U.S. JOURNALIST

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 123, 14 February 1940, Page 6

U.S. JOURNALIST

NEARLY SHOT AS SPY Kenneth Brown Coll ins, ; of Rockville Centre, N.Y., correspondent for the Newspaper Publishers' Association, turned up in Berlin and described experiences in Russion prisons and narrow escapes from being shot as a spy (says a correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor). Mr Collins said he had been on an assignment to look at the Ger-man-Soviet Russian frontier. "I inadvertently walked across into Russian territory near Prostken in East Prussia," he said. "Two seconds later three Russian soldiers sprang from concealment behind a partially demolished house and rammed their bayonets into my ribs." Unable to speak Russian, Mr Collins could not make himself understood. The Russians thought lie was a spy, he said, and three times within 20 minutes they made him si and against a Avail while. they loaded their rifles apparently with the intention of shooting him. Each time, Mr Collins said, he waved his American jjassport and shouted "Amerieansky correspondent.'* "An officer came along and compromised by throwing'me into the basement of a cell with nine Polls:! prisoners," he continued. The next day, Mr Collins said, he was compelled to walk 20 miles through a downpour with a group of Polish prisoners who had become reconciled to being executed. At Racgrod on the frontier lie. "succeeded in making an officer understand who I was but I was kept Prisoner just the same." During the night: he was moved again, he said, this time to Augustow, and another basement prison. A German-speaking Russian who finally acted as interpreter relieved Mr Collins of his complications. After his identity was straightened out, Mr Collins said, the Russians were "so sorry for what they had done they installed me in a room in the officers' club. The next day ficy escorted me back to the German frontier."