540 • TEMPLE, CAPTAIN
TEMPLE, CAPTAIN.A report in 1909 by Captain Temple of the
Royal Navy, submitted to theCommittee of Imperial Defence,
noted that, while the Admiralty was not organized to investigate
cases of espionage, it nevertheless had investigated certain cases that
uncovered a suspect mail-forwarding organization in Brussels.
Throughout 1908, advertisements had been placed in theDaily Mail
suggesting that retired officers, engineers, and clerks seeking to aug-
ment their income by contributing to theAmerican Naval Review
should apply to a post office box number in Brussels. A letter to that
address produced an offer to pay £50 for a report on artillery matters
which, according to recent newspaper reports, had been mislaid in
Portsmouth. There was no obvious link between the box number and
the German government, but contact had been established with it and
the result had been a questionnaire well-informed on artillery topics
and Admiralty reports. The same spymaster gave his supposed agent
several cover addresses in Basel and Ostend. As a consequence of
this case, the Special Intelligence Bureau—the precursor ofMI5—
came into operation.
TEMPLER, SIR GERALD. Director of military intelligencefrom
1946 to 1948, Gerald Templer had been educated at Wellington and
Sandhurst and joined the Royal Irish Fusiliers in 1916. He was in-
jured in Italy in 1944, in collision with a piano that fell off a military
truck as his jeep attempted to overtake it, and during his recuperation
he was appointed head ofSpecial Operations Executive’s X Section
before heading the military government of 21st Army Group. In 1952
Templer went to Malaya as high commissioner and director of opera-
tions, earning a reputation as ‘‘the tiger of Malaya.’’ Upon his return
to London in 1954, he became chief of the Imperial General Staff, a
post he held until his retirement with the rank of field marshal in
- The consummate British intelligence officer, Templer was
widely admired as an exceptionally bright and thoughtful soldier, al-
ways popular with brother officers and subordinates.
TER BRAAK, JAN.The body of Jan Ter Braak was discovered in a
public air-raid shelter in Cambridge in April 1941, apparently a sui-
cide victim. AnAbwehrspyagedabout27,TerBraakcarrieda
Dutch passport and forged identity papers containing data supplied