Rough Justice: The True Story of Agent Dronkers, the Enemy Spy Captured by the British

by David Tremain, Nigel West

Early in the morning of 18 May 1942, three Dutchmen were captured in the North Sea and taken to MI5. It soon became clear that one in particular, Johannes Marinus Dronkers, was no mere refugee escaping the Nazi occupation. He had a hidden to betray secrets about the state of Britain’s war preparedness to the German Abwehr. It was to be an intriguing episode in the cat-and-mouse game played between German and British intelligence.

But was Dronkers guilty, or was he made an example of by the British authorities, his fate pre-determined by the climate of war-torn Britain? And why wasn’t he turned, as MI5 had done and would do to many other enemy spies?

The Dronkers case raises important questions about the process of dealing with wartime spies and the punishments meted out by British authorities. Using newly available official files and other sources, this book examines the details of Dronker’s recruitment, capture and interrogation by MI5, as well as his trial at the Old Bailey. David Tremain compares the Dronkers case with that of other wartime spies, reveals the Abwehr’s lost recipe for secret ink, and exposes exactly what made a Dutchman escape to England in 1942 betray his country. This unsettling story has remained a little-known episode of the Second World War until now.

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 15, 2016

Reviews

[Giselle Jakobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Johannes Marinus Dronkers was a poor sod of a guy. A Dutchman who struggled to make a living in Nazi-occupied Holland, he was an easy mark for the German spy handlers. Dronkers, and two other Dutchmen, sailed for the English coast in a little boat in the spring of 1942. Their boat ran into difficulties and they were eventually picked up by the British. All three of the men underwent serious interrogations and, eventually, Dronkers caved. On December 31, 1942, Dronkers was hanged at Wandsworth Prison.

It would seem to be an open and shut case on a very minor World War 2 spy but... author David Tremain has conducted some intense research into Dronkers background and delved into the declassified MI5 files at the National Archives. As with many of the ill-fated men who were "recruited" by the Germans to spy against England, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Rough Justice is meticulously researched and is, therefore, not a book for the first-time espionage reader. However, for someone with a keen interest, in World War 2 espionage, the book makes fascinating reading. I had scanned Dronkers files when I last visited the Archives and had picked out a few things in his interrogations and prosecution that had a bearing on my grandfather's case (Josef Jakobs). It is very nice to see that someone has taken on the case of Dronkers and written a thorough analysis of the case.

I highly recommend this book for the reader who has an interest in World War 2 espionage. it reminds one that even the "minor" spies of World War 2 have stories to tell that shed light on the bigger picture of the war.

For those who are following the Bella in the Wych Elm theories, Mr. Tremain devotes one paragraph to the theory that Bella was the wife of Johannes Marinus Dronkers:

An even more spurious story which is still persistently circulating on the internet is that Dronkers was connected to the 'Hagley Wood Mystery' and the 'Who put Bella in the Wych Elm' claim. It has been alleged that 'Bella' was a Dutch woman named Clarabella who was a Nazi spy, and may have been Dronker's wife, who had been murdered in about 1941 and her body stuffed in a wych elm (really just an elm) in Hagley Wood, part of the Hagley Hall estate, near Kidderminster, in the West Midlands. The story, perpetrated by a number of websites, is so ridiculous that no further discussion is warranted. But whoever she was, she was not Dronker's wife.

[Carolinda Witt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read a great deal about the British double-cross system during WW2 but mostly about the principal players on both sides of the conflict. It was therefore with some fascination that I read David Tremain’s book about one of the lesser known German spies who sailed for England in early 1942 to report on Britain’s preparation for war. It seems to me that the Dutchman, Johannes Marinus Dronkers, made a fatal mistake on his arrival which sealed his fate and resulted ultimately in his execution. This book has been meticulously researched and provides a fascinating insight into the psychology of war and deception. Unlike many other enemy spies, Dronkers was not turned to work for MI5 against his former German spy masters, and his death demonstrated to a fearful British public that the authorities’ spy-catching methods were effective and warned the Germans what would happen if their spies were caught in Britain. Dronkers’ story send a chill up my spine, as his fate could so easily have been my grandfather’s in reverse. As MI5’s double agent Celery, my grandfather, Walter Dicketts, was sent into Germany in early 1941 to infiltrate the German Secret Service and bring back crucial secrets about an impending invasion of Britain. Unlike my grandfather, agent Dronkers did not survive, but his story raises questions about the effectiveness of interrogation during wartime, and the lack of proper training he received beforehand.