Brave Wireless Men.

Manawatu Times, Volume XL, Issue 13791, 21 January 1918, Page 3

Brave Wireless Men.

“SPARKS” WHICH RITCKED A GERMAN CAPTAIN.

How the ingenuity of a British wireless operator prevented a vessel from conveying coal to the German cruiser Leipzig was narrated in the Prize Court when the Attorney-General asked for the condemnation of the vessel. describing the vessel’s bistory as kaleidoscopic, Sir Frederick Smith showed that it had had various names and had flown at different times the German and Mexican flags. The chief owner, the Crown alleged, was at one time a German named Jobson, since believed to have met his death in a submarine which he commanded. In an affidavit Flight-Lieutenant Guy Duncan Smith, R.N.A.S., the wireless operator in the vessel when war broke out, described how he prevented the Leipzig from getting her coal. The vessel was then named Mazatlun and she flew the Mexican flag. When he learned that the coal was intended for the Leipzig he informed his father. In this way information was conveyed to the British Consul at San Francisco, Mr Smiths home. Fearing that he (Smith) might refuse the duties, a German wireless operator was taken on board. But Mr Smith put the apparatus out of gear and withheld messages he was told to send to the Leipzig. Captain Jebson told him to get in touch with the Leipzig, whose code call was D.A.N.S. As a Briton he refused, and the German operator was put on. But meanwhile Mr Smith had so altered the machinery that the spark would sound in the wireless room, but would not radiate from the aerial so as to be picked up by another ship. In fact, the wireless was always out of gear when the German used It. Some of the officers on board threatened to shoot Mr Smith and throw- him into the sea. They gave rim a code message fo send the Leipzig. He pretended feo send it and worked the key So that the spark could be seen and heard. Eventually the ship was captured off the Falkland Isles by H.M.S. Newcastle, the same vessel which by a curious coincidence had been told off to capture her in 1914.