Walter Dicketts, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetWalter Dicketts
Date of Birth: 31-Mar-1900
Place of Birth: Wandsworth, England, United Kingdom
Date of Death: 16-Aug-1957
Profession: double agent
Nationality: United Kingdom
Zodiac Sign: Aries 
About Walter Dicketts
- Walter Dicketts (31 March 1900 – 16 August 1957) 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.
- As part of the Double-Cross System Dicketts role was to convince the Germans he was a traitor who was willing to sell out his country in return for cash, whilst continuing to report to MI5.
- 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.
- Unable to regain a commission in the RAF or work for British Intelligence due to his criminal past, Dicketts volunteered to work for the British Double Cross team led by Lt.Col T.A.
- Robertson (Thomas Argyle Robertson, known as Tar by his initials).
- Given the codename Celery, Dicketts accompanied Britain’s first double agent Arthur Owens (Snow) to neutral Lisbon where he was introduced to Major Nikolaus Ritter of the Abwehr.
- Ritter arranged for Dicketts to be brought to Hamburg to be interrogated by members of the Abwehr.
- 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.
- Dicketts remained in Hamburg and later in Berlin for four weeks, where every second he spent in enemy territory, his life was at risk. When 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.
- In the end Dicketts' account was believed over Owens', who was imprisoned until 1944 for betraying Dicketts to the Germans before he even went into Germany, and for informing Ritter that the radio transmitter he had given him before the war, was now under MI5 control.
- MI5 were never certain of Owens’ loyalty, or if he betrayed Dicketts due to jealousy or whether he was a genuine traitor.
- If the latter was the case, then Owens may have continued to betray other British agents or disclosed secret details about deceptions of vital importance to Britain.
- Shortly after Owens’ imprisonment, MI5 sent Dicketts back to Lisbon to help an Abwehr officer to defect, and several months later he was sent to South America shortly before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
- Dicketts' mistress Kay was given false papers in the name of Mrs Dicketts despite her 'husband' being legally married at the time.In his business life, Walter Dicketts used up to twenty-three different aliases and served several prison sentences for fraud (forging cheques and obtaining money by false pretences) in the UK, as well as one in Austria and one in France.
- Dicketts married four times and maintained two mistresses during two of those marriages.
- Police and media described Dicketts variously as elusive, well-educated, well spoken, with charming manners and a charming smile.
Read more at Wikipedia