soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Michael Kuettner" wrote in message
news:fsubnk$3fm$1@registered.motzarella.org...
> "William Black" schrieb :
>> "Michael Kuettner" wrote :
>>> "Rich Rostrom" schrieb :
>>>> Louis C wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>The wild card is will the deception plan hold on.
>>>>
>>>> The Germans _never_ saw through it, even long after
>>>> the invasion.
>>>
>>>> But the arrest was only a month before D-Day
>>>> and afterward the Gestapo was busy with other
>>>> things, and Jebsen was largely ignored.
>>>
>>> The Brits plugged even the supernatural leaks ;-).
>>> Helen Duncan was tried and convicted for witchcraft shortly before
>>> D-Day.
>>> The authorities were afraid that she would reveal the top-secret plans
>>> for
>>> the landing.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Nope.
>>
>> Duncan was convicted after she revealed the sinking of HMS Barham in a
>> séance in 1941, after the authorities tried to conceal it. The relatives
>> of the dead had been informed and it is reasonable to assume, as she was
>> operating in Portsmouth, that she'd heard something. The conviction
>> wasn't for witchcraft, but for being a fraud, when she was giving the
>> right answers, which seems more than a little odd.
>>
> Nope.
> Duncan was accused because of the Vagrancy Act of 1824 (section IV)
> for that one.
> Originally.

But she wasn't prosecuted under that but under the Witchcraft Act, which
should have guaraneed her a decent income for life...

I believe the charge was changed because the second charge carried a higher
penalty.

>> Jane York was also convicted under the Witchcraft Act in 1944, July
>> 1944, a bit late for D-Day...
>>
> What does York have to do with Duncan and the D-Day paranoia ?

People confuse the two cases.

Duncan is often said to be the last person prosecuted for witchcraft.

>> I do have to add that the 1735 Witchcraft Act assumes that all magic and
>> witchcraft is the work of charlatans and that all witches and magicians
>> are, by definition, frauds.
>>
> Then why was there a Witchcraft Act until Churchill did away with it ?
> Why wasn't she simply tried for fraud ?

No idea.

I imagine a defendant could claim, before 1735, that what they were doing
wasn't fraud but was legitimate. that act says all magic is fraud.

It was repealed, I seem to remember reading, because someone considered
bringing a prosecution against a national newspaper for publishing a
horoscope column.


--
William Black


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Barbeques on fire by the chalets past the castle headland
I watched the gift shops glitter in the darkness off the Newborough gate
All these moments will be lost in time, like icecream on the beach
Time for tea.