“Lieutenant Heweke”

About: The German interrogator Murphy names as "Lieutenant Heweke" in his typed notes and "Mr Hencke" in his memoir, who questioned him after his recapture near the Rhine on the night of 2 January 1945. ⚠︎ Murphy is the only source for the man, and he spells the name two ways.

Unit or role: German interrogator: "Lieutenant" in the typed notes, "Mr" in the memoir. No unit is given.

Where: Not stated. Murphy says only that he was taken "for interrogation to GWELFT Headquarters of the Gerry Army for that area" (the underlined place name on the handwritten page; the typed copy has "GWELF"; his captivity manuscript, p. 2, typed, p. 1–3) (◐ Velp, see below), and afterwards "taken to Germany".

Evidence: ⚠︎ Murphy's memoir, p. 8; ⚠︎ his typed notes; both in family papers. No German or Allied record naming him has been found.

Murphy names the man twice, in two documents written by or for him.

• The memoir, p. 8. After the underground "gave me a going over" with questions about Arsenal, Rangers, Celtic and Hearts, "I was with them till I was recaptured over the Rhine, and taken to Germany after interrogation by Mr. HENCKE." That is all the page says of him.

• The typed notes. The page headed "Notes from Tommy Murphy" has the longer account, as its last paragraph:

  Lieutenant Heweke, , my interrogator kept trying to trap me by asking how I survived from September until January. I kept telling him I lived in the woods and stole food to survive but he just laughed and didn't believe me of course.

  — Tom Murphy, typed notes, last paragraph · the page

  • The double comma is in the typescript.
  • In the same paragraph he writes that "As an escaped prisoner to be re-captured meant the firing squad", and that he "still had my uniform but wore overalls which I could shed on being caught or in danger of being captured".

◐ The two names are probably one man: both follow his recapture, both are his interrogator, and "Hencke" and "Heweke" are the nearest the two documents come to each other. The titles differ ("Mr", "Lieutenant"), neither document says how Murphy learned the name, and no second source gives either. Whether it was the man's real name, or one he gave, or one Murphy remembered wrongly, is not known.

His notebook has the same cover story without the name: "They were curious where I'd been, I told them I just wandered around" (the notebook page). The same page has "they didn't catch me till around March" (see below).

Murphy does not name where the interrogation was. ◐ Two of the men lost with him are placed at Velp. Capt. C. B. Noble, lost on the same night, was "taken to the RHQ and from there sent to Div HQ, Counter Intelligence at VELP, having been captured in civilian clothes"; his questionnaire gives "Arnhem (Velp, 1st Parachute Div, Counter Intelligence)", and "Methods: Prolonged questioning. Threatening" (Noble). The Pegasus Archive's biography of Tex Banwell says he "was marched to Velp for interrogation" (Banwell). ◐ Murphy's own page fits Noble: it has "The Medical Officer prisoner with me" given identity card No 11 at the same headquarters, and Noble, a captain of 133 Parachute Field Ambulance, RAMC, lost the same night, was the one sent to Velp (Noble; Murphy's manuscript, p. 2). That ties Murphy's interrogation to Velp more closely than the two men's shared night does, but Murphy does not name the medical officer, and no document places Murphy himself there by name, and none names a German officer at Velp (Captivity tells the whole recapture and what Noble and the Dutch records say of the weeks after).

⚠︎ Noble's own later account (unpublished private papers, shared with us privately), told long after the war, names his own interrogator in those weeks: "a Lieutenant Enk, who spoke very good English with an Irish accent". He has the questioning at night in a house "in Roosendaal" (◐ very likely Rozendaal, beside Velp, misspelt: Charles Noble), by a Luftwaffe interrogation centre, and the days in a Feld Gendarmerie house at Arnhem, for about three weeks. "Enk" and Murphy's "Hencke" and "Heweke" are close in sound, and both questioned men of the same party; beyond that nothing ties the two, and neither writer says how he learned the name.

No German record of Murphy has turned up, and none of the interrogator. The sources held on this site were searched for the spellings Heweke, Hewecke, Hoeveke, Hencke and Henke; the hits include a historian Henke in a footnote, an army doctor Henke on Overflakkee in a German war diary, a composer Henke, one index entry "Henke, L." in volume 1 of De Jong's Het Koninkrijk, the pre-war volume, a "Mevr. B. A. M. van Herten-Hencke" in the address lists of the Utrecht student almanacs of 1939 and 1941, and a "Corn. Henke" announced for a voordrachtavond (recital evening) on 15 November 1939 in the Haagsche Courant (almanac 1939; almanac 1941; Haagsche Courant, 8 November 1939; OCR only); none is placed near an interrogation of 1945. The man stays a name in Murphy's papers.

• Two names, two titles. "Mr. HENCKE" in the memoir, "Lieutenant Heweke" in the typed notes (p. 8; the notes). ◐ Probably one man, as above.
• When he was caught. The typed notes have "from September until January". Schjelderup's report has Murphy lost on the night of 2 January 1945, and Noble's questionnaire has Noble "Evaded capture until Jan 2nd, 45" (Schjelderup's report as printed on Hardy's page; Noble). The notebook has "they didn't catch me till around March". ◐ The notebook does not fit the record held: Noble, lost the same night, was in the Gestapo prison at Utrecht from about 18 January, the questionnaire's dates being approximate (Noble). The notebook's interrogators are "they", not Heweke.

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