After a debriefing by von Gröning, Chapman was awarded the Iron Cross for his work in apparently damaging the de Havilland works and the City of Lancaster, making him the first Englishman to receive such an award since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.
Edward Arnold Chapman (16 November 1914 – 11 December 1997) was an English criminal and wartime spy.
His German codename was Fritz or, later, after endearing himself to his German contacts, its diminutive form of Fritzchen. ==Background== Chapman was born on 16 November 1914 in Burnopfield, County Durham, England.
She was thrilled to know that her lover was not a German officer, and they worked together to gather German information. He 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.
MI5 decided to use him as a double agent against the Germans and assigned Ronnie Reed as his case officer (Reed had been invited to join MI5 in 1940 and remained there until his retirement in 1976). ===Faked sabotage of de Havilland factory=== During the night of 29–30 January 1943, Chapman with MI5 officers faked a sabotage attack on his target, the de Havilland aircraft factory in Hatfield, where the Mosquito was being manufactured.
Under the direction of Captain Stephan von Gröning, head of the Abwehr in Nantes, he was trained in explosives, radio communications, parachute jumping and other subjects in France at La Bretonnière-la-Claye, Saint-Julien-des-Landes, near Nantes, and dispatched to Britain to commit acts of sabotage. On 16 December 1942, Chapman was flown to Britain in a Focke-Wulf bomber, converted for parachuting, from Le Bourget airfield.
MI5 decided to use him as a double agent against the Germans and assigned Ronnie Reed as his case officer (Reed had been invited to join MI5 in 1940 and remained there until his retirement in 1976). ===Faked sabotage of de Havilland factory=== During the night of 29–30 January 1943, Chapman with MI5 officers faked a sabotage attack on his target, the de Havilland aircraft factory in Hatfield, where the Mosquito was being manufactured.
He parachuted into Cambridgeshire on 29 June 1944 and went to London.
He was also indiscreet about the sources of his income and so MI5, being unable to control him, dismissed him on 2 November 1944.
As predicted, he mixed with blackmailers and thieves and got into trouble with the police for various crimes, including smuggling gold across the Mediterranean in 1950.
He was survived by his wife Betty, and a daughter. ==In popular culture== In the 1950s producer Ted Banborough announced plans to make a film about Chapman starring Michael Rennie or Stanley Baker, but this did not go ahead. He appeared as himself on the panel game show To Tell the Truth in November 1965. The 1966 film Triple Cross was based on the biography The Real Eddie Chapman Story co-written by Chapman and Frank Owen.
However, his book The Eddie Chapman Story was eventually published in 1953. Chapman ghost-wrote the autobiography of Eric Pleasants, a British citizen who joined the Germans and served in the British Free Corps of the Waffen-SS during the war.
He and Farmer later had a daughter Suzanne in 1954.
I Killed to Live – The Story of Eric Pleasants as told to Eddie Chapman was published in 1957.
He was survived by his wife Betty, and a daughter. ==In popular culture== In the 1950s producer Ted Banborough announced plans to make a film about Chapman starring Michael Rennie or Stanley Baker, but this did not go ahead. He appeared as himself on the panel game show To Tell the Truth in November 1965. The 1966 film Triple Cross was based on the biography The Real Eddie Chapman Story co-written by Chapman and Frank Owen.
He was survived by his wife Betty, and a daughter. ==In popular culture== In the 1950s producer Ted Banborough announced plans to make a film about Chapman starring Michael Rennie or Stanley Baker, but this did not go ahead. He appeared as himself on the panel game show To Tell the Truth in November 1965. The 1966 film Triple Cross was based on the biography The Real Eddie Chapman Story co-written by Chapman and Frank Owen.
In 1967, Chapman was living in Italy and went into business as an antiquarian. Chapman and his wife later set up a [farm] (Shenley Lodge, Shenley, Herts) and owned a castle in Ireland.
In his autobiography, Plummer said that Chapman was to have been a technical adviser on the film, but the French authorities would not allow him in the country because he was still wanted over an alleged plot to kidnap the Sultan of Morocco. In 1967 French TV (ORTF) produced a short film featuring a brief Chapman interview (in fluent French).
Broadcast 6 January 1967, 19'29". In May 1989 Chapman made an extended appearance on the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark, alongside Tony Benn, Lord Dacre, James Rusbridger, Miles Copeland and others.
MI5 decided to use him as a double agent against the Germans and assigned Ronnie Reed as his case officer (Reed had been invited to join MI5 in 1940 and remained there until his retirement in 1976). ===Faked sabotage of de Havilland factory=== During the night of 29–30 January 1943, Chapman with MI5 officers faked a sabotage attack on his target, the de Havilland aircraft factory in Hatfield, where the Mosquito was being manufactured.
Broadcast 6 January 1967, 19'29". In May 1989 Chapman made an extended appearance on the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark, alongside Tony Benn, Lord Dacre, James Rusbridger, Miles Copeland and others.
They met again briefly in 1994.
Edward Arnold Chapman (16 November 1914 – 11 December 1997) was an English criminal and wartime spy.
Eddie Chapman died of heart failure on 11 December 1997.
In 2011, BBC Two broadcast Double Agent: The Eddie Chapman Story, a Timewatch documentary presented by Ben Macintyre based on his book.
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