TRICKS OF WAR SPIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 April 1938, Page 9

TRICKS OF WAR SPIES

* INFORMATION BY STAMPS. During the World War all sorts of subterfuges were employed, by enemy agents* to send information out of Fiance, writes H. Bedford Jones, in an Australian magazine. For some time no attention was- paid to the exchange and sales books of philatelists, until one of the' military censors made a curious discovery.

in an approval book going to Denmark he one day noticed a superb sheet-edge pair of the 80 centime Bordeaux issue. Himself a collector, he mechanically lifted the stamps to note the condition, and s'aw vetv faintly pencilled writing across the reverse which proved to be German script.

The discovery of this' rather crude method of communication at once drew the attention of the Intelligence Service to all stamp shipments. As more subtle methods came to be used, instead of the obvious pencilled messages, it was found that shipments of better grade stamps were going to neutral countries in large numbers, and many of these stamps bore messages on the reverse side, written in. invisible ink, which only became apparent by the application of heat or chemicals.

The seizure and destruction or confiscation of many such shipments soon put a stop to the system, or so at least it seemed.

I However, there was a further angle !to the matter. A speculator in Paris, 'ostensibly a neutral, was in the habit | of sending out large quantities of one or two stamps, usually' new' issues, to his correspondents in neutral countries. His record was clear, and, while his shipments were frequently examined, nothing of a suspicious nature had ever been found 1 against him. His shipments were nearly' always of a wholesale nature. Towards the close of the 'war this speculator bought up huge quantities of two stamps, one being from the French Charity issue, the other being one value of a new pictorial issue for Morocco. He began sending out quantities of these two stamps l to his correspondents in neutral countries. All were held up and given close examination, but. nothing of an incriminatory nature was found, so that these shipments were about to be released when Colonel Despreaux, of the Intelligence, noted a singular fact. The stamps were not being sent out in sheets or in single stamps, but -were all in irregular blocks. Despreaux, after certain experiments reconstructed an entire sheet and' set about; studying it. Then he found that on each irregular block of stamps was a tiny' letter in invisible ink. so small as not to attract, the least notice, and usually made to look like a portion of watermark. When the sheet was reconstructed, however, these letters made up a. complete phrase of sentence of the most damning kind. The speculator was arrested and, after a speedy trial, was shot for espionage. The greater part of the seized stamps -were promptly destroyed, as they had been duly paid for, and the Government thought their desl ruction quite a neat trick. The effect of this destruction, however, was to remove from circulation huge quantities of the two stamps in question, which consequently became relatively' rare—they' became, indeed, the rarest of recent French Issues. While, of course, quite generally known in official circles, this, philatelic footnote to history escaped the attention of the general public.