SPIES EXECUTED

Grey River Argus, 6 February 1941, Page 10

SPIES EXECUTED

Secret Trial POSED AS REFUGEES. LONDON, December 12. The first spy execution of this war took place at Bentonville Prison, London, when a 25-year-old German, Jose Waldberg, and a 24-year-old Dutch subject of German origin, Karl Meier, were hanged. They were found guilty > at a secret trial at the Old Bailey on Treachery Act charges. The law demands that even for spies notices of execution shall be displayed. Those exhibited read: “Declaration of Sheriff and others. We, the undersigned, hereby declare that judgment of death was this day execu led on prisoners—here Waldberg and Meier were named —in his Majesty's prison of Pentonville in our presence. Dated the 10th. day of December, 1940.” The greatest secrecy was maintained concerning Waldberg and Meier. There wa's no one outside the prison when the executions were carried out neither did the public notice the legal declarations which were posted on a door off the public highway. An inquest was held in camera.

OUTCOME OF GREAT VIGILANCE

The conviction of the spies on November 22 was the outcome of great vigilance by the authorities. They were arrested soon after their surreptitious arrival in England. A wireless transmitter wa's in their possession. They were to erect this in fields at night to send their information to Germany. They also had considerable sums of money in £1 notes.

An official statement said that they had instructions to pose as refugees from enemy-occupied territory and to move about among the population, obtaining a's much information of a military kind a.s possible. They had been made to believe that they would shortly be relieved by German invading forces.

The wireless transmitter they used is a perfect piece of mechanism. It was compressed into two small leather cases, one about Bin. square, and the other 14in. by 6in. The component parts were all of excellent German manufacture. I Both cases could be carried with ! ease by means of shoulder straps. The larger one contained the batteries—three of 90 volts and two of 45 volts—and a Morse tapper. The key of the latter was deliberately made for slow sending. The smaller case contained the short-wave transmitting set, valve, and two aerials with insulators at each end. With this apparatus the spies could send messages to Germany from any field from which they cared to operate. PROBABLE PLAN. Although lightness is a feature of every piece of the set, it is not assumed that the men would always have carried it. To have done so ; would have made them conspicuous. I It i s more probable that the plan of operations was to secrete the two cases in a' hedge or bury them during the day and use the instrument at night to tap out what information they had obtained. It is possible to track down a transmitter, but the extreme mobility of such a light set as this would make the task difficult. No one can say that there are not other spies at work. This, it has been stated, should bring home to everybody the wisdom of the official injunction to exercise the greatest care when speaking of the movements of troops or ships and to be wary in the presence of strangers. More than 30 spies were arrested in Britain during the last war. Of these 12 were shot and one was hanged. One committed suicide.