STEPHENSON, SIR WILLIAM• 521World War II and was then transferred toBad Nenndorf. Allegations
of the maltreatment of prisoners made by his deputy, Major Short,
resulted in Stephens facing a court-martial, which acquitted him. At
the end of the war, Stephens was invited by the director-general,Sir
David Petrie, to write a history of Camp 020, which he titledA Di-
gest of Ham.STEPHENSON, SIR WILLIAM.Born in Winnipeg in January 1897
to destitute immigrants from Iceland, William Stanger was adopted
by neighbors, the Stephenson family, at the age of four. When he
left school at 14, he worked in a timber yard and then as a telegram
messenger. In January 1916 he enlisted in the Winnipeg Light Infan-
try and was sent to France, where he was wounded and gassed within
a week of his arrival. He was evacuated to England and in April the
following year, having convalesced near Oxford, Stephenson volun-
teered for pilot training with the Royal Flying Corps. In February
1918 he was assigned to the 73rd Squadron in France and won the
Military Cross in April and the Distinguished Flying Cross in Au-
gust, having shot down 12 enemy aircraft in his Sopwith Camel.
However, in July he was accidentally wounded by a French aerial
gunner, and his plane crashed on the wrong side of the German lines.
He was captured and held at Holzminden, but escaped before the end
of the war.
In 1919 Stephenson was back in Winnipeg in partnership with a
businessman to exploit the patent of a can opener he had found in
Holzminden, but the company filed for bankruptcy and in 1922 Ste-
phenson returned to London, where he invested in a company manu-
facturing and distributing radio receivers and X-ray machines. Over
the next 12 years he accumulated a sizeable fortune through shrewd
investments and married the daughter of a wealthy family from Ten-
nessee who was working in a tobacco shop.
By 1938 the successful Stephenson was on the board of the
Pressed Steel Company, Shepperton Studios, and the huge Earls
Court exhibition. He was also associated withDesmond Morton’s
Industrial Intelligence Centre, apparently providing information
about German acquisition of war mate ́riel, and became involved in a
disastrous scheme, codenamedstrike oxand planned bySection
D, to sabotage the docks at the Swedish port of Oxelo ̈sund.