Spying

The O.S.S.
(Collier’s Magazine, 1945)

This was more than likely the very first mainstream magazine article to address the vital contributions that the Office of Strategic Service made in beating the Axis powers. It appeared on the newsstands just about six weeks after the end of the Second World War and lists various key operations and triumphs that had heretofore been secret.


In 1940 OSS chief Donovan wrote an article about the German-American Bund, Click here to read it.

Japanese Spies on the West-Coast
(Ken Magazine, 1939)

A 1939 magazine article that reported on the assorted activities of Japanese spies operating around the Tijuana/San Diego region (their presence was well-documented by the Mexican military in addition to the F.B.I.).


A year and a half before the Pearl Harbor attack, Naval Intelligence sold a Japanese agent some bogus plans of the naval installation – more about this can be read here.

Japanese Spies and Their Many Troubles
(PM Tabloid, 1940)

From the 1940 editorial pages of PM came this column by Henry Paynter (1899 – 1960) who wrote amusingly about the many frustrations facing Japanese spies in North America.

The identity of almost every Japanese spy or saboteur has been known to U.S. authorities. Every instruction they have received or sent has been decoded…


At the height of their irritation, they confided in the German Consul-General stationed in San Francisco – only to learn after the war that he was an FBI informant (you can read about him here).

Britain Executes Two Spies
(PM Tabloid, 1941)

They were landed off the Branffshire coast by a German seaplane and rowed ashore in a rubber boat in darkness.
Both were arrested a few hours later. Both had pistols, large sums of British currency, food and radio transmitting and receiving apparatus.

All the Pretty German Spies
(Coronet Magazine, 1943)

Siegrid von Laffert, Edit von Coler and the exotic dancer LaJana had four things in common: they were all carbon-based life forms, they were all all German women, they were all beautiful and they were all Nazis spies:

These women spies are called the ‘Blonde Battalions’. Chosen for their physical attractiveness, they are usually between 18 and 22 years of age. Members of the ‘Blonde Battalion’ are admitted to the Gestapo school in Altona, near Hamburg and after they are sent out to perform their work as efficient machines, with rigid discipline and precision…


From Amazon:
Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spiesstyle=border:none

Friend of the Allies
(The American Magazine, 1940)

Colonel William J. Donovan and Edgar Mower, writing of fifth-column activities at the direction of Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy, charged Fritz Wiedemann [as having been] praised by Hitler for helping to spike American legislation to aid the Allies in 1939.


Numerous nasty remarks were quoted in the attached article concerning the German Consul General in San Francisco, Fritz Wiedemann (1891 – 1970), but the journalist who penned the article could not possibly know that Wiedemann was at that time spilling his guts to the FBI. Having served under Hitler for some time as adjutant, by 1940 Wiedemann had denounced his devotion to the Nazi Party and told Hoover all that he Knew about Hitler and what the world could expect from the man.


In 1940, Japanese spies made the mistake of confiding in Wiedemann – more about this can be read here.

Capturing The Largest Nazi Spy Ring
(Newsweek Magazine, 1941)

Following swiftly on the smashing of a spy ring in this country, a Federal grand jury in Brooklyn, N.Y., last week leveled a unique indictment at the government of Nazi Germany: it baldly accused the Third Reich of conducting, in ten countries stretching from Peru to China, a worldwide espionage plot directed against the United States.


J. Edgar Hoover tells how this ring was broken up in this 1951 article…

Counter-Espionage
(Coronet Magazine, 1951)

This is the story of Harry Sawyer (real name William G. Sebold), a German immigrant to American shores. On a return trip to Germany to visit family in 1939, Sawyer was very reluctantly forced into service as a spy for the German SD (Sicherheitsdienst), the intelligence arm of Himmler’s SS. Sawyer was schooled briefly in the ways of spying, told what was expected of him and then let loose to set sail home.


Upon his return, Sawyer quickly explained his problem to J. Edgar Hoover, who masterfully turned the situation to his advantage, an advantage that led to the capture of 32 Nazi spies.


Click here to read about Lucy – Stalin’s top spy during the Second World War.

Finding Japanese Spies
(The American Magazine, 1942)

Here is an interesting article by an American counter-espionage agent who tells several stories about the various Japanese spies he had encountered during the early months of the war. He wrote of his his frustrations with the civil liberty laws that were in place to protect both citizen and alien alike.


It was Mexican president Manuel Avila Camacho who chased the spies out of his nation – click here to read about it…

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