Page 183 - They Also Served

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Norman Baillie-Stewart 1929.
Norman Baillie-Stewart was born
Norman Wright in London in January
1909, the son of a lieutenant-colonel in
the Indian Army. Educated at Bedford
School, he entered Sandhurst in 1927. In
1929, shortly before the end of his course,
he changed his name to Ballie-Stewart
under the belief that senior officers
looked down on his simple surname.
Nevertheless, he graduated tenth in
the order of merit, was commissioned
into the Seaforth Highlanders, and
posted to the 2nd Battalion in India.
Baillie-Stewart saw active service on the
North-West Frontier, qualifying for the
India General Service Medal, although he was disciplined for removing a banner from a tribal burial ground, thereby antagonising the locals. Tiring of infantry life, he returned to England in 1931 and transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps.
In early 1933, he was court-martialled on ten charges of selling secrets to a foreign power. Having fallen in love with a German woman on a trip to Europe, he travelled to Berlin and offered his services as a spy. Using the pretext of studying for Staff College exams, he obtained technical specifications for an experimental tank, a revolutionary automatic rifle, and notes on the deployment of armoured formations. As this material was taken from the Prince Consort’s Library in Aldershot, they can hardly be considered top secret, but it was proved that he had received £90 for the information, and he was committed on seven of the charges. Sentenced to five years in prison, he also forfeited his India General Service Medal upon being cashiered from the army.
Baillie-Stewart was initially held in the Tower of London, the last British subject to be imprisoned there, before being transferred to Maidstone Gaol. Released in early 1937, he moved to Vienna, where he failed to gain Austrian citizenship and was deported as a German spy. The failure of the British consulate to (not surprisingly) assist him drove him to Czechoslovakia, and then back to Austria after the Anschluss.
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