HELD AS SPIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 August 1946, Page 7

HELD AS SPIES

TWO MISSING OFFICERS RELEASED BY RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES FOUR WEEKS IN CAPTIVITY (Rec. 11 a.m.) LONDON, July 31. The Russians have released the American officers, Captain Harold Cobin and Lieutenant George Wyatt, who have been missing since they entered the Russian sector of Berlin on July 4. Cobin, interviewed in Berlin, said the Russians charged him with being an American spy. He was told that he would be sent back to Russia by officers of the Russian secret police. (Reuter’s correspondent says that Cobin is a Russian Jew by extraction).

Both Cobin and Wyatt were said to have been held in Potsdam after their arrest at Oranianburg in the Russian zone on July 4 where they were trying to visit a concentration camp. They agreed that they had attempted to enter the zone without a pass. They were not mistreated, except for lack of clothes and toilet articles. They had only one bath in a month. Their food was black bread, potatoes, macaroni and a little meat. Both officers said they were subjected to nearly daily interrogation.

The Associated Press reports Cobin as saying that the Russian officers. interrogating him made remarks about the British, “which I cannot repeat in public.” One officer said they could come to an eventual understanding with the Americans, but with the British the outlook was dark.

Wyatt and Cobin said they were not aware of the widespread reports that the Russians were using the former concentration camp at Oranienburg for political prisoners.