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The Tale of the German Spy
Return to Story Archive Eric Kerr was born in Detroit, the son of parents of German nationality who had become naturalized United States citizens. After going to Wayne University, he joined the United States Army in February 1942 and in July was sent to Algiers to join the 82nd Airborne Division. Later he went to Tunisia, Sicily, and Salerno. He landed at Anzio and was taken prisoner between Highway 7, a north-south route, and the Mussolini Canal. He was captured by the Hermann Goring Division of the Panther Grenadiers. He was taken first to Turin, where his German origin was discovered, and was then transferred to Baden Baden. There he was interviewed by an Ober lieutenant (a senior Lieutenant) and a high officer of the German army who asked how he felt about his nationality and asked if he was still proud of being a German, they would help him. Kerr said that he was, and it was agreed that he should pass off as a Canadian and be dropped by parachute into England. He was given £400 in British currency, papers, a small printing set, and a contact name in London, England. He was flown from Baden Baden in a Junkers 88, and dropped at night on April 27, 1944, a mile and a half from the coast near Herne Bay. The plane approached England from the northeast, heading for a position between Sheerness and Ramsgate, and when the pilot shut off his motor and the plane dropped to 2000 feet, Kerr, wearing the uniform of a Canadian soldier, made his jump, landing near Herne Bay. He was rescued by a lobster fisherman, whom he told he was from a plane that had crashed. Taken into Herne Bay, he was treated at a first aid post for an injured leg. From there, he made his way to Chatham and then to London. He stayed at a hotel using the name of Vernon Doucette, a Canadian soldier. After spending time “fooling around in London and Leicester,” he got in touch with his contact in London, with an address in Clarges St., and a Grosvenor telephone number. He discovered the name of his contact, Tom Pope, from a telephone operator. He met with Pope, near Piccadilly, whom he identified walking with a fox terrier and with a girl who wore her hair platted in German style. Pope told him his assignment was to get information about American and Canadian airborne troops. Kerr became afraid and changed his identity card from Vernon Doucette to that of Lindsey Scharfe, a Canadian Warrant Officer. He left London on October 30th and went to Birmingham on November 2nd where he stayed at 49 Clarendon Rd., Edgbaston. On November 4th, police officers visited 49 Clarendon Rd., to check identity cards of serving men staying there. They found Kerr, wearing a uniform of a Canadian Airborne unit, complete with paratroop wings, and with the ribbons of the US Purple Heart and Silver Star, and a Canadian Good Conduct Metal. In his possession was a loaded 22 automatic pistol. He was asked to produce his identity paper and he produced the papers of Canadian Warrant Officer Scharfe. He said he was an American citizen who had joined the Canadian Army and that he was attached to the headquarters of a Special Service unit of the American Canadian 82nd Airborne Division and produced leaves certificates. Suspecting that his identity papers had been altered, Kerr was taken into custody. He told a nine hour long story and signed a statement with the name of Eric Kerr. As a result of the extraordinary statement an intensive investigation were instituted. The Detective Constable said he thought that the story was “a fabric of lies built upon little truth”. After it had taken police, in Birmingham and other places, weeks of investigation to prove his story false the truth emerged and the man who spoke like an American, looked like a French Canadian, wore a Canadian airborne uniform, and told the police a remarkable story, stood in the Birmingham Police Court on November 23, 1944. Eric Kerr was in fact Anthony St. Clair Goulding, born in July 1923, in Lambeth, London, England. Goulding was charged with “doing acts falsely to suggest he was in the service of a foreign government and a warrant officer in the Canadian Army, and with being in possession of a pistol and ammunition”. He was further charged with assuming a name other than which he was known in 1939, and with being a deserter from the Royal Fusiliers. During the trial, it was learned that Goulding had deceived the Canadian authorities and spent time in a Canadian Military hospital. He had been picked up and taken into a Canadian hospital where he feigned amnesia. Afterwards he claimed that he was Vernon Doucette. While posing as Doucette, Goulding obtained admission to Ramsgate Harbour and ingratiated himself so well among the Canadians that he actually went to sea in one of their boats. The Canadian Navy deployed the 29th Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) flotilla at Ramsgate. It was composed of eight small, fast, and well-armed vessels assigned to protected and screen the invasion fleet in the English Channel. At seven or eight o’clock each day, a unit of boats would proceed to sea on the nightly patrol. It was learned that Goulding had read about Vernon Doucette and Lindsay Scharfe, both military heroes in a magazine. Anthony St. Clair Goulding had no overseas service. He had given his wrong age in order to join the Army in 1938. He was 16 and served on anti aircraft duties in the South of England during the Battle of Britain, and witnesses thought that the strain to which the accused had been subjected during that time, might have been responsible for his behavior. Since joining up Goulding had been posted as a deserter on three occasions. The previous January, he had been discharged from a borstal institution, a youth detention centre for 16 to 21 year olds, where he had been sent after breaking into a cinema. He had also been attended by a psychiatrist. Goulding, said when he left the hospital, he had every intention of becoming somebody, but mentally and physically he collapsed. “I bought the pistol intending to blow my brains out. But I didn't have the courage. I hoped that the police would believe my story that I was a deserter. That I was a spy and that I would be shot or hanged,” Goulding’s stepfather said the prisoner seemed unable to accept moral responsibility and he felt that he had been released from hospital too soon. Goulding was sentenced to two months imprisonment. To be listed as AWOL in official quarters, although he was fighting with his unit, was the innocent experience of Sergeant Vernon Doucette, the son of Mr. and Mrs. George Doucette of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. He was 21 years old when he applied to join the 1st Special Service Force, known as the Devils Brigade. This elite strike force of some 1800 soldiers, marked the first time Canada and the United States combined forces in a single unit. Vernon Doucette did not make it through the war unscathed. He was injured four times during the war and earned the Silver Star Medal of Bravery. After the war, he returned to Nova Scotia and went to university to become an engineer. In 2015, the surviving members of the brigade were honored with the US Congressional Gold Medal for their service and. Vernon attended the ceremony at Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. A year later he was named a Knight of the French Legion of Honour by the Republic of France. Vernon Joseph Doucette (September 3, 1921 - January 21, 2019) was born in Yarmouth, NS, the son of George Arthur Doucette (1875-1969) and Marie Sadie Doucette (1877-1958). He married Marian Louise LeBlanc (1922-2013) on July 16, 1945 in Halifax, NS.
Sources: The Windsor Star (May 12, 1944) The Edmonton Bulletin (June 5, 1944) Birmingham Gazette (November 24, 1944) Liverpool Echo (November 23, 1944) Leicester Mercury (November 23, 1944) RCN 29th MTB Flotilla
The Windsor Star (May 12, 1944)
The Edmonton Bulletin (June 5, 1944)
Herne Bay