The Key West Citizen Newspaper, April 29, 1953, Page 11

olution Of Esser, Armour Disappearancé Off Boca Chica Ma; Writer Lovering Re-Tells Mystery Of World War Il Days In Key West By FRANK W., LOVERING The dramatic story of a World War II German sub- marine lurking in a lake within a high-walled: Palm Beach estate of a rich German widow named Crifts, as told in the magazine, “Pic,” may in every possibility hold the solu- tion of the never-explained disappearance from his honey- moon cabin on Boca Chica Key a few miles from Key West, of a Cleveland, Ohio, business man and a German vacationist of the same city, Saturday, March 1, 1941. When finally the FBI surrounded : the strange submarine base, Army | peatedly that Armour go fishing planes bombed the lake. The Gey-| with him? sers leveled off after boiling uP] Had Esser reason to believe the angrily in the bright sunlight, and | former Cleveland sales manager Navy divers found the wreckage Of |had information which would be a small U-boat. _ | valuable to Hitler? Absence from his usual hang-out, Did the Germans make a tool a drinking place in West Palm | of Esser to kidnap Armour in a Beach, of a household servant of | submarine? bd bes every led J the Teal | _If the skiff capsized in the storm joing: of the plovters. No — ships | did sharks eat the men? » were sunk after that along the Flor- And if this was their fate why “ a ed FBI men laid siege |pira pi nyo y ob the magitest unt 4 rr oe! und ever found? to the Crifts mansion, broke in,| ‘The coast line was searched foot found the replacement for the mis-| by foot for five successive days, sing servant in a room in the base-| but the tangled rects of the man- nee oa ae So fatally | grove which reach up their fingers | lore he could oul! his gun ‘weirdly to support the brilliantly There was a short-wave radio at | green foliage above the tides yield- his fingertips: He was warning the | submarine to put to sea, but the; tide was ebbing in tke Silver River | @hat connected the estate with the ocean, and it was doubted the sub could have put out from its hiding place. Mrs. Crifts talked. She told the FBI that this man had killed his predecessor and an electrician be- | cause they had fovnd oil drums} and submarine repair equipment in the cellar of the house. After the Cleveiand man vanish- ed extensive search of the sea and «nore revealed ao bodies, no boat, ishing tackle or personal | gings. Sheriff Rerlin Sawyer wf Monroe County offered the plau- | ble theory that the men and their | ess‘ons, boat and all, could ave been taken aboard a sub- e t brilliant Finrida morning | rd Armour stepped in- | t skiff with Henry W. | . they paddled from _ the| ore for what the foreigner | ed “‘a day's sport” in the Gulf Stream t was in his late sixties, | i died. His new | y her husband’s | h hed grandchildren by wur and Esser met, | t . but no one will | ter Armour was * former had per- | to go with the t even up along shells. 4 bathing suit, es his fishing » apparently This. he-car- | rmen’s ccbin where he t his money, an ana a powerful arger than There were a letters written by i woman and a German | exp so thckly spangled ials that Sheriff rgb | @ Was uo space for an- | ny little finger.” | fared forth k s calm, Two | hours later the sieady sweep of; ewinds was beaten back by a rising northwest gale which soon whipped the Atlantic into foaming erests. Mrs. Armour and others at Stephen Bergdoll’s fishing camp say the light poat make off and watched it until it was a speck! in the distance. In a little while it had vanished forever from hu- man ken Investigators promptly asked, why should have er insisted re- PERSONAL LOANS ® Quick cash loans to pay medical expenses ®@Repay in easy monthly payments @Reasonable interest rates tavestigate This Low Cost Way Te Borrew Money TOWN FINANCE COMPANY 64 Dowel St Dial 1.5484 ed no evidence. After the hunt had been abdndon- | ed, Mrs. Armour begged tearfully that it be renewed. Again — the beaches of Boca Chica, the Saddle Bunch Keys, Stock Island and Key West, were combed without result. Men in boats surveyed the gaily colored reefs under the shallows where the fierce barracuda sneaks and angelfish laze in the warm sunlight, The “water glass”, a bucket with a window in the bot- tom which, when pressed just be- low the surface permits a clear view of the depths, was brought into use repeatedly. The belongings found in the cab- in of the German man of mystery were taken in charge by Sheriff Sawyer and put in a vault in the Monroe County court house at Key Wet. Among the items was a book on trade unionism printed in Ger- many. When the sheriff opened it a United States $20 bill was found between the leaves. He held the ook by its covers and flipped the | Pages. Twenty-three more $20 bills fluttered on the desktop. Several weeks later a relative of Esser’s from Cleveland ‘brought identification, credentials and no facts of value, He receipted for the personal belongings and returned Sheriff Sawyer reasoned that if Esser had been a spy and believed Armour possessed information that would be of value to Germany, the | tiny cigar box radio could have been used to call a submarine close to Boca Chica Key so the two men | could easily be taxen aboard. | Harold E. Russell, chief deputy sheriff of Monroe Ccunty was told of terror stricken cries at sea on the dark and stormy night of the day Armour and Esser disappear- | ed. This information came from Mrs. Armour’s daughter by her first_mayriage. She said Coast Guardsmen hunt- ing for the men had told her they | heard shouts through the gale. By- passing the uncertainty as to the; time the ‘cries were reported, Sher- | iff's Deputy Russell told the young | woman that the Coast Guard had | done all it could; that ‘‘whatever | happened was anybody’s guess.” | Armour had driven down to Boca | Chica from Cleveland with his sec- | ond wife in a new Chevrolet sports coupe. A receipt showed it had been bought a few days before they left home for the Fiorida Honey- moon. Lover’s Spat May End In Marriage | HOLLYWOOD \#—Her young | son and a pretty model are miss- ing after a lover’s spat, says Mrs. Mozelle Britton Dinehart Gosser. She believes they may . have eloped. The actress and writer asked police for help yesterday in locat- ing the ‘youth, Mason Alan Dine- hart III, 16, and Evellyn Meyers, also 16. She said she thinks they may have left for Kentucky, Ten- hessee or Mexico. Mrs. Gosser, widow of character | actor Alan Dinehart, said the cou- | ple quarreled Sunday at her home. ; Miss Meyers left and her son fol- | lowed, accompanied by a friend, Don Haley, 16. Later, she said, the couple told other friends by tele- phone they were going away to get married. Haicy’s parents told police their son is missing too. “GONE WITH THE | WIND” POPULAR ATHENS (‘® — “Gone with the | Wind,” MCM’s prewar Hollywood } production, has gone into its fifth straight week of showing to pack- ed crowds here, | The Palace, Greece's biggest movie-house, is selling seats at $1.00 each. Admission is by re- served seat only. At the end of the current run, the film will be shown to movie- goers in Salonika. 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