Jock Haswell

Major Chetwynd John Drake "Jock" Haswell (18 July 1919 – 21 January 2018^[1]), who also wrote as George Foster,^[2] was a British military and intelligence author and former British intelligence officer.^[3] He was "Author for Service Intelligence" 1966–1984.^[4]

Early life

Haswell was born in Penn, Buckinghamshire. He was educated at Little Appley Preparatory School and Winchester College.^[5]

Career

Haswell was trained at Sandhurst c. 1938/9 - 1941.^[6] He joined the Queen's Royal Regiment^[6] on 3 April 1941.^[7] Later in 1941 he was stationed in India, and saw local action.^[8] He was promoted Major on 3 July 1952,^[9] and retired from the army on 29 April 1960.^[10]

Haswell's later work was mostly writing, continuing a thread from his military and intelligence work. He self-deprecatingly described his books as "holes held together with string". Nonetheless, his James II, for example, was reviewed in the Times of 29 July 1972 by Geoffrey Homes.^[11]

He died on 21 January 2018 at the age of 98.^[12]

Bibliography

Books

• Indian File (Michael Joseph, 1960) - as 'George Foster'
• Soldier on Loan (Michael Joseph, 1961) - as 'George Foster'
• The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey) (Hamish Hamilton, 1967)
• The First Respectable Spy : The Life and Times of Colquhoun Grant, Wellington's Head of Intelligence (Hamish Hamilton, 1969)
• James II Soldier and Sailor (Hamish Hamilton, 1972)^[13][14]
• Citizen Armies (Peter Davies, 1973)
• British Military Intelligence (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973)
• The British Army: A Concise History (Thames & Hudson, 1975)
• The Ardent Queen: Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian Heritage (Peter Davies, 1976)
• The Battle for Empire: A Century of Anglo-French Conflict (Cassell, 1976)
• Spies and Spymasters: A Concise History of Intelligence (Thames & Hudson, 1977)^[15][16][17]
• The Intelligence and Deception of the D-Day Landings (Batsford, 1979) also published in the US as D-Day : Intelligence and Deception, New York
• The Tangled Web: The Art of Tactical and Strategic Deception (J. Goodchild, 1985)
• The Magnet Book of Spies and Spying (Methuen, 1986)

Articles

• Combined Arms Center (September 1976). "The need to know". Military Review. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.