A British soldier and his lady friend are sitting in a cafe. The young couple, madly in love, are pouring their heart out as they will not see each other for a while. The young man is about to sail from England in a ship with other British soldiers.
In the heat of the moment, he tells his sweetheart the precise time of the ship’s departure in which other soldiers will be present. The manageress of the cafe, a German spy, eavesdrops on the conversation. Promptly, she passes on the information to the Germans. A short while after the ship departs from the shore, it is taken down by the Germans; hundreds die.
The story mentioned above describes a scene from a ten-minute “Anti-Gossip film,” All Hands. Produced by Ealing Studios and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it was part of a British government initiative against “careless talk.”
In the 1940s, as the Second World War raged in full swing, information became the most precious commodity. To gain strategic advantage, countries gathered confidential information by planting spies in every nook and corner. Piecing together information, they waged information wars against their opponents, attacking them with vicious smear campaigns.
-30-
Copyright©Madras Courier, All Rights Reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from madrascourier.com and redistribute by email, post to the web, mobile phone or social media.Please send in your feed back and comments to editor@madrascourier.com
