READERS' REACTIONS

Dartmouth Conspiracy was first published in 1999. Shortly after the first edition came out I was delighted to get letters from people who had enjoyed the book - some of them contained information about the raid on Dartmouth and revealed some interesting facts.

The Only College Casualty

WRNS PETTY OFFICER ELLEN WHITTALL

As mentioned on the previous page, my mother saw policemen breaking into the house next door. The  occupant had been killed while on duty at the College - her nephew sent me this picture, she is standing outside the house next to ours.

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A Reader's Letter

This letter came from a retired naval officer, a cadet at the college. He agrees with me that the RAF must have had prior Intelligence about the raid and had positioned a squadron of twelve Spitfires at the right place and the right time for an effective attack on the six Luftwaffe raiders.

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Another Revealing Letter

It seems that the Luftwaffe obtained their information from German naval cadets who made a "good-will" visit to Dartmouth in the summer of 1936.

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German Naval Cadets

On a recent visit to Britannia Royal Naval College I was given a copy of this photograph, published in the college magazine. It shows the sail-training ship Gorch Fock leaving Dartmouth in the summer of 1936 after  German cadets and crew had been invited on a good-will tour of Britannia College. Did they return to Germany with vital information about where the British cadets would be gathered on the first day of term? Perhaps they did - but the attack by six Focke-Wulfs in 1942 was badly timed. They were a week too early. The College was on leave. Their sole victim was our next-door neighbour, Ellen Whittall.   

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