As a sergeant in the Gloucestershire Regiment, he was captured in the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940, later being awarded the Military Medal for bravery during this campaign.
There he was imprisoned once again, but when Romania capitulated in 1944, he was freed and returned to Britain, serving in combat with British forces in northwest Europe during the war's final months.
[3] The exact nature of his exploits while a POW have not been without controversy, however, with some questioning the veracity of his numerous escapes from Nazi-controlled prisons.
[4] From 1946 to 1950, Collins worked as a political intelligence officer with the British Control Commission's de-nazification department in Germany.
[5] In November, 1953, Collins, while working for the Calgary Herald, exposed George Dupre's claims of being a war-time spy as a hoax.
[6] The disclosure came soon after publication of The Man Who Wouldn't Talk, a book about Dupre by American journalist, Quentin Reynolds.
Reynolds's counsel, Louis Nizer, attacked Collins's credibility during cross-examination for his failure to give credit to other sources of evidence that exposed Dupre.
Collins was acclaimed on 18 October 1988, as the Reform Party of Canada's candidate for the Capilano—Howe Sound electoral district in the 1988 federal election.
[14] During his 14-year association with the North Shore News, Collins wrote regular columns against immigration and ethnic minorities in Canada.
Beginning in 1979, he wrote several more books, primarily dealing with his views on immigration, culture and society, and later on his fight over the human rights complaint against him.