The Dennis Wheatley 'Museum' - Dennis Wheatley in World War II: a supplement

The start of the third phase: DW is interviewed, put into uniform, and attends an officer training course at Uxbridge

The letter informing the 44 year-old DW that he is being enrolled into the RAF

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The letter informing DW he is to report for training at the end of the same week!

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DW's packing list
Note that a 'housewife' in this context is a sewing kit!

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One of DW's notebooks from the course, and his scrawled notes on the inside cover

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DW writes to his ex-wife about the course

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The decision to bring DW into Deception Planning happened very fast.

In the middle of November 1941 DW was invited to lunch at the R.A.C. Club by Group Captain (later Marshal of the Royal Air Force) 'Dickie' Dickson, whom he had met in the course of writing his War Papers, and found that his fellow guest was none other than the former Secretary of State for War, Colonel Oliver Stanley, who, unbeknown to DW, had been asked to set up the centralised unit for Deception that Wavell had been advocating.

DW found Stanley to be a charming person and the lunch very pleasant, and as the lunch progressed it became increasingly clear to DW that he was being 'vetted' for something. After lunch, evidently satisfied with what he had seen, Stanley told DW that a new Section of the Chief of Staffs Organisation was being created to work under him, and asked if DW would like to join it. DW immediately replied 'Yes'. At this stage DW was given only the vaguest indication of what his duties would be.

During the conversation it was decided that it would be best if DW joined the new unit in uniform, and - perhaps partly because of the presence of Dickson - it was agreed that he should join the R.A.F. He would have to go in at its lowest officer rank, Pilot Officer, and he would have to complete an Officers' Intake Course at Uxbridge.

Having met DW, Stanley clearly decided that he wanted him in a hurry.

DW received the form to apply for a commission on Tuesday 2nd December, and promptly lodged it, with his sponsors being Dickson and the King's mentor (and DW's friend) Sir Louis Greig

On Monday 8th December the Air Ministry sent DW a letter confirming his acceptance, and in the same post he received a letter instructing him to report to R.A.F Uxbridge that Friday to commence his compulsory three weeks' training

DW had only three days to get his documents together, to buy and have fitted his uniform, and to do his packing. Remarkably some of DW's documents from this period survive.

As the final exhibit shows, DW was nervous about the course - as a forty-four year-old he had good reason to be - but as extracts from his unpublished memoirs show, he used a mixture of hard work and guile to get through it. He failed to get the Commanding Officer to exempt him from Physical Training (a typically cheeky request), but he bribed the 'airmen servants' to clean his boots and buttons for him, and he made a life-long friend in the process - a page at King George V's Coronation, the Duke of Richmond. To read some extracts from DW's unpublished and colourful account of his time at Uxbridge, click here.

References : 'The Deception Planners', 'Editor's Note' and Chapter One.

DW's unpublished memoirs, 'A', Chapter 8.

Provenance : Private Collection