NAZI SABOTEURS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20822, 29 June 1942, Page 3

NAZI SABOTEURS

ARRESTED IN U:S-. LANDED FROM U-BOATS G-MEN UNCOVER PLOT (By Telegraph—Press Assn,—Copyright.) (10.30 a.m.) NEW YORK, June 28.. The chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Edgar Hoover, announced the arrest of eight enemy saboteurs who had been landed on the east coast of the United States from two German submarines which left France last May. Four Germans-landed at Amaganselt Beach, Long Island, on June 13 from a submarine which approached 500yds from the shore. The men went ashore in a rubber boat, changed from their Nazi uniforms into civilian clothes, buried loads of TNT, time-clocks end fuses on the beach, and then went to New York City. The second submarine later landed the other four agents at Florida, near. Jacksonville. These agents also used rubber boats and planted explosives. Mr. Hoover declared that the sabotage agents were magnificently trained in Germany for destructive tasks 'in America. They carried 149,750. American dollars for bribery, spying' and other purposes. Objectives For Destruction The objectives marked for sabotage included the plants of the Aluminium Company of America at Tennessee, and New York, which are vital for aeroplane production, and also the Pennsylvania railroad terminal at Newark, New Jersey, and an importantrailroad bridge at Hellgate, New York City. The agents were assigned to spend at least two years in America. Their equipment included bombs disguised as lumps of coal. The agents had varied objectives, among which was finding bottlenecks in industry and transportation, and doing their utmost to further impede the progress of the war effort. Mr. Hoover said the saboteurs also planned to set bombs in railroad stations and department stores in order to create panic and a breakdown in civilian morale. All the saboteurs were former residents of the United States. Most of them were members of the German-American Bund who were repatriated to German by the German Embassies in the United States and Mexico and then recruited for training in sabotage. The arrests disclosed that the German Embassy in Washington and legations in New York and San Francisco were part of a -■re-war set-up designed to send to Germany nationals who could be used for sabotage when the war broke out. Mi'. Hoover said that all had admit? ted their guilt, and, therefore, face the death penalty. He added that the Coast Guard had intensified precautions to prevent similar landings in future.