Stig Wennerström

Career Wennerström was commissioned as an officer in the Swedish Navy with the rank of acting sub-lieutenant in 1929 and conducted flight training from 1931 to 1932. Wennerström transferred to the newly created Swedish Air Force where he was promoted to lieutenant in 1936. He attended the Royal Swedish Naval Staff College's staff school from 1936 to 1937.

Spying for the Soviet Union During the 1950s, Wennerström leaked Swedish air defence plans and the entire Saab Draken fighter jet project to the Soviet Union. When working as an air attaché in Washington, D.C., he was very useful to the Soviet military intelligence agency, the GRU. As early as 1943, the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO), suspected that Wennerström was working for Germany and in 1947 there were indications that he had connections with the Soviet Union, but the suspicions couldn't be proven.

In 1959 an anonymous source identifying themselves as 'Sniper' wrote a series of letters to the American Ambassador to Switzerland, Henry J. Taylor. After his arrest, Wennerström was brought to SÄPO's premises on Bergsgatan in Kungsholmen, where the hearings began immediately. At the same time, Wennerström's house on Skirnervägen 20 in Djursholm was sealed off for a residential search that would take almost a week. Initially, Wennerström denied the charges. At the same time, SÄPO failed to develop the film rolls containing Wennerström's photographs of secret documents. An expert was called in, and after three and a half days, found the right method. When the photographed documents were displayed to Wennerström, he confessed, but at the same time denied that his spying had been directed against Sweden. He was paroled in 1974 after serving a total of 10 years; the norm in Sweden at the time was to release prisoners after they had served half their sentences.

Personal life and death In 1939 he married Ulla-Greta Carlsson (1919–2015), the daughter of consul Eric Carlsson and Helga Andersson. He had two daughters. One of his daughters, Christine, made headlines in 1957 when at the age of 16 she ran away to elope with her 18-year-old boyfriend, a Senate page named Huw Williams. The couple was apprehended eighteen days later in Pennsylvania, US, having been denied in their effort to obtain a marriage license in several states, and in Canada.

Wennerström died on 21 March 2006 at the retirement home Tallgården in Enebyberg, north of Stockholm. The funeral took place on 28 March 2006 at Altorp's Cemetery Chapel in Djursholm and he was buried on 3 May 2006 at Djursholm's Cemetery.

Dates of rank 1929 – Acting sub-lieutenant (Navy) 1936 – Lieutenant (Air Force) 1939 – Captain 1944 – Major 1946 – Lieutenant colonel 1951 – Colonel

Awards and decorations

Swedish

50x50px Knight of the Order of the Sword (1946) – excluded from the order by King Gustav VI Adolf on 21 September 1964. 50x50px Knight of the Order of Vasa (1954) – excluded from the order by King Gustav VI Adolf on 21 September 1964.