FREAK: Yugoslav. FREAK, a member of an influential Dubrovnik family, was, at the...

FREAK: Yugoslav. FREAK, a member of an influential Dubrovnik family, was, at the out-break of the Second World War, a serving officer in the Yugoslav Navy. In 1943 he was introduced to the Abwehr in Belgrade by the Double Agent (DA) and fellow Dubrovnik Yugoslav, DREADNOUGHT. Although the latter represented FREAK to his Abwehr contact as a potential recruit (for the Abwehr), his intention was that FREAK should in fact work against them - for the British. More specifically, FREAK became one of a small group of Yugoslav DA's chosen to participate in an escape route from Yugoslavia, facilitated by the Abwehr, and master-minded by TRICYCLE (DREADNOUGHTs brother and the leader of the group), and ARTIST (an anti-Nazi Abwehr officer who became in effect a British agent). This scheme was seen by the Abwehr as a means of acquiring Yugoslav agents deployable elsewhere in the west (including Britain); and by MI5 as a source of high-grade DA's who could provide intelligence on Abwehr organisations, personnel and plans. The Yugoslav group of DAs proved highly successful and productive. FREAK travelled to England via Italy in late 1943. His file includes interesting accounts of his exfiltration from Yugoslavia, his training by the Abwehr, his reception in the UK and his dual agent role here - as wireless operator for TRICYCLE; and in collecting intelligence on his own account, using his experience of war-time Yugoslavia and his insights as a naval officer. As background to FREAK's operational deployment in the UK, his file contains accounts of war-time Yugoslavia; the problems presented for FREAK and his group by the belief held among other Yugoslavs that they were working for the Germans; and the internecine feuding between the various anti-German Yugoslav factions - Royalists, Tito's partisans and Cetniks. FREAK was awarded the OBE for his war-time work. Like other members of his group, he was unable to return to Tito's post-war Yugoslavia. He moved to the United States in 1947

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