HEROISM OF BELGIANS.

Taihape Daily Times, 14 June 1919, Page 5

HEROISM OF BELGIANS.

SECRET SERVICE WORK. I UNDAUNTED EVEN IN DEATH. l A well-deserved tribute to the‘ courage and-patriotic heroism, worthy of that shown by Belgians on the battlefield, which has beendisplayed throughout the War by "humble Bel—' gian civilians employed in the dangerous work of the Military Intelligence} Service was paid in the Belgian Chanl—| ber by M_ Buyl, Deputy for Ostendl and Alderman of Ixelles, who was in! charge. His agents were employed ini watching the movements of German; troops, and in conveying the informa—l tion obtained Yhrough the electrified’ and barbed wire of the frontier to a; suitable quarter in Holland. . ' ‘Among them was 9; young coach‘ buildel".s Workman named Joppartw who, having been denounced by a] woman, was imprisoned at"’Glient inf February 1915, and after eight months; of torment was shot at Col6§ile, re-‘ fusing to the last to reveal a single} name of his chiefs or colleagues, Hisg last letter to his mother ‘is imhuedi with the finest spirit of self-sacrifice.’ M. Buyl’s assistant, Lenoir, betrayed‘ by, the same woman, was arrested[ shortly after Joppart. He also refused, even while standing against a tree! with his open coffin beside him, to! save his own life by deno‘l‘i‘ncing hisi “accomplices,” and was shot c-.rying,[ “Shoot me! Long live Belgium! The Allies for ever! Long live the Kingfl’;

, A restaurant Waiter named Marchal suffered nearly four years’ imprisonment in Germany and France (where, after escaping on a grolllldleSS'Cllal'ge of having denounced Lenoir), when he might at any time have got free by mentioning the nafiie of M_ Buy}. A mannamed Dustin, over sixty years of age, used to act as courier to Holland "with copies of German secret documents soldered between the double walls of -.1 small eoffee~pot. He‘ was eventually arersted on suspic'io‘n,‘*and sent -to Germany, but the Gernians never discovered aiiytlfingifroni him. ‘ At last, however, the Geermansu rnade a haul and arre'steil"32"persons. In September, 1916, 17 of them were sentenced to death, but only four were shot, the remainder “receiving sentnes of hard labour vai-yin',§'from life, to 15 years. Of those exeguted; Dubois, a railway watchman, flatly refused all suggestions that he should give away the name of his chief.. Another, Kus—tcrs, acting Burgomastcr of Réckheim, was tortured for weeks before he was shot, but c(>llfessed nothing‘. One of his sisters had been sentenced to hard labour for life. and another to 15 years; his father, who had one son at the front and another a prisoner in Germany died of grief.’