Peter Sheridan

ATAWNY blonde beauty with sparkling brown eyes and a flirtatious smile, Betty McIntosh was an unlikely Second World War heroine. She never stormed a Panzer division, didn’t try to assassinate Hitler, and never shot at the enemy – though she was responsible for at least one murder.

But with the weekend’s VJ-Day 75th anniversary celebrations still fresh in our minds, it is appropriate to remember one of that vicious conflict’s secret heroines.

For in the Pacific theatre, where British and US troops fought on after victory had been declared in Europe on May 8, 1945, McIntosh was an American secret weapon to be reckoned with. She blazed a trail in psychological warfare, demoralising the Japanese army and pushing them to surrender.

Historian Ann Todd, author of OSS Operation Black Mail, says: “Japanese soldiers came out of the jungles of Burma to surrender clutching the faked papers from Japanese High Command that Betty had produced,” revealing how McIntosh helped the Allies win with deception and lies.

“She faked Japanese newspapers and radio broadcasts, spread disinformation to undermine Japanese troop morale, and was a pioneer of what today we might call ‘fake news’.

“Her goal was to deceive and trick the enemy into surrendering, saving lives on both sides.”

McIntosh was a newspaper reporter in Hawaii when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941, hurtling America into the War.

Todd, who befriended Betty, says: “She saw squadrons of Japanese bombers overhead and never forgot the scenes of carnage, the children killed and maimed in the attack.”

Recruited by the fledgling US spy agency the Office of Strategic Services – the precursor to the CIA – Betty joined the Morale Operations branch, aiming to win by poisoning enemy minds.

She was trained in guerrilla warfare and espionage tradecraft, machinegun fire, lock-picking and safe-blowing. She learned to use listening devices, codes and ciphers, and produced fake Japanese and Burmese newspapers.

Becoming head of operations in the China-Burma-India theatre, she paid spies in opium.

Todd says: “Only years later did she allow herself to ponder how many addicts she had been responsible for creating.

“She worked closely with the British, who believed the Japanese soldier couldn’t be manipulated because they were too indoctrinated or too stupid. But Betty spoke fluent Japanese and loved Japanese culture.

“She understood that she could target the man within the soldier – the son, husband, father.

“Betty knew they were vulnerable to homesickness, hunger, resentment, fatigue, bitterness and hopelessness. It’s what made her black propaganda so successful.”

British agents captured Japanese mail in Burma and Betty rewrote it to send messages of despair instead.

Todd says: “She’d change a soldier’s letter home to say that his army was defeated, he’d fallen in love with a comfort kitten [women forced to become prostitutes] and wouldn’t be coming home.

“She’d change loving letters from wives, instead telling soldiers that they’d become pregnant while alone in Japan, or highlighting lies of military victories being told in Japan.

“She inserted faked Tokyo bombdamage photos into Japanese troops’ mail. Anything to make them give up.”

Betty’s agents took captured Japanese helmets, knapsacks, medical kits and ammunition pouches and added black propaganda leaflets, then air-dropped them along Burmese trails where Japanese soldiers would snap them up.

They even scattered 500 captured Japanese rifles across Burma, “repaired” so that they would explode in the soldier’s face when fired, killing or maiming them.

Her knowledge of Japanese culture helped shape her deceptions.

Todd says: “Betty understood that the Japanese put a lot of faith in astrology, so she invented fake clairvoyants and seers making dire predictions in phony Japanese newspapers and radio broadcasts.”

THEY made “predictions” about Japanese defeats after they’d happened and published them in fake newspapers dated before the events, so they appeared to be clairvoyant.

The biggest problem Allied troops faced in the Pacific was the Japanese troops’ abhorrence of surrender: it meant shame, ignominy, punishment and exile for ever.

Todd says: “As the war wound down, Japanese soldiers were in retreat in Burma, sick and malnourished with little ammunition, eating snails and lizards, being attacked on trails by tigers. Yet they would rather commit suicide than surrender. “Betty’s great idea was to forge a letter from Japanese High Command telling troops that it was now acceptable to surrender without shame or punishment.

“They recruited a Burmese assassin and Betty ordered him: ‘Kill a courier and plant the falsified orders on him so that his comrades will find them with his body’.”

The fake order found its way to a company commander and more copies were dropped from the air throughout the Burmese jungles.

Todd says: “Bedraggled Japanese troops came out of the jungle to surrender, many carrying Betty’s fake orders.”

Yet sometimes Betty found her British allies as alien as the Japanese enemy. Todd says: “Betty worked closely with the British when she was stationed in India, but every day the war stopped for tea.The British officers all had many servants – Lord Louis Mountbatten took over a plantation complete with a 30-strong band and a golf course – and enjoyed quite the social life. Betty’s spy toolkit included a ballgown for