Langeleben

Mac Bowker · Groupie Joined: 06 Jun 2005 Posts: 49 Location: York

GerryK.
I reckon you've kept a diary Wink

paul croxson · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 10:52 am Post subject:

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 · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 11:00 am Post subject:

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 · Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 7:50 pm Post subject:

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 · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:30 pm Post subject:

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 · Member Joined: 24 Aug 2008 Posts: 1

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 · Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:01 pm Post subject:

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.
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Dave Thomas 2 Sqn 13 SR, '63-'66

RonB · Member Joined: 04 Aug 2008 Posts: 8 Location: Neston

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 · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:59 pm Post subject:

Didn't the water wagon driver do a runner.
_________________
Keith Kerby (1955/6)

David Thomas · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:29 pm Post subject:

I bet the Russians had a whale of a time with him.
_________________
Dave Thomas 2 Sqn 13 SR, '63-'66

paul croxson · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:49 pm Post subject:

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.


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