WONDERFUL FATHER MEEUS

Evening Star, Issue 17324, 12 April 1920, Page 8

WONDERFUL FATHER MEEUS

. BELGIAN PRIEST'S.WORK. .' A recent number of the Brooklyn 'Tab- 1 let,' New York, contains an account of" the remarkable espionage work carried out for the -Allies during the war by a Belgian priest, Father Meeus, one of the editors of the ..famous ' La Libre Belgique.' He was associated with Nurse Cavell in the work of aiding allied prisoners 'to escape. Prisoners were taken into Brussels in disguise, and there met by the Grande Espionne. . The Grand Espionne was a little girl of 11.' who used to cany a big doll, .run about and play, and look into shop windows. Soldiers would follow her without any. sign of recognition on her part. Then she "would stop outside the house in which Miss Cavell met them. The soldiers were then bandaged up and transformed into "hospital" patients? and were introduced to Father Meeus, who would then get them across the border. On one occasion, disguised as a cattledriver, Father Meeus got, to Ostend. and

found the real hiding place of the German submarines. Previous to an. air raid on England it was the custom of the Zeppelin and Gotha officfers to meet at dinner. In the disguise of a pastrycook Father Meeus was able to find out when such dinners were to be given, and was able, by moans of carrier pigeons, to warn the British Admiralty by 6 p.m. of an, impending raid. It was only by chance that the priest was not taken and shot with Miss Cavell. He was to have attended a conference with her, but Cardinal Mercier had sent for him to get an important! message into Holland, and. he was thus* forced to be absent on the night Nursed Cavell was arrested. '