“SOLD HIMSELF”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21901, 20 December 1945, Page 7

“SOLD HIMSELF”

NAVAL ENGINEER

DESCRIBED AS “RAT”

ACTIVITIES IN BERLIN

(9 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 19. “This is a case of a man who described himself—perhaps you may not think Inaccurately—as a rat,” said the Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, when Walter Purdy, a Royal Navy junior engineer, was charged at Old Bailey with high treason. Purdy was captured when H.M.S. Van Dyck was sunk off Norway in July, 1940. Besides allegedly helping the enemy by giving radio talks, Purdy was charged with giving information while a prisoner about the existence of a secret tunnel and wireless receiving set, also with serving with the S.S. Corps and preparing pamphlets, etc., as propaganda. Sir Hartley Shawcross said the evidence showed, even on Purdy’s own account, that he sold himself to the enemy. He was not unwiling to betray ' both his fellow prisoners and his country for more favourable treatment for himself than is usually accorded war prisoners.

By arrangement with William Joyce, he made 10 broadcasts in return for a promise to be allowed to escape. After a period of freedom in Berlin Purdy arrived at a war prisoner camp, where he learned of a secret tunnel and secret wireless set and of the activities in Berlin of a war prisoner named Brown which were of great help to the Allies. Brown’s activities were stopped within a few days and the wireless set discovered.

Sir Hartley Shawcross said Purdy had been a member of the British Union of Fascists before the war.