AGENTS SEIZED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 21602, 3 January 1945, Page 3

AGENTS SEIZED

SABOTEURS IN U.S. LANDED FROM U-BOAT AMERICAN~RENEGADE t 9 a.m.) NEW YORK. Jan. 1. Two German agents, William Colepaugh and Erich Gimpel, who landed in Maine on November 29 in a rubber boat from a German submarine, have been arrested. The F. 8.1. chief. Mr. Edgar Hoover, :aid the men brought ashore more than 50,000 dollars of American currency, and in the month before their arrest li\ed at the Dest hotels in Boston and New York. They bought parts of a short-wave radio, and frequented cocktail bars and public places, listening to servicemen and civilians. Both men were trained in the S.S. school at The Hague in radio, sabotage, photography, and the use of explosiv es on railway tracks. They carried fraudulent documents, loaded revolvers, and secret ink. but did not succeed in contacting the German Government.

Colepaugh was an American citizen, formerly a United States naval man, and was honourably discharged from the navy in 1943. Later lie sailed as a messbdK on the Swedish ship Gripsholm to Europe, and deserted at Lisbon, where lie told the German consul he wanted to join the German Army. From Lisbon he was sent to Germany.

Mr. Hoover added that Germany had intensified her programme of training and sending agents to the Western Hemisphere.

A 17-year-old high school student, Harvard Hodgkins, whose father is deputy-sheriff of Hancock Point, Maine, was the first to spot the two Nazi saboteurs. He was returning from a dance on November 29 in a heavy snowstorm when he saw the two 'men.

He became suspicious when he observed that they wore top-coats instead of overcoats, knowing that no one in Maine wears a top-coat in winter.

Hodgkins followed the pair until they disappeared into the woods. He reported to his father, who telephoned the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which immediately sent investigators.

Mr. Edgar Hoover said that the Nazi submarine which brought the saboteurs had lain off the Maine coast for a week.

| The term "top-coat" applies in the United States to a light dressy garment suitable for summer wear or for evening use. An overcoat is stoutly made to resist the rigours of a Continental winter.]