SECRETS OF THE WAR

Taihape Daily Times, 13 February 1919, Page 6

SECRETS OF THE WAR

Throughout the course of the war it was evident that much interesting matter was being withheld from publication. Always we looked for sequels to matters of moment, but the details were held back. There have been many highly interesting episodes, the stories of which have yet to be told. Now that the war is over, we shall be “learning things,” One highly interesting hint was "given by the tableman the other day in the bald statement that the chief of the English Flying Corps had repeatedly done valuable secret service work in Germany throughout the course of the war on the western front. He had flown into the Fatherland on a captured German aeroplane, gathered his information as to the movements of the troops, and returned with his notes to the British Intelligence- Department. There axe other cases which have just come to ouf knowledge, and they all refer to highly educated and expert Britons' who entered upon their risky adventures from pure love of the game, inspired by a flue spirit of patriotism. There were, for instance, three clever engineers who Served the British Intelligence Department as artificers in the German Grand j Fled the Kiel Canal. And there was not a detail of the result of the Battle of Jutland that our Admiralty was not well informed upon so far as the Hun losses were concerned. It is not to he wondered at, therefore, that the German Grand Fleet declined to come out again. They had received in that one battle enough 'punishment to convince them that Britannia still ruled the waves. But the chief of all Britain’s volunteer secret service men was a gentleman . who before the war had retired into private life, after a very adventurous career as a scout. Throughout the war the leading city and provincial papers in England again nd again created agitations against the Government for not utilising the experienced service of this officer. “Why should he be allowed to rust in England, when be could he*"doing great war work?” was the reiterated complaints of the newspapers. As a matter of fact (it now comes to our knowledge that expert scout went repeatedly into Germany, where he had been educated lived there for weeks at a time es a Fritz, and after each adventure brought back valuable inside information for Britain and her Allies An important and interesting phase of the secret service in Europe that has been allowed to transpire within the armistice period is the part played by Britons as agents on behalf of the Allies. It has been rightly claimed that the Germans were past masters as spies. But it may' now be said that the British beat them in this as in other phases of warfare. It was Britons, indeed, who provided the Allies with the accurate intelligence from Germany. Britons adventured into the interior of the Fatherland and joined up with regiments of Fritzes. which enabled them to march through Germany, gaining valuable data all the way. One highly placed British officer, an export linguist, actually served as n lance-corporal in a crack Prussian regiment. Frenchmen and Italians were too obviously foreign in appearance *3O take mch risks ‘n Hunland. Fair cmnploxioned British officers, however —many of them educated in German schools and universities —easily passed as Fritz in the Fatherland, and thus we were sable to keep the Intelligence Department of the Allies fully informed from the inside The more we learn of the inside history of the war. the more credit becomes due to the British.