Baker Street Irregular

Bickham Sweet-Escott

Methuen, 1965

[From the library of Benjamin B. King.] Bound in publisher's black cloth. Red lettering. Hardcover. No dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Shelf wear. Short gift inscription on front end page, else unmarked. 278 p., 23 cm.

"Benjamin B. King was an intelligence officer for the British Royal Air Force during World War II. After World War 2 broke out in Europe in September 1939, he joined the British Royal Air Force as a 'penguin' who could not fly because of eyesight problems. He was assigned to Coastal Command at the airbase in Wick in the very north of Scotland, which provided defense for Britain in the North Sea, engaging the Germany Navy and Air Force. After his stint at Wick, Ben was transferred to the vital but vulnerable British base at Gibraltar off the coast of Spain, where the British monitored German and Italian military operations in the Western Mediterranean. While in Gibraltar, one of his tasks was to listen to Luftwaffe radio communications and track the movement of German and Italian airplanes. After Gibraltar, Ben was called back to Britain and assigned to the secret British code-breaking operations at Bletchley Park in England, which played a critical role in the Allies' war effort by monitoring and decoding German military communications and ultimately breaking the German Enigma code." - Obit.