Tortured war hero’s medals sell for £95,000
THE medals of a British war hero who fooled the Nazis after being tortured to within an inch of his life have been sold by his family for £95,000.
Sergeant Kenneth Scott was captured behind enemy lines in a secret mission and his commanding officer, Major Frank Thompson, was executed.
But Sgt Scott, a radio operator, was spared as the Gestapo believed he could extract intelligence for them by liaising with the Special Operations Executive. One of the army’s finest wireless operator, he made deliberate “unthinkable” mistakes in his transmissions to SOE chiefs, who realised he was being held.
He managed to keep up a game of bluff with the SOE operators for 14 weeks, contriving to reveal nothing without his captors suspecting. Had they done so he would have been shot.
Sgt Scott, of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, was set free as the Russians, who had declared war on Bulgaria, were approaching the capital Sofia where he was being held.
He was the only British survivor of Operation Claridges, an attempt to rally 200 Bulgarian partisans against the Nazi-supporting regime in April 1944. Sgt Scott, of Lewisham, South East London, was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. He died aged 88 in 2008.
His medals were sold by his two daughters with London auctioneers Dix Noonan Webb.
Associate director Christopher Mellor-Hill said: “His two daughters will be delighted that their father’s story is being told and that his bravery is being so fully recognised.”