In touch with Nazi agents…sudden, unexpected wealth…and a mission to rescue Wallis Simpson’s favourite green SWIMSUIT from Occupied France! The tawdry reality of the Windsor’s wartime exile in the Bahamas. By historian ANDREW LOWNIE

On 4 July 1940, with the possible threat of a German invasion, Winston Churchill drafted a memo to the Prime Ministers of the Dominions: ‘The activities of the Duke of Windsor on the Continent during the past few months have caused HM and myself serious inconvenience, as It is well known that his leanings are pro-Nazi and that he could become a center of intrigue.’

As a result, the new prime minister had decided to offer the former king the governorship of the Bahamas – failing to mention in his memo that the alternative was a court-martial.

And so the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were exiled to the Caribbean for the duration of the war.

It was announced that the Duke would become Governor of the Bahamas in July 1940

The new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had decided to offer the governorship of the Bahamas to the Duke of Windsor. The alternative was a court-martial

There was great unrest because the duke’s leanings were known to be pro-Nazi. The Duke and Duchess are pictured with Adolf Hitler in 1937

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor enter the government building in Nassau in 1940

Busy at work at Government House in the Bahamas – a photo taken around 1940

Their time there has been little researched so far.

Tomorrow Channel 5 will air the documentary ‘Edward & Wallis: The Bahamas Scandal – Revealed’, based on my book Traitor King and a series of newly discovered documents, many from the Duke’s confidential file in the Royal Archives before me opened.

In some respects the Windsors come out better than expected. For example, the duke fought to improve the lot of the predominantly black population. Wallis was a volunteer at children’s clinics.

But when it comes to the Windsors’ loyalty, the picture is deeply unflattering.

This is a couple who continued to maintain contact with known German agents and lobbied to keep America out of the war.

The program reveals how Peter Russell – later professor of Spanish studies at Oxford – was assigned to keep an eye on the couple before they came to the Bahamas and ‘ordered to shoot them’ if they agreed to German overtures to secure a to become a puppet of the British king.

A newly discovered ‘Most Secret’ telegram details the elaborate and meticulous German plans to help the Windsors retrieve their belongings from their Paris home and how Wallis’s favorite Nile green swimsuit was repatriated from their home in southern France under what ultimately would be called Operation Cleopatra Whim.

It also describes their extravagant spending at a time of rationing: they insisted that Government House be redecorated at the height of the Battle of Britain, when every penny of government spending went to aircraft production – and how British officials wondered how couple financed their lavish expenses. lifestyle.

A ‘most secret’ Foreign Office cable, which I recently discovered in the British National Archives, asks how the couple’s US bank account had suddenly grown from $1,197 to $29,931 in one year, especially given the regulations on the area of ​​exchange control in wartime.

There is new information about how the Duke tried to stop the murder of Harry Oakes, was complicit in an attempt to send an innocent man to the gallows, and reveals that an FBI report and Scotland Yard file on the murder continues to this day remain closed today.

FBI files reveal not only the vast extent of the couple’s surveillance – personally ordered by Roosevelt – and suspicions of their continued ties to the Nazi regime, but also how Windsor was blackmailed by a former mistress and how the Duke led the FBI persuaded to investigate. a journalist who had written a critical portrait of the couple.

The Duke and Duchess at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, two months before America joined the war

The Duke and Duchess are organizing the annual inspection of the Bahamas branch of the Red Cross, which the Duchess chaired. Wallis volunteered at children’s clinics

Captain Edward Melchen and Captain James Barker, both of the Miami Police Department, prepare to enter the magistrate’s court for the preliminary hearing in the case of Alfred de Mariog, charged with the murder of Sir Harry Oakes.

Author and historian Andrew Lownie

But the program also provides new information about the governor’s efforts to improve the economic and social conditions of the 90 percent black population, despite opposition from the white business clique that governed the island and his successful handling of a 1943 riot.

And a much more attractive image of Wallis is presented, showing how she rose to the challenge of getting a job, working tirelessly in children’s clinics and serving in the canteen of the local air base.

The Windsors’ little-known war years in the Bahamas have until now been overshadowed by the Abdication Crisis, but as the documentary shows, these were also years of scandal.

• Edward & Wallis: The Bahamas Scandal – Revealed, Saturday March 23, 9:15pm – 10:40pm on Channel 5

• Traitor King by Andrew Lownie (Bonnier Books Ltd, £10.99 and £25). To order a copy at special promotional prices of £9.89 (paperback) or £22.50 (hardback), visit www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937. Free shipping in the UK on orders over £25. Promotional price valid until 06/04/2024