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Captain Jocelyn Lee Hardy DSO MC was a British military officer known for his work during the Irish War of Independence and as an author.

First World War

He was born in Kensington, London in 1894. Hardy had been captured in the first battles of 1914 with remnants of his regiment the 1st Connaught Rangers by the Germans. He made twelve escape attempts from POW camps including Brandenburg with forged documents and disguises, finally reaching British lines in 1918. He was severely wounded in the leg only weeks before the War ended leading to amputation of the limb. Fitted with an artificial prosthesis, he trained himself to disguise the fact, by walking at a very quick pace, almost completely disguising the notion that he had a wooden leg, but earning him the sobriquet 'Hoppy'.

Anglo-Irish War

During the Anglo-Irish War, Hardy served with the 'F' Company of the Auxiliary Division Royal Irish Constabulary or ADRIC (Auxiliaries, Auxies) as an Intelligence officer based at Dublin Castle. He later claimed to have worked for Scotland Yard which was a half truth, in that Scotland was the recruiting centre for ADRIC, and that all information gleaned from suspects on went back to Scotland Yard and British intelligence through Ormonde Winter in his role as the deputy chief of police and director of intelligence.

After World War I and repatriation, Hardy wound up in Dublin Castle as an intelligence officer to F Company (Dublin) of the Auxiliaries in what was to become known as the knocking shop at Dublin Castle, retaining his Connaught Rangers uniform and rank. He was to lead raids on various IRA locations including Vaughn's Hotel in Parnell Square. Prisoners captured with seditious documents of any importance or weapons found on them by Auxiliaries, Black and Tans, or military were taken to Dublin Castle to be interrogated in the intelligence office, by (not exclusively) the team of Hardy and his friend, Major William Lorraine 'Tiny' King MC.

King was described by Ernie O'Malley in his book, On Another Man's Wound as huge in stature, a South African, who had made his way through the ranks as well as fighting with bravery during the first world war. Captain Hardy was described as smaller, in the uniform of the Connaught Rangers, with piercing blue rimmed eyes, with huge black pupils. O'Malley described Hardy's interrogation technique, as a combination with the efforts of Major King, of repeated violent beatings in the face, strangulation and screaming threats, followed by a mock execution with a blank firing pistol near the back of the head in the windowless dungeons of the castle. O'Malley survived his ordeal; some confessed, one at least became an unsuccessful double agent; this was Vincent Fovargue, who was taken from a dance in Willesden, North London, by London IRA and shot dead on a golf course in Middlesex, while some died in the environs of the prison. Private J.J.P.Swindlehurst, whose diaries are found in the Imperial War Museum recalled that interrogated suspects were dragged out of the interrogation rooms more dead than alive. David Neligan, one of Michael Collins' Dublin Metropolitan Police spies inside British Intelligence remarked that he thought Hardy had a hair trigger temper and a slate off meaning him to be insane. There certainly seemed to be a propensity toward violence, with less concern in getting information than with beating victims to a pulp as Swindlehurst put it.

Two major instances were to occur in and around the castle which shook the British administration in Ireland and London and achieved worldwide condemnation and news coverage. The first was on the night of 20 November 1920 with the extrajudicial killings of Conor Clune, Peadar Clancy, and Dick McKee, the latter two leading lights in the Dublin IRA, the former a luckless Gaelic League member on a finance brief who were all captured in Dublin the night before Bloody Sunday in which Hardy and King were just two of the targets of Michael Collins operation to purge Dublin of the British Intelligence network. Clune was caught at Vaughn's Hotel in Parnell Square, Dublin and the two IRA leaders at Lower Gloucester St. complete with British army officer uniforms and detonators. Sometime between then and the next day, in the Dublin Castle guard room, as news no doubt filtered in of the deaths of several British intelligence officers, the prisoners were murdered in what appeared to be a staged escape bid. According to an official report from Dublin Castle, they attempted to grab rifles and hurl unfuzed grenades and were killed in that action. The guards of 'F' Company ADRIC in the room at the time were cleared of wrongdoing by a court inquiry. A Major Reyonolds of 'F' Company is said to have passed details of the killers to Michael Collins. The Times noted that it seemed as if the prisoners had been lined up and shot.

On to the second incident on 9 February 1921, Two IRA prisoners Patrick Kennedy and James Murphy in the custody of 'F' company of the Auxiliaries were shot dead with pails on their heads and their bodies found at Clonturk Park, Drumcondra, Dublin. The two prisoners had been taken from Dublin Castle. The dying James Murphy testified that King had taken them and stated that they were Just going for a drive. Captain King, and two of his men, one Irish, were arrested and put on trial. They were acquitted by a court-martial on 15 April as testimony from a dying man was deemed inadmissible. O'Malley met King in the prison exercise yard, who bemoaned his fate that he was a political scapegoat, taking the blame for the government. King was shipped off to Galway city where it seems he caused a near riot during the truce.

Hardy was once tailed by Joe Dolan of the Squad across the Irish Sea while on leave, but Dolan lost him at Euston station remarking that Hardy was moving a lot quicker than usual, perhaps tipped off and armed in the event of assassination. There were other plans formulated to dispatch 'Hoppy' Hardy, but as he always attended Dublin heavily escorted, this was deemed impossible.

Author

After the War, Hardy went full time book-writing and farming, at Washpit Farm near Kings Lynn in Norfolk. Two of his books were transferred to films. The Key (1934) in which his own ideas of bravery of the Auxiliaries and infidelity was the subject was on the big screen in the US. As a play it opened at the St Martin's Theatre London on 6 September 1933.

Everything is Thunder was made with an all-star cast was on the POW theme, with an amorous POW officer's romance with a German woman, and her helping him return to allied lines. It got good reviews and was received well in Germany at a time when overtures to the Nazis was acceptable in Britain. The film disappeared from circulation once World War II had started.

Recoil (1936) followed the story of an officer in the Abwehr trying to shake down a Communist uprising in Africa

Hardy was also a Rolls Royce enthusiast, owning at one time a 1933 Phantom 2 Drophead coupe which was made for him.

He married Kathleen Isabel Hutton Potts and died in 1958.

References

• I Escape Capt. J L Hardy
• Michael Collins' Intelligence War Foy
• Dwyer, T. Ryle, The Squad, Mercier Press, Cork, 2005, ISBN 1-85635-469-5
• The Secret Societies of Ireland Pollard H.B.C.
• O'Malley Ernie On Another Man's Wound
• Royal Irish Constabulary Officers: A Biographical and Genealogical Guide, 1816-1922 Herlihy
• Michael Collins Taylor, Rex
• My Fight For Irish Freedom Breen, Dan
• Sword and Sturrups de Montmorency Hervey
• Sword for Hire Duff Douglas Victor
• Ireland for Ever Crozier, Frank P.
• Diary of Pte.JJP Swindlehurst (Imperial War Museum)

Template:Persondata

• Use dmy dates from April 2012
• 1894 births
• 1958 deaths
• English amputees
• British prisoners of war
• World War I prisoners of war held by Germany
• Connaught Rangers officers
• British Army personnel of World War I
• Royal Irish Constabulary officers
• People of the Irish War of Independence
• Recipients of the Military Cross and Bar
• Companions of the Distinguished Service Order