24. Chapman Cons the Nazis
At the start of WWII, Chapman was on the lam, hiding in Jersey in the Channel Islands from arrest warrants awaiting him in the British mainland. A botched burglary earned him a two-year sentence in a Jersey prison, where the Germans found him when they captured the Channel Islands in 1940. He offered to work for them, so they freed and trained him in explosives, sabotage, and other clandestine skills. They then parachuted into Britain in 1942, tasked with destroying a bomber factory.
He was arrested soon after landing, however, and immediately accepted an offer to become a double agent – an easy choice, considering that the likeliest alternative would have been a hangman’s noose. Given the codename “Agent Zigzag”, a plan was concocted to fake the bomber factory’s destruction. It convinced the Germans, and raised Chapman high in their esteem. From then on, his radio reports, carefully fed him by British intelligence, were treated as gospel by the Germans.
