Evening Star Newspaper, April 13, 1930, Page 105

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, -D. €, APRIL 13, 1930. Fake Messages and Secret Codes Continued From Fifth Page French stopped the marrine advertisements in La Vie Parisienne that every doughboy re- members. These patriotic ladies proclaimed in print their willingness to correspond as i » with lonesome soldiers. Some of the ladies with another lady —PFraulein Doktor of Antwerp. Simple as another German trick, to write in pencil a few figures, perhaps a simple ad- dition, on an inside page ©f & newspaper, and mail it. What censor would examine every mailed newspaper—and if he did, suspect a code? Strange things, codes. A great help to queer fish in eluding the net, yet dangerous, for once the counter-spy spots a code message he will not rest until it is deciphered, and the sender found. If he is found with the code in his possession—as has happened to Ameri- agents—he is lost. ca; there an unbreakable code? British ex- periences say yes, perhaps, although the Greek professor could break any code if given time and messages enough. An American says that in the World War none was devised that was not solved, and that even partial solution gives some information. Col. Nicolai says the Ger- man secret service knew of no unsolvable code. Yet the German diplomatic eode was so tough that on a critical occasion an American code expert confronted with it threw up his hands— whereupon an American secret service officer volunteered to violate some rules and break into a place where the code book must be... DING a typical government message with thousands of words and phrases, ar- ranged numerically and alphabetically, is a terrible task. Sometimes codes change in the middle of a message. But once one code book is lost, the code must be discarded. If one message is solved, the whole thing will be, how- ever slowly and painfully. Ocecasionally, it takes so long that by the time a particular message can be read, its value has passed. No use knowing that a German air raid had been ordered on London after the bombs had burst. Sometimes it is a waiting game, waiting for more messages. A system that cannot be solved through a single message may break down when used often by people who simply must get messages through to one another. IN solving codes it helps to know which letters, words and symbols occur most frequently in messages. One authority says letters fall in this order: 4 ETOAIRNSHLDCMUYPFPG WBV. TH, HE and ER are common combinations, U seldom occurs doubled, etc. Col. George Fabyan, an American code man, gives the order thus: ETAONISHRDLCUFPMPW GYBVKXQJZ. . He thinks that 15 per cent of the letters in & message will be E, only 2 per cent K, X, Q J and Z together. Here is a code that was used in the war: grouped, are little portraits carefully painted, almost in miniature, of the explorers. Yet the elaborate composition is brought by the artist into complete unity without confusion and is extremely -decorative in effect. No one could fail to find interest and beauty in this work. HOWARD UNIVERSITY has established for the benefit of its students a little art museum, or at least an art gallery, wherein from time to time transient exhibitions can be set forth. It was inaugurated last Monday when a traveling exhibition of oil paintings, water colors and drawings, assembled and cir- culated by the College Art Association, was placed on view. Included in this exhibition were 42 oil paintings by well known artists, among them Robert Henri, James Chapin, George Biddle, Anne Goldthwaite, Walt Kuhn, Stefan Hirsch, Henry Lee McFee, Jerome Myers, Maurice Sterne, Allen Tucker and Mar- jorie Phillips. Six of the paintings were lent by the Phil- lips Memorial Gallery; three by Prof. Paul J. Bachs of the Fogg Museum; the others con- tributed by New York dealers. ‘The prints, about 30 in' number, were more eonservative than the paintings, including works by Chauncey F. Ryder, Walter Tittle, William Meyerowitz, Rockwell Kent, Eugene Higgins, Gifford Beal and others. The oil paintings and water colors were shown in the main gallery, the prints in a small adjacent room, both of which were very suitable for the purpose. The establishment of the gallery and the holding this exhibition are due to the initia- tive and enterprise of J. V. Herring, professor of fine arts at Howard University, who is him- self a member of the College Art Association. In sponsoring this exhibition and providing a place for the display of subsequent shows in- structive to the students, Howard University has evidenced a progressive attitude which is highly to be commended. THE Public School Art League of the Dis- trict of Columbia, which was organized 10 or 15 years ago at the home of Mrs. Charles W. Richardson, and of which Mrs. Richard- son was first president, has in a quiet way, been doing a really large work not only in placing pictures and casts in the public schools of Washinglon, but in encouraging suitable decoration of schools, and serving as an ad- visory body when other organiszations desired %o contribute works of art. In this work the league has been fortunate in having the active Co-operation of the municipal architect, Mr. Harris. : “Write the message in clear, letter by letter, right on the page, with a prearranged number of letlers on each line. Each letter must be placed directly under the corresponding letter of the preceding line. You now have a number of columns of letters equal to the num- ber of letters per line. Copy from the top down, the columns in a prearranged order. Divide the letters thus arranged in groups of decipher, count the number of letters number in the column, write the columns in the original order, and read the message in clear from left to right.” Code experis say that some things that seem mystic to the layman are not so—for instance, the dictionary code for composing messages by listing the page and column of a dictionary where the words are found. Hindus, in German pay, plotiing in this country to cause revolution in India, communicated in this code, and Maj. William F. Priedman, now chief of the Army X g pondered a cable to a suspect address in Hol- land: “Pather is dead.” He changed it to “Pather is deceased,” and let it go. Soon came a reply: “Is father dead or deceased?” A G-2 text book said: *“‘Correspondence be- tween soldiers in the field and family and friends at home constitutes one of the most important sources of information regarding the enemy.” Letlers were therefore sought every- where—including the pockets of souvenir-hunt- ing doughboys—and carefully analyzed. Ger- man soldiers’ letters sometimes, despite censor- ship, told of troop movements, whether our Artillery fire was effective, whether losses and been heavy, and whether they were well fed and felt like fighting. Letters from home dealt mostly with food or its lack, but often passed on valuable news from mutual friends in other units. Sometimes they described the effect of allied air raids on German towns. For a com- plete and accurate picture, one pieced together letters of men in the same company or regi- ment. Occasionally, of course, an amateur Sherlock Holmes got wondrous results, which provoked one G-2 wit to promulgate this under the head “Interpreted Documents: “From sweetheart in Berlin to German soldier: ‘I have not a movie since three months seen.’ “Deductions: “1. Movie actors disguised working as spies in Franee. “2. Berlin too short of electricity to light movies as well as beer halls. “3. Moving picture machines being uged for searchlight batteries. “Prom soldier to sweetheart: ‘How much thy smile misses me.’ “Deductions: “l. German army would rather be at home than in trenches. “2. No good-looking woman allowed near front line.” The Marines owe to a captured German soldier’s letter their nickname “Devil Dogs”— translated from “Teufelhunde” and promptly Notes of Art and Artists For the.past three or four years Miss Grace Miss Hendley, secretary, has personally super- vised the league's work. Forty-one schools were visited this past season. In some of these schools mew pictures have been placed; in others the old pictures have been reframed or reconditioned. New York and Chicago are the two other cities in the country that have active art asso- ciations of somewhat similar character. In New York the Public School Art League has given most of its attention, however, to edu- cational work among the students, encourag- ing, through prizes and scholarships, those handed to correspondents by a publicity serv- ice, like everything else in the Marine Corps, “always faithful.” Historically, probably the most valuable Ger- man documents captured by Americans is Gen. Puch’s report to Hindenburg and Ludendorff of how the Americans gave his army detach- ment C such a drubbing at St. Mihiel. G-2 reprinted it in English and circulated it to American generals and staff officers, a select reading public. G-2 got secrets not only from scraps of paper but out of the air. Some of its best work was intercepting and decoding German radio. On March 11, 1918, the Germans commenced using a new code that was absolute Greek to the allies. This looked like the forerunner of the anxiously awaited Spring offensive, and French, British and Americans put their best men to work to solve it. On March 13, our intercept station heard one German station sending ancther a message in the new code. Then, to our amazement, the reply came: “We haven't received new codebooks vet. Please repeat in old code.” The sending station repeated the same message —in the old code, that we knew like a book. Putting the two together, our experts got the meaning of every code group in the first mes- sage, and the system used. We sent what we knew to the French by telegraph and to the British by airplane. Three days later, all three were reading the new code almost as well as the Germans. When the great offensive finally started March 21, the German’s messages were being read all alopg the line. Code and cipher reading was developed to such an extent in the World War that it is doubtful if radio will be used much in the next war, unless secret radio is developed. The allies were so good at decoding intercepted wireless messages that sometimes they knew, by this means alone, where two-thirds of the divisions in the German army were. The French didn’t let even their own army staff know where they got all the information. The fewer in a secret, the better. The British admiralty was especially clever at finding out what the German fieet and sub- marines were up to by deciphering wireless and other codes. “Room 40,” did this work very quickly, and little has been said about it. Rus- sian divers first got the German code from the stranded cruiser Magdeburg in 1914, and often afterward German code books were fished up from submarines. Once American G-2, got from a zeppelin a code-book that played havoc among submarines. In October, 1917, the last great German zeppelin raid was a failure, and most of the fleet were brought down or had to come down. One Janded at Bourbonneles-Bains, in the American training area behind the Lorraine front, and the crew were nabbed before they could destroy all the contents of the gondola. G-2 seized the. golden opportunity. Almost simultaneously an American secret agent work- ing under Lijeut. Col. N. W. Campanole, head of our espionage service, found a book con- . taining wireless code the Germans used to transmit orders to their submarines, and Capt. Hubbard put together the torn pieces of a map showing the North Sea area allotted to each submarine. The dread enemy was delivered into our hand. Continued especially talented and- arranging for docent service and lectures for school children at the art museums, both in New York and 5 The Chicago Public School Art Society has, on the other hand, done much to encourage and make possible exhibitions of works by local artists in public schools, in order to bring stu- , dents into closer touch with the artists of Chi- cago and to engender an appreciation as well as patronage of their works. MISS JOSEPHINE GULLEDGE, formerly of this city, is now head of the art depart- ment of the New Jersey College for Women, at New Brunswick. Under her direction the college L'he Bonnet of the Foo'. By Nathalia Crane, The idols walk ot night And talk of a bygone rule— When a god put on each Summer dawn The bownnet of the fool. To jount a world, unknown, To chum with the donkey's ear; And never the spy i a mortal’s eye To know that a god was near. The idols walk at might In gardens banked by fern; They ground the knee tho’ gods they be In front of a crumbling urn. They honor that within And honestly lower their eyes, For hid sn the stone is that folded cone— The greatest of all disqusse. The idols walk at night : And ponder a bygone rule— W hen it was fair for, gods ta.weay . . . The bonnet of the fool. - =+ =« = LRI - tional director of the 21 FROM Chaumont Col. R. H. Williams sent Capt. Hubbard with the precious book and maps on a breakneck journey to London, pere sonally Sscorted most of the way by Brig.-Gen. Macdonald, chief of the British Imperial In- telligence Department. Admiral Sims was away, but his aide jumped from a sick bed to take them to room 40. Then began a terrible week for German submarines. Obeying allied orders in their own code, they came to the surface amid destroyers waiting to pounce. If wnot caught, they could be trailed and so could sink few merchant ships. Before the Germans had discovered the situation and changed the code, Lloyd George announced that fewer British ships were being sunk than at any time sinee the submarine campaign commenced. He might have added that more submarines were sunk in the week after the American feat than in any week until then. IT is little known here that one of the maim reasons why the Russians lost the battle of the Mazurian Lakes and so many ly bat- tles even into 1915, was that in the first months of th- war, the Germans were picking ihe Rus- sian radio messages out of the air and translat- ing them. They knew where every blow would fall, where every division would go. It was like sitting in at every Russian council of war. A Prench staff officer with the Russian Army had a hard time convincing them that they must change codes often in modern war. When the United States entered the war, we knew, as a whole, about as much as the Rus- sians. Col. Parker Hitt and Maj. Frank Moor- man were our only regular officers who had specialized much. Under Gen. Churchill's di- rection there was organized in the United States by Col. George Fabyan a company of wireless experts to man our intercept stations in France. It took our code men seven months to prepare the first American field code-book—which was promptly suppressed because it was too risky. A copy in German hands would have told too much. The Germans did capture at least one Ameri can radio code-book. An American major went into the front line with a copy in his pocket, - quite against orders. The moment he chgse for his stroll was the moment the Germans . chose for a trench .raid, which gobbled up code-book and all. Luckily some : E £ % £ § g 5 Eg B ! % 4 ore untold tales of spies in the Wi wn'ufn:;:t_lg} of Mr. ..L ha n“" installments et B Copyrieht: 1030 ¥: From Nineteenth Pa o¢ lately sponsored an art week, which included not only an exhibition of paintings and sculp-’ - ture, but meetings of art museum workers, & conference on “The Need of the Pine Arts in American Life,” and lectures by well authorities, among them Huger Elliott, : . tian Museum of Art, who spoke on “Our Most Notable Contribus~ i tion to Art.” I 3 : ; N exhibition of recent etchings by Cadwallas . der TTashburn will open at Gordon Duns - thorne’s on April 15. - Tmmrwmaflkqofmhuhutphe«! on exhibition a notable portrait of the late Chief Justice Taft by Ernest L. Ipsen of New York, which will permanently remain in this city; also three portraits by Eben F. Comins of Justice Holmes and the late Chief Justice Taft and Justice Sanford. These will be on view for a.fortnight only. As a loan from Mrs. Gower, daughter of Mrs. William A. Clark, two paintings by Renoir and one by Degas have been temporarily added to the Corcoran Gallery’s 'FROMAprnutoMmexhlthotm view ings by Marcel Guy Tynon will be on Used by Spies to Defeat Enemy at the Yorke Gallery. Mr. Tynon is best known ° for his portraits of the French Ambassador, H. E. Paul Claudel, and Georges Barrere, the well known flutist. Mr. Tynon is a painter landscape and subject pictures as well as AN exhibition of water colors and plumbago drawings by the late R. Meyerherm, R. I., 8 British artist, opened at the Amerita Gallery, 1534 Connecticut avenue, April 11, to continue to April 25. This collection has recently been exhibited in London. Assisting Cotton Farmers. '1‘0 assist the cotton farmer, Federal experts are joining the Southern agricultural ecol- leges and the extension experts in urging the “live-at-home* policy. A This safe farming