Why top-secret unit's three witches emblem meant toil and trouble for the Nazis
William Shakespeare's famous line from Macbeth, "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble" usually conjures up an image of three scheming witches huddling together over a fearsome fire.
However, during the Second World War, there was a top-secret intelligence unit that used the imagery to cause mayhem among the Nazis, according to a historian and author who specialises in 20th century spies and espionage.
Dr Helen Fry believes the imagery of three witches on broomsticks on the hand-sewn badges of Intelligence School 9 (Western Europe), part of MI9 during the Second World War, is connected to Macbeth, saying: "It's simple, 'Toil, toil, trouble for the Nazis'.
"That's what these missions were."
Between 1939 and 1945, the now-extinct MI9 was a secret department of the War Office whose job was to help Allied service personnel behind enemy lines evade capture and escape.
As Dr Fry discovered during research for her book, MI9: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in World War Two, MI9 as a collective saved more than 35,000 Allied fighters and downed airmen during the Second World War.
Intelligence School 9 was a top-secret part of MI9 and historians are only now beginning to uncover its history following the declassification of certain documents.
The autobiographies of MI9 agents, such as Lieutenant Colonel Airey Neave and Lieutenant Colonel James Langley, have brought the evasion and escape work of MI9 to public knowledge.
However, the operations conducted by Intelligence School 9 have remained classified for more than 80 years.
Operation Blackmail
One operation that is coming to light saw agents creating their own bewitching badges.
Operation Blackmail took place in March 1944 and saw aircraft flying over Holland with a witch subtly painted on the aircraft's nose.
The aim was to use S-Phones to link up with SAS units on the ground who were trying to rescue airmen and soldiers in preparation for what became the Battle of Arnhem.
As was to be expected with covert operations, the work of Intelligence School 9 was completely off everybody's radar.
Dr Fry said: "We don't even know if Prime Minister Winston Churchill knew about it.
"We have no paper trail at the moment to suggest that he knew about this.
"That's not to say he didn't."
These secret missions were, in Dr Fry's opinion, to cause "trouble for the Nazis" and so imagery of three witches on broomsticks were hand sewn in Holland by members of Intelligence School 9.
Dr Fry said: "Everything has a symbolism.
"If you look at the insignia of all regiments, you've got a parachute on the Parachute Regiment's, you've got a dagger for the SAS – it's symbolism, it means something.
"So it's not that they were using witchcraft.
"I think if I was to go behind enemy lines in World War Two, I would love to have gone in under the badge of three witches on broomsticks.
"I think that's got to be the best."
And they weren't cheap to make either.
Some of the badges were sewn using very expensive gold bullion or silver thread.
She said: "This is terribly expensive in war time. Where did they get it from?"
And Intelligence School 9 weren't the only unit to use a witchy image on their badges.
The insignia of the 2nd Anti-Aircraft Division features a witch riding a broomstick sewn in red thread, representing their motto 'We sweep the skies'.
Today, the image of three witches on broomsticks used by Intelligence School 9 during the Second World War has been given a new lease of life.
It is being used by the UK SERE (Survive, Evade, Resist, Extract) school.
John Hudson, Chief Instructor at the UK Military Survival School, revealed on social media the school's newly designed badge which combines elements from SERE's Second World War predecessors.
Join Our Newsletter
