Norman Crockatt

Norman Richard Crockatt was a lifelong British Army officer who during the Interwar period was the head of the London Stock Exchange. Most notably, during World War II, he was the head of Military Intelligence Section 9 (MI9), of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence. MI9 was the section of MI responsible for the escape and evasion of Allied prisoners of war (POWs). Crockatt himself had implemented a rule of escape-mindedness during the war. He encouraged all POWs to survive and escape at all costs. Despite this, he is also partially-responsible for one of the most controversial orders during the war, called the "Stay Put Order", which caused several thousand POWs to lose their lives. Intelligence historians often note the irony in Crockatt encouraging individual POWs to escape, but discouraging mass breakouts. Throughout the war, Crockatt also used POWs to gather intelligence on the Axis, taking advantage of their unique positions behind enemy lines. Crockatt is directly responsible for the escape and survival of tens of thousands of Allied POWs during the war.

The historian Michael Foot, in his history of MI9, writes:

The directing genius of Norman Crockatt, founder of MI9 and its head for most of the 1939-45 war, can be traced – even if only indirectly – behind almost all of the mid-century adventures this book recalls.