Thomas Joseph Kendrick (26 November 1881 - 3 March 1972) was a British intelligence officer, operating under the
code name
A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may also be used in industrial c ...
"Colonel Wallace".
Life
Born in
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
, Kendrick grew up in
Cape Colony
The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British Empire, British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when i ...
and fought in the
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
, going on to serve as a field intelligence officer in the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. From December 1925 to August 1938 he was based at the British Consulate in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
(SIS), also known as MI6 - its officers were given cover stories as employees of the Consulate's Passport Office.
Austria was annexed to Germany in the
Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...
of March 1938 and on 17 August that year Kendrick was visiting Freilassing in Bavaria when he was arrested for espionage by the Sicherheitsdienst. He was imprisoned in the Hotel Metropole, then the Vienna headquarters of the SS and
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
. The British Foreign Office intervened and on 20 August he was released and expelled from Austria, leading to the collapse of his intelligence network. The affair was reported in depth in German daily newspapers such as the '' Berliner Tageblatt'', the ''Berliner Börsenzeitung'' and the Essen ''Nationalzeitung'' and also reached the international press.
In the months before his arrest, Kendrick came into contact with
British Mandate of Palestine. As "Passport Control Officer" and in conjunction with his intelligence activities, Kendrick and the other members of the Passport Office were able to grant entry permits to Palestine to a large number of Austrian Jews in summer 1938, estimated at around 10,000 people. A recent biography has thus named him "Vienna's
Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and amm ...
".
During the
Second World War
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 ...
Kendrick organised a unit to set up secretly-bugged "M-Rooms" (mike rooms), from which intelligence officers listened in on German prisoners-of-war in their bugged quarters and cells. He was also assigned the task of using microphones to monitor and eavesdrop on
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
assessed him to be a sensitive intelligence figure and he was thus placed on the
Sonderfahndungsliste G.B.
The ''Sonderfahndungsliste G.B.'' ("Special Search List Great Britain") was a secret list of prominent British residents to be arrested, produced in 1940 by the '' SS'' as part of the preparation for the proposed invasion of Britain. After the ...
, a list of those to be automatically arrested by the SS after a successful German invasion of Britain.
On 23 May 1945 he was awarded the
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit (LOM) is a military award of the United States Armed Forces that is given for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements. The decoration is issued to members of the eight ...
for his services to American intelligence. He worked for MI6 until his retirement in 1948.Helen Fry: ''The Walls Have Ears'' 2019 He died aged 90 in 1972 and is buried in the Municipal Cemetery in
Weybridge
Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a crossing point of the ...
,
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...