On the outbreak of World War II, McLardy volunteered for the Royal Army Medical Corps.

His hopes were dashed in September 1943, however, when he was told that instead he would be moving to Stalag XXI-D at Posen, reputedly the worst camp in Poland.

McLardy claimed that he "would not survive another Polish winter", and recalled a conversation with a "Dutch officer" in Stalag XXI-A who stated that he had applied to join the Waffen-SS with a view to ultimately escape.

It stated "I hereby apply to offer my services to Germany in the common struggle against Bolshevism and I express my willingness to serve as a soldier against Soviet Russia."

Frank McLardy thus became the first British POW of World War II to volunteer to join the German armed forces.

But a group of men at Stalag IIID now caught the Germans' eye as the potential nucleus for another attempt to form such a foreign legion.

Soon to be known as the "Big Six", they were William Brittain, New Zealander Roy Courlander, Canadian Edwin Barnard Martin, Seaman Alfred Minchin and McLardy.

These men were packed off to a requisitioned bierkeller in Pankow, Berlin and placed under the tutelage of Thomas Haller Cooper, a half-German who had already served in the SS Totenkopf and SS Polizei Division and boasted of committing atrocities against Jews and Russian POWs in Poland.

The group decided among themselves to change the name of the Legion to the British Free Corps and soon set about designing uniforms and recruitment leaflets.

The optimistic Germans had 800 Waffen-SS uniforms made, sporting a collar patch with three lions, and a union jack shield on the sleeve together with a "British Free Corps" armband in Gothic script.

A schism developed in April 1944, when a group took exception to McLardy's increasingly pro-Nazi, anti-British harangues, and a fist-fight ensued.

The Corps continued to be riven by intrigue with Cooper, McLardy and Courlander all jockeying for control, at odds among themselves and with their German masters.

Fewer than 60 men ever joined the BFC and its strength never rose above 27, three below the number Hitler had stipulated as the minimum for it to go into battle.

McLardy donned civilian clothes and went to ground in Berlin, living at 33 Sächsische Strasse, while he plotted his escape from the crumbling capital.

In early April he learned that the Propaganda Ministry's Büro Concordia was abandoning Berlin for Helmstedt, and persuaded them to take him along.

By the time they reached Helmstedt the Reich was falling apart, and after a week McLardy told his associates he was heading for Hamburg.