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Old 13th June 2017, 00:46
Lucy Knight England Lucy Knight is offline
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Join Date: May 2017
Location: Plymouth Devon
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Although to my knowledge this is not written in book yet,but in today's Plymouth Herald. This is the story of a Plymouth based Merchant Navy traitor who gave away info on convoys to enemy.

Much has been writtten of the bravery of those MN who served on ww2 convoys and in survivors reports (SN) eg San Emilano 1 (Eagle oil) when she would was hit, one of the radio officers volunteered to crawl through flames to release the only accessible lifeboat. Now it appears the traitors stories aret surfacing. Another MN traitor was born in Plymouth

ymouth Herald
‘The £18 traitor’: The little-known Plymouth spy hanged during WW2

By WMNAGreenwood | Posted: June 11, 2017

By Herald Reporter
‘The £18 traitor’: The little-known Plymouth spy hanged during WW2

Scott-Ford was just 21 when he was hanged
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His execution for treachery in the middle of the Second World War made headlines around the world.

Yet the name of merchant seaman Duncan Alexander Croall Scott-Ford, who was born in Plymouth, is hardly known in his home city.

And that’s despite him being regarded by MI5 as one of the most dangerous traitors ever to be brought to justice.

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Driven by lust, greed and the promise of riches if Germany won the war, Scott-Ford, the son of a Plymouth sailor, almost certainly caused the sinking of several ships with the loss of hundreds of lives.

His trial was held in secret at the Old Bailey. He was hanged aged just 21 at Wandsworth prison in 1942 after being found guilty of treachery.

His execution made headlines across the world. He was dubbed ‘the man who sold his country for £18’ – the cash sum he received from his Nazy spymasters.

Scott-Ford was born in Plymouth on September 4, 1921. His father died when he was 11. It’s not known what befell of his mother.

Educated at the Royal Hospital School, at Holbrook, from 1933 to 1937, he followed his father into the Royal Navy aged 16. He was posted to HMS Impregnable in Devonport in December 1937.

His downfall began in June 1939 in Tanzania where he met Ingeborg Richter, the daughter of a leading Nazi. He was 18. She was a beautiful 17-year-old.

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Later the same year he was caught passing secreting codes to a prostitute in Alexandria, dismissed from the Navy and sentenced to six months imprisonment.

But he was crucially allowed to go free when he returned to the UK and re-enlisted as a merchant seaman in Glasgow.

He would go on to have at least five meetings with German agents in foreign ports – divulging details of convoy movements which would then be targeted by German U-boats.



In return he was given women and the cash sum for which he would become infamous.

He was also promised the hand in marriage of Richter with whom he was infatuated and the prospect of running his own ship, or port, in the event that Germany triumphed.

He fell under suspicion and was followed by British spies in 1942 when his ship arrived in Lisbon, Portgual.

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Scott-Ford was arrested when he returned home. In his pocket was a notebook containing details of convoy routes.

At MI5’s interrogation centre, Scott-Ford finally revealed the full extent of his betrayal.

“He came here full of bombast, visualising himself an important figure in the international spy racket,” one report said. “During the course of lengthy and searching interrogation he was eventually shown to be the traitorous rat he is.



“I cannot find one single mitigating circumstance in this man’s history or attitude towards life.”

“The damage of which Scott-Ford was capable was infinite,” another added. “Death by hanging is almost too good for a sailor who will envisage the death of thousands of his shipmates without a qualm.”

At the time Scott-Ford was described as worse than Roger Casement, considered at the time to be the epitome of evil, who was convicted and hanged for high treason in 1916 for his part in planning the Easter Rising.

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Scott-Ford was executed in London on the morning of November 3, 1942. The Home Office the following statement as a warning to others.

“Scott-Ford was convicted under the Treachery Act at the Central Criminal Court on October 16 before a judge and jury and sentenced to death. The trial was heard in camera. Scott-Ford was represented by an eminent counsel, but did not appeal.

“This case illustrates the technique of enemy agents in Lisbon and other neutral ports in collecting information from British and Allied seamen.



“Scott-Ford at the time of his arrest was a merchant seaman aboard a British vessel making more or less regular trips between Britain and Lisbon and engaged in trade vital to the British war effort.

“When Scott-Ford was ashore in Lisbon he was approached by a stranger, who turned out to be an enemy agent, who found him ready to supply the enemy with secret information relating to the British merchant navy in return for money payments.

“Scott-Ford was paid a sum equivalent to about £18. That was all Scott-Ford received from the enemy, although a glittering prize was held out to him which lured him deeper and deeper into the blackmailing clutches of the enemy.

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“Thus, when Scott-Ford returned on a second visit to Lisbon with information he had collected the Germans, instead of honouring their promises, threatened to expose him to the British authorities unless he continued to perform certain services to collect more valuable information and run greater risks in their interests.

“Some of the information Scott-Ford gave the enemy related to his own ship and thus imperilled the lives of his own shipmates. He also gave away detailed information relating to the movements of convoys between Lisbon and Britain.

“When Scott-Ford was arrested certain memoranda were found in his possession. It gave the position and names of ships and escorts in a convoy in which he returned from his last trip to Britain, also particulars of speed, course, and distances travelled and a log of the voyage and a description of the weather conditions and the amount of aircraft protection provided.



“After his arrest Scott-Ford volunteered a statement, in which he admitted having associated with persons who, he knew, engaged in espionage on behalf of the enemy, also that he made notes at the express request of those agents in order to hand them to the German espionage service on his return to Lisbon.

“Scott-Ford, on his return to England, carried out German secret service agents’ instructions by touring public houses and mixing with fellow seamen and members of the services in order to pump them for information in their possession.

“The moral to be drawn from this case was that British and Allied seamen when visiting neutral ports should be constantly on guard against strangers who may frequently approach them for apparent innocent services.

“Such strangers are apt to be enemy agents, who lure their unsuspecting victims into a course of conduct which may expose them to blackmailing attempts by the enemy and induce them to betray their country and the Allied cause.”

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