John Hubert Potter (1927 – 17 July 2017) was an English chemist who falsely claimed to be a

Special Operations Executive The Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a secret British World War II organisation. It was officially formed on 22 July 1940 under Minister of Economic Warfare Hugh Dalton, from the amalgamation of three existing secret organisations. Its pu ...

agent who worked with the

French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Early life and family

John Hubert Potter was born in

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This e ...

, south London, in 1927. He was born with a

club foot Clubfoot is a birth defect where one or both feet are rotated inward and downward. Congenital clubfoot is the most common congenital malformation of the foot with an incidence of 1 per 1000 births. In approximately 50% of cases, clubfoot aff ...

which was later corrected. Potter married, first, Olive with whom he had six children, Anne, Roy, Hugh, Neil, Nigel, and Mark. After a divorce, he married Mildred in 1976, a hairdresser he met while travelling in Vienna in 1970.

Career

Potter had a career as a research chemist and salesman. He lived with his second wife Mildred in Belgium and France before retiring to Sussex, England.

False claims

Potter falsely claimed to be a Special Operations Executive agent who worked with the French Resistance during the Second World War under the name Henri Dufour, an 18 year old who he said had been killed in an air raid in northern France while working for the resistance. Potter claimed to have been asked by the SOE to take Dufour's place in 1942 due to his language skills and because he was the right age and both had a club foot. According to Potter, he worked with the resistance throughout the war, was periodically flown back to Britain to brief Winston Churchill, who gave him a glass of brandy, had an affair with a French woman named Yvette, entered

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

with the Americans, and worked as a liaison officer to defend a chemist accused of war crimes at the

Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...

.John Potter, the fantasist ‘spy’ who fooled his own wife.
Simon de Bruxelles, ''The Times'', 30 September 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2017. He also claimed to have an OBE awarded after the war and a first class degree from the University of London. His memoirs were self-published in 2009 as ''Within the Shadows'' under the pen-name of Ernest Tarrant.'Courageous' teen war spy passes away.
James Butler, ''Worthing Herald'', 9 August 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2017. The claims were only exposed as false after his death when he received an obituary in a local paper ''The Worthing Herald'', as well as in national papers '' The Express'', '' The Mirror'',WW2 spy who reported to Winston Churchill and kept incredible military life a secret for 50 years dies aged 93.
Stephen White, ''Mirror'', 11 August 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2017. and ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', all of which accepted his story. ''The Times'' subsequently retracted its obituary in a new article after doubt was thrown on the content in reader feedback. Potter's son Neil, an Anglican priest and vicar of the church in Camborne, Cornwall, was quoted as saying "To the best of my brothers' and my sister's knowledge none of this ever happened ... He was too young to serve in the war. This was a claim he made up to impress his second wife and we cringed when we heard it. It is not the only thing he lied about."

Death

Potter died from the effects of dementia on 17 July 2017"John Potter", ''The Times'', 20 September 2017, p. 56. at St. Michael's Nursing Home. The funeral was at Worthing Crematorium followed by a memorial service at St Andrew's Church, West Tarring.John Potter.
''Littlehampton Gazette''/''Worthing Herald'', 27 July 2017. Retrieved 4 October 2017. Despite evidence that has emerged since his death, Mildred Potter maintains that her husband's story of wartime heroism is completely true, saying "you cannot make up all those details".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Potter, John 1927 births 2017 deaths English chemists Deaths from dementia in England People from Camberwell English autobiographers