John Debenham-Taylor recounts his time spent in Finland as one of the first agents of the Second World War, where the ‘unspecified overseas service’ that he gave up his commission with the Royal Artillery for transpired to be aiding the Finns in resisting Russian advances.

Initially unaware of what this intelligence role entailed, John’s group was sent to Helsinki, where after a dangerous journey aboard a Russian-targeted trainline, their main task transpired to be instructing the Finns how to use their weapons provided by the British company Vickers-Armstrong. Upon recognising that the Finns needed no such guidance, most troops headed back to Britain whilst John and another officer colleague remained behind to write weapon’s instruction manuals.

John fondly recalls the warm welcome he received as a British soldier in Finland and goes on to recount the treacherous seaborne journey back home past the German-occupied Norwegian coast and then via Shetland; a trip made notable not only by the unwelcome effects of consuming predominantly reindeer meat, but by sharing the deck space with crates of Russian armaments headed for military analysis at MI10.

John’s retelling of his time in Finland during the initial developments of WW2 depict the earliest days of his remarkably long career in intelligence; a career which would later take him to the Far East serving with the SOE and then later, MI6.