine engineer who ended up as a publican in Roker.

The family had a reputation for disobedience, and Eddie Chapman received little in the way of parental guidance.

Aged 17, Eddie Chapman joined the Second Battalion of the Coldstream Guards, where his duties included guarding the Tower of London.

Eddie Chapman enjoyed the perks of the uniform, but soon became bored with his duties.

On release, Eddie Chapman received a dishonourable discharge from the army.

Eddie Chapman slipped into fraud and petty theft and, after several run-ins with the law, finally received his first civilian prison sentence, two months in Wormwood Scrubs for forging a cheque.

Eddie Chapman became a safecracker with London West End gangs, spending several stretches in jail for these crimes.

The execution of the crime involved Eddie Chapman disguising himself as a member of the Metropolitan Water Board in order to gain access to a house in Edgware Road, from which he made his way into the shop next door by smashing through the wall.

Eddie Chapman then extracted the safe, which was transported to Hunt's Garage at 39 St Luke's Mews, where it had its door removed using gelignite.

Eddie Chapman was arrested in Scotland and charged with blowing up the safe of the headquarters of the Edinburgh Co-operative Society.

Eddie Chapman had been dining with his lover and future fiancee Betty Farmer at the Hotel de la Plage immediately before his arrest and, when he saw plain-clothes police coming to arrest him for crimes on the mainland, made a spectacular exit through the dining room window.

Eddie Chapman was still in prison when the Channel Islands were invaded by the Germans.

On 16 December 1942, Eddie Chapman was flown to Britain in a Focke-Wulf bomber converted for parachuting, from Le Bourget airfield.

Eddie Chapman became stuck in the hatch as he tried to leave the aircraft.

Section B1A, the MI5-backed department with the task of capturing enemy agents and turning them into double agents, had discussed the best method of capturing Eddie Chapman without revealing Ultra.

However, these plans proved unnecessary; Eddie Chapman surrendered to the local police shortly after landing and offered his services to MI5.

Eddie Chapman was interrogated at Latchmere House in southwest London, better known as Camp 020.

Radio messages were sent to the Abwehr requesting extraction by boat or submarine, and Eddie Chapman was set to work learning a cover story ready for the inevitable interrogations.

Stephens was impressed with how well Eddie Chapman responded to questioning.

Eddie Chapman was given the task of memorising a list of questions to which the Allies wanted answers.

The list was carefully constructed so that, should Eddie Chapman be broken, its content would not show German intelligence the gaps in Allied knowledge.

Eddie Chapman was given two bombs, which he handed to the ship's captain.

Eddie Chapman was sent to occupied Norway to teach at a German spy school in Oslo.

Eddie Chapman was inducted into the German Army as an oberleutnant or first lieutenant.

Eddie Chapman parachuted into Cambridgeshire on 29 June 1944 and went to London.

Eddie Chapman was indiscreet about the sources of his income and so MI5, being unable to control him, dismissed him on 2 November 1944.

Eddie Chapman was granted a pardon for his pre-war activities and was reported by MI5 to have been living "in fashionable places in London always in the company of beautiful women of apparent culture".

Eddie Chapman had two fiancees at the same time, each in opposite war zones.

Eddie Chapman was thrilled to know that her lover was not a German officer, and they worked together to gather German information.

Eddie Chapman abandoned both women after the war and instead married his former lover Betty Farmer, whom he had left in a hurry at the Hotel de la Plage in 1938.

Eddie Chapman died before he was able to redeem her name.

On his retirement, MI5 expressed some apprehension that Eddie Chapman might take up crime again when his money ran out and if caught would plead for leniency because of his highly secret wartime service.

However, his book The Eddie Chapman Story was eventually published in 1953.

Eddie Chapman claimed to have met Pleasants while he was imprisoned in Jersey.

In 1967, Eddie Chapman was living in Italy and went into business as an antiquarian.

Eddie Chapman died of heart failure on 11 December 1997.

Eddie Chapman was survived by his wife Betty, and a daughter.

Eddie Chapman appeared as himself on the panel game show To Tell the Truth in November 1965.

The film was only loosely based on reality, and Eddie Chapman was disappointed with it.

In May 1989 Eddie Chapman made an extended appearance on the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark, alongside Tony Benn, Lord Dacre, James Rusbridger, Miles Copeland and others.