Following the outbreak of war in the summer of 1914, a young Frederick, then still just 17 years old and only freshly back from a trip around the world, enlisted in the ranks of the Royal Gloucestershire Hussars Yeomanry. Soon, though, Winterbotham’s thoughts turned in a new direction and a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps followed. Having gained his pilot’s ‘Wings’, Winterbotham was posted to 29 Squadron, then on the Western Front in France, in April 1917. Early in 1930, Winterbotham rejoined the Air Staff with the official duties of a liaison officer; unofficially he was to operate an Air Department in Britain’s Secret Service. It was in this role that, in the 1930s, he made a number of visits to Germany where he undertook a valuable intelligence and high-level espionage role among many of the top Nazis, meetings that he reveals here in dramatic detail. These encounters included Hitler himself. During the war Winterbotham was based at Bletchley Park and reported directly to the head of MI6, Sir Hugh Sinclair, as well as his successor, Sir Stewart Menzies. He was subsequently appointed as the organisation’s deputy & tasked with safeguarding the distribution and use of top secret intelligence throughout the Allied forces, which included the Enigma and Ultra transcripts. So important was this work, that Winterbotham would often report information they contained directly, and personally, to Winston Churchill.
