OUR SPIES IN TURKEY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17552, 23 April 1919, Page 7

OUR SPIES IN TURKEY

There are some quiet men in inconspicuous R.N.V.R. uniforms to be met .;n the Eastern Mediterranean just now who have odd tales to tell. They are members of the "5.5.," or British Secret Service which ran our spy organisation in Turkey. There was hardly a night during tha war that British"lntelligence agens were not put ashore on the coast of Asia Minor to make their way inland and bring back, information a&tmt Turkish dispositions. The coastline of Turkey is particularly well disposed for this work. It is sparsely populated, full of lonely creeks and inlets, and the greater part of the inhabitants of the littoral are Greeks ot Ottoman nationality. Moreover, within a few miles of the coast lie a series of Greek islands—lmbros, Tenedos, Mitylene, and Chios—which provided- useful bases for our spy organisation. In each of these islands lived one of our Intelligence officers usually in the R.N.V.R. or tfn the General List. It was his duty to enrol suitable agents. He found them chiefly among the Greek islanders, cunning and bold men who were full of hatred for the Turk and eagerly ready to work against him.

Nigh* after night the British Intelligence officer would set ou,t in his motorboafc to put a party of his spies ashore in some deserted spot on the Turkisn ©oast.

It was the journeys to bring off *;Jio spies which provided the chief thrills of th« work. Sometimes the Intelligence officer would find waiting for him, instead of his own men, a patrol of Turkish infantry which would greet his signal with a volley. That was when the landing of th« spies had become known and the Turks h~ad been put on the alert along the whole coast.

Perhaps the most romantic scheme hatched by the fertile brains of our "S.S." was that of kidnapping Envar Pasha w.hen he was oil his way to take a course of hot baths at Cheshine on the Asia Minor coast.

News of this intention of the Turkish Commander-in-Chief was brought ba-k by a Greek agent, and a panty of picked men under British officers was form, ed to land ill Turkey, make its way to a point on the lonely road along which Enver's motor-car must and there hold him up.and carry him off in most approved brigand style. Th« whole band was put into strict training at Mitylen^ in view of the 20-mile marrh to the coast which tbeV would have to perform with their valuable cantive. When they at last set out they were about 20 strong, all well armed and equipped with a Lewis gun. The spot they had chosen for their coup was on a lonely stretch of the road where it passed through a narrow valley whoqe sides were strewn with boulders. The kidnappers followed the model of a policy trap for motorists in their dispositions. One party was to be posted d<y°rn the rond at the entrance to the valley and the rest farther up. It was krmwn that the^Turkish Ccmmander-m-Chief would have at least two cars an i that he would probably himself be in the second one.

As soon as the car* were both' in the sorge accordingly the party farthest from the entrance were suddenly to roll rtown rock* from their hiding place in front of the leading car. The driver would, naturally pull un. and the rar would then receive a drum of bullets from the Lewis gnm. MeanwhiTe the party lower down the porge would rutm oitt and drag Enver from the second car, avoiding the use of their arms if possible, though Enver was known nlways ready to shoot and is a man of moit de«oeratf» courage. But after all these careful plans, ha'V been laid and the abducttion mrty weil exercised and drilled in their execution, the Turkish War T*ord at the Jasft moment changed his plans and g3ve up his proposed c"re at the Cheshmo hot baths.

Enver PafHui will probably never know, unless he reads these line°. how near he was in the soring of 191S to finishing the war in a British internment camp.