INFO ON BRIAN PATCHETT

ken vipond · INFO ON BRIAN PATCHETT

Hi everyone,as per pauls request for info on Brian Patchett,i thought i had better start a new subject.
Brian Patchett was I Corps and stationed at R.A.F.Gatow,his trade was voice op.He defected to East Germany around 62/63 never to be seen again,hope this bit of info is helpful Paul,best regards from Ken. Question

P.S.i was there at Gatow at the time.

Mac Bowker

Hi Ken,
Your posting re: Brian Patchett reminded me of an ’I’ Corps voice op on 'A' Watch called Tony Pask(e) who purchased a pair of Jack Boots from Braunschweig and was once seen wearing them whilst walking up and down the corridor of the accommodation block.We all found it rather amusing. The amusement turned to disbelief shortly after when we discovered that he’d done a bunk to the East.This happened in the early 60's too.
I can’t imagine what the attraction could have been for these people to do such a thing - a reward of some kind? Better food &/or living conditions?….not on your life.
I wonder what these people are doing now. It would be interesting to trawl through the Stasi (Staatsicherheit) records eh?
Merry Christmas.
'Mac'

paul croxson

Incredible.
That makes 4 we now know of who went 'walkies' to the East.
I'd bet a lot of money on it being sex in one form or another behind it.
All this makes a complete farce of the security and how we were all sworn to secrecy virtually on the pain of death. They must have known everything that we did!
Someone earlier mentioned a woman where patchett was concerned who was spying for the East.
What a fate, having to lve in East Germany. They would have been unceremoniously dumped when the wall came down but may well be scrimping on a Stasi pension. On the other hand, they may be living the life of Reilly.
Yes it would be good to get into Stasi records but I was told that one could only access your own record

Mac Bowker

Hi Paul,
Hard to believe there were four though....Surely not.
However, seeing as a female 'spy' has been mentioned. You may/may not find this interesting.
Whilst at Langeleben I had a bit of a liaison with an attractive young ‘lady’(mid 20's) who turned up at Schumanns one evening in the early 60’s (I doubt that I was the only one in her life Wink

). Sometime during our relationship she invited me to stay with her at her aunts house in Königslutter for10 days while her aunt was on holiday.
I couldn’t believe my luck - these things just didn’t happen in my life.
Before the pre-arranged day arrived she told me that she was from Gdansk.That caused alarm bells to ring. Whether or not it was a wise decision, I backed out of the arrangement. However, I did see her again, but there was no ‘hanky-panky’after that.
Reflecting on it later, I don’t think she would have told me that she was from the east if she had been another Mata-Hari.
Oh heck! I bet I’ll spend the next few nights laying in bed thinking of what might have been.

ken vipond

Another little snippet on the patchett saga,Patchett was besotted with a rather attractive young lady called Rosy who worked behind the bar in the N.A.A.F.I. this was just opposite our living accomodation,she had told Patchett that she was going to visit her grandparents who lived some were in East Germany,Brian Patchett then must have decided to join her at her grannies,it also turned out that Rosy was a East German herself and should not have been employed on the camp in the first place,but love is a funny thing and the rest is HISTORY. Wink

Best regards from Ken.

David Thomas

Hi to everyone, and of course a very merry Christmas. Never having met the guy I can’t add very much to the Brian Pagett saga, I can however help with the date. I first went to 13 Sigs in September ‘63 and on my first (and only) interview with the CO, all he could talk about was “did we know Brian Pagett, because he had been a very naughty boy, and let not only the Regiment down, but the CO personally”. I gather from the diatribe that followed, that Brian had only recently done a bunk, and the CO was very cross. So I should say he went in the summer of 63. All the best. Dave T.

paul croxson

many thanks everyone
Any more info, snippets etc

GerryK · Brian Patchet

Hi Guys, had to add my two pennorth. I,m sorry Mac but I believe you are wrong about Herr Pask. It was his way of getting a discharge. Bad security risk and all that. Apart from his Nationalistic views he was quite a nice guy. I can picture him now in his "boots", and going red in the face!!

Mac Bowker

OK Gerry, I bow to your much better memory. I must say though that I remember nothing about the discharge angle.I obviously felt certain that he'd done a bunk to the east otherwise I wouldn't have said so.However, I do certainly remember his tendancy to blush easily.Can you remember what year it was?

GerryK · Brian Patchet

I believe it would have been 1961 Mac.

Mac Bowker

OK to that Gerry & thanks.
Do you by any chance remember what year it was that Mick Harris (B Watch)and I hitch-hiked to Paris? That could also have been 1961...What an experience that was.One incident I DO remember was nicking a stray duck and stuffing it in my rucksack to be plucked and consumed later...What a farse!

ken vipond

Another little bit of info.
House of commons Hansard debates 20th Dec.1994.

Mr Allason to ask Mr Soames what efforts have been made to trace Cpl Brian Patchett of the I Corps formerly based at RAF Gatow.

Mr Soames replied that my department has no record of any Brian Patchett in the army.

The mystery deepens Wink

best regards from Ken.

David Thomas

Hi Ken, Good to hear from you on this festive occasion. Why doesn’t your Hansard entry surprise me? When faced with unpalatable questions the Establishment invariably have a check list of responses. Namely: 1. Deny the incident ever happened, 2. Impugn the integrity of the questioner, 3. Vilify the research upon which the question is based, 4. Obfuscate the question with spurious detail, and, when all else fails announce an expensive enquiry. For a lowly Cpl (and only I Corps at that) no record of service, when we all know it is patently untrue, is about par for the course. All the Best Dave T.

GerryK

Mac you are a year out. It was summer 1960 when you nearly soured Anglo-French relations.

misterbee

Hi to all. I knew Brian Patchet in Langeleben. It was me who took the photo in the 'Old Boot' with him in it. I also know him from Gatow. He was a voice op and mainly kept himself to himself. I think Dave T is correct, it was the summer of 1963. I was having a beer in the NAAFI with him the evening beford he went over and he seemed to be his normal self. After he went all hell broke loose, there were men in suits everywhere and we all had several grillings by them. I don't know if anyone has access to the newspapers of the day as he made the front page in most of them for a couple of days. Even being linked by them to Burgess & McLean!!!
Merry Christmas to all and am looking forward to our mass posting.
Dave B

Mac Bowker

GerryK.
I reckon you've kept a diary Wink

paul croxson

I have been scouring all the websites and have come up with a Brian Patchett competing in iver 60's cycle events for the Handsworth Roadhogs. (Isn't that Mike Hudson territory?) It would be amazing were it thye same one!

paul croxson

Hello Ken, I see that you are having a look so a Happy New Year to you and you too Tom!
I am keeping out of the way of the vacuum cleaner. Last refuge in the house is the kitchen, where I currently am. I expect to be expelled any second.
This Patchett thing is really fascinating me now. I am sure that the I Corps will have stuff on record but the chances of getting it out of them is pretty remote. I do have a key to the 'back door' though that may work!

paul croxson

I have just invested in a copy of Nigel West's 'Games of Intelligence' and he refers to Cpl Brian Patchett as a"a signals intercept operator with the Intelligence Corps who went missing from RAF Gatow in Berlin in July 1956". He later gives the very precise date when he defected of '2nd July 1956'. So much for an expert in the field of espionage. One can only wonder if everything he writes is equally inaccurate

paul croxson

I was talking to an old security chap at the I Corps Corps day and asked him whether he had come across Patchett.
"Yes" was the answer. Finding his whereabouts was given top priority, he said. He could not, after 40 years remember all the details except that they finally traced him and he was last seen working in a potato field in E Germany (as was)

stephen lawrence · Brian Patchett

Hi, I arrived in 13 Sigs in July 63 straight from training and the 'Patchett' affair seemed to be a very hot topic and was quoted as a warning to us all. Sometime shortly after, as I recall there was another I Corps walker called Colin Pemberton who I think tried to go the Southern Route from Bad Aibling but was caught and brought back. He passed a few days in the guardroom before disappearing. My main memory was that he was alledged to come from my home town!

David Thomas

Hi Steve,
Very Glad to read your post, good to hear from you again after nearly 50 years. Do you still take weekend trips to France? All the best. Dave T.

RonB

It's soaking wet outside and I can't do the job I planned so just checking, following the recent posts on I Corps. Everyone seems to agree that BP defected in 1963. Has anyone told Nigel West? He has the date as 2nd July 1956 in GCHQ, the Secret Wireless War. I'm pretty sure someone went over the wire in '56 but if it wasn't BP, who was it?

kerby

Didn't the water wagon driver do a runner.

David Thomas

I bet the Russians had a whale of a time with him.

paul croxson

If I recall correctly he was pretty nearly always drunk (from collecting the water from the Brewery?) I can't believe that someone with such a cushy job would ever do a runner unless the Fuzz were in close pursuit. I do remember that at that time they used to come across , do a bit of burglaring and go back again with various 'goodies'. After all in those days parts of the border were merely marked with tree being painted with a white band.