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an earl, a captain in the
Coldstream Guards and was going to collect two armoured cars and lead them against the Russians. He also guaranteed that the BFC men would be in no trouble with the British authorities, telling them that Britain would be at war with the Russians within a few days.' When the Corps members refused to follow him, Claye took Alexander MacKinnon, one of the Free Corps soldiers, as a driver, and headed west in a stolen vehicle. He discarded his German uniform and surrendered to a British airborne unit somewhere west of
80:. He left the Army Technical School and went home to his parents' pub at Little Ouseburn, a village on the old Roman road between Ripon and York. His father had retired from the army after long service. In 1934 he joined the Lancers at York, which is probably where he learned to ride. He was still only 17 when he left the army to work as an instructor at a riding school near
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were in the same area, and
Steiner decided to appoint Claye to take charge of them. On 19 April 1945 he arrived at the Corps' base in Templin 'dressed in a black SS tank uniform bearing the insignia of HauptsturmfĂĽhrer in the British Free Corps.' Claye told the Corps members 'that he was the son of
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attached. While doing so he was involved in a traffic accident, and after hospital treatment was sent to a convalescent home for officers. While there, he stole another officer's cheque book and after a police investigation was discovered to have obtained the sum of ÂŁ5 10s by deception. He appeared
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parades. This ended when he abandoned his family and ran off with the wife of one of his colleagues (a son, adopted, was born of that escapade). He soon returned to his wife, after which the family emigrated to
Australia. Four children were born of that second marriage.
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Claye managed to evade any repercussions for his collaboration with the
Germans; the former inmates of Oflag 79 had no concrete evidence that Claye had been the informer they had sought, and no evidence could be found that Claye had actually volunteered for the
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before magistrates and was additionally fined ÂŁ7 for impersonating an officer. Although he was remanded for trial, the charges were eventually dropped because he had repaid the money he had stolen and agreed to be bound over for two years.
368:. A character appears named Harvey Preston, who is described as a British soldier who became an officer in the BFC after being caught informing on his fellow POWs. Like Douglas Berneville-Claye, Preston is a gifted impersonator of the
295:. Claye's story was that he had escaped from Oflag 79 by his own efforts and had acquired a uniform from a German woman with whom he had hid. Evidence from British Free Corps soldiers was deemed too tainted to use in court.
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During 1944, the prisoners in Oflag 79 began to suspect that one of their number was an informer, and they eventually decided that it was
Berneville-Claye. In December 1944, after Oflag 79 had been moved to
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275:, "Lord Charlesworth", he was a firm anti-communist and had volunteered to fight to preserve Europe from the communist threat. Apparently, he was so convincing that Steiner took him at face value.
241:, the Senior British Officer informed the camp's German Commandant that the prisoners planned to court-martial and execute an informer and Claye was transferred by the Germans for his own safety.
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549:. Seth also chose to use the same pseudonyms. Neither of these books included references or a bibliography and, as a result, some subsequent writers have taken the pseudonyms to be real names.
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311:, which he claimed he had been awarded, and as a result was demoted to second lieutenant and lost his seniority. He was also court-martialled for having an "improper relationship" with an
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to enter into a bigamous marriage with his current girlfriend. A son was born of the first bigamous marriage. Following this, he found a job in an aircraft factory and joined the
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Berneville was one of his given names, along with
Webster (his grandmother's maiden name) but it is not known why he chose to use 'St Aubyn'. His surname at birth was Clay.
65:. His father's family, the Clays, Websters, and Wainwrights, were industrial working-class from Leeds, Yorkshire, and his father, Frederick Wainwright Claye, was awarded an
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His father had had a successful army career, working his way up through the ranks from the early years of the 20th century to his retirement in the early 1930s as a senior
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After his release from prison Claye dropped out of sight. He appeared as a witness for the defence in a murder trial in 1950, then in the late 1950s surfaced near
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346:. He died of cancer in Australia in 1975. Until 2008, the school had a "Douglas Berneville-Claye Memorial Trophy" awarded for debating and public speaking.
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It was at this time that Claye started calling himself the
Honourable Douglas St Aubyn Webster Berneville-Claye and enlisted as a private soldier in the
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174:) and managed to be acquitted. He then supposedly inherited his father's title and became "Lord Charlesworth" and volunteered for L detachment of the
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and married there for the first time. That marriage lasted a matter of weeks but resulted in a daughter. In 1936, he abandoned his wife to move to
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and imprisoned. Around this time he decided to remarry, when his bigamy also came to light. A son was born of the second bigamous marriage.
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541:. (New English Library, 1972) – Chapter 15 – 'One Archibald Webster'. This book was effectively a re-writing by the British spy writer
372:, but is in reality a man of humble origins and a petty criminal. Despite his reluctance, Preston is coercively attached in 1943 to an
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driver (a son was born of that relationship, adopted) and was finally court-martialled for the theft of army property for which he was
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330:. Claye played the role of an ex-Guards officer, riding to hounds, chairing village committees, and wearing his decorations at
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Claye was sent back to
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dressed in civilian clothing but then disappeared from view until early March 1945 when he was appointed to the staff of the
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Weale, Adrian (12 November 2014). Renegades (Kindle
Locations 3116–3118). Random House. Kindle Edition
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and was accepted as an aircrew trainee, but he did not pass his final exams. In April 1940 he went
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Claye's subsequent movements are unclear. He was reportedly sighted by POWs in
Fallingbostel and
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Weale, Adrian (12 November 2014). Renegades (Kindle Location 3083). Random House. Kindle Edition
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In Australia, Claye worked for a time as a radio announcer before becoming a schoolteacher at
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camp in northern Italy, from which he later claimed to have made repeated escapes. After the
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and is accordingly viewed with disgust by every member of the German unit.
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In December 1942, he took part in a penetration operation in
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seaside village of Studley-Constable and attempts to kidnap
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465:. St. Gregory's College, Campbelltown, NSW. Archived from
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Jackals of the Reich. The Story of the British Free Corps
193:, but there was no title that could have been inherited.
260:. He was invited to dine with the III Corps commander,
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Military personnel from the Royal Borough of Greenwich
648:Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst
547:The Yeomen of Valhalla (Behind the Siegfried Line)
500:, Campbelltown MacArthur Advertiser, 25 March 2009
162:In the next few months he was again charged with
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693:Prisoners and detainees of the British military
326:, where he secured a managerial position with
668:World War II prisoners of war held by Germany
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688:People convicted by British military courts
673:World War II prisoners of war held by Italy
354:Many readers' first acquaintance with the
678:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
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