Birgit Kroencke - Service in World War II

Service in World War II

Initially, Lee volunteered to fight for the Finnish forces during the Winter War in 1939. He and other British volunteers were kept away from actual fighting, but he was issued winter gear and was posted on guard duty a safe distance from the front lines. He went on to serve in the Royal Air Force and intelligence services during World War II, including serving as an intelligence officer with the Long Range Desert Group in Northern Africa. He trained in South Africa as a pilot, but eyesight problems forced him to drop out. He eventually ended up stationed in North Africa as a Cipher Officer for No. 260 Squadron RAF and was with it through the campaigns in Sicily and Italy. He has mentioned serving in Special Operations Executive but has always declined to go into details.

I was attached to the SAS from time to time but we are forbidden – former, present, or future – to discuss any specific operations. Let’s just say I was in Special Forces and leave it at that. People can read in to that what they like.

After the war, Lee, who can speak fluent French and German, among other languages, was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. Here, he was tasked with helping to track down Nazi war criminals. Of his time with the organisation, Lee has said: "We were given dossiers of what they’d done and told to find them, interrogate them as much as we could and hand them over to the appropriate authority... We saw these concentration camps. Some had been cleaned up. Some had not." Lee then retired from the RAF to take up acting after the end of the war with the rank of Flight Lieutenant.