Pamela Jo
Full Member
- Oct 26, 2021
Here's a whole novel condensed into a paragraph or 2.
NAZI SPY LANDED NEAR BALLYCULLANE
Günther Schütz was to be dropped by parachute over County Kildare in 1941 carrying a large amount of cash, a transmitter, a microscope and a top secret coding system. Having taken off from Amsterdam, his plane encountered severe gunfire over England. It lost altitude and he mistakenly parachuted into County Wexford in darkness. He wandered aimlessly until he happened upon a signpost indicating ’New Ross 10 miles’. He was 60 miles south of his intended landing zone.
Walking towards Wexford town, he was soon arrested at Poulpeasty. Schütz was fed Guinness and sandwiches in Rochford’s pub in Camaross until the gardaí from Wexford arrived. He was removed to Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin, where he was questioned by the wily Dr Richard Hayes, a great linguist who headed up the cryptography unit of the Irish Defence Forces. Hayes asked Schütz why he was carrying a microscope and he replied that he was a keen stamp collector. ‘G’way you didn’t bring that all the way from Germany to examine stamps’, suggested Hayes.
Schütz had a number of newspaper clippings tucked into his pocket book. When Richard Hayes used the microscope to examine one of the articles at 400 times magnification he was amazed to discover messages hidden in microdots within the letter ‘O’s in the text. Within 10 days Hayes had found and translated thirty pages of the German agent’s instructions and a list of contacts in Ireland.
Günther Schütz was held for the next five years in various prisons including Mountjoy, from where he once escaped dressed in women’s clothing. He was harboured for a time in the home of Cathal Brugha’s widow. He was released in 1946 and married an Irish nurse in Dublin the following year. The couple moved to war-torn Hamburg but returned to Ireland in the 1960s and ran the Clogga Bay Hotel in Arklow.
NAZI SPY LANDED NEAR BALLYCULLANE
Günther Schütz was to be dropped by parachute over County Kildare in 1941 carrying a large amount of cash, a transmitter, a microscope and a top secret coding system. Having taken off from Amsterdam, his plane encountered severe gunfire over England. It lost altitude and he mistakenly parachuted into County Wexford in darkness. He wandered aimlessly until he happened upon a signpost indicating ’New Ross 10 miles’. He was 60 miles south of his intended landing zone.
Walking towards Wexford town, he was soon arrested at Poulpeasty. Schütz was fed Guinness and sandwiches in Rochford’s pub in Camaross until the gardaí from Wexford arrived. He was removed to Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin, where he was questioned by the wily Dr Richard Hayes, a great linguist who headed up the cryptography unit of the Irish Defence Forces. Hayes asked Schütz why he was carrying a microscope and he replied that he was a keen stamp collector. ‘G’way you didn’t bring that all the way from Germany to examine stamps’, suggested Hayes.
Schütz had a number of newspaper clippings tucked into his pocket book. When Richard Hayes used the microscope to examine one of the articles at 400 times magnification he was amazed to discover messages hidden in microdots within the letter ‘O’s in the text. Within 10 days Hayes had found and translated thirty pages of the German agent’s instructions and a list of contacts in Ireland.
Günther Schütz was held for the next five years in various prisons including Mountjoy, from where he once escaped dressed in women’s clothing. He was harboured for a time in the home of Cathal Brugha’s widow. He was released in 1946 and married an Irish nurse in Dublin the following year. The couple moved to war-torn Hamburg but returned to Ireland in the 1960s and ran the Clogga Bay Hotel in Arklow.