SECRET SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1941, Page 6

SECRET SERVICE

SOLDIER OF FORTUNE’S EXPLOITS ENDS IN CLASH WITH GESTAPO. “A BRAVE & CURIOUS MAN.” They called Percy William Olaf de Wet “a brave and curious man” before they sentenced him to death in the German People’s Court for spying for the French Secret Service, writes Graham Stanford' in the “Daily Mail," London. Percy de Wet would enjoy that description. I can imagine his lips curling sardonically as he heard the words. For no soldier of fortune that ever left England lived a more lurid, fantastic life than this tall, handsome “devil-may-care.” Ho was known in every capital in Europe. He was known in the world’s strange places and among the world’s strange people. He sought adventure and he always found it. Now his latest and greatest adventure has ended in disaster. But I doubt whether de Wet cares much, for he had the fatalism of all soldiers of fortune. It is reported that he accepted the verdict calmly, and de Wet’s strange friends will be glad of that. Where all the trouble was, there was de Wet—a rather swaggering figure with a flowing moustache and a black shade over one eye. No one ever knew quite what he was doing. But he always lived well, was always giving parties, and telling the most extraordinary stories of his adventures. Just after the Munich Agreement in 1938 de Wet was in Prague. Those were feverish days in Central Europe. Spies clustered around every bar. and no one knew whether to trust his neighbour. Prague quickly learned of de Wet’s presence. He took a suite of rooms, gave champagne parties, which were attended by beautiful women and a strange group of men. Some say that the Gestapo investigated the activities of de Wet, but came to the conclusion that he was just another "crazy Englishman.”

He got to know a beautiful Russian woman. It is reported that he married her, and that she was arrested as his accomplice when the Gestapo got on his trail. It is also reported that she afterwards committed suicide. He had a fine time in Abyssinia. He went to Addis Ababa to fly for the Emperor—he and that world-famous figure Herbert Fauntleroy Julian ("The Black Eagle of Harlem’’), who was a strapping African Negro who enjoyed putting seven sorts of fear into the hearts of the natives. The Germans say that de Wet had to leave Abyssinia because he fought a duel. I cannot substantiate that story, but I can well imagine that it is true, for de Wet ran into "scrapes" wherever he went. He was in Spain, too, along with the rest of that brave and laughing crowd of men who will follow a fight to the ends of the earth. He flew against Franco. He used to say that he lost an eye in an air fight. Later he wrote a book about his adventures, called “Cardboard Crucifix." The Germans described de Wet as “intelligent, unafraid, and talented." He was all of those things. He was. in fact, one of the old-time soldiers of fortune who, throughout history, have left Britain to seek adventures.