Trent Park Mansion, Enfield, Middlesex, UK – Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre - World War II Sites on Waymarking.com

At the outbreak of World War 2 a Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre was formed, under the control of the War Office, with the purpose of interrogating selected prisoners of war. Initially CSDIC operated as MI 1h in the Tower of London, but on 12th December 1939 CSDIC moved to Trent Park. In 1942 two other outposts were brought into service at Latimer House and Wilton House in Buckinghamshire. Trent Park processed senior German officers, whilst other German ranks were dealt with at Latimer House and Italian POWs were processed at Wilton House.

The POWs that came to Trent Park were first screened by the Prisoner of War Interrogation Section (Home). The PWIS(H) operated cages throughout the country to take in POWs when they landed. They would be screened by PWIS(H) to see if longer interrogation was necessary. If so, the prisoners would be sent on to Trent Park.

The purpose of Trent Park was to stimulate conversations between German officers on topics of interest to the allies. The whole house was bugged and recordings were made of the conversations. Stool pigeons were often deployed to provoke the discussion, on other occasions the CSDIC staff would have planted conversations with the prisoners.

After cessation of hostilities CSDIC closed on 7th November 1945.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/27/2013 Master Mariner visited it