Foreign Office files kept secret for more than 70 years have revealed details of how MI6 kidnapped and killed a French double agent during World War Two - and ordered the creator of James Bond to help them cover it up. In July 1941 British Intelligence learned that 'deeply trusted' Captain Pierre Lablache-Combier - a Royal Navy commander recruited by M16 and posted to Spain - had divulged secrets to the Nazi-backed French Vichy government. James Bond writer Ian Fleming - then a Naval Intelligence officer - issued an official report stating the officer was 'missing believed drowned'. In fact, the 'complete double-crosser' was killed as Secret Service operatives scrambled to smuggle him out of Spain.
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Naval officer Captain Pierre Lablache-Combier was a spy for M16 in Spain
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Frenchman, 44, divulged British secrets to Nazi-backed Vichy government
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M16 plotted to smuggle the traitor out of Spain to Gibraltar
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Lablache-Combier died en route after being hit with the butt of a revolver
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Family told he died at sea and wife received a widow's pension
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Officer's identity revealed for first time in declassified Foreign Office files
Spain
Spain
Spain
Spain
Letting him get to France with information that will destroy our present intelligence organisation in @placeholder and do even greater harm elsewhere... this will be the last chance of dealing with him.'
Nazi
Nazi
An article correctly reporting that a French naval officer had been abducted by the British was published by @placeholder media - and promptly dismissed by the British press as a 'flight of fancy from the Nazi propaganda department.
Nazi
Nazi
An article correctly reporting that a French naval officer had been abducted by the British was published by Nazi media - and promptly dismissed by the British press as a 'flight of fancy from the @placeholder propaganda department.