He was arrested in 1944, on suspicion of favoring the enemy and committing sabotage, but he frantic panic in Berlin at the end of the war would provided the cover for his escape. Staying one step ahead of the Russian troops, he made it to the British lines, bringing vital secrets about many of Germany's weapons programs. His enumeration in the linked interview takes up six of the seven pages.
An astute observer will note that that this list echoes Oslo Report of 1939, as regards to fuses and torpedoes. Because this Report enable the British and Americans to leapfrog early German advancements , its existence was a closely held secret.
At some point, though, the Germans must have learned of the betrayal. Perhaps they even managed to get a copy of the report itself. Did they suspect that Otto Erb had been a contributing source?
Remember Smyth/Smythe's account of Townsend's clandestine operation? " A secret NBO salvage operation led by [T.T.] Brown brought back the mechanism of another captured magnetic mine...."
Could Townsend and Erb have collaborated to smuggle out a prototype of the vitally important proximity fuse, without which steampunk warfare would still be the order of the day? If they knew each other from a prior mission,, then it would make perfect sense for Townsend to be sent for to vet that Erb was indeed Erb, and possessed of the knowledge he claimed to have.
If that is the case, then it is (sadly) likely that Erb was the unnamed scientist [reportedly] killed when Townsend's 1945 mission "went pear-shaped." I most fervently hope that i am wrong about this, and some future researcher will find evidence of his ongoing existence beyond this time.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/In ... =en&gbpv=1.
https://www.ttbrown.com/hang-the-gew-gaws/
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