Mole
However, on his return to Britain, Owens had second thoughts and told the British authorities in September 1938 of his contact and that he was to receive a radio transceiver. The radio arrived at the left luggage office of Victoria Station in London early in 1939; Owens turned this over. On August 11, 1939, Owens visited his Abwehr controller in Hamburg; during this visit, his wife and son went to the police to tell them he was a German agent. Despite this information, the police failed to pick him up on his return on August 23.
On September 4, Owens made contact with the Special Branch to volunteer his services. However, he was instead interned in Wandsworth Prison under Defence Regulation 18B as someone with hostile associations. MI5 decided that Owens, to whom they gave the codename SNOW, could act as a double agent. On September 12, MI5 returned the transmitter to Owens in Wandsworth, where it was used by a warder to contact the Germans. Owens received a reply inviting him to go to the Low Countries, then neutral, and he was let out of jail to do so.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Owens
Famous quotes containing the word mole:
“On her left breast
A mole cinque-spotted, like the crimson drops
I’ th’ bottom of a cowslip.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The ignorance and darkness that is in us, no more hinders nor confines the knowledge that is in others, than the blindness of a mole is an argument against the quicksightedness of an eagle.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“For like a mole I journey in the dark,
A-travelling along the underground”
—John Davidson (1857–1909)