Walter Arthur Charles Dicketts was a British double agent who was sent by MI5 into Nazi Germany in early 1941 to infiltrate the Abwehr and bring back information about any impending invasion of Britain.
24 Facts About Walter Dicketts
1.
2.
Walter Dicketts was born in Southend-on-Sea, the son of Arthur, a stockbroker's clerk, and his wife Francis.
3.
Walter Dicketts attended the local grammar school and in 1915 he ran away from school and enlisted with the RNAS at the age of fifteen.
4.
Walter Dicketts served in armoured cars, and tanks before becoming a pilot in 1917.
5.
Unable to meet his expenses, Walter Dicketts turned to crime, purchasing goods with false cheques and then selling the items.
6.
Walter Dicketts was sentenced to hard labour and as a result lost both his wife and his mistress.
7.
At the age of thirty, Walter Dicketts eloped with a sixteen-year-old girl named Alma Wood and married her, prompting a nationwide search to catch him before the marriage could take place.
8.
Walter Dicketts married two more times to Vera Fudge and Judith Kelman and maintained a second mistress called Kathleen "Kay" Holdcroft during his marriage to Vera.
9.
Kay "Walter Dicketts" played an integral role as part of his cover during his mission to South America in 1941.
10.
Walter Dicketts was sent by MI5 into Nazi Germany in early 1941 to infiltrate the Abwehr and bring back information about any impending invasion of Britain.
11.
Walter Dicketts was an ex RNAS officer who had worked in Air Intelligence for the Air Ministry during the latter part of World War I and had subsequently served several prison sentences for fraud.
12.
Unable to regain a commission in the RAF or work for British Intelligence due to his criminal past, Walter Dicketts volunteered to work for the British Double Cross team led by Lt.
13.
Ritter arranged for Walter Dicketts to be brought to Hamburg to be interrogated by members of the Abwehr.
14.
Walter Dicketts was drugged, plied with alcohol, tricked and strenuously interrogated for five days and was accepted as a German agent whose role was to ferry German spies and equipment into England by boat from the occupied Channel Islands.
15.
Walter Dicketts remained in Hamburg and later in Berlin for four weeks.
16.
When Walter Dicketts returned to England with Owens their stories did not match and MI5 spent many hours interrogating their two agents, trying to establish who was telling the truth.
17.
MI5 were never certain of Owens' loyalty, or if he betrayed Walter Dicketts due to jealousy or whether he was a genuine traitor.
18.
Walter Dicketts married four times and maintained two mistresses during two of those marriages.
19.
Walter Dicketts became very successful, owned a manor house, and drove around in a white Rolls-Royce.
20.
The money he obtained from investors was used to repay other investors and in classic Ponzi scheme style, his businesses began to collapse and Walter Dicketts was unable to repay his debts and soon gave himself up to police.
21.
Walter Dicketts was sentenced to four years prison of which he served two years for good behaviour and then left England to run a rubber plantation in Malaya.
22.
Walter Dicketts was described by his German codename Brown, and was pictured being drugged by the Abwehr who removed his opening signet ring to see if any hidden secret code was written behind the photograph of his girlfriend Kay.
23.
Walter Dicketts died in August 1957 of coal-gas poisoning, having apparently killed himself, and Owens died in December of the same year of cardiac asthma, a condition secondary to heart failure that is marked by breathing difficulty.
24.
Walter Dicketts's family did not discover his role with British intelligence in both world wars until his security services file was released by the British National Archives in 2006.