Eavesdropping on the enemy

Say ‘Colditz’, and the name immediately triggers an image of prisoners of war digging tunnels, building gliders and in general plotting outrageously to cross the barbed wire into freedom. You could shout ‘Trent Park’ from the rooftops and, until now, no one would have known what you were referring to. But this book should give the name as lively a notoriety as the brooding Saxon fortress.

Trent Park in Middlesex was where Britain housed the cream of captured German officers. They were brought together, not to prevent their escape, but to encourage their conversation. Scattered throughout their cells and huts was a network of concealed microphones designed to record whatever they had to say about the war, the Nazis and Hitler himself. The bugged talk eventually covered 50,000 pages, providing vital information about morale and military thinking.

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Today the value of that eavesdropping is, if anything, even greater.