Description
Object description
Photographs and documents relating to the service of Captain Reginald Taverner Miller OBE in the First and Second World Wars.
Handwritten diary with drawings titled 'The Great European War 1914-19, The Thoughts of a Prisoner of War' recounting his first two weeks in France, August 1914, being wounded and taken prisoner at Le Cateau, and his recovery as a prisoner of war in Würzburg, Bavaria; photo album of 105 photographs titled 'The Great War 1914 - As a Prisoner & an Internee', containing photographs of Miller and other prisoners of war (primarily French) in hospital in Würzburg, Germany, and as an internee in Switzerland with other British internees; War Office certificate recording Miller's Mention in Despatches of 14 January 1915, signed by Secretary of State for War Winston S Churchill; six loose photographs taken by Miller of Deutschland-class Panzerschiff ('pocket battleship') Admiral Graf Spee in Montevideo Harbour, before and after its scuttling, and two negatives of the same photographs; one loose photograph taken by Miller of HMS Ajax in Montevideo Harbour; one signed photographic portrait of Commodore Sir Henry Harwood, dated 1940; newspaper clipping showing Harwood's formal welcoming in Montevideo; one Daily Telegraph newspaper with Graf Spee headline dated 18 December 1939.
Content description
Photographs and documents relating to the service of Captain Reginald Taverner Miller OBE in the First and Second World Wars.
Handwritten diary with drawings titled 'The Great European War 1914-19, The Thoughts of a Prisoner of War' recounting his first two weeks in France, August 1914, being wounded and taken prisoner at Le Cateau, and his recovery as a prisoner of war in Würzburg, Bavaria; photo album of 105 photographs titled 'The Great War 1914 - As a Prisoner & an Internee', containing photographs of Miller and other prisoners of war (primarily French) in hospital in Würzburg, Germany, and as an internee in Switzerland with other British internees; War Office certificate recording Miller's Mention in Despatches of 14 January 1915, signed by Secretary of State for War Winston S Churchill; six loose photographs taken by Miller of Deutschland-class Panzerschiff ('pocket battleship') Admiral Graf Spee in Montevideo Harbour, before and after its scuttling, and two negatives of the same photographs; one loose photograph taken by Miller of HMS Ajax in Montevideo Harbour; one signed photographic portrait of Commodore Sir Henry Harwood, dated 1940; newspaper clipping showing Harwood's formal welcoming in Montevideo; one Daily Telegraph newspaper with Graf Spee headline dated 18 December 1939.
Physical description
Loose photographs, negatives, photo album, diary, news clipping and newspapers.
Label
Reginald 'Rex' Taverner Miller, born 18 April 1893 in London, was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into the Manchester Regiment in October 1912. Posted to France in August 1914 with the 2nd Battalion, Miller was wounded and captured at La Cateau during a German assault which saw the Battalion lose 350 men. As a prisoner of war, Miller was first sent to Germany and then to Switzerland, where he remained interned for the rest of the conflict as part of an agreement between the belligerent nations which saw wounded prisoners of war still considered able to fight interned in the neutral country. This period was recorded by Miller in a diary and photo album, both of which are now in the collection. Miller was repatriated in March 1918 and in 1923 he moved to Chile to work in mining, remaining there until 1930.
Married in 1931, he returned to South America in 1938 and in the same year was appointed to a senior position with the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) in Montevideo, Uruguay, under the cover of Civilian Assistant to the Naval Attachés in South America. Here he was primarily involved in gathering intelligence concerning German naval activities in the area, as well as recruiting and managing agents, penetrating Axis communities and engaging in various other clandestine operations. Perhaps most notable in Miller's SIS career was his role in the scuttling of the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee in December 1939, where his idea of creating false signals to deceive its commander, Captain Hans Langsdorff, into thinking the pursuing British force was greater than it actually was, led to Langsdorff's decision to scuttle the ship.
History note
Cataloguer ATK