Castaways in Question: A story of British naval interrogators from WW1 to denazification

Vivian Brandon and Bernard Trench were arrested for spying during a semi-official tour of the Frisian Islands in 1910. They came home two years later speaking German fluently, knowing the methods used by their future enemies, and with no love of life behind bars. By early 1915 Brandon was running Intelligence Division’s German section and developing standard techniques for handling and questioning captives. The processes he and Trench evolved over the next three years informed the uniquely successful Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centres (CSDIC) in World War II. Here we follow the naval interrogators’ growing confidence and expertise from their pioneering first steps in World War I to their role in dismantling one of the most vicious regimes the planet has ever seen.