Walter (your #8592),
...Such was the amazing intelligence network of the Germans, that not very long afterwards, we heard that a rebuttal had been made by them, and published in English newspapers, that there was no German officer on the airfield at that date who was entitled to wear the Iron Cross!...
This was a common practice of "Lord Haw-Haw", of infamous memory on the radio during the war years ("Jairmany calling.....!") They would suddenly get hold of some snippet of events not generally known in wartime Britain, and put it on air to convince the gullible that Nazi Intelligence was all-knowing, and thus spread Alarm and Despondency.
His name was William Joyce, and he was captured and (quite properly) hanged for treason after the war. Wiki tells me:
...Joyce's defence team, appointed by the court, argued that, as an American citizen and naturalised German, Joyce could not be convicted of treason against the British Crown. However, the prosecution successfully argued that, since he had lied about his nationality to obtain a British passport and voted in Britain, Joyce owed allegiance to the king...
The colossal irony (which nobody was aware of at the time, or for 50 years after) was that our Bletchley Park had broken into the German "Enigma" code - to the extent that sometimes Churchill had on his desk transcripts of Hitler's orders to one of his Generals in the field before they had reached the General himself !
And (I think) - perhaps Union Jack can confirm - that Navy Intelligence were for some time receiving daily Position Reports from U-boats on station, which helped the anti-submarine war no end !
Danny.