GUARDING MILITARY SECRETS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 47, 18 June 1915, Page 5

GUARDING MILITARY SECRETS.

LORD KITCHENER AND MARRIED MEN. In war time there are numerous important State secrete which must be prevented from leaking out, and they are guarded by various ingenious devices. For instance, in Government offices the writing on important documents is dried by means of roller blotters. These consist of revolving cylinders covered with blotting-paper, which are run over wet ink. The writing is impressed on the cylinder in a confused jumble, impossible to decipher, as would be the case if the ordinary flat blotter were used. In some cases black blotting-paper is used to dry official letters, as it is much safer than the pink or white variety. Important telegrams, if not in code, often have to be guarded from prying eyes by Government officials. For this purpose they use a simple little invention which consists of a telegraph form prepared with a perforated gummed edge. The message having been written, the form is folded over and the edges gummed down, as in the case of a letter-card, and its contents are hidden from the messenger who carries it to the telegraph office. Each battleship carries a book ot code signals which holds the meaning of the little flags which flutter at the masthead when ships communicate. The code-book is of immense importance, and strict precautions are taken against it falling into the hands of the enemy. Each volume, is heavily weighted with lead in the cover, so that in an emergency it can be thrown into the sea with the certainty that it will sink. The codebook is thrown overboard when a battleship is sinking or has been crippled by an enemy ship which is likely to dispatch a boarding party. In war time all Governments utilize cipher codes for communicating with their commanders in the field or with their Ambassadors in neutral countries. Such ciphers are cleverly worked out bv an official especially employed for the purpose. The object of official codes is to make them absolutely unintelligibly to the ordinary person, whilst they can read bv the initiated by means of a simple key that can be memorized. It occasionally happens that commanders in the field are obliged to commiin cate with one another by means of despatches written in plain language. In such cases elaborate precautions aretaken against the communications faH' n S mto , hands of the enemy. They are secreted in the sole of a despatch-rider s boot, sewn into his clothing, or, as was described in a recent letter from the Front, carried in the pneumatic tyie ot a motor-cyclist's machine. _ Lord Kitchener has a policy of guaidinii important military secrets by seldom entrusting them to any but unmarried men.' During the many years that he was busy perfecting his plans for his swoop upon the Mahdi lie did not have a married man upon his staff. If one ot his staff wished to get married helhad to be transferred elsewhere, in case h should not prove capable of keeping military secrets from his wife.