davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1941-07-06

in rings secret compartment. myste-
rious invisible inks, the exotic blond
beloved of novelists, still aid the soldiers
of the night.
After a year of desperate work on a
hostile continent, heavily garrisoned and
closely guarded, British agents are
slowly cutting down the immense ad-
vantage enjoyed at the outbreak of war
by the Gestapo. This is the only con-
clusion one can reach after conversation
with French, Italian, German and British
citizens.
Becomes Fortress.
The British gain is partly due to an
intensive counter-e espionage campaign.
Since the fall of France, the tight little
isle has indeed become a fortress-a
fortress where enemy agents are picked
off by the stubborn agents of Scotland
Yard.
Backed by the army, the civil authori-
ties have placed thousands under sur
veilance, arrested a few hundred. No
one outside the government knows how
many spies have been shot in Britain
since last June. Nor does any one know
how many spies have been landed by
parachute from German aircraft.
But today Britain is more strictly
Evening star., 1941-07-06
Defense Drive Brings
Boom to Canal Zone
A. P. Wirephoto.
By Roy g. RIanck.

for defense purposes. Figures on the mill
tary population are not made public for
obvious reasons.
The increased population has put
heavy additional load on the electrical
generating and distribution system, on
the water supply system, on the tele-
phone service, the commissary stores,
the highway system, and has resulted
also in general housing shortage.
A condition of general crowding and
overlooking prevails everywhere, but
the Government is enlarging the water
supply system, and installing new gen.
orators of electric current.
The North American labor turnover
has been pretty high, canal officials told
Congress. At one time 40 per cent OF
all skilled Americans sent down there
caught the next boat back to the United
States. Nowadays, however, the Gringos
are sticking longer, and the longer they
stay the better they seem to like it.
1t is hard for middle Westerner, ac-
customed to beef and mashed potatoes,
to get used to meal of hying-fish, fried
plantain, breadfruit soup, cassava cakes
and coconut water.
Beef and potatoes are available on
the Isthmus, OF course, but at slightly
higher prices than prevail for the home
grown tropical foods. And people who
are not used to flying ants and bitter
bananas think it is a rotten world in
the tropics anyway, even if Macaws are
colored brilliantly and green parakeets
chatter bird love in the perfumed twi-
light.
The laborers imported from Colombia
and other nearby countries are paid on
a different basis from the American and
Panamanian citizens working in the
zone. For citizens of the United States
and Panama, who are on the gold
pay roll" salaries are 25 per cent higher
than paid for similar work in the
United States.
Other laborerS are on the silver pay
roll" and can earn up to maximum of
$50 a month, or 40 cents an hour if paid
on an hourly basis. The gold rolf and
silver roll way Of paying the workers
was instituted by executive decree of
President Wilson during the original
canal construction days.
Bachelors live two in room in a
series of new wooden buildings, each
accommodating 80 men, that have sprung
up at Diablo and other points along the
waterway.
Living quarters for families are as
rare on the 1sthmuS as peaches and
cream or any other Northern delicacy.
There are applications pending on the
zone for about 900 family homes that do
not exist. Congress has just made ap-
propriations for about so of the 900
needed dwellings.
Evening star., 1941-07-06

LISBON.-A bonfire flaring brightly
beside a German airfield. ghostly air
plane disgorging shabby peasants on the
moonlit Flanders plain: German para
chutists in rough tweeds and club ties
cropping across English moors; French
fishing boats, strangely rigged, glimpsed
for a moment By watchful destroyers-
these are the spectacular by-products of
the greatest underground war in the
sinister history of espionage.
Tens of thousands of spies are grimly
fighting the unseen battle while the guns
boom and bombs thud from the North
Sea to Suez.
The prize?
The most vital of all war materials:
Information about the enemy.
Behind this first objective is another,
increasingly important to the British
operating on a continent kneeling before
the conqueror. That's the incitement of
the defeated to revenge, sabotage and
revolution.
Aircraft, radio and even submarines
aid the spies. Yet the secret warfare
of the goth century employs ruses old
when Imperial Rome was the power in
world politics.
The flashing lantern, the minute note
Evening star., 1941-07-06
Canadian Pilot Cheats Death in Air Battles Over Britain

age to keep us in the air which I think
was the principal idea back of these
nuisance raids.
We were usually ready to fly at dawn,
when we reported to what was termed
dispersal" This was actually a pilots
room in some remote section of the air.
drome 1t got its name from the fact
that our aircraft were dispersed around
that part of the field. We didn't keep
them massed together in hangar or
in any spot where one bomb would
do lot of damage.
We spent our days in this room, COM
pletely dressed in our flying outfits
waiting the word to scramble" When
those instructions came We were sup
posed to be in the air in from 4 to 5
minutes. We were often up in less.
There was one week that none of us
had our pajamas of. We would be up
for dawn readiness and pull on our
flying clothes right on top of our
pajamas. Then we'd go down to dis
persal and wait for the word to scramble.
Lunch time was usually an egg sandwich
and coffee, for we didn't have time to
come back to the mess. We spent all the
day in dispersal or in the air and usually
didn't get a proper meal until after
dark in the mess hall. BY that time we
were so tired that we just pulled of our
flying clothes and climbed into bed, still
in our pajamas.
You can understand then why a seven
weeks move to quiet sector in Scot
land was welcome one. But that wasn't
to last forever. Our next jump was to
another part of Scotland, where it was
commonly believed part of the invasion
attempt might be made.
With all the discomforts, ground crews,
as well as the pilots, welcomed the orders
received about the middle of February
to move farther South again. This time
we were stationed in section Of England
where the Na1S had been busy.
Evening star., 1941-07-06

Earth is flying in the Panama Canal
Zone, where Uncle Sam is spending some
$500, 100000 to modernize the Isthmian
waterway.
Rock and earth are being blasted sky
high. Steam shovels are groaning as
great steel jaws gnaw into the sun-baked
hills.
Dirt-trains are hmrying along hastily
laid tracks to haul away the debris left
behind by dynamite gangs and the
greedy bites of shovels welded by me-
Chanical giants.
Early canal construction days have
been revived on the Isthmus without the
horrors of the yellow fever and malaria
that once made Gringos shiver in the
sun.
Remnants Of those hardy pioneers are
gray-haired men today, dwellers in the
mild climates of Florida and California,
but they spend their savings to revisit
the ISthmus and see how the new
hombres get things done
They say things are a lot easier down
there now. Water. for one thing may
be drunk without calling a hearse.
Adding rum to water nowadays is a
matter of mere taste rather than sheer
necessity.
Mosquitoes no longer fly on the wings
of death. The ear-roaring produced by
daily quinine doses no longer is heard
above the clatter and bang Of getting
the big ditch dug.
c., IL oro
time pest-hole and recently some 10000
new civilian workers have gone down to
the zone to help install the S277,0000 900
set of bomb-proof locks for the Nays
exclusive use.
The new channel and locks will be
half mile away from the existing ones
as a matter of further precaution.
An additional 1923 100000 is being
spent for secret protective works in
and around the existing waterway, and
for enlarging other defense, housing,
electrical, water supply and transporta-
tion facilities on the Isthmus.
All these new activities have caused
a sudden increase in civilian popula-
ton of the little Canal Zone, an area
only 5 miles wide along each bank of
the so miles of channel from ocean to
ocean.
Official figures show the American
civilian population jumped from the
normal of 2,70O to approximately $500
since the new construction work got
under way little over year ago.
The population of imported alien
laborers, recruited from West Indian
islands and surrounding republics,
jumped from $1,000 to approximately
10000.
None of these figures include the large
numbers of increased Army, Navy and
Marine personnel sent to the Isthmus
Evening star., 1941-07-06

He did get two of the Nazis before they
got him.
From that date on, the proportion of
enemy bombers to fighters rapidly
diminished. We were forced into dog
fights more and more with the Jerry
fighters who usually attacked us in pairs
from above, coming down for a quick
shot and then climbing again. During the
next couple of weeks we ran into many
bombers and fighters and piled up con-
siderable score for the squadron.
Next Big Scrap.
In our next big scrap-the so-called
main battle of London-on September Is.
when the defending aircraft shot down
at least 1876 of the enemy, I again retired
early-this time with shoulder wound.
1t was just as we were diving in to at
tack a formation. of Heinkels. was so
intent on watching the bombers that
forgot for a moment that we were sup
posed to have eyes in the side and back
of our heads as well as in front.
A Messerschmitt that I had failed to
notice flashed down on my tail and the
next thing I knew something had hit
me in the shoulder with all the force OF
sledge hammer. An armor- piercing
bullet had penetrated the armor plate
of the cockpit and got me. was momen-
tarily numbed and when swung around
the Boche had gone.
The shoulder wound I had received
was not a particularly serious one, and
after a weeks much needed rest I was
able to return to duty. BY this time our
numbers were bit reduced so it meant
long hours Of flying for all of us.
But that big day on September Is had
broken the back Of the German Often
sive. They kept their bombers well out
of England in the daytime and for
three weeks we saw nothing but enemy
100 fighters. They carried no bombs, did
y9y Little damage. but they did man.
Evening star., 1941-07-06
By Drew Middleton.

policed than ever before in its turbulent
history.
An espionage offensive on the CONT
nent has accompanied this bolstering of
home defense against the enemy that
works in the dark.
BY various devices, some bold, some
devious. hundreds of agents have landed
in Northern Europe from the Arctic
Circle to the border of Frances unoccu-
pied zone They watch and report the
activities of the conquerors. give aid and
comfort to rebels, sabotage in hundred
small ways the German occupation.
To be sure, men and women are shot
in the chill of dawn, there are Scuffles
and stabbings in obscure restaurants.
But the work goes on and the word
goes home to England
Norway and occupied France are the
fields of greatest success. The rugged
western coast of Norway served the Brit
iSh well last winter. Its broken shore
line hid a thousand tiny inlets where
spies might land. The obscure fishing
villages sheltered forbidden radios. In
the cold, silent figures glided down the
western slopes of the hills or plodded
the snowbound roads with information
for England.
Evening star., 1941-07-06
By Flying Officer A. VI. YMile.

By Flying Officer A. VI. Yniie.
1t was about the middle OF August
when we got word that we were ready
for the enemy We were stationed at
the time at an airport near London and,
by a strange twist of fate, the very day
we got the news we had our first close
look at the work of the German bombers.
We had been flying at an aerodrome
about 80 miles from our home base
when we got word that the Germans had
been over our own station and had
dropped some bombs. We got back about
half an hour after the Germans had
gone chased away by a squadron of
the Royal Air Force. We didn't get a
look at them at all
A week or 10 days after we completed
our training, we had our first fight. I
missed that first show because at that
time we were getting about one day off
In four and the day the squadron ran
into its first formation of Junkers 88's
was my day off duty.
Perhaps it would be Of interest If I
explained the manner in which the
Nazis came over in formation at that
time. 1t was in what was called a
"Balbo," named after the noted italian
hier who was killed early in the war. If
you can imagine a series of huge
V-shaped steps, entirely composed of air.
planes, think you can get the picture.
These steps were the bombers Over
the top of them, in what We called the
umbrella were the fighters, Messer-
schmidt 109s. They would lurk up there
In the Clouds watching us down below
When they saw an opportunity they
would come diving down from the clouds,
take quick peck at the Hurricanes, and
than, because they had a wholesome
respect for the eight guns Of the Hurri-
Evening star., 1941-07-06
British Wage Underground War as Espionage Spreads

cellar by the griny peasant who received
it from another no less grimy.
Slowly the messages move westward
to the coast
The Paris newspapers, now German
controlled. contain inconsequential ad-
vertisements. Certain interested gentle
men read them in cafes thronged by
German troops. The advertisements real
story may be told in the number of
words in the last line. The number may
be that of the airfleet newly installed
in Rheims.
The French help A farmer learns with
regret that the captain of an armored
division will no longer be billeted with
him. He is sorry M. LIE Capitaine must
leave for the heat of North Africa. He
tells some one. Slowly the news reaches
the war Office.
A woman working in her garden in
the morning sees long truckloads Of
bombs moving toward the airfleld at
Lille. That night on an airfeld 200 miles
away Hurricanes and Douglases stand to
orders for the expected raid.
Fires start by night near airdromes
and railway functions, fires that beckon
the growing bombers of the R. A. F.
Lanterns gleam briefly near an ammuni-
ton dump.
There is work to do in Paris. To the
French, "V" stands for "Victoire" 1t is
forbidden on pain of death to write 'V'
or even underline it on signs.
Yet each morning "V," or perhaps the
whole word "Victoire," appears on pave
ments, walls and windows. One morning
found every "V" underlined in one
section of the Paris underground
The work of mischievous schoolboys?
Perhaps, but the Germans don't think
so. The patrols are increased, penalties
grow greater. The Gestapo, reviewing
a thousand apparently unrelated in
cidents, sees the cold intelligence of the
British agents behind them
Lately, the spies have found that the
German Army is no more impervious
than any other to the crisp rustic of
1.0OO-franc notes. Officers are bribed.
Sometimes the bribe is merely fore
runner of firing squad. Somehow the
German commandant is informed.
There was the German major who
sold 10 liters of gasoline to an under
standing Swiss-at 700 francs liter. A
note tipped off the Gestapo. No one
could find the Swiss. There was the Ges-
tapo officer who did thriving business
in permits to enter unoccupied territory.
A shy but accurate friend informed. The
note ended with whimsical touch, for
beneath the signature 'Un Ami de
France" was "God Save the King"
Beyond Paris there are unexplained
fires, bridges collapse, trains are derailed,
roads are blocked. Nothing Of great
military value But guards must be
doubled. The hidden campaign against
the psychology and morale of the Ger
man Army continues.
For the soldiers of the underground
war there are no cheering crowds, no
bands, no uniforms, not even the COM
pany of fellow soldiers.
Beside the constant loneliness there
is constant strain. "Why does that
fellow look at my hands so much?'
Funny there are no guards here tonight;
Is 1t trap?"
The end may be pension and little
else. More often the end is bullet
SCARED wall and volley in the dawn.
But the underground war will 20 sn.
Evening star., 1941-07-06
e of Moscow Are Used to Hardship and
By Wade Werner.

The correspondent 1DhO pictures
here ho,D MoScoW residents might re-
act to Nasi raids has had unusual Op-
portunity to judge the military and
psychological factors on both sides OF
the Russian German conflict. He
aDaS in Germany Dhen Hitler first
began his rise to po,Uer, later iDaS sta
toned IN MoSco,p, and tuas in Finland
Dhen Souiet forces inuaded that
country in 1889.
Now that Adolf Hitler has launched
Germany on the great gamble that
wrecked Napoleon an invasion OF
Russia-what will happen in Moscow If
his troops enter that city which his
predecessor also entered only to see 1t 60
up in smoke?
Will the Russians again burn Moscow
to Illustrate a would-be conqueror? Will
a conqueror, this time, too, find his
victorious armies stranded in the midst
of a Russian winter?
When Napoleon crossed the Niemen
River in 1912 at the beginning of his
gamble ii was the oath of June. Hitlers
troops entered Soviet territory on
June %.
Napoleon's soldiers entered Moscow
September "a They had to walk, and
Hitler's men move on wings and wheels;
but it is not yet apparent that he will
beat Napoleon'S schedule. That, of
course, depends largely on the effective
ness of the Red Army; also on whether
Hitler actually intends to take Moscow.
But supposing German troops actually
arrive at the gates Of the Soviet capital
about August /? What will happen
then? Will the civilian populati ton
already have been evacuated? Will the
Russians burn the city to keep it out of
Hitler's grasp, or as taunting reminder
of the fate of Napoleon?
Will the embalmed body of Nicolai
Lenin Communisms founder. be re-
moved from its massive tomb on Red
Square and hidden away far behind the
Urals?
Remain on Jobs.
It can be assumed that most OF
Moscow's population will remain on the
job as long as possible. Moscow Is the
capital, crowded with the many offices
of a vast bureaucracy, and many i'm
portant Notwithstanding one of the
biggest Soviet automobile plants-are
there or nearby.
This. of course, is far different war
from the war of Napoleon's day. 1t is
possible that Moscow might be laid in
ruins by Nazi bombing squadrons long
before any armored columns could pene-
trate within hundred miles of the city.
Moscow's people, however, are no
strangers to hardship and danger. They
have seen worse than war: they have
seen bloody civil strife and famine and
endured the nerve-gnawing strain of
successive political purges in which high
and low were hquidated and no man
could feel quite exempt from the peril
of death or imprisonment or exile.
They were hardened to sudden distress
long before the great capitals of Western
Europe had to adjust themselves to the
terror of modern war.
Evening star., 1941-07-06

In Oslo. Trondheim, Bergen, in a
hundred little towns, Norwegian and
British spies worked under the guns Of
the Germans. Troop concentrations. the
identity of regiments. aircraft arrivals
the location of airfields and the types OF
aimraft on them were committed to
memory.
Information Given.
BY word of mouth the information
passed from man 10 man, from village
to village. until by the sea it reached the
agents who forwarded 1t to the watchful
Lockheeds and Sunderlands of the r. A.
F.'s coastal command or to patrolling
destroyers.
The ultimate destination might be the
Admiralty's gloomy chart room, or the
intelligence headquarters of the Air
Ministry.
Often, on the strength Of it, bombers
crossed the northern seas or cruisers
slipped silently out in pursuit Of a
blockade runner.
British espionage in Norway had
another objective. Each agent was
recruiting officer for the Royal Norwe-
gian Army, Navy and Air Force based i'll
England.
Fishing boats darted out of tiny ports,
their decks manned by the usual COM
plement of Seamen, their odcrous holds
crammed with young men en- route to
England, arms and revenge. In one week
last winter nearly 1913 Norwegians landed
in England.
Still in his ski suit, one boy said in
careful school English:
1T was all arranged-so. 1t went as
smoothly as Cooks tour. We were told
to look for food at certain place when
we crossed the mountains. 1t was there.
Our passes appeared in strange
places. But they were good. The Ger
mans let us pass.
Il spoke English and I wanted to thank
these English. But when I spoke to
farmers who gave us food or hunters
who guided us over mountains they
shook their heads. Only once I heard
English.
The fisherman who showed us our
boat, he was dirty and smelled Of fish.
He gave me cigarette, the kind you buy
on Bond street in tin boxes-very ex-
pensive-and he said, Good luck,
chaps"
The most intensive battle goes on in
occupied France, Belgium and the
Netherlands, territories conquered as
much by the Gestapo as by the panzer
divisions.
The Gestapo has indexed and cross
indexed the inhabitants. No peasant is
SO obscure that he is unknown to the
Gestapo.
Travellers are questioned at every
crossroads.
But British spies roam the territories.
Certain farmhouses are safe. There are
stores in which new clerks appear and
disappear.
All through the daylight hours they
watch and wait. Each gun rolling down
village street is watched. The troop
trains, the airplanes are counted and
located.
When night falls, the secret confedera-
ton begins its real work. Tiny radios
talk to others.
Figures stink across the nat beet-root
fields to tell by word Of mouth what
cannot be told by air.
A cigarette Is passed IN . cafe and,
halt moksd. y unrolled Ia q nodsome
Evening star., 1941-07-06

In the long-ago days Of early 1899,
when foreigners in Moscow could look
forward yearningly to their next vaca-
tions in the lush surroundings of peace
full Paris or London, one got the i'm
preston that Soviet citizenS-to whom
foreign travel or permission to emigrate
to another country seemed as unlikely
as journey to the moon-were mostly
resigned to whatever life might bring TO
them.
1t would be most astonishing if these
stolid inhabitants of a cruelty over
crowded city. with their background of
Evening star., 1941-07-06
Drawing bv Logan Reavis.

Drawing by Logan Reav!s.
But they have vast basic store {
courage, and a sense of humor tha
functions under practically all como
tions.
So 1t may be assured that If Hitler
generals can hack their way through III
Red Army they will march their troop
through Red Square, if possible takin-
the city before the Russians themselye5
can destroy the stage-setting for cere-
mony which would eclipse anything the
Nazis' very active news cameras ye.
have filmed.
Evening star., 1941-07-06

way, as the inhabitants of indomitable
London, they will certainly surprise
many foreigners who lived in their city
at one time or another and watched their
reactions to the vicissitudes of life.
Naturally, the Russians are more
dramatic than BritonS and generally far
less efficient in all their movements than
Germans. Under stress, they may strike
more heroic poses, utter more emotional
and more colorful patriotic slogans and
brust into more enthusiastic mass sing
ing than one might expect in other
countries.
Evening star., 1941-07-06

endurance through war, revolution. civil
war and famine. suddenly should mill
around in panic under the stress of this
new war.
If the Soviet government should decide
TO evacuate Moscow, or at least evacuate
most of its civilian inhabitants, it is SAFE
to assume they would trudge away in
the assigned direction with little more
excitement than if they were parading
mony.
If, under air bombardment, they do
not put up as brave show. in their own
Evening star., 1941-07-06

my goggles and all the smoke, couldn't
see very much, and when the motor
finally quit, at about 10000 feet, I
decided to jump and undid the straps,
oxygen tube and radio plug. Then,
pulling the nose of the Hurricane up to
slow down, rolled the machine over on
its back and then couldn't have stayed in
even if I had wanted to.
The squadron, which left in the
sky as I bailed out, had another field day,
destroying four enemy aircraft and
damaging others. Flying Onicer Kerwin
Was wounded and also had 70 bail out.
Evening star., 1941-07-06

Another in the series OF articles by
Canadian flyers on their experiences
in the Battle OF Britain.