TANKS INVENTOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 114, 15 May 1940, Page 10

TANKS INVENTOR.

WARNED WOMEN GOSSIPERS. HOW SECRET WAS KEPT. In these days when we are hearing so much about til© Tanks, it is timely to recall the remarkable manner in which tho secret of their building was kept during the last war. Major-G«ncral Sir Ernest D. Swinton—inventor of the lank—says that although thousands of men knew about them, only two eases ol a breach of confidence came to his personal knowledge. Both implicated ladies. , "On one occasion," he relates (in 'Eye-witness: And the Origin of the Tanks'"), "a charming lady, my neighbour at a luncheon party, on hearing mv name began artlessly to ply me "with questions, which showed that someone had been talking unwisplv. I remembered that a certain young officer in the Hca\y Section Clanks) bore her name, and made a shrewd guess as to their relationship. "Wry seriously, and in a low tone, I told her there was only one person from whom she could have learned what she knew; that if it got out it would not only mean his death, but the death of many others, and possibly the loss of the war; that unless she promised to maintain silence, except to contradict anything she had already divulged, I would order that individual's arrest by telephone and have him tried by courtmartial for treachery—the penalty for which was death. Greatly upset, the lady vowed that she would carry out my instructions. "The other ca.se was similar. We heard that a certain actress at one of the London theatres had got wind of something from an officer, and was talking indiscreetly. Accordingly, Stem (Colonel Sir Alfred Stern) and I visited her in her dressing-room one night after the play, with much the same result as 1 1 have just described. In this case, I am afraid 1 bluffed in threatening her informant with death, for we had no idea of his identity, but she was sufficiently frightened to promise to do all that 1 demanded."