The Queen's dressmaker, Sir Hardy Amies, has been named as one of the men who helped to plan the murder of dozens of Nazi collaborators in Europe towards the end of the Second World War.
The discovery of Sir Hardy's role in the special operation has been made by a forthcoming BBC history series on secret agents.
But, although the producers have documents they claim show Sir Hardy's involvement, he has disclaimed all knowledge of the affair and will not be mentioned in the programme.
Producer David Darlow said, "From a television point of view, the fact that he wouldn't talk about it on camera stopped us from using it."
Researchers were allowed by the Public Records Office to see unreleased documents about Operation Ratweek early in 1944. The operation sent secret agents to murder Nazis and sympathisers all over Europe.
Helping to organise the operation in London was a Lt-Col Amies. The BBC producers were amazed when they traced the lieutenant-colonel and found he was the 91-year-old former dress designer to the Queen.
It is known that Sir Hardy was in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the war but his role in the little-known Operation Ratweek has never been revealed. All Government papers relating to it have been kept secret.
When the BBC went to interview Sir Hardy, he claimed to have no recollection of his role in the operation, which successfully killed scores of leading Nazi sympathisers.
Darlow said, "When we went to see Hardy Amies, he said, 'Sorry, old chap, I can't remember a thing about it'."
Darlow said Sir Hardy would have nothing to feel ashamed about. "Organising the assassination of Nazi collaborators across Europe was an act of patriotism. I admit, though, that it's hard to reconcile the Queen's dress designer with this."
Sir Hardy has repeatedly denied he was involved in the operation. "I have never heard of it before. Certainly, I was in the SOE for the whole of the war and involved in seeing that men were parachuted behind enemy lines to help the partisans.
"But I knew nothing of Operation Ratweek. I am perturbed that the BBC are saying this because maybe my memory is at fault. But I don't think it is."
Darlow produced documents, including minutes of meetings of the SOE in 1944, which talked of the involvement of the then Lt-Col Amies, head of the Belgian Service.
He said, "We've got a bunch of documents which show his involvement and I have checked with his agent that the signature is that of Hardy Amies.
"The secret documents show that dozens and dozens of people were killed in the operation. You can call it murder or you can call it assassination. It was wartime and it was a justifiable thing in wartime. There's nothing dastardly about this. He was pursuing war as he should have been."
Sir Hardy was acting head of the Special Operations Executive for Belgium during much of the war and became head of SOE Belgium in 1944.
The documentary, to be broadcast in Britain next month, will tell the story of the men and women who went behind enemy lines as part of Winston Churchill's secret army.
The SOE, which had its headquarters in Baker St in London, on the site now occupied by Marks & Spencer, was set up by Churchill on 19 July, 1940, the same day Hitler told the Reichstag that Britain's defeat was at hand.
The historian Ted Cookridge wrote, "A few strokes of a pen, and a body was created 'to coordinate all action by way of subversion and sabotage against the enemy overseas.' Or, as the Prime Minister put it, 'to set Europe ablaze'."
The organisation was officially established under the Ministry of Economic Warfare, which became known in Whitehall as the "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." The SOE's main concern, according to the book Britain's Secret Propaganda War by Paul Lashmar and James Oliver, was its work with the Resistance groups that sprang up across Europe and the Far East. In 1942, it was also responsible for the assassination of Himmler's deputy, Reinhard Heydrich.
Hardy Amies' association with the SOE is in his Who's Who entry, as is his love of opera, tennis, gardening and needlepoint. Although he joined the Intelligence Corps in 1939, he was even then a man of fashion as the managing designer at Lachasse in London's West End. But he gained national fame in 1955 when he became Dressmaker by Appointment to HM The Queen.
The son of a court dressmaker, Hardy Amies founded his own fashion house in 1946 in Savile Row after buying the bomb-damaged building at a knockdown price. His business took off in the postwar years when customers, who had been deprived of new dresses for the preceding years, snapped up his elegant, traditional designs.
He is said to be the master of the little dress that serves as a backdrop to his clients' jewellery. Although the style always reflected the English upper class, his designs were most popular with American, Canadian and Japanese buyers.
His clients have included Lady Diana Cooper, Sally Burton, Elaine Paige and members of the Rothschild family. Because of his inability to draw, he has always collaborated with artists, and he envisages the finished article "working for its living" at a party or wedding, or coming down a staircase.
- INDEPENDENT
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