Douglas Berneville-Claye
Encyclopedia
Douglas Webster St Aubyn Berneville-Claye (1917 – 1975), born Douglas Berneville Claye, was a British
Nazi collaborator and member of the S.S.
British Free Corps
during World War II
.
, the son of a Staff Sergeant
in the Royal Army Service Corps
. His father's family, the Clays, Websters, and Wainwrights, were industrial working-class from Leeds, Yorkshire, and his father, Frederick Wainwright Claye, was awarded an MBE
in 1919 for his services in France.
He was educated in the local schools and in 1932 enrolled at the Army Technical School
at Chepstow
. He left the Army Technical School and went home to his parents' pub at Little Ouseburn, a village on the old Roman road between Ripon and York. His father had retired from the army after long service. In 1934 he joined the Lancers at York, which is probably where he learned to ride. He was still only 17 when he left the army to work as an instructor at a riding school near Thames Ditton
and married there for the first time. That marriage lasted a matter of weeks but resulted in a daughter. In 1936, he abandoned his wife to move to Leeds
, where he worked as a freelance journalist for the local press.
he volunteered for the Royal Air Force
and was accepted as an aircrew trainee but did not pass his final exams. In April 1940 he went AWOL to enter into a bigamous marriage with his current girlfriend. A son was born of the first bigamous marriage. Following this, he found a job in an aircraft factory and joined the Home Guard.
Berneville-Claye borrowed his father's old uniform and began wearing it in public, with a set of RAF pilot's wings
attached. While doing so he was involved in a traffic accident, and after hospital treatment was sent to a convalescent home for officers. While there, he stole another officer's cheque book and after a police investigation was discovered to have obtained the sum of £5 10s by deception. He appeared before magistrates and was additionally fined £7 for impersonating an officer. Although he was remanded for trial, the charges were eventually dropped because he had repaid the money he had stolen and agreed to be bound over for two years.
, Magdalen College, Oxford
and Emmanuel College, Cambridge
, and as a result was selected for officer training. The officer training was carried out at Pwllheli
and Sandhurst
, where he was granted his commission as a Second Lieutenant in October 1941. He spent 6 months with the 11th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, then in June 1942 was posted to Egypt
.
'Berneville' was one of his given names, along with Webster (his grandmother's maiden name) but it's not known where 'St Aubyn' came from, or why he joined 'Berneville' on to 'Claye' to make a hyphenated name. The original family surname was Clay.
In the next few months he was again charged with cheque fraud and court-martial
led, but he carried out his own legal representation (claiming to be a barrister
) and managed to be acquitted. He then supposedly inherited his father's title and became "Lord Charlesworth" and volunteered for L detachment of the Special Air Service
, reportedly in some kind of Quartermaster
role.
His father had had a successful army career, working his way up through the ranks from the early years of the 20th century to his retirement in the early 1930s with officer's rank and his MBE. But there was no title that could have been inherited.
and was captured by the Afrika Korps
. He was sent from North Africa to Italy
where he was interrogated, and then sent to an Italian
Prisoner of War
camp in northern Italy, from which he later claimed to have made repeated escapes. After the Italian Armistice in September 1943, Claye and his POWs were evacuated to Germany where he ended up in Oflag 79
at Waggum, near Braunschweig
.
Claye's subsequent movements are unclear. He was reportedly sighted by POWs in Fallingbostel and Hanover
dressed in civilian clothing but then disappeared from view until early March 1945 when he was appointed to the staff of the III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps
at Templin
, dressed as a SS Hauptsturmführer
. He was invited to dine with the III Corps commander, Obergruppenführer
Felix Steiner
, where he explained that although he was a captain in the Coldstream Guards
and a member of the British peerage
, "Lord Charlesworth", he was a firm anti-communist and had volunteered to fight to preserve Europe from the Communist threat. Apparently, he was so convincing that Steiner took him at face value.
At that time, the remains of the British Free Corps
were in the same area, and Steiner decided to appoint Claye to take charge of them. However, Claye instead took one of the Free Corps soldiers as a driver, and headed west in a stolen vehicle. He discarded his German uniform and surrendered to a British airborne unit somewhere west of Schwerin
.
Claye managed to evade any repercussions for his collaboration with the Germans; the former inmates of Oflag 79 had no concrete evidence that Claye had been the informer they had sought, and no evidence could be found that Claye had actually volunteered for the Waffen-SS
. Claye's story was that he had escaped from Oflag 79 by his own efforts and had acquired a uniform from a German woman with whom he had hid. Evidence from British Free Corps soldiers was deemed too tainted to use in court.
. He was court-martialled again for wearing the ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order
which he claimed he had been awarded, and as a result was demoted to Second Lieutenant and lost his seniority. He was also court-martialled for having an "improper relationship" with an ATS
driver (a son was born of that relationship, adopted) and was finally court-martialled for the theft of army property for which he was cashiered and imprisoned. Around this time he decided to remarry, when his bigamy also came to light. A son was born of the second bigamous marriage.
After his release from prison Claye dropped out of sight. He appeared as a witness for the defence in a murder trial in 1950, then in the late 1950s surfaced near Hemel Hempstead
where he secured a managerial position with Rank Xerox
. Claye played the role of an ex-Guards officer squire
, riding to hounds, chairing village committees and wearing his decorations at Remembrance Day
parades. This ended when he abandoned his family and ran off with the wife of one of his colleagues (a son, adopted, was born of that escapade). He soon returned to his wife, after which the family emigrated to Australia
. Four children were born of that second marriage.
In Australia Claye worked for a time as a radio announcer before becoming a teacher at St Gregory's College
in Campbelltown, New South Wales
. He died of cancer in 1975. Until 2008 the school had a "Douglas Bernville-Claye Memorial Trophy" awarded for debating and public speaking.
came in Jack Higgins
' World War II thriller The Eagle Has Landed
. In the novel, a BFC Officer named Harvey Preston, who is patterned on Berneville-Claye, is attached to the Fallschirmjäger
unit which attempts to kidnap Winston Churchill
. A convinced Nazi and petty criminal, Preston is viewed with disgust by all members of the German unit.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Nazi collaborator and member of the S.S.
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
British Free Corps
British Free Corps
During World War II, the British Free Corps was a unit of the consisting of British and Dominion prisoners of war who had been recruited by the Nazis. The unit was originally known as The Legion of St...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Early life
Douglas Berneville-Claye was born in PlumsteadPlumstead
Plumstead is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. Plumstead is a multi cultural area with large Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities, in similarity to local areas such as Woolwich and Thamesmead...
, the son of a Staff Sergeant
Staff Sergeant
Staff sergeant is a rank of non-commissioned officer used in several countries.The origin of the name is that they were part of the staff of a British army regiment and paid at that level rather than as a member of a battalion or company.-Australia:...
in the Royal Army Service Corps
Royal Army Service Corps
The Royal Army Service Corps was a corps of the British Army. It was responsible for land, coastal and lake transport; air despatch; supply of food, water, fuel, and general domestic stores such as clothing, furniture and stationery ; administration of...
. His father's family, the Clays, Websters, and Wainwrights, were industrial working-class from Leeds, Yorkshire, and his father, Frederick Wainwright Claye, was awarded an MBE
MBE
MBE can stand for:* Mail Boxes Etc.* Management by exception* Master of Bioethics* Master of Bioscience Enterprise* Master of Business Engineering* Master of Business Economics* Mean Biased Error...
in 1919 for his services in France.
He was educated in the local schools and in 1932 enrolled at the Army Technical School
Army Apprentices College
The Army Apprentices College was a college system in the United Kingdom that offered military training, education and common core skills, leadership and adventurous training, character development, trade training.-Name changes:...
at Chepstow
Chepstow
Chepstow is a town in Monmouthshire, Wales, adjoining the border with Gloucestershire, England. It is located on the River Wye, close to its confluence with the River Severn, and close to the western end of the Severn Bridge on the M48 motorway...
. He left the Army Technical School and went home to his parents' pub at Little Ouseburn, a village on the old Roman road between Ripon and York. His father had retired from the army after long service. In 1934 he joined the Lancers at York, which is probably where he learned to ride. He was still only 17 when he left the army to work as an instructor at a riding school near Thames Ditton
Thames Ditton
Thames Ditton is a village in Surrey, England, bordering Greater London. It is situated 12.2 miles south-west of Charing Cross between the towns of Kingston upon Thames, Surbiton, Esher and East Molesey...
and married there for the first time. That marriage lasted a matter of weeks but resulted in a daughter. In 1936, he abandoned his wife to move to Leeds
Leeds
Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...
, where he worked as a freelance journalist for the local press.
World War II
On the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
he volunteered for the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
and was accepted as an aircrew trainee but did not pass his final exams. In April 1940 he went AWOL to enter into a bigamous marriage with his current girlfriend. A son was born of the first bigamous marriage. Following this, he found a job in an aircraft factory and joined the Home Guard.
Berneville-Claye borrowed his father's old uniform and began wearing it in public, with a set of RAF pilot's wings
Aircrew brevet
An aircrew brevet is the badge worn on the left breast, above any medal ribbons, by qualified aircrew in the Royal Air Force, British Army, Indian Air Force, Canadian Forces, Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, South African Air Force and Sri Lanka Air...
attached. While doing so he was involved in a traffic accident, and after hospital treatment was sent to a convalescent home for officers. While there, he stole another officer's cheque book and after a police investigation was discovered to have obtained the sum of £5 10s by deception. He appeared before magistrates and was additionally fined £7 for impersonating an officer. Although he was remanded for trial, the charges were eventually dropped because he had repaid the money he had stolen and agreed to be bound over for two years.
Active service
It was at this time he changed his name to the Honourable Douglas St Aubyn Webster Berneville-Claye and enlisted as a private soldier in the West Yorkshire Regiment. He did not stay in the ranks for long. At enlistment, he claimed to have been educated at Charterhouse SchoolCharterhouse School
Charterhouse School, originally The Hospital of King James and Thomas Sutton in Charterhouse, or more simply Charterhouse or House, is an English collegiate independent boarding school situated at Godalming in Surrey.Founded by Thomas Sutton in London in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian...
, Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
and Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...
, and as a result was selected for officer training. The officer training was carried out at Pwllheli
Pwllheli
Pwllheli is a community and the main market town of the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd, north-western Wales. It has a population of 3,861, of which a large proportion, 81 per cent, are Welsh speaking. Pwllheli is the place where Plaid Cymru was founded. It is the birthplace of Albert Evans-Jones -...
and Sandhurst
Sandhurst
Sandhurst is a small town and civil parish in England of 7,966 homes and 20,803 inhabitants , primarily domiciliary in nature with a few light industries...
, where he was granted his commission as a Second Lieutenant in October 1941. He spent 6 months with the 11th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, then in June 1942 was posted to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
.
'Berneville' was one of his given names, along with Webster (his grandmother's maiden name) but it's not known where 'St Aubyn' came from, or why he joined 'Berneville' on to 'Claye' to make a hyphenated name. The original family surname was Clay.
In the next few months he was again charged with cheque fraud and court-martial
Court-martial
A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...
led, but he carried out his own legal representation (claiming to be a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
) and managed to be acquitted. He then supposedly inherited his father's title and became "Lord Charlesworth" and volunteered for L detachment of the Special Air Service
Special Air Service
Special Air Service or SAS is a corps of the British Army constituted on 31 May 1950. They are part of the United Kingdom Special Forces and have served as a model for the special forces of many other countries all over the world...
, reportedly in some kind of Quartermaster
Quartermaster
Quartermaster refers to two different military occupations depending on if the assigned unit is land based or naval.In land armies, especially US units, it is a term referring to either an individual soldier or a unit who specializes in distributing supplies and provisions to troops. The senior...
role.
His father had had a successful army career, working his way up through the ranks from the early years of the 20th century to his retirement in the early 1930s with officer's rank and his MBE. But there was no title that could have been inherited.
Capture by enemy
In December 1942, he took part in a penetration operation in TunisiaTunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
and was captured by the Afrika Korps
Afrika Korps
The German Africa Corps , or the Afrika Korps as it was popularly called, was the German expeditionary force in Libya and Tunisia during the North African Campaign of World War II...
. He was sent from North Africa to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
where he was interrogated, and then sent to an Italian
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
Prisoner of War
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
camp in northern Italy, from which he later claimed to have made repeated escapes. After the Italian Armistice in September 1943, Claye and his POWs were evacuated to Germany where he ended up in Oflag 79
Oflag 79
Oflag 79 was a World War II prisoner-of-war camp for Allied officers incarcerated by the Germans. The camp was located at Waggum near Braunschweig in Germany, also known by the English name of Brunswick....
at Waggum, near Braunschweig
Braunschweig
Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....
.
Collaboration
During 1944, the prisoners in Oflag 79 began to suspect that one of their number was an informer, and they eventually decided that it was Barneville-Claye. In December 1944, after Oflag 79 had been moved to Fallingbostel, the Senior British Officer informed the camp's German Commandant that the prisoners planned to court-martial and execute an informer and Claye was transferred by the Germans for his own safety.Claye's subsequent movements are unclear. He was reportedly sighted by POWs in Fallingbostel and Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
dressed in civilian clothing but then disappeared from view until early March 1945 when he was appointed to the staff of the III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps
III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps
The III SS Panzer Corps was a German Waffen-SS armoured corps which saw action on the Eastern Front during World War II. The The III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps (III. (germanische) SS-Panzerkorps) was a German Waffen-SS armoured corps which saw action on the Eastern Front during World War II. The...
at Templin
Templin
Templin is a small town in the Uckermark district of Brandenburg, Germany. Though it has a population of only 17,127 , it is with 377.01 km2 the second largest town in Brandenburg and the seventh largest town in Germany by area...
, dressed as a SS Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer
Hauptsturmführer was a Nazi rank of the SS which was used between the years of 1934 and 1945. The rank of Hauptsturmführer was a mid-grade company level officer and was the equivalent of a Captain in the German Army and also the equivalent of captain in foreign armies...
. He was invited to dine with the III Corps commander, Obergruppenführer
Obergruppenführer
Obergruppenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the SA and until 1942 it was the highest SS rank inferior only to Reichsführer-SS...
Felix Steiner
Felix Steiner
Felix Martin Julius Steiner was a German Reichswehr and Waffen-SS officer who served in both World War I and World War II. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords...
, where he explained that although he was a captain in the Coldstream Guards
Coldstream Guards
Her Majesty's Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, also known officially as the Coldstream Guards , is a regiment of the British Army, part of the Guards Division or Household Division....
and a member of the British peerage
Peerage
The Peerage is a legal system of largely hereditary titles in the United Kingdom, which constitute the ranks of British nobility and is part of the British honours system...
, "Lord Charlesworth", he was a firm anti-communist and had volunteered to fight to preserve Europe from the Communist threat. Apparently, he was so convincing that Steiner took him at face value.
At that time, the remains of the British Free Corps
British Free Corps
During World War II, the British Free Corps was a unit of the consisting of British and Dominion prisoners of war who had been recruited by the Nazis. The unit was originally known as The Legion of St...
were in the same area, and Steiner decided to appoint Claye to take charge of them. However, Claye instead took one of the Free Corps soldiers as a driver, and headed west in a stolen vehicle. He discarded his German uniform and surrendered to a British airborne unit somewhere west of Schwerin
Schwerin
Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The population, as of end of 2009, was 95,041.-History:...
.
Claye managed to evade any repercussions for his collaboration with the Germans; the former inmates of Oflag 79 had no concrete evidence that Claye had been the informer they had sought, and no evidence could be found that Claye had actually volunteered for the Waffen-SS
Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS was a multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of the Third Reich. It constituted the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside...
. Claye's story was that he had escaped from Oflag 79 by his own efforts and had acquired a uniform from a German woman with whom he had hid. Evidence from British Free Corps soldiers was deemed too tainted to use in court.
Postwar
Claye was sent back to the UK a free man, and given the acting rank of Captain, where he became the adjutant of a POW camp in YorkshireYorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. He was court-martialled again for wearing the ribbon of the Distinguished Service Order
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
which he claimed he had been awarded, and as a result was demoted to Second Lieutenant and lost his seniority. He was also court-martialled for having an "improper relationship" with an ATS
Auxiliary Territorial Service
The Auxiliary Territorial Service was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War...
driver (a son was born of that relationship, adopted) and was finally court-martialled for the theft of army property for which he was cashiered and imprisoned. Around this time he decided to remarry, when his bigamy also came to light. A son was born of the second bigamous marriage.
After his release from prison Claye dropped out of sight. He appeared as a witness for the defence in a murder trial in 1950, then in the late 1950s surfaced near Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead is a town in Hertfordshire in the East of England, to the north west of London and part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2001 Census was 81,143 ....
where he secured a managerial position with Rank Xerox
Rank Xerox
Rank Xerox was formed in 1956 as a joint venture between the Xerox Corporation of U.S. and the Rank Organisation of UK, to manufacture and market Xerox equipment initially in Europe and later in Africa and Asia...
. Claye played the role of an ex-Guards officer squire
Squire
The English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...
, riding to hounds, chairing village committees and wearing his decorations at Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. This day, or alternative dates, are also recognized as special days for war remembrances in many non-Commonwealth...
parades. This ended when he abandoned his family and ran off with the wife of one of his colleagues (a son, adopted, was born of that escapade). He soon returned to his wife, after which the family emigrated to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Four children were born of that second marriage.
In Australia Claye worked for a time as a radio announcer before becoming a teacher at St Gregory's College
St Gregory's College, Campbelltown
St Gregory's College is a Catholic, secondary, day and boarding school for boys, located in Campbelltown, a south-western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia....
in Campbelltown, New South Wales
Campbelltown, New South Wales
Campbelltown is a suburb in south-western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Campbelltown is located 51 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of the City of Campbelltown.- History :Campbelltown...
. He died of cancer in 1975. Until 2008 the school had a "Douglas Bernville-Claye Memorial Trophy" awarded for debating and public speaking.
In popular culture
Many readers' first acquaintance with the British Free CorpsBritish Free Corps
During World War II, the British Free Corps was a unit of the consisting of British and Dominion prisoners of war who had been recruited by the Nazis. The unit was originally known as The Legion of St...
came in Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins is the principal pseudonym of UK novelist Harry Patterson. Patterson is the author of more than 60 novels. As Higgins, most have been thrillers of various types and, since his breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have been bestsellers...
' World War II thriller The Eagle Has Landed
The Eagle Has Landed
The Eagle Has Landed is a book by Jack Higgins set during World War II. It first published in 1975. It was made into a film of the same name in 1976 starring Michael Caine...
. In the novel, a BFC Officer named Harvey Preston, who is patterned on Berneville-Claye, is attached to the Fallschirmjäger
Fallschirmjäger
are German paratroopers. Together with the Gebirgsjäger they are perceived as the elite infantry units of the German Army....
unit which attempts to kidnap Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
. A convinced Nazi and petty criminal, Preston is viewed with disgust by all members of the German unit.