awarded his doctorate in law on 10 June 1941. He was the first member of his class to attain the degree. Leiden was closed again soon afterwards. Three weeks later he was an , a Dutchman who escaped Nazi control by finding a way to reach England. Roelfzema, Peter Tazelaar, Bram van der Stok, Gerard Volkersz and Toon Buitendijk posed as crew members aboard the , a Swiss freighter bound for New York City. The ship was intercepted in the North Sea by the British cruiser , suspecting her to be a German supply ship. The Devonshire escorted her to Tórshavn, in the Faroe Islands, were the stowaways were brought ashore. Roelfzema persuaded the captain of the British cruiser to give them passage to Britain. Activities in England Once in London, Roelfzema became involved in a secret service group of escaped young Dutchmen called the Mews, after Chester Square Mews, the neighborhood in London where they lived. The group was being run under the direction of François van 't Sant, director of the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (CID, ). The agents were trained under Colonel Euan Rabagliati of MI9. Their operation was called 'Contact Holland', whose goal was to establish links with the disparate Dutch resistance groups, support them and coordinate their activities in the Netherlands. Most agents were brought into the Netherlands by parachute drop. This required the agent to be trained in parachuting and exposed them to the risks of doing so at night. Roelfzema, Peter Tazelaar and Chris Krediet came up with an alternative method of insertion. They proposed gaining access to the Netherlands by sea. They would use a Motor Gun Boat (MGB) to cross the channel, covering the last stretch of water by taking a small boat and rowing into shore. Due to internal politics Van 't Sant was required to step down from his position with intelligence and control of the CID was transferred to Colonel Mattheus de Bruyne of the Dutch Marine Corps. De Bruyne lacked experience in intelligence work and did not have a good grasp on the subtlety required. He failed to recognize the fact that his agents were often arrested and yet were continuing to broadcast messages, except now they were under the control of the Germans. The usual procedure for transmitting messages was to include small errors. If an agent was forced to work for the Germans,