Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-12-08

~ to think of some clever way to
Go damage to the enemy.
There was plenty of straight open fighting
and campaigning in the war, but there was also
plenty of secret plotting, ruses and conspiracies
to strike at the enemy somewhere, the place
where he would least suspect far behind the
lines maybe, at home iii some neutral
country.
I did some secret service for Germany, be-
cause I knew Norwegian like a native, and Nor
way was one of the most important neutral
countries, where all kinds of spy work and
underhand work was going on.
There was a small war on the side between
the secret service forces of both parties, and it
was mean, bad war; by Joe. In the neutral
countries of Scandinavia and Holland one i'm
portant thing was thiS-we got from them
many supplies that absolutely had to have
most of which were transShipped by them from
other countries the United States, for instance.
The British were trying their best to stop these
streams of goods that were being diverted to
us, and they did it by finding out what firms
were buying supplies supposedly for themselves
and then sending the material on to U.S.
Such firms were put on the black list, and
thereafter all careoes for then were stopped
and held. The neutral people that were deal
ing with us were as secret as they could be;
they did not want to get onto the black list.
The British spy system had an army of agents
who turned in information for filling up the
black list.
These agents were doing lot to stop neces-
Sary materials from reaching us. Our own spy
system put out agents to fight the British
agents and SO it was war between the two
secret service forces in the neutral countries
north of Germany. It was war to the knife,
because one Of the best ways to stop secret
agents work is to kill him.
SUPPOSE the German agent finds British
agent getting important information for the
black list. Well one mealtime the British agent
is in restaurant. His overcoat is hanging on a
rack. The German agent comes in and hangs
his overcoat beside that of the British agent.
While doing this he manages to slip fountain
pen in the pocket of the British agents over
coat
After while, maybe that night or the next
day, the British agent finds the fountain pen.
He looks at it. BY Joe that is a splendid pen
the best make. He opens 1t and at that moment
there is a tremendous exploSion-and the
British agent has been removed.
The Russians had terrible tricks. They sent
Bibles, wonderful German Testaments, into
Germany to the Russian prisoners in the prison
CAMPS The prisoners succeeded in passing the
Bibles on to Russian secret service men outside.
They were beautiful books with soft leather
covers. and inside there were pages, not of
paper but Of guncotton. Each had harmless
looking bookmark but in reality it was con-
nected with mechanism in the binding and
when the string pulled the intricate and
delicate mechanism was set going and in half
an hour it exploded the guncotton
The Russian secret service men would get
one of these Bibles into the possession of man
they wanted to kill. Bible is the most inno-
cent-appearing thing in the world, and you will
take one without suspicion The secret service
men would have the string pulled and the
mechanism working, and half an hour later
when the German had the book under his arm
or in his pocket-bang, and he was blown to
pieces
In that way they killed one of our greatest
wartime scientists, the man who invented the
long-rang gun that bombarded Paris. He was
blown TO pieces, and it is believed that he ac-
cepted one of those Bibles from Russian agent
and put it in his pocket.
II HAD secret agents assignment in Norway
know the Norwegian language well enough
To pass for a native. The British were short of
ammunition, explosives. They needed saltpeter
for the manufacture of gunpowder
Our laboratory wizards had devised a way of
taking nitrogen from the air and of manufac-
turing saltpeter Somehow the British got that
formula. In Norway there is much water
power. a good place to put up factories for
taking nitrogen out of the air. So the British
had much of their saltpeter manufactured in
Norway
Shiploads went constantly to England. This
was bad for us, because every shipload meant
thousands Of men killed. We of the secret
service were ordered to do what damage we
could do to this saltpeter trade We got jobs
In the dockyards where they were loading the
Saltpeter ships worked for weeks as a long