02/10/2026
Seen this somewhere else though it was a good read
Twenty seven year old Nicolay Hansen was trained as a spy by the N***s and parachuted into Scotland to carry out undercover espionage work against the British.
Heansen landed in a field near Tyrie and was caught straight away by two courageous lorry drivers who had been driving all night from Ullapool to Fraserburgh with their lorries full of herrings.
Around midnight on the 30th of the September 1943 lorry drivers lan Park, 24 Castle St. Fraserburgh and Norman Cameron, 39, of 95 Bon Accord Street, Aberdeen, were near the end of their journey from the West coast taking herring from Ullapool to Fraserburgh. They had just passed the Braid Milestone, New Pitsligo, with about 12 miles to go when they saw an aircraft circling at low altitude over the vicinity of Boyndlie Moss, Tyrie.
The aircraft circled 3 or 4 times and was showing a red light. They had a clear sight of the aircraft for the next five miles or so but it then disappeared towards the ground near Boyndlie, on the south side of the road. A few minutes later Ian Park, who was in the front lorry had almost reached the Den of Boyndlie, when he saw someone flashing a torch in a field at Tarmair Smithy Croft.
He stopped his lorry and went over the fence and when about 10 yards into the field he came upon a young man getting out of the harness of a parachute which was attached to him. He held a torch in his hand. He started to talk in a guttural voice and with a foreign accent, there was a heap of stuff on the ground beside the parachute and by his actions he seemed to be anxious not to let Park touch it.
He asked Park if he was "English" and Park replied by asking him if he was a German. The main replied "Nein" and in broken English led Park to understand that he came over the Stavanger in a Folke-Wulf plane and had been trying to get to an aerodrome which he knew to be in the vicinity. He accompanied Park to the road leaving all his equipment in the field, Park thought he was a Norwegian and was trying to locate pother Norwegian nationals.
The parachutist mentioned "soldier" and "police". Park then asked him to enter the cab of his lorry intending to drive him to the police station in Fraserburgh, but he refused leave.
Norman Cameron who had by then joined them then left to telephone the Police from the Post Office at Tyrie, and the parachutist stayed with Ian Park. He showed Park a bundle of bank notes asking if they were British and still in circulation. He also showed him a map of the North East of Scotland and pointed out the route he had travelled from Stavanger to Fraserburgh, crossing the coast near Aberdeen and travelling due North. He had a compass strapped to his wrist.
When Inspector George Michie of the police arrived the parachutist indicated by signs that he had landed by parachute and on returning to the field pointed out a green and tan coloured parachute and a box covered with a black cloth, measuring 15"x6"x6" with strap attachments were found lying on the grass. He lifted the box and said "Radio" and then indicated by signs that he had the Radio strapped to his body when he dropped, and that another Radio had been dropped by a seperate parachute. He and his equipment were then taken to the Police Station in Fraserburgh where he was interrogated by the Intelligence Officer Lieutenant Colonel Peter Perfect, an MI5 officer based in Scotland.
A further search was made at about 9 am that morning 1st October 1943, and the second radio was found in a belt of trees at the side of the Fraserburgh-Banff road about a mile and a half southwest from the point where the parachutist was found.
In addition to a boiler suit he was also wearing a jacket and trousers, blue woollen polo jersey, woollen vest, woollen pants, striped shirt, leather belt, a pair of shoes and a pair of grey woollen socks.
He also had £60 in his possession in various banknotes and coins as well as 8 snapshots, a packet of English S**g To***co, a To***co pouch and to***co, a packet of cigarette papers, 1 empty cigarette packet, 2 boxes of matches, a compass (wrist), a pocket torch, a map of NE. Scotland, newspapers, a pencil, a jack knife, a piece of a loaf of bread, a packet of butter, 1 sausage, 2 knee pads, a pocket watch, a small hand spade, 2 handkerchiefs, a telegram, a large photo of woman, 2 bandages, 1 parachute & harness, and an Identity Card with photo.
The parachutist told his interrogators at Fraserburgh and later at top secret Camp 020 in South London that his name was Nicholay Hansen and that he had been instructed to surrender himself with one radio as evidence of his innocent intent.
He was to hide the other for use later, when he hoped to be released and find work as a coal miner. Hansen was given the code name “Heini.” What he did not reveal until much later was that he had secret writing crystals concealed in a hollowed-out tooth and accommodation addresses in Goteburg in neutral Sweden, where he had intended to send his reports. T
he Secret Service thought about using him as a double agent to give false information to the N**i Abwehr spy service but had second thoughts because they thought that that's what the Germans would expect them to do along with the fact that Hansen couldn't be trusted and was too unreliable.
The Germans received a false report that Hansen had broken both legs on landing and that's why he had been captured.
After the war was he was deported back to Norway.
It was a very brave thing that the two lorry drivers did and wasn’t reported at the time because of war time restrictions. The N**i spy’s sabotage mission in Britain ended before it started thanks to two diligent and brave lorry drivers who weren’t willing to stand by and let the enemy invade.
