Read Online The Air-Raid Warden Was a Spy: And Other Tales From Home-Front America in World War II by William B. Breuer - Free Book Online
Authors: William B. Breuer
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head bobbing with each step.
Mueller carried a camera on spy jaunts, and even though he spoke with a thick Teutonic accent, guards and attendants at war production plants and airfields often went out of their way to help the “harmless old man” get the photographs he sought.
Mueller’s true allegiance was to Nazi-occupied Austria, to which he hoped to return as a national hero. Instead he would spend the next fifteen years in a U.S. prison.
Twenty-one-year-old Frederick Edward Schlosser had initially been a reluctant spy. Tall and blond, he had been a pal of Hans Pagel and was engaged to Pagel’s sister.
At first Schlosser had resisted Pagel’s incessant pleas to become a spy, but he finally consented. Ludwig put the youth to work trekking up and down New York City piers culling shipping information. Soon the newcomer was caught up in the excitement, as he termed it, and he even stole a piece of a new antiaircraft gun from a factory where he worked. He was given twelve years internment.
Carl Herman Schroetter refused to testify against his confederates and was sentenced to ten years. He had an ideal “cover”—skipper of a charter boat, Echo of the Past, based in Miami. Swiss-born Schroetter, who had two sisters living in Germany, cruised the Atlantic coast of Florida while shepherding paid tourists and mailed to Ludwig in New York City a stream of coded messages on ship movements.
A few days after Schroetter entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, he hanged himself with a sheet in his cell. Presumably he had anguished over the probable fate of his two sisters at the hands of the Gestapo in Germany. 6
A Debacle in Manhattan
P IER 88 ON THE NEW YORK CITY WATERFRONT was a beehive of activity in early 1942. Tied up there was the French luxury liner Normandie, which had been in the port in September 1939 when France and England declared war on Nazi Germany and was taken over by the U.S. Navy after France fell in mid-1940. It was being converted to a troop transport.
There was enormous urgency to the renovation task. It was to be finished by February 28, after which the ship would sail to Boston. There ten thousand soldiers would climb aboard, along with weapons and equipment, before sailing into the Atlantic Ocean under sealed orders.
Because of the rush, only cursory checks had been made on the backgrounds of the civilian workers. Likewise, no background investigations were conducted for the hundreds of men who brought building materials and furnishings on board.
On the afternoon of February 9, less than three weeks before the Normandie was to sail for Europe, fire broke out on the gray-painted ship. Flames began whipping rapidly through corridors, and in an hour the liner was an inferno. New York City firemen later would state that the heat was the most intense that they had experienced.
As the flames spread, some three thousand civilian workers, crewmen, and others began scrambling over the sides of the ship or dashing down gangplanks. Hardly had the last man escaped, at 2:32 P . M ., than the doomed liner, listing heavily from tons of water poured into her by New York City fireboats, rolled onto her side and lay still in the Hudson’s gray ice.
At the time when every ship was vital to the war effort, the United States had lost its largest transport. Frank Trentascosta was killed when he received a fractured skill in a fall down a ladder. Some two hundred and fifty others suffered burns, cuts, bruises, or lung irritations.
A Debacle in Manhattan 41
Converted French ocean liner Normandie ablaze under mysterious circumstances in New York harbor. (U.S. Navy)
Hardly had the Normandie capsized than several groups launched investigations to pinpoint the blame. A congressional Naval Affairs subcommittee concluded that “the cause of the fire [is] directly attributable to carelessness by [civilian workers].”
Millions of Americans refused to agree. They felt that they knew the real culprits—German
Mueller carried a camera on spy jaunts, and even though he spoke with a thick Teutonic accent, guards and attendants at war production plants and airfields often went out of their way to help the “harmless old man” get the photographs he sought.
Mueller’s true allegiance was to Nazi-occupied Austria, to which he hoped to return as a national hero. Instead he would spend the next fifteen years in a U.S. prison.
Twenty-one-year-old Frederick Edward Schlosser had initially been a reluctant spy. Tall and blond, he had been a pal of Hans Pagel and was engaged to Pagel’s sister.
At first Schlosser had resisted Pagel’s incessant pleas to become a spy, but he finally consented. Ludwig put the youth to work trekking up and down New York City piers culling shipping information. Soon the newcomer was caught up in the excitement, as he termed it, and he even stole a piece of a new antiaircraft gun from a factory where he worked. He was given twelve years internment.
Carl Herman Schroetter refused to testify against his confederates and was sentenced to ten years. He had an ideal “cover”—skipper of a charter boat, Echo of the Past, based in Miami. Swiss-born Schroetter, who had two sisters living in Germany, cruised the Atlantic coast of Florida while shepherding paid tourists and mailed to Ludwig in New York City a stream of coded messages on ship movements.
A few days after Schroetter entered the federal penitentiary in Atlanta, he hanged himself with a sheet in his cell. Presumably he had anguished over the probable fate of his two sisters at the hands of the Gestapo in Germany. 6
A Debacle in Manhattan
P IER 88 ON THE NEW YORK CITY WATERFRONT was a beehive of activity in early 1942. Tied up there was the French luxury liner Normandie, which had been in the port in September 1939 when France and England declared war on Nazi Germany and was taken over by the U.S. Navy after France fell in mid-1940. It was being converted to a troop transport.
There was enormous urgency to the renovation task. It was to be finished by February 28, after which the ship would sail to Boston. There ten thousand soldiers would climb aboard, along with weapons and equipment, before sailing into the Atlantic Ocean under sealed orders.
Because of the rush, only cursory checks had been made on the backgrounds of the civilian workers. Likewise, no background investigations were conducted for the hundreds of men who brought building materials and furnishings on board.
On the afternoon of February 9, less than three weeks before the Normandie was to sail for Europe, fire broke out on the gray-painted ship. Flames began whipping rapidly through corridors, and in an hour the liner was an inferno. New York City firemen later would state that the heat was the most intense that they had experienced.
As the flames spread, some three thousand civilian workers, crewmen, and others began scrambling over the sides of the ship or dashing down gangplanks. Hardly had the last man escaped, at 2:32 P . M ., than the doomed liner, listing heavily from tons of water poured into her by New York City fireboats, rolled onto her side and lay still in the Hudson’s gray ice.
At the time when every ship was vital to the war effort, the United States had lost its largest transport. Frank Trentascosta was killed when he received a fractured skill in a fall down a ladder. Some two hundred and fifty others suffered burns, cuts, bruises, or lung irritations.
A Debacle in Manhattan 41
Converted French ocean liner Normandie ablaze under mysterious circumstances in New York harbor. (U.S. Navy)
Hardly had the Normandie capsized than several groups launched investigations to pinpoint the blame. A congressional Naval Affairs subcommittee concluded that “the cause of the fire [is] directly attributable to carelessness by [civilian workers].”
Millions of Americans refused to agree. They felt that they knew the real culprits—German
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