During the First World War, a rich crop of legends sprouted from the battlefields and grew with such ferocity that many still excite controversy today. This book is the frist to examine the roots of those stories and reveal the truth. Some myths remain well-known. did an entire battalion of the Norfolk Regiment vanish without trace at Gallipoli in 1915? Did thousands of Russian troops actually pass through England with snow on their boots? In 1914, an acute spy mania gripped the British public, who imagined that the country was brimming with German spies. Xenophobia, denunciations and attacks on dachshunds were rampant. Amazingly, there was even talk of enemy aircraft dropping poisoned sweets to kill British children. Myths such as the Angel of Mons and teh Comrade in White were more innocent creations. With no radio or television, rumours of disaster were rife, and the apparition of mystical guardian spirits gave hope to the civilian population at home. Other stories, such as...

Was the aged prisoner who died in Spandau Prison a double? From tales of betrayal at Dieppe and Arnhem to Hitler's obsession with the occult and Nazi U-boat bases in Ireland, the author offers a refreshing and intriguing perspective on the myths, legends and folk memories of the Second World War.

Originally published as Double Agent Snow, Hitler's Spy is the paperback edition, which tells of how on the eve of the outbreak of the Second World War the double-agent Arthur Owens, codenamed SNOW, is summoned to Berlin and appointed Hitler's chief spy in Britain. Days later he finds himself in Wandsworth prison, betrayed by the wife he traded for a younger model, and forced to transmit false wireless messages for MI5 to earn his freedom - and avoid the hangman's noose. A vain and devious anti-hero with no moral compass, Owen's motives were status, money and women. He mixed fact with fiction constantly, and at times insisted that he was a true patriot, undertaking hazardous secret missions for his mother country; at other times, Owens saw himself as a daring rogue agent, outwitting British Intelligence and loyal only to the Fatherland. Yet in 1944, as Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, Hitler was caught unawares, tricked into expecting the invasion...