Intelligence, Propaganda and Political Warfare

Abstract

Sir Harry Hinsley stated that from the outset of the Second World War, POWs were considered important sources of political and military intelligence, although it was not until 1942 that the various British military intelligence branches classified POW interrogations as among their more reliable sources of information. Indeed, according to Lieutenant-Colonel G. L. Harrison, a former commander of the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC) in Egypt, at least 40 per cent of British intelligence had been obtained from POW interrogations, ‘while most essential confirmation of that obtained from other sources’ had also been acquired from this source.¹ With the release over the last decade of voluminous amounts of intelligence material in British and overseas archives a more complete picture has emerged regarding the utilisation of material gleaned from POW interrogations. New research not only confirms Hinsley’s earlier contentions, but has also provided scholars with fresh and exciting avenues with which to demonstrate how useful POW intelligence was to the Allies in defeating the Axis powers.²