Major Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard (born London 6 January 1888: died Midhurst district March, 1966) was an author, journalist, adventurer, firearms expert, and a British SOE officer. He is chiefly known for his intelligence work during the Irish War of Independence and for the events of July 1936, when he and Cecil Bebb flew General Francisco Franco from the Canary Islands to Morocco, thereby helping to trigger the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. He served his country in both World Wars and was the author of many published works on weaponry, in particular on sporting firearms.
Early life
Hugh Bertie Campbell Pollard was born in London on 6 January 1888, the son of the physician Joseph Pollard. At nine years of age he was sent to Westminster School as a day boy, but spent much of his time on his grandfather's estate in Hertfordshire, where he became an expert shot and first developed what became a lifelong interest in hunting and firearms. At fifteen years of age he left Westminster and joined the engineering firm Armstrong Whitworth. Until 1908 he attended the Crystal Palace School of Practical Engineering.
Career
Activities in Morocco and Mexico
In 1908 Pollard joined the Redmond-Hardwick exploration syndicate in Morocco, where he participated in the revolution in Morocco which deposed the Sultan Abdelaziz and replaced him with his brother Abd al-Hafid. He returned to England in 1909, where he took a Royal Geographical Society course.
In 1911 he travelled to Tapachula, a remote corner of Mexico in the state of Chiapas, where he engaged in a number of adventures (as narrated by himself), including a risky mission to collect rent from a remote coffee plantation, and the shooting of much wild game. Along the way he became fluent in Spanish. He also became involved in the escape of Porfirio Diaz from Mexico. His recollections of these adventures were published in 1913 in his memoir (the first of many books) titled "A Busy Time in Mexico - An Unconventional Record of a Mexican Incident". Pollard wrote that, in Mexico, "the people in the next village , or over the next mountain, or in the next state, are inevitably evildoers, murderers, and bandits."
Returning to London, Pollard was commissioned as an officer into the Territorial Army in May 1912. At the same time he began his career as a journalist, serving as assistant editor of The Cinema, editor of The Territorial Monthly and technical editor of The Autocycle. He also became a correspondent for the Daily Express.
World War I
When World War I broke out Pollard was mobilised as officer of despatch riders in London, and in November 1914 he was seconded to the Intelligence Corps as a staff lieutenant. Pollard served during both the First Battle of Ypres and Second Battle of Ypres, both bloody and strategically inconclusive. Blown off his motorcycle and wounded, he was invalided home, and granted five months home leave to recuperate. During this time he worked for his new father-in-law, James Gibbons, at his engineering factory in Wolverhampton managing the production of hand grenades. He continued to write, producing The Story of Ypres, a well-received account of the battles.
At around this time Pollard began his propaganda-writing career for Wellington House, by inventing a “Phantom Russian Army” which was allegedly travelling by train from Scotland to support the British Expeditionary Force; a story which was even given credence by The New York Times. Pollard also invented an anti-German atrocity propaganda story about “corpse factories”, in which the Government of the Second Reich was said to be melting down corpses to make margarine. As a result of his creativity, Pollard found himself recruited by MI7.
By this time Pollard had become a noted firearms expert, and in 1917 he published another book: The Book of the Pistol and Revolver.
Ireland 1919–1921
After the War, Pollard was sent to Dublin Castle in Ireland as an Intelligence officer. During the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921), Pollard was Press Officer of the Information Section of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). Together with the Section secretary, Captain William Darling, he produced the Weekly Summary, a weekly newspaper distributed to the police forces in Ireland.