Service in the shadows

[dante]

Harold Dorman Patterson was born in 1875 in West Derby Lancashire he was appointed Home Office, Inspector under the Aliens Act in 1910 and was appointed temporary 2/Lt in the embryonic Intelligence corps, disembarking at St Nazaire 14/9/1914 Returning to the UK in 23/4 1915 (according to his documents) with neurasthenia (shell shock), he was sent to the Duchess of Connaught Canadian Red Cross Hospital, Cliveden, Taplow, Bucks.

In early 1916 he was attached to the Home Defence (cyclist) company at the Bell hotel, Great Driffield, Yorkshire and later to the 9th Hampshire regiment.

However in truth Harold was a member of Mi5 he is noted on official records joining on 12 April 1916 and leaving in July 1919.

He was Port Control Officer at Newcastle and later at Southampton.

On 29 June 1918 the Military Control in Southampton reported the arrival in the port of a Russian officer (one Major General Lodijensky) who professed that his mission was to prevent Kerensky journeying to Paris and attempting to ‘put himself at the head’ of the intervention. If that happened, the general informed his interviewer (noted as Captain H.D. Patterson), ‘the whole cause will be lost’, as ‘Kerensky’s name bears no weight with the people whose sympathies have been laboriously enlisted.

Major General Lodijensky was a general in the Russian army. After the monarchy was overthrown, he fled Russia and eventually wound up in Hollywood, where he earned a living for a while doing extra work in films and acting as a technical adviser on films about Russia.

The film The Last Command is based partly on his life.

As you would expect from his life in the shadows little else is know.......

Harold was awarded the OBE in 1919

[Chris Boonzaier]

That is a fantastic group.. have you bought single medals "just like that" and ended up finding out they were to agents? Or have you targeted specific ones on auction, knowing they were?

Best

Chris

[dante]

That is a fantastic group.. have you bought single medals "just like that" and ended up finding out they were to agents? Or have you targeted specific ones on auction, knowing they were?

Best

Chris

Chris, I do seem to have a knack of finding them......been doing it a while tho....

[dante]

Further to the above, he was made bankrupt in May 1914, but this does not seem to have impacted on his career as he made it to HM Chief Immigration officer in 1925 being appointed as;

"Home  Office : Inspector under the Aliens Act — Harold Dorman Patterson" in 1920