Evening Star Newspaper, May 4, 1930, Page 95

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 4, 1930. r'Y ‘How France Punished Captured Spies Ugents Caught by Americans Were Turned Over to Allies; Record Shows No A. E. F. Executions—““Let the French Do It,” Was Policy Adopted. Thomas M. Johnson. (Famousll’arCorre:pondeflt.) EDITOR'S NOTE.—This is_one of a series of true World War spy stories. In some instances the author has used intentional inaccuracies to protect - American secret agents; otherwise the information is suthenticated by fact or by word of participation. HEN the Germans got out of the Argonne Forest, they had time to carry out a daring ruse. In the ground they were about to give up they .prepared a dug-out, deep, cleverly concealed, connected by underground telephone wire with .another dugout in the place where they were going. Then they left behind an experienced agent, with an ample food supply and an American uniform. He waited until the advancing Americans had passed beyond his hiding-place, then, at -the first chance, came out and mingled with them. Speaking English, knowing something of American ways, he gathered information which Jater he telephoned to his comrades. But after a few.days of this, he was caught entering his dugout and shot on the spot. So goes the story. Now, there is no official record of the exe- cution of a spy by the A. E. F. But that does not mean that none who spied on the A. E. P. was executed. Many things happened at the front that never got into official records. Even today, some tragedies of the secret war remain mysteries. For instance, the photograph of “German spies in French uniform” executed and lying dead, in the sector of the 28th Di- vision, A. E. F. Who killed them? Maj. Gen. Charles H. Muir and Col. Walter C. Sweeney, respectively commander and chief of staff of the division, say they never heard of such an execution. The Signal Corps man who took the picture does not answer inauiries. But can the camera lie? Perhaps the French were the executioners. The other reason why our records show no German spies killed, is that we turned them over to French and Belgians who seldom hesi- tated. In the last few days of the war, the 91st Division, from the Pacific Coast, reached the “We must take an oath,” cried Diaz. | i important town of Audenarde on the Scheldt. Their advanced patrols going down to the river were fired on heavily and accurately by German machine guns on the opposite bank, and had to take sheifer. Then a little knot of dark-clad Belgian civilians, four years under German domination, came dragging or pushing one of their number. “Espion! Espion!” they cried. “We have seen him signal the American position to the Ger- man machine gunners.” They brought him to Capt. A. A. Hopkins, chief of the 91st’s Silent Watchers, who ques- tioned him, aided by the officer commanding the Belgian gendarmes accompanying the di- vision for this very purpose. Scene, witnesses and commander (King Albert) all were Bel- gian, and to the Belgians Capt. Hopkins turn- ed over the suspect. His fate remains unknown although his picture is in our War Department collection. If he spied, it was against Americans, but if he was executed, it was by allies. So with all the enemy agents the A. E. F. caught, That arrangement helps explain why the vic- tories of the American secret war were, and re- main, so secret. Officially, the Americans exe- cuted no German spies and arrested few. The A. E. F. rule was “Let the French do it. It's their country.” The Americans might *“‘turn up” a suspect, provide information .sufficient to justify arrest and perhaps conviction, but the French “did the dirty work,” as in sundry cases to be de- scribed here. That simplified what was, after all, enforcement of a PFrench law forbidding espionage, and enabled the Americans to wash their hands of a distasteful business. If, as some boast today, “we never executed a spy,” we all but led some to the stake—quite de- servedly, according to the rules of the game. Behind the front, on the services of supply, there was less mystery—and probably more sples. The area was far greater—all of France but that 400-mile strip of front from the North Sea to Switzerland so filled with pitfalls for the spy as to be virtually impregnable. Besides, much of the really big information was not at the front, but in the rear. FVERY G. H. Q, allied and German, was ~ watched, and Chaumont must have been, although there is good authority for saying that no German agent was caught there nor an important leak detected. All the allies, in- cluding the Americans, had spies at German G. H. Q. at Spa, who kept them informed as Y‘ l\ \ A 2 ““"m ' P S “An oath in blood.” /, f./&‘ / / U iy much as they could of what went on there. Guessing that, the Germans had special per- sonal guards for the Kaiser, Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Though Marshal Foch usually chose small secluded places for his headquar- ters, he was watched most of the time, knew it and joked about it. He even made camou- flaged trips to lead his watchers astray. When Gen. Pershing first reached France he objected violently to any one being assigned to guard him, but Col. Moreno insisted that he have a guard. A former New York newspaper man checked the general’s goings and comings and guarded him. This faithful shadow accompanied the Amer- ican commander-in-chief wherever he went and once probably prevented an attempt to assassi- nate him. Whenever Gen. Pershing appeared at public ceremonies his I. P, guard “covered” him with care, vigilant for suspicious looking people, especially for men with hands in pockets or hidden by newspapers and women with hands in muffs. The general went unarmed, but his shadow carried two pistols—one hidden. Came an occasion in 1918 when Gen. Pershing, inspecting American depots and troops in a French city “behind the front,” returned to his special train through a tunnel beneath the tracks, a subway like that at many American suburban railway stations. In this dark passage some one had laid a trap. But luckily the I. P. guard, the accustomed 20 feet ahead of the general, pounced upon a woman of rather evil aspect. He seized both wrists almost hidden in a brown fuf muff. From the muff he snatched a loaded revolver. Gen. Pershing passed on. The woman was borne off to local G-2 headquarters. Un- fortunately, secrecy still hides the rest—who she was, why the revolver, in that place under- ground, where, but for G-2, she might have killed the American commander in an instant. We kept at our own G. H. Q. a watch chosen from the original I. P. detachment that had some weird experiences. A principal job was to see what happened to the contents of waste baskets—which may sound foolish, but was based upon known German methods. Another was to watch scrubwomen, any civilians who might enter the three big barrack buildings converted into offices, most of which held secrets of real, even extraordinary value. This day and night prowl was often exgiting, especially when one spotted some one acting suspciously, trailed him and found him another I. P. One of the band who spoke fluent French, but broken English, sneaked one dark night ! Death to the Americans. around a corner and into the arms of a salty Marine from South Dakota, of the provost guard, eager to be “first to fight.” “Hands up!” he cried, demonstrating with bayoneted Springfield. “But I'm an I. P.” the prowler tried to e=- plain in French-English. “I. P.? Never heard of it!” said the Marine. “You're a German spy, that’s what you are. C'mon to the guard house.” Accelerated by the bayonet, the I. P. went to the guard house, where he remained two days until even the Marines yielded to the secret service and let him go—with a warning not to do it again. EFORE the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne battles so much evidence came in of Ger= man agents trying to cover Tours that that city and its vicinity were made a reserved area and combed with especial care. There, and at Issoudun, Romorantin, all-American aviation centers in France, there was always watch for German agents. Counter-espinage put an especially close guard on the Liberty motor so that the plans should not reach the Germans before planes driven by them reached the front. A case of preventive counter-espionage. There were others: Reports came of a leak in informa- tion from the big railroad regulating station at Is-sur-Tille, where trains of supplies and food were dealt out like bridge hands, to the troops along the front. An American counter- espionage officer went to see what was g. He found enough. A German agent schooled as a “train-watcher,” with access to the yards, could gather plenty of information. The Amer- icans were innocently sending out freight cars with destination, number of unit, sometimes contents, plainly chalked in English and French on the sides. A good German agent could al- most send from Issur-Tille alone a daily American order of battle. More, he might tell beforehand when our troops were going to change position. Before they moved, the desti- nation chalked on their supply trains would change. Thereafter the chalk marks were in code, altered at irregular intervals. How could an agent have got information out of Is-sur-Eille? ‘The counter-spy found the answer in the French mail boxes. The A. E. F. were forbidden to use them, but some did to escape censorship by their own officers and th Continued on Twenty-first Page SImser O O Ui i - AT &