Was myy great uncle a spy?
QMy great uncle Herbert Mennell seems to have been airbrushed out of family memory. He H appears on passenger lists for f ships sailing to Portugal and Brazil, B and lived in Lisbon. He worked w at the BBC, and died in London. L Given that Lisbon was a city c of spies, could there be a link? Simon S Dane
APortugal was indeed a nest of spies in the Second World War. Germans watched Allied shipping, and a at least one German spy flew into Britain B by civil airliner from Lisbon. In I turn, the British watched them, burgled their consulate, planted double agents, and tried to prevent their t purchasing Portuguese wolfram
(tungsten), which was valuable for making steel. Escape lines from occupied Europe ended up, via Spain, in Lisbon. Both sides roped in long-term residents to help. Herbert would’ve been a prime candidate. He’d been a First World
War army officer, he’d travelled widely, and presumably spoke Portuguese and, probably, Spanish (he’d done business in Argentina). As a manager/merchant (having two jobs is faintly suspicious) he could travel, meet all kinds of people, and, naturally, talk to other Englishmen.
Herbert kept his nose clean. In 20 years of travel he never appears in the Foreign Office indexes (The National Archives’ series FO 409) needing or offering help. He isn’t listed as a Portuguese contact for the Special Operations Executive (series HS 8/970 at TNA). He’s not on my personal list of known MI6 staff. His wife Gwenneth lived in a flat in London’s Dolphin Square, an area known for MI5 and MI6 safehouses, in 1945/1946, but this is probably coincidence.
If he was involved with MI6, they won’t admit it. Contact the Portuguese Embassy ( https://londres.embaixadaportugal.mne. gov.pt/en) to ask if you can see the Secret Police file on him – they would have kept one – and ask the BBC if his personnel file survives ( tinyurl.com/bbc-archives). Phil Tomaselli