Commander H.R. Voss
Gerald Parr, the maritime historian Declan had earlier spoken to, identified the name within four hours. Commander Henry Raymond Voss, Royal Navy, was reported killed in the North Atlantic on 14th February 1942 when his vessel was struck by an enemy torpedo. He was listed in the National Roll of Honour. There was a memorial plaque in a church in Portsmouth. His widow had remarried in 1947.
And yet his name was written on the inside cover of a German submarine’s logbook, with a date of entry in late 1943—more than a year after his official death.
Parr sat across from Declan in a borrowed council office, the logbook between them in an evidence bag. “There are precedents,” he said carefully, “of officers taken prisoner who were not registered as prisoners of war. There were intelligence operations in which a man’s death was fabricated as cover. Many defected too—though I’m reluctant to use that word without more evidence.” He looked at the bag. “But the presence of this submarine in a wartime reservoir testing facility, under conditions of apparent secrecy, and with the information of a supposedly dead British officer inside it…” He trailed off.