Harry Hickingbotham

Harry Hickingbotham was born in Lincoln, on Burton Road. He became a reporter with the Lincoln Leader and played football for a Wednesday League team. He moved to Kent before the war for a job with the local paper in Folkestone.

Harry was approached in August 1940 by the Chief Constable, A. S. Beesley, to set up the Special Duties network in Folkestone. According to press reports in 1945 he then selected six other men to work with him. It is unclear if they became operators or were his observers. They were reportedly a "well known farmer, a tailor, the manager of a motor firm, a schoolmaster, a publican and a farm labourer". They were trained in recognising the markings on German uniforms and the different types of German and British tanks, in order to be able to report this information back to Army HQ. They also learnt how to code messages. They were also ordered to listen out for indiscreet conversations and report those involved, together with any mysterious lights. Harry armed himself with a short knife, just in case.

Harry was almost arrested in 1943, on suspicion of spying, but this was in the course of his journalistic career. He was phoning in a report on RAF activity over the English Channel from a telephone in the Bouverle Square Post Office. He had made shorthand notes of what to say, but was overheard by a Royal Artillery Sergeant who detained him and called the Police thinking his notes were a secret code. Fortunately for him, the Police Officer who arrived knew him well and he was released.

He was also Chairman of the Folkestone Savings Committee, raising money towards the war effort from events such as "Salute the Soldier" week.

In June 1945 he was exposed apparently when his Stand Down letters were posted to the offices of the Folkestone Herald, addressed to "Harry Hickingbotham, No.1, Folkestone". The nature of Special Duties and the letter from General Franklyn had been disclosed in press reports shortly beforehand, so the paper were quickly able deduce his role. Announced as Number 1 Spy for the Southeast, one wonders what his Special Duties colleagues thought of this. He had kept the secret throughout the war, without coming under suspicion, but was given away by the security lapse of his superior right at the end.