5. From Crook to Spy
Eddie Chapman, AKA “Agent Zigzag” (1914 – 1997) was a safebreaker, thief, crook, all around career criminal, and one of WWII’s most fascinating spies. He became the only Englishman ever awarded a German Iron Cross. It was ironic on many levels, because he was also one of history’s most colorful double crossers, and a double agent who led the Germans astray. The false information he fed the Germans derailed the effectiveness of their “Vengeance Weapons”, and likely saved the lives of thousands of Londoners. Raised in a dysfunctional family, Chapman was a delinquent from early on. He enlisted in the British Army at age seventeen, but within a few months grew bored and deserted. When the army caught up with him, he was sentenced to a prison stint and a dishonorable discharge.
After his release, Chapman turned to fraud and crime to support a gambling habit and a taste for fine drinks. When WWII started, Chapman was 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. That was where the Germans found him when they captured the Channel Islands in 1940. Chapman offered to work for the Nazis. Eager for spies to send to Britain, the German freed and trained him in explosives, sabotage, and other clandestine skills. They then parachuted him into Britain in 1942, with orders to sabotage and destroy a bomber factory.
