Major Chetwynd John Drake "Jock" Haswell (18 July 1919 – 21 January 2018), who also wrote as George Foster, was a British military and intelligence author and former British intelligence officer. He was "Author for Service Intelligence" 1966–1984.

Early life

Haswell was born in

Penn, Buckinghamshire Penn is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of Beaconsfield and east of High Wycombe. The parish's cover Penn village and the hamlets of Penn Street, Knotty Green, Forty Green, Penn, Forty Green and Winchm ...

. He was educated at Little Appley Preparatory School and

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of the ...

Career

Haswell was trained at Sandhurst c. 1938/9 - 1941. He joined the

Queen's Royal Regiment The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) was a line infantry regiment of the English and later the British Army from 1661 to 1959. It was the senior English line infantry regiment of the British Army, behind only the Royal Scots in the British Ar ...

on 3 April 1941. Later in 1941 he was stationed in India, and saw local action. He was promoted Major on 3 July 1952, and retired from the army on 29 April 1960. Haswell's later work was mostly writing, continuing a thread from his military and intelligence work. He self-deprecatingly described his books as "holes held together with string". Nonetheless, his ''James II'', for example, was reviewed in the Times of 29 July 1972 by Geoffrey Homes. He died on 21 January 2018 at the age of 98.

Bibliography

Books

* ''Indian File'' (Michael Joseph, 1960) - as 'George Foster' * ''Soldier on Loan'' (Michael Joseph, 1961) - as 'George Foster' * ''The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey)'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1967) * ''The First Respectable Spy : The Life and Times of Colquhoun Grant, Wellington's Head of Intelligence'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1969) * ''James II Soldier and Sailor'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1972) * ''Citizen Armies'' (Peter Davies, 1973) * ''British Military Intelligence'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973) * ''The British Army: A Concise History'' (Thames & Hudson, 1975) * ''The Ardent Queen:

Margaret of Anjou Margaret of Anjou (french: link=no, Marguerite; 23 March 1430 – 25 August 1482) was Queen of England and nominally Queen of France by marriage to King Henry VI from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471. Born in the Duchy of Lorrain ...

and the Lancastrian Heritage'' (Peter Davies, 1976) * ''The Battle for Empire: A Century of Anglo-French Conflict'' (Cassell, 1976) * ''Spies and Spymasters: A Concise History of Intelligence'' (Thames & Hudson, 1977)Rings in the Tree of Espionage (book review,)Kirsch, Robert, Los Angeles Times, Oct 14, 1977. * ''The Intelligence and Deception of the D-Day Landings'' (Batsford, 1979) also published in the US as ''D-Day : Intelligence and Deception'', New York * ''The Tangled Web: The Art of Tactical and Strategic Deception'' (J. Goodchild, 1985) * '' The Magnet Book of Spies and Spying'' (Methuen, 1986)

Articles

References

1919 births 2018 deaths British Army personnel of World War II British intelligence operatives British military writers People educated at Winchester College Queen's Royal Regiment officers Graduates of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst People from Chiltern District {{UK-army-bio-stub