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Richard Melville Brooker

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British intelligence officer (1909-1994)
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Richard Melville Brooker
Born23 September 1909
Paris
Died1994 (aged 84)
Burial place
Sicklinghall Cemetery, Harrogate Borough, North Yorkshire, England
Military career
Allegiance
Branch
Rank
Lieutenant Colonel
Nicknames
  • "Bill Brooker"
  • "R.M. Brooker"
Commands
Conflicts


Richard Melville "Bill" Brooker was a British soldier, spy instructor, and commando during World War II, and integral to the Allied effort in defeating the Axis. He was a member of Churchill's Special Operations Executive (SOE), and Commandant of Camp X, where he trained the men and women who would become the leaders of the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), which became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He is considered one of the fathers of modern American central intelligence, and gained the admiration of William J. Donovan and Allen Dulles, and even is mentioned as being a great instructor of spies in the memoirs of Kim Philby.[1]

Early life

Brooker was born on 23 December 1909 in Paris, France, son of Richard William Brooker, of Mill Hill London.[2][3] manager of travel agency Thomas Cook & Son's Paris office. In the years before World War II, Brooker was employed by a Mincing Lane-based merchant in the City of London, later joining Nestlé at their headquarters in Switzerland and becoming a travelling salesman, working extensively across Europe.[4][5] Prior to the war, Brooker joined the Force Service Protectorate.

World War II

On March 18, 1941, Brooker joined the SOE's training section, and trained scores of SOE operatives at Beaulieu on espionage and tradecraft prior to their departure to fight the Axis.[6][7]

In December 1941, Brooker was sent to Canada aboard the SS Pasteur with Lieutenant Colonel Roper Caldbeck to become the second in command of STS 103, or what is more commonly known today as Camp X.[6][8]

In August 1942, Brooker succeeded Roper Caldbeck as Commandant of Camp X.[6] He is said to have been the school's most popular commanding officer to this point.[9][10]

Bickham Sweet-Escott wrote:

"I have no doubt that OSS (Office of Strategic Services) got much more out of our training school in Canada, (Camp X) than from all the efforts of our party in Washington... What was unique about Oshawa was the personality of the commandant, Lieutenant-Colonel Brooker. Bill Brooker was a born salesman. He was a brilliant and convincing lecturer, and he had an immense wealth of stories from the real life of a secret agent to illustrate his points."

Brooker was noted as an unconventional instructor - he would occasionally interrupt his classes with exercises, including gunfire and other scenarios, and would ask his students to recall details like the number of shots fired and the caliber of the weapon.[10] He also gave them much sage advice: “If there's anything loose in the intelligence business, you're dead!” [11]

Brooker also trained OSS executives on the weekends on the fundamentals of training, creating "trained trainers" out of them.[12]

In the Winter of 1942, Brooker helped Garland H. Williams to completely redesign the training curriculum of the COI/OSS.[13]

Brooker also assisted, along with British Navy Commander N.G.A. Woolley, Millard Preston Goodfellow and William J. Donovan at the COI in creating an amphibious warfare training unit, that would become the OSS Maritime Unit training center.[14]

In March 1943, Brooker was reassigned to the OSS in Washington, D.C.[9][14]

Later in the year, William Donovan had Brooker deployed to Algeria to participate in joint SOE/OSS operations there.[13]

In 1944, Brooker would spend more time in Washington and New York, dividing his time in half between the two OSS operations, helping both to instruct students and build secret interception systems of German intelligences.[15]

Subsequent career

Brooker had a successful career in the travel business, becoming the controlling shareholder and managing director of the Henry Lunn travel company. Several other enterprises were eventually bought out. He had short periods of retirement in Montreux and New York, but finally retired in 1977, by which time he had co-founded the Association of British Travel Agents and served on its first council.[16]

Personal life

In 1947, Brooker married Margaret Cressida, daughter of Captain Charles Johnstone-Scott, of the East Yorkshire Regiment, grandson of the politician Sir John Vanden-Bempde-Johnstone 2nd Baronet. They had two sons.[17] They lived at Medstead House, Alton, Hampshire,[18] and later at The Burrells, Appleby, Westmorland.[19]

References

  1. ^ Philby, Kim (1967). My Silent War.
  2. ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th ed., vol. 1, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 1110
  3. ^ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, 103rd ed., ed. Peter Townend, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1963, p. 713
  4. ^ The Global Infrastructure of the Special Operations Executive, Derwin Gregory, Taylor & Francis, 2021
  5. ^ Beaulieu: The Finishing School for Secret Agents, Cyril Cunningham, Pen & Sword Military, 2005, chapter VI
  6. ^ a b c "Camp X Officers 1942". www.camp-x.com. Retrieved 2024-07-08.
  7. ^ Cunningham, Cyril (1998). Beaulieu: The Finishing School for Secret Agents. Pen and Sword.
  8. ^ Stafford, David (January 1, 1987). Camp X: The Incredible and True Story of Canada's School for Secret Agents 1941. Dodd Mead.
  9. ^ a b "Camp X 75th Anniversary: A Brief History". CBC.ca. Dec 6, 2016.
  10. ^ a b "How Camp X Worked". HowStuffWorks. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2024-07-08.
  11. ^ "OSS Agents: Kill or be Killed". Warfare History Network. 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
  12. ^ "Camp-X ● Official Site ● History of Camp-X". www.camp-x.com. Retrieved 2024-07-08.
  13. ^ a b Chambers, John Whiteclay (2008). "OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II" (PDF).
  14. ^ a b "OSS: LTC Ellery Huntington's Staff". www.cia.gov. Retrieved 2024-06-27.
  15. ^ "OSS - PERIODIC REPORTS OF THE DOCUMENT INTELLIGENCE DIVISION, 1944 | CIA FOIA (foia.cia.gov)". www.cia.gov. Retrieved 2024-07-08.
  16. ^ Beaulieu: The Finishing School for Secret Agents, Cyril Cunningham, Pen & Sword Military, 2005, chapter VI
  17. ^ Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th ed., vol. 1, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, p. 1110
  18. ^ Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, 103rd ed., ed. Peter Townend, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 1963, p. 713
  19. ^ Debrett's Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage, 1973, p. 348
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