Date of birth:

October 22nd, 1899 (Assen/Drenthe, the Netherlands)

Date of death:

April 3rd, 1979 (Busseum/Noord-Holland, the Netherlands)

Nationality:

Dutch

Jan Marginus Somer went through the KMA and initially served as an officer in the KNIL. After his return to the Netherlands in 1928, he started teaching at the KMA and in 1939 he was posted to the secret service department of the General Staff GSIII in the rank of captain.

After the German invasion, he soon got involved in resistance work in which he mainly recruited acquaintances from the KMA to develop courier lines to Switzerland and Spain. He left the Netherlands in March 1942 and eventually reached England via the route Switzerland, Suriname, Curacao and the United States in January 1943.

There he picked up intelligence work again as second-in-command at the Intelligence Bureau and shortly afterwards was promoted to head of this intelligence service. One of the tasks was to select and train secret agents to be dropped over the Netherlands, He soon noticed that something was not right with the contacts which eventually led to the unmasking of the Englandspiel.

After the liberation of southern Holland, the Intelligence Bureau settled in Eindhoven. From there, Somer maintained contacts with the various espionage groups in the North, including the Albrecht Group and its Liniecrossers.

From 1948 to 1948, he was director of the Central Military Intelligence Service in the Dutch East Indies.

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• Photo 1: Oorlogsbronnen
• - ERIK MüLLER, De Bronzen Leeuw.
  - ERIK MüLLER, Het Kruis van Verdienste, Studiekring Ridderorden en Onderscheidingen, 2016.
  - https://somer.emunah.nl//historie/somer-1/jan_somer_1899.html
  - Reizen van Engelandvaarders | Nationaal Archief
  - https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/onderzoeken/archief/2.02.32/invnr/896ED.7/file/00162727.PDF
  - De Telegraaf 14-12-1970
  - Indische courant voor Nederland 11-05-1949