The Spy Net (27 page)

What was I going to do? I had no plans. Events had been moving rapidly in my life. I had left Berlin. My mission in Russia had proved a successful failure. I had been cut adrift from Yvonne.

As I sat in my room in the Hôtel Daunou in Paris, I looked back over the last ten years of my life. I could only see suffering; the wounded dying of tetanus in the hospital at St Nazaire; dying comrades as they were shot down next to me; the dead, as I crawled among them on the slopes of Notre Dame de Lorette; the suffering of the French and Belgian people in the occupied territories during the war; agents shot or imprisoned for espionage; the look of despair on the faces of the German deserters; Russian refugees, deprived of their families, their homes, and all their worldly possessions; millions of half-starved people in Germany and Russia. It was a ghastly picture of man’s inhumanity to man.

As I looked forward, I could see the dance going on: the Central Powers striving to hold their heads up under the burden of the Versailles and other treaties, and hoping to get back something of
what they had lost; France and the countries of the Little Entente, in a circle around them, grimly determined to hold on to what they had got, and still carrying on a war in peacetime, grinding down their hereditary enemies by relentless political and economic pressure, and by unceasing propaganda; Italy, not satisfied with her share, and trying to grasp an additional portion; Russia, writhing under new masters, even more stern than those she had thrown off; and England alone trying to get on with business as usual, and striving to wipe out the scars of war, yet anxiously attempting to maintain her traditional policy of holding the balance of power.

There was also my career, that objective which had dragged me on relentlessly ever since I was a boy, but which had grown somewhat dimmed during the last years. It was still there beckoning me on, as I caught glimpses of it in the mist of the life which had enveloped me.

Now it seemed to shine out brightly. ‘Why not give it all up?’ it whispered to me. ‘Go home to South Africa to your own people.’ I weighed what I had achieved in Europe during the four years since my demobilisation, but in the maze of my activities I could see no promise of a definite career there.

And so I listened. The rolling veldt called to me once more, and so did my grand old pioneer father. I knew a great deal about government; I had gained unique experience of it in many lands; there were my university qualifications; I was sure I could get into one of the ministries. I would dedicate the rest of my life to my native land.

Having made my decision, hope seized me anew; I packed my bag, and within twenty-four hours I was on board the
Armadale
Castle
, steaming past the Isle of Wight, en route for South Africa.

A
FTER LEAVING EUROPE
I spent several years in South Africa, my native land, before journeying to the United States in 1927.

Because of my war experience in the British secret service, and the unique opportunities I had had of learning the methods and psychology of the German secret service, I was invited to assist the American claimants in their investigations in connection with the Black Tom and Kingsland cases. These were the two most spectacular and devastating acts of sabotage known
to history, and the only ones, with the exception of an explosion in Tacoma harbour, in which any attempt has been made to prove German complicity, and to collect damages.

In the course of my investigations I got to know intimately many of the principal characters involved, and have obtained from them their personal stories. In addition, the voluminous records of these cases, consisting of exhibits, briefs, oral arguments before the Mixed Claims Commission, and reports of the various American investigators have been at my disposal.

Elsewhere I have written in detail about the evidence. Here I merely present to the reader the salient features of the two cases. It is not for me to indict Germany. Many arguments can be advanced in support of her contention that, while the United States was technically neutral during the neutrality period, actually she was affording material and financial aid to Germany's enemies and that Germany was justified, therefore, in the use of sabotage to impede the flow of munitions and supplies to the Allies. In wartime every nation adopts the most expedient methods to guard its vital interests, and American unpreparedness in the field of counter-espionage was an open invitation to Germany to conduct a campaign of sabotage in the United States.

At 2 a.m. on the night of 30 July 1916, New York City was rocked by the greatest explosion in her history. Over 2,000,000 lbs of munitions stored on Black Tom Island in New York harbour blew up in a series of explosions. Two of the blasts were distinctly heard in Camden and Philadelphia, nearly 100 miles away. The tremendous concussion shattered practically every window in Jersey City, and in Manhattan and Brooklyn thousands of heavy plate-glass windows fell from office buildings
and skyscrapers into the streets. Buildings trembled; some of the inhabitants were thrown from their beds; and the population, panic-stricken, emptied itself out into the streets.

For hours the sky was lit up by the fierce fire which raged on Black Tom Island; and for three hours a steady stream of high explosives and shrapnel shells were hurled from the conflagration as they exploded, some of them landing as far off as Governors Island. Buildings on Ellis Island were wrecked, and all immigrants there had to be evacuated. During these terrifying hours Black Tom and its vicinity might well have been part of the Western Front during a gigantic battle. The residents of Greater New York and northern New Jersey were shaken badly by the blast, but fortunately the terminal was just far enough away to prevent the metropolitan area's being razed.

To follow intelligently the tragic events which happened on that night, it is necessary to understand the layout of the terminal and also the conditions which prevailed there at the time of the explosion.

Black Tom is a promontory, nearly 1 mile long, which juts out into the Upper Bay from the New Jersey shore, about opposite the Statue of Liberty. It was originally an island, but at the time of the explosion was joined to the shore by a fill about 150 ft wide.

On Black Tom the Lehigh Valley Railroad company had built large warehouses, numerous piers, and a network of tracks. Within a short time after the commencement of the war, Black Tom became the most important point in America for the transfer of munitions and supplies to Allied vessels. Loaded freight cars were run into the northern part of the terminal, and from
there the munitions were loaded into barges hired by the consignees and tied up at the adjoining piers.

As it was not always possible for the representatives of the Allied governments to determine beforehand the exact time steamers would be ready to receive the loads of ammunition, it was quite usual for the munitions cars to be kept there for several days, sometimes a week, waiting to be unloaded. Thus, on the night of the explosion there were thirty-four carloads of munitions on Black Tom, consisting of eleven cars of high explosives, seventeen of shells, three of nitro-cellulose, one of TNT, and two of combination fuses; in all a total of approximately 2,123,000 lbs of explosives.

At the north pier, bordering on the tracks, ten barges were tied up, most of them loaded with explosives which they had taken on at other terminals and piers in New York harbour. They had tied up at Black Tom, some to take on additional explosives, others to stay there during the night and over the following Sunday until their loads could be shifted to steamers. One of these barges, the
Johnson
17, was loaded with 100,000 lbs of TNT and 417 cases of detonating fuses – a veritable floating bomb.

During July 1916 Black Tom terminal was guarded at night by six watchmen provided by the Lehigh Valley Railroad company, and by private detectives furnished by the Dougherty Detective Agency and paid for by the Allied governments, owners of the munitions. These men went on duty at 5 p.m. and remained until 6 a.m.

There was no gate on the tongue of land connecting Black Tom to the mainland; consequently it was an easy matter for a person to reach the terminal; and, unless of a suspicious
appearance, he would not have been stopped by the guards as this passageway was also commonly used by the barge men whose boats were tied up at the pier. Furthermore, the terminal was in an isolated spot and unlighted, thus making it difficult to see a person prowling about. In addition anyone could reach it at night in a boat with little danger of being observed.

On Saturday evening, 29 July, at 5 p.m., all work stopped on Black Tom; the workmen departed for their usual Sunday holiday; and all locomotive engines were sent to the mainland. The terminal was a dead yard.

A gentle wind was blowing from the south-west. The night was quiet, and the guards placidly made their periodical rounds.

At 12.45 a.m. a fire was suddenly noticed in one of the munitions cars. At the first sight of it the guards raised the fire alarm and fled in a panic.

Five independent witnesses on Black Tom Island at the time made affidavits that the fire started inside the car and that the fire burned for about twenty minutes before the first explosion. A witness on Bedloe's Island, who had a view of the pier as well, later stated that another fire appeared almost simultaneously in a barge about 300 yards away, presumably the
Johnson
17.

At 2 a.m. the first explosion occurred, and this was followed by a second terrific blast at 2.40. In the confusion no one was able to tell whether the barge or the munitions near the car blew up first. However this fact is established: the
Johnson
17 was 325 feet away from the pier when it exploded. This was determined by the crater which soundings of the river-bed disclosed. The depth of the river at that point was found to be 21 ft; whereas a geodetic survey made a few days before the explosion had
established a depth of 7 ft at the same spot. How the barge drifted so far away from the pier is not known. Only Johnson, the captain of the barge and the only man on board at the time, could tell whether its mooring had been burned away, or whether he had cast it loose. Both he and his barge had disappeared, however. Three months later his body drifted up on Bedloe's Island.

Another huge crater was found at a spot near where the burning car had stood. Thus it appeared that the two major explosions had been caused by the detonation of the munitions near the car and on the barge, the two places where the fires had been observed.

The two explosions and the conflagration which broke out destroyed the entire Black Tom terminal together with all the munitions and rolling stock which happened to be there that night. The damage was estimated at $14,000,000, and three men and a child were killed. These included Leyden, one of the night watchmen, and a policeman named James Doherty.

The immediate outcome of the Black Tom disaster was that several suits were filed against the Lehigh Valley Railroad company by the Russian government, which owned most of the munitions that had exploded, and by the property owners in the neighbourhood. The plaintiffs maintained that the railroad had been negligent in not providing better protection for the property in view of the fact that it was known that German sabotage agents were at work in this country.

The Lehigh Valley based its defence on the theory that the explosions had been caused by spontaneous combustion, a defence which seemed the most expedient at the time, but one which rose to plague it later; for this was the very defence which
the Germans raised when, after the war, the railroad and other American claimants in the Black Tom case filed their claims against Germany for damages with the Mixed Claims Commission. At these early trials, however, experts proved to the satisfaction of the jury that spontaneous combustion was impossible. It was established that the smokeless powder contained in the shells was manufactured in accordance with the specifications of the United States Army and Navy; that it was all new powder, treated with a stabiliser known as diphenylamine which prevented spontaneous combustion. Dr Free, United States government expert, testified that he had examined nearly 2,000,000,000 lbs of powder manufactured in this way and that it was inconceivable that spontaneous combustion could have occurred. It was further shown that even untreated smokeless powder would require a temperature of 356° Fahrenheit before it would ignite.

As regards TNT, experts testified that it was impossible for it to ignite spontaneously. Finally, it was pointed out that if the shells had gone off by spontaneous combustion, the guards would not have seen flames destroying the freight car for eighteen minutes before the first explosion at 2 a.m. Besides all this there was evidence to show that before either of the explosions occurred another fire had broken out almost simultaneously with the first at a point nearly 300 yards away from the car – the distance between it and the barge
Johnson
17. This fact alone indicated that the origin of the explosions was incendiary. In most of these cases the jury found that the Lehigh Valley Railroad company had been negligent in not having sufficient guards to protect the property.

But there were other developments. The local police were busily searching for leads. A Mrs Chapman, a resident of Bayonne, New Jersey, who since her childhood had known Captain John J. Rigney, of the Bayonne police department reported to him her suspicions that a cousin, Michael Kristoff, was responsible for the destruction of Black Tom. She related that Kristoff, who had formerly lodged with her and at the time lodged with her mother, Mrs Anna Rushnak, at 76 East 25th Street, Bayonne, did not return home until four o'clock in the morning of the night of the explosion. Hearing him pace the floor, her mother went to his room. She found him in a state of great excitement and near nervous prostration. To her anxious query as to what had happened, the only reply she could get out of him was ‘What I do! What I do!' This he kept repeating over and over again as he ran his hands through his hair.

According to Captain Rigney, Mrs Chapman also told him that ‘Kristoff had been in the habit of going away from time to time and that everywhere he went there was an explosion.' She referred to some place in Columbus, Ohio, where he had gone and said that whenever he came back from any of these trips he always had plenty of money. She also said that she had seen maps and charts in Kristoff's possession while he had been staying with her at her house at 114 Neptune Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey.

The result was that after shadowing Kristoff for some time, Captain Rigney arrested him near Mrs Rushnak's home on 31 August 1916 and turned him over to Lieutenant Peter Green of the Jersey City police department.

All that was known about Kristoff was that he was born in
1893, in Presov, then in the Slovak region of Hungary, now a part of Czechoslovakia, and had been given the surname of Michael. When he was six years old his parents immigrated to the United States, where his mother had several members of her family living. By 1916 he had grown into a tall, slimly built young man, with light reddish hair, pale blue eyes, fair complexion, and a weak receding chin. For some months prior to July he had been working for the Tidewater Oil Company at Bayonne, New Jersey, close to Black Tom.

When examined by the Bayonne Police authorities, his story ran substantially as follows: on 3 January 1916 he was sitting in the waiting-room of the Pennsylvania railroad station, 33rd Street, New York City, when he was accosted by a man who asked him the time and then inquired where he was going. Kristoff informed him that he was waiting for a train to go to Cambridge, Ohio, where he intended to visit his sister. This man, who then gave his name as Graentnor, offered him a job at $20 per week, which he accepted. He went with Graentnor to the Hotel York, and on the next day they started off on a series of travels which took them in turn to Philadelphia, Bridgeport, Cleveland, Akron, Columbus, Chicago, Kansas City, St Louis, and finally back to New York. After arranging to meet him in the lobby of the Hotel McAlpin Graentnor disappeared, and he never saw him again. Kristoff stated that during these journeys his job was to carry Graentnor's two suitcases, which contained blueprints of bridges and factories, also money and books. He had no idea whom Graentnor saw in these towns, but ventured an opinion that the plans were ‘to show people how to build bridges and houses and factories'.

His whole story sounded so unintelligible to the police authorities that they got the impression Kristoff was half demented; and, therefore, they called in a specialist to examine him. It was finally decided that he was not altogether sane, but not dangerously insane. Whereupon, in spite of the fact he had furnished several false alibis as to where he had been on the night of the explosion and had admitted working for the Eagle Oil Works, adjacent to Black Tom, and not returning for his pay after the explosion, he was released on 25 September 1916 after promising to look for Graentnor.