BRAVE WIRELESS MAN

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 97, 17 January 1918, Page 5

BRAVE WIRELESS MAN

"SPARKS" WHICH TRICKED 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 history as kaleidoscopic, £>ir Frederick Smith showed that it had had various mimes and had flown at different times the German and Mexican flags. The chief owner, tho Crown alleged, was at one time a German named Jebson, since belieral to have met his death in a submarine which ho 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 tho Leipzig from getting her coal. The vessel was then named Mazatlan and she flew tho Mexican.flag. When he learned that the coal was intended for the Leipzig he informed his father. In this way information was convoyed to tho British Consul at San Francisco, Mr. Smith's home. Fearing that ho (Smith) might refuse tho duties, a German wireless operator was taken on hoard. But Mr. Smith put the apparatus out of gear and withhold messages he was told to send to the Leipzig. Captain Jebson told him to get into touch with the Leipzig, whose code call was D.A.N.S. As a Briton ho refused, and the German operator was put on. But meanwhile Mr. .Smith so altered tho machinery that the spark would sound in the wireless room, hut would not radiate from the aerial so as to be picked up by another ship. In fact, the wireless was always out of pear when the German used it. Some of the officers on hoard threatened,to shoot Mr. Smith and throw him into the sea. They gave him a code message to send the Leipzic He pretended to send it and worked the key so that the spark could bo scon and hen.H. F.ventunllv the ship was eap(nred off the Falkland Isles hv H.M.S Newcastle, tho same vessel whiVh bv a curious coincidence had beeu told off to capture her in 1914.