Zigzag: The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman | Nicholas Booth

Zigzag: The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman | Nicholas Booth | Zigzag

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Zigzag: The Incred...

	Zigzag: The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman Nicholas Booth Arcade Publishing, 2007 - 408 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Agent Zigzag to the British, Agent Fritz to the Germans

During World War II, Eddie Chapman bore the codename "Zigzag", given to him by his British masters at MI5. Such names were supposed to be close to meaningless; the point was to keep Chapman and his work secret. But some spymaster allowed a shade of meaning into Chapman's designator; he had zigged through the British criminal underworld, zagged through the ranks of German espionage, and MI5 had trouble understanding where he was coming from or where he would show up next. "Without a doubt he was the most remarkable spy of the Second World War," writes Nicholas Booth in _Zigzag: The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman_ (Arcade Publishing). Chapman has had his biographies before, and even a couple of autobiographies which are not really to be trusted because, well, he was Eddie Chapman, and also because of censorship restrictions, still in place when Chapman brought out his "real" story in 1966. Now the official secrecy is lifted and archives opened, and with the help of Chapman's longsuffering but devoted widow, Booth has researched Chapman's story as much as it probably will ever be. It's one of those stories that if it were brought out as a novel, it would be dismissed as lacking any grounds for credibility. Chapman was a clever, devious fellow, and MI5 harnessed the deviousness without ever rewarding him or acknowledging how much the nation was in Chapman's debt.

Chapman was born in 1914 and drifted to London in the mid-1930s, where, in his own words, he "met and mixed with all types of tricky people, racecourse crooks, touts, thieves, prostitutes and the flotsam of the nightlife of a great city." He was a small-time crook and went on to a specialty of blowing up safes. He was languishing in prison on the island of Jersey when the Germans took it over in 1940. The Germans recruited him as an agent and he was sent to training in France courtesy of the Abwehr, the intelligence branch of the German armed forces. In December 1942, Chapman was parachuted to Britain with a radio set, and he contacted the British Secret Service, who helped him pretend to blow up an aircraft factory. It was enough to impress his German controllers when he radioed them of his results, and when he returned to Germany, they were overjoyed to have him back. They presented him with the Iron Cross medal (Booth says it may have been a less prestigious medal than the Iron Cross, but still, he was the only Briton to win one). In 1944 when the German V-weapons were being developed, Chapman was parachuted again into Britain (the only double agent to make the crossing twice), and was there for the rest of the war. He transmitted reports about the landing points of the V-1 buzzbombs, reports that falsely indicated the bombs were overreaching their targets. Thereafter, bombs sent to destroy London began falling short in the fields of Kent.

The money and medal from Germany would be more recognition than Chapman would get from Britain. MI5 did arrange to wipe his previous convictions clean, and though after the war Chapman was involved in some dodgy enterprises and had to go to court, he was never again in prison. He and his wife, the woman he was visiting Jersey with at the time of his arrest there, stayed married until his death in 1997. Booth's tender interviews with her show that she remains smitten with him though he had little notion of fidelity. Chapman, MI5 finally acknowledged, was devoted to himself, to adventure, and to his country, in that order, and it was handy that MI5 could harness the first two to the use of the third. Here is a complex picture of a strange man, a fellow who ingratiated himself to others easily, was helpful and polite, and had a sociopathic interest in getting his own way and didn't mind doing it dishonestly. His wife remembers his motto was, "Never resist temptation." Not at all an attractive character as revealed in this entertaining biography, but entered into the war, with his sociopathy at the call of his country, and despite himself, he became some sort of a hero.

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Zigzag

Great book. Gripping. The reader gets a good understanding of war life for civilians, law enforcement, and spies in England, France, and Germany during World War II. I could not put this book down.

Just What Did Zig Zag Accomplish? Nothing!

Well, I just finished reading this book, and while it is well-written in an easy-to-read, almost colloquial style, I found myself puzzled by the double-agent, Eddie Chapman. First of all, I didn't like him and I did not like the author's over-board excusing not only his excessive criminal conduct but his virtually psychotic personal traits. Chapman's treating of women would today put him clearly in the "abuser" category, and render him a prime candidate for therapy if not incarceration. Second, I found myself wondering what Zig Zag REALLY DID, as a spy. The book does very little to specify his actions that helped the Brits. It seemed to me that most of the time while under the employ of either the British or the Germans, whether or not he was in Paris, Berlin, Oslo or London, his main pasttimes revolved around drinking, womanizing and leisure! For the life of me, I could not ferret out from the pages of this book many significant acts of his "spydom!" What on earth did he do that was so "courageous," so "risky," so earth-shatteringly important, and so worthy of our adoration, to say nothing of feeling in agreement with the author's complaints that the Brits never paid proper homage to him? Beats me! I'm glad that they did not give him some hero's medal or a pension! He ripped off the system as it was! He was a penny-ante thief and criminal, a jailbird who, though very clever, played off both sides of the war against each other essentially for his own gain, to escape prison and for his pathological need for adventure. I felt little excitement and no sympathy for him. He was, after all, a despicable character, a liar and a cheat. He betrayed almost everyone he ever knew. For that we are supposed to adore him? I have probably read 200 books and novels about WWII. I understand perfectly the situation and the perspective of this book. What I don't understand here is why the author thinks we should build a statue to this crook! I rather liked Betty, his long-suffering wife, although, and she fits perfectly the classic victim profile of an abusive husband.

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reviews: 1, page 2

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