Near the town of Ramsey, Huntingdonshire, is a historical treasure, the Ramsey Rural Museum. The Museum is managed and maintained by volunteers and is both quaint and informative. Housed in renovated 17th century farm buildings, the Museum exhibits include over 200 years of local history. I visited the Museum briefly in 2010 and while I […]
Ramsey Rural Museum Read More »
If I had any artistic talent whatsoever, I would attempt to draw the fashion ensemble that Josef Jakobs was wearing when he parachuted out of the German aircraft on 31 January, 1941. Alas, my skills do not lie in that direction, despite the fact that my mother studied as a seamstress and seems to have
A Well-Dressed Spy Read More »
Recently I’ve reestablished contact with Martyn, grandson of Horace Jaikens, the police officer who was in charge of the Ramsey Police Station when Josef was captured. Martyn is a war history buff and a great source of information on Ramsey and the surrounding area. Last week, Martyn sent me some information from a book that
German Spy equipped with Two and a Half Pounds of Chocolate Read More »
Within the National Archives at Kew, London, Josef Jakobs’ KV 2/24 file contains copies of his medical records from Dulwich Community Hospital. The medical records have the original x-ray images of Josef’s fractured leg. These images naturally do not photocopy well but the National Archives has helpfully digitized some of these x-rays. The National Archives
X-ray Images of Josef Jakobs’ broken leg Read More »
N.B. See my February 12, 2017 blog for a break in the case. In addition to the 1936 diary, the Birmingham Police sent a small black notebook to MI5. The envelope noted “One diary and one notebook containing suspicious entries. See B’ham City Police report dated 5th June 1941”. The cover note that accompanied the
Kenneth C. Howard’s Little Black Book Read More »
N.B. See my February 12, 2017 blog for a break in the case. If you were to visit the National Archives at Kew in London, and order file KV 2/27, you would receive a box containing some of the spy paraphernalia of German spy Josef Jakobs. Two small notebooks within that box would perplex you,
The Mysterious Diary of Kenneth C. Howard Read More »
In an earlier posting, I examined the topic of the British currency that Josef had brought with him from Germany. While acknowledging that the Germans had introduced counterfeit English banknotes into circulation, I suggested that it was doubtful that the £1 notes found on Josef were counterfeit. Since then, I have confirmed that the notes
Money Money Money – Part 2 Read More »
Artifacts from the imprisonment and execution of Josef Jakobs are not held in a central repository. Many organizations and individuals were involved in his capture, interrogation and execution and each seems to have acquired a little fragment of the story. Unfortunately some of the fragments are lost to history. When Josef landed near Ramsey in
The Artifacts of German spy Josef Jakobs Read More »
The German spies who were sent to England from September 1940 to January 1941 were often equipped with a cipher disc to encipher their radio transmissions back to Germany. Cipher discs were first described in a 1467 treatise by Leon Battista Alberti, an Italian Renaissance Man. Two discs, one larger than the other were pinned
A Life Torn to Shreds – Cipher Disc of Josef Jakobs Read More »
Had German spy Josef Jakobs landed uneventfully in Huntingdonshire on the evening of 31 January, 1941, he would still have faced a number of hurdles on his way to London. Wartime Britain had instituted food rationing in January 1940 and every man, woman and child required a Ration Book. All food items were rationed: sugar,
Food for the Hungry – The Ration Book of Josef Jakobs Read More »