Britain denied payout to Second World War hero

Secret agent’s claim after Gestapo ordeal rejected due to technicality

The British Government denied compensation to a Second World War hero who spent two years in solitary confinement at a prisoner-of-war camp due to a technicality about where he was detained, official papers show.

Jack Thorez Finken-McKay, a British serviceman transferred from the Royal Fusiliers to the War Office to perform “special duties”, said he became “a living skeleton” at the hands of the Gestapo.

He had been arrested and interrogated in France before being sent to a POW camp in Germany.

He said he suffered partial blindness, memory loss and mental health issues as a result of his incarceration and treatment at the notorious Colditz Castle, according to newly released records.

Two decades after his release, the secret agent was among thousands applying for compensation from the British Government after the Federal Republic of Germany agree to hand over £1 million to be doled out to those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

But Mr Finken-McKay’s claim was dismissed by a Foreign Office official, who he was not eligible for money.

A note from the official, addressed to Mr Finken-McKay in December 1965, states: “Your application has been carefully considered but I am sorry to have to tell you that, on the information provided, it cannot be registered.

“The reason for this is that the prisons and camps in which you were detained were not Nazi concentration camps or comparable institutions.”

The files were released by the National Archives at Kew, west London, where similar tales of bravery were told to Foreign Office representatives in the hope of gaining compensation.