Читать книгу Secrets of German Espionage - Bernard Newman - Страница 10

I have referred to the activities of air-line pilots on espionage work. One of them had the shock of his life during the summer of 1939.

It was noticed that this pilot, who worked regularly on a commercial route from Germany to Croydon, had a habit of deviating from the direct route. Every time he left Croydon he would veer to the north, would not turn off to his true course until he sighted the Thames. In his perambulations he passed continually over an area where the presence of a potential enemy was, to say the least, inconvenient.

The British airport officials gave him a polite hint, but he took no notice: then one of the directors of the British air-lines wrote to his opposite number in Germany. Fulsome apologies were returned—but within a week or two the German pilot was off his course again.

The British authorities were about to suggest that he should be blacklisted and not allowed to fly to England. At this stage, however, the counter-espionage service took up the case, collaborating with military officers. The area was scheduled as prohibited to aircraft—yet still on occasion the German flew over it. “Very well,” argued the military authorities, “he has been told that the area is dangerous; and if he runs into danger, that is his look-out. We have a new anti-aircraft shell; we have tried it out against Queen Bee aeroplanes, but it would be nice to see its effect on a live target. If we happen to be experimenting with this shell the next time he flies over, then he can’t blame us.”

By a strange “coincidence,” the next time the German flew over the prohibited area the anti-aircraft batteries were experimenting with this particular shell. One exploded several hundred feet below his machine, but so violent was the concussion that the aeroplane was turned completely upside down, and only by consummate airmanship did the pilot bring it to earth in a forced landing. There was no need to give him further warning—he had accepted the kind of argument which Germans well understand.

Some years ago I was in Andorra, the tiny pseudo-republic in the Pyrenees, on the occasion of the opening of the new road across the little country from north to south. My host remarked casually:

“It is a very peculiar thing. We always used to have plenty of visitors to our mountains from England and America, but very seldom from Germany. But now, in my little hotel alone, I have entertained three German press photographers within the last fortnight. Why should Germany so suddenly become interested in Andorra?”

The answer was easy. As a holiday resort Andorra was of no interest whatsoever to Germany. But there are only half a dozen roads over the Pyrenees, so the strategic importance of a seventh was obvious. In view of subsequent events in Spain my suspicions have been proved legitimate. Had events moved as Hitler wished, these fully documented photographic records of the new Andorran highway would have been of inestimable value to the German Command.