The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-05-25

direction finders it is possible for them to locate clandestine stations in any part of the world.
 It was the spring of 1941 when this RID network first picked up German outlaw stations operating from Latin America. Before that time and even right up to Pearl Harbor there was no particular , need for the NaZls to use secret radios, as commercial cable and radio telegraph and telephone com munication channels were open to them.
 But on this particular spring night, monitoring station at Mills, Mass, outside of Boston, picked up faint signals from a station at- tempting to hide its transmissions by operating on the same frequency as a trans Atlantic radio telephone circuit. Through this interference" at the same time every day two stations identifying themselves as REV and PYL kept calling each other in an apparent effort to com- municate. All the RID stations were alerted and by radio direction find- ing they established location of REV as Hamburg, Germany, and PYL as Valparaiso, Chile.
 The interesting detail is that RID picked up and located both Sta- tions before they were able to communicate with each other.
 A GIRL SPY IN
 " e NM0nA GCv
 Intercepts from this and other Nad clandestine radio stations in South America, monitored in the United States, were sent to Depart ment of State, FBI, Army Navy and other agencies. '...
 In July, Hamburg queried Val- paraiso; Can you place suitable man for us among students going to U. s. for air training?" In a mes sage from Valparaiso to Hamburg concerning activities of a German agent named Clarke it was report ed: Daughter of Clarke, secretary in USA Embassy, Quito, since Mo- vember one"
 These messages showed how the German spy network was operating, but later interceptS revealed trans mission of information that was to endanger American lives. Ten days after Pearl Harbor, this message was picked up; From trustworthy confidential agent 1t was learned that all armed steamships are to be equipped with Torpedo safety nets upon arriving at Trinidad, Free town and all English ports. Nets being delivered partly from USA. My confidential agent will supply in near future all available details concerning width of mesh, cable strength, accomplishment tests, depth. distance from ships side. fastenings, slip arrangement" Later the German control station was to acknowledge that: ". [. reports on equipment of English and American cruisers and auxiliary cruisers were exceptionally correct" :" SOMETIMES THEY GOT
 A LITTLE WILD
 When U. S. combat planes began to hop the Atlantic. the news went to Germany via South American I-clandestine radio. AS early as July l94l one intercept revealed: Mine Boeing, (planes) flew with mixed crew consisting of Englishmen and Americans. Within the next few weeks 20 are. to be flown across. Details follow"
 Sometimes the reports got little wild, as in October, l941: 'BMM 1 (presumably a German agent( re- ports that in Port of Spain (Trini- dad) several hundred U. s. aircraft of various types and 5000 special troops allegedly as landing corps being assembled"
 But in January i942 the reports were given details of U. S. war production which were definitely harmful: "Curtiss Columbus factory will begin mass production SB2C single stater Etuka, for Navy. Armament one cannon five machine guns. Built for 2000 horsepower Wright in experimental stage"
 All these intercepts made clear the need of an intensified effort to locate the clandestine Nazi radio stations in Latin America. but 1t was to be several months before the United States, in cooperation with governments of the southern re- publicang, could begin to move in. How 1t was done will be told in this space in the next issue.