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Zurich Herald, 1928-01-26, Page 3"ROOM 40" YIELDS ITS WAR SECRETS How British Radio ,Decoders Intercepted German Orders, Learning U -Boat Locations and the Time the Fleet Would Issue Forth By Clair Price. 1 leendon.—Now we know. At last we wave length of 400 meters e intercept - eau be told, A few nights ago Sir Ai- Jug their messages was merely a mat - trod Ewing, who has been Vice Chan- ter of tuning ,down to their wave cellor •of Edinburgh University since length, .Any operator could have done 1917, revealed to au Edinburgh midi- it if his other work had permitted, but ence what he described as the Ad- all he would have got would have miralty's best -kept war secret. On been the jumbled letters of an enemy the very day that the war began in code, 1914, he said, Admiral Sir Henry What Sir Alfred Ewing now reveals Oliver, then Director of Naval Intent- is that the Admiralty set up receiving gene°, gave him a handful of German stations for the express purpose of wireless messages picked up by the picking up enemy messages and tele - radio station on the roof of the Ad- graphing them to "Room 40" in Lon- miralty building it London and asked don to be deciphered. He says: him what he could make of them. The "Numerous receiving stations were result was the creation, under Sir Al- set up at which the fleet signals, sub- fred's direction, of the secret decipher- marine orders and other wireless sing staff, which occupied "Room 40" messages of the enemy wore syste- at the Admiralty and whose existence matically taken in and from which they were telegraphed to the Admiral- ty to be deciphered, Out guessing the Submarines. "When the Welk had passed its initial stage, as many as 2,000 inter- cepted meseages were often received that no transmitting set was used at •and dealt with in the course of a sins sea without the captain's permission. gle day. In this way a close and con - The average radio room at sea used stant watch was kept on the German to pick up about 400 messages a week, fleet and information was obtained sending perhaps three messages in beforehand of their prospEtive move - the same period. Of these 400 mes- ments. Thus it was, forexample, that eages ,about 60 per cent. used to he the Admiralty knew on the day be - intercepted position and operating fore a battle of the Dogger Bank what messages, the former being, for ex- German ships were corning out, at ample, trawler 456 advising Devon- what time they were coming and port dockyard via Lands End that it where 'they were going. All this in - was in position so much north and so formation was obtained from inter - much west, 10 miles from Eddystone cepted and deciphered German aig- Light, time group "1230"; and the lat- nabs by which orders were given from ter being Davenport telling trawler German headquarters to the ships 456 via Lands End to go and chase concerned. It was obtained in good butterflies off Yaaka Hula Light; time time for the Admiralty to arrange for group "0432." suitable counter-measures,and when Message's of thts sort always went the battle of the Dogger Bank began to the communication room to be de- the watchers in the Admiralty, de- coded, but only those involving posi- ciphering every signal, followed it in tions near the ship or the ship's1 all its phases from beginning to end. course used to he sent to the captain was kept so secret that it was always referred to simply as "Room 40." Consider what the air was like dur- ing the war. There were no, civilian messages. 'The air was used for war messages only and was so congested from Um communication room. This "Similarly the battle of Jutland was : - brought about in consequence of the was the common and continual chat- I i German signalling orders by wireless, ter of the war zone. i -which, when deciphered in 'Room 40,' Source of Warnings. I gave sufficient indication of their in - Of the remaining 40 per cent, of tended plans. From December, 1914, messages picked up by the average 'when the system of intercepting and radio room at sea, 20 per cent. were deciphering enemy messages had be - war warnings broadcast in code at ' come effectively developed and the certain stated intervals hy certain various elpher keys had been dis- shore stations in Britain, France and covered, the German fleet made no Italy. Of these also only those which movements that were not known in bore upon the ship's position or advance through the information they course were sent to the captain. These unwittingly gave to the Admiralty by consisted almost entirely of the posi- their own cipher signals. Lions and cruising directions of enemy suomarines. It was supposed during the war that they were obtained by Intercepted Zimmermann Offer. "Besides intercepting naval signals," the use of direction -finders that en- Sir Alfred continued, "'Room 40' dealt abled two shore'stations to get a cut successfully with much political ciph- er. The isolated position of Germany forced her to resort to wireless and prevented frequent changes of the miralty's use of directional wireless code ,books for confidential communi- served in many cases as a convenient cation with correspondents abroad. camouflage to conceal the real source Among the many political messages of its war warnings. The real source, read was the notorious Zimmermann he says, was the actual deciphering of telegram, which was intercepted in the reports and operation orders of the manner described in the third enemy submarines, an unprecedented !volume of the Page 'Letters: Presi- achievement and ono that alone ex-; dent Wilson was then hesitating on plains the volume and accuracy of the !the brink of war. The Zimmermann Admiralty's daily war warnings. These message, which revealed a condition - used to cover the entire war zone and • al offer to Mexico of an alliance only a small proportion of them would against -the United States, was de - be of interest to any one ship or es- ciphered in 'Room .40.' It was then cort, hut the importance et -that small communicated very confidentially by proportion could be seen in the chart- Lord Balfour to Mr. Page and through house of any ship at sea. Page to Wilson, and was giveneby him Of the remaining 20 per cent, of to the American press. Its publication mssages which the average radio was decisive in converting American room at sea would pick up, about 15 per cent. would be ships' "altos," say 4 per cent, would be $ 0 S's and the rest reports of .rifting mines. The word alto was originally an Admiralty code word meaning "submarine sight- ed." Broadoast by a ship or an es- cort that was being attacked,ethe alio came into the radio room as fast as an S 0 S—the word all repeated five dines, the position, the time group and the ship's name. Enemy submarines worked on a on an enemy transmitting set and thus to determine its position at sea. Sir Alfred points out that the Ad - opinion to the necessity of war. In "Room 40" the British Admiralty created a new and powerful weapon, and a ne* weapon always calls for an answer. Wireless will necessarily continue to be used by the navies and necessarily its only secrectawill con- tinue to be ethe code it uses. The obvious answer to "Room 40" is a code that dannot be deciphered by anybody except the man who bolds' the key to it. Is it possible to devise such a code?—N.Y. Times. Foreign Legion Life Described Engflshman Says He Was Struck and Kicked by ,Officers London.—John Harvey, the young Znglishman recently pardoned by the French Foreign Legion after being sentenced to eight years imprison- ment for desertion, is quoted by The Pvening. Standard as saying that he "now hag no illusions about the For- cign Legion." -' "Scenes which I am told are in Semi Geste only begin to tell you :what the life is like," Harvey is quoted as saying. "The Foreign Le- is a fighting machine and it is made to tight. It fights everywhere ',ranee has any fighting to be done in her desert possessions and it suffers ,all the time. "X have been, struck by offlooto and "have been kicked 'While lying down with my hands,,and feet in chains. I have crawled about the desert with a thirst that would alreoot break a man's beart 1 witnessed Emotes of such barbarity in Front& prisons that Seem incredible, Novi that they ate • behind me, do you wonder why 1ara lo bitter about tike'll'oreign Legion?" Harvey was reiaaood unconditional- ly from the French Foreign Legion af- ter the Dritish litoreigti Mae 'Ater- venek on hio hehaltf ..• Bennetts, J. Doty, the spectacular Miesissipplan, who also was pardoned from the Legion, after having been sentenced to eight years imprison- ment for desertion, said upon his ar- rival in Ameriea, that while the French Foreign Legion accorded him a "square deal" it was no young ladies' seminary. Giving Good Start o Farmers Honor Memory of Empire's Soldiers Honor to the memory of the Empire's soldier dead was offered by the members of the Canadian Farmer's, Marketing tour which is overseas under the auspicee of the Canadian National Railways.. A huge wroath, six feet in dia- nebter, beautiful in design and bearing the crests ot each provinoe, intertwined with characteristic foliage, made in Montreal and deposited at the cenotaph in London during the party's visit there. The picture shows the wreath being inspected by W. D. Robb, vice-presideat of the Canadian National Rail- ways in charge of oelonization and agriculture, before the departure of the party from Montreal. The Very Unusual A German WarHero Also a Sportsman — Count Von Luckner the Pictur9sque, Chivalrous Sailor 41..••••••••• A SEA ROMANCE No one nation has a monopoly of heroism and no one nation can keep her heroes to herself. Soon or cater they belong to the world. Such applies to the tale of Count on Luckner—skipper of the Seeadler, told in, recent numbers of "World's Work." It was the fate of the German Navy to play extreme parts in the war. Nothing in maritime history matches the abjectness of the surrender of the high -seas fleet at Scapa Flow, but, on the other hand, the war brought out few episodes equal to those connected with the German commerce raiders Emden, Moewe, Seeadler and Woolf. All of these ships played gallant, lone hands in far oceans; but by far the greatest exploit of the four was that of Count Luckner's ship, the Seeadier. She was neither swift cruiser nor equally speedy converted liner. She was a sailing ship, a Yankee -built oliPPer, that slipped out of Hamburg, deceived the British blockade, druised 30,000 miles in,eight months, captured fourteen allied merchantmen and des- troyed ;4,000,000 worth of shipping and cargoes without shedding a drop of blood. Consider the background of Count Luckner as he is quoted in his own story. He is the descendant of a Sax- on warrior family and was destined for the cavalry, but he chose to have his legs bowed in another fashion. He informed his father that he would not come home until he wore the uniform of a German naval officer, and then he ran away to sea. He shipped first on a villainous Russian square-rigger, fell overboard and before his shipmates could lower a boat and reach him ho was saved from drowning by hang- ing on to the leg of a live albatross. Next be jumped ship in Australia, joind th Salvation Army, assisted the keeper of a lighthouse, hunted kau- garoos for a living, trained for the prize ring, came to America, stole a fishing boat in Vancouver, workd on a Mexicaa reillroad, enlisted in the Mexican army and stood guard at old Porfirio Diaz's palace, sailed the seven seas on the windjammers of al- most as many nations, broke his right leg on one voyage and his left on an- other, slapped a bar rag in Hoboken for a few weeks, kept a tavern in Hamburg and was toasted as the champion wrestler of the waterfront. Also at various times he saved five men from drowning and thereby was brought to the attention of the royal family of Prussia. Eventually Luck- ner passed examinations for the mer- chant marine. As a protege of the Kaiser he studied for the navy and when he received his commission he returned home and made good his boast to his father. To imagine sucb a career would give a writer of dime novels brain fever. It might be expected, how- ever, that Luckner's adventurous career demanded picturesque expres- sion in wartime. He got his chance in 1916. The German Admiralty Ad- miralty ordered him to take command of a raider that was to slip through the. blockade. If the British blockade was to )e circumvented, the ship must be dis- guised as a neutral so thoroughly that not the slightest suspicion should be aroused. Luckner's account of trans- forming the captured American clip- per ship Bas of Balmaha into a fullY armed and equipped German raider, yet with an authentic Norwegian at- mosphere to decks, cabins, papers and crew, reads like the stage directions of an old-time Belasco play. The log book of a Norwegian ship was stolen from the Copenhagen docks. Part of the crew was chosen for its familiar- ity with the Norse language; the rest of the crew was to live in the hold, ooncealed underneath a deckload of lumber until the blockade should be weatied. And as it was the sentiment- al custom of many Norwegian skip- pers to bring their wives with them on their voyages, Luckner gave a blond wig and woman's clothes to a cabin boy and commanded him to be- come a seagoing Julian Etinge should occasion arise. •It arose on Christmas Day, 1916. The raider, renamed Seeadler, had. Played through the North Sea in a hurricane that had scattered the blockading fleet. Almost to the north- ern ice packsewas the ship blown, un- til the wind abated and British search parties came. The boarding officer took merely one look at the water -soaked papers and tipped his cap to the "wife" before leaving. The supposed Norwegian was signaled to proceed upon her voyage. Free of the• blockade, the Seeadler's first capture was made off the Azores. A leisurely Norwegian vrindeammer came up from the horizon, displayed her colors and a signal request for chronometer time. When the British- er was near enough, down went the Norse flag, up went the Imperial naval standard and ports opened fey guns— the old Melt played hundreds of times in warfare before the age of steam. Attractive New Knitted Frocks Itnitted sweater -frocks in two and three piece' styles are being shown by designers for early Spring wear under the new. topcoats, These dresses are quite different froM what is ordinarily expected of this type of frock and the newest fashion trends from Paris are incorporated in the styling. For In- stance, the new kerchief collar is used to add variety. It is made with a con- trasting color in yoke form In the back, and the extra ends are brought, arotknd to tie in a bow knot in front. Another type of neck that promises to be very smart is made with Ave Points, the back being square and ex- tending over the shoulders while the I front, instead of the crossing in a straight line, drops into a deep "V" wlaic his most becoming. The Vion-1 net neck is again shown as well as the fiat "crew," canoe and geometric necklines. These dresses are made of a soft cashmere wool or one of the new rayon mixtures that have a 'firm hard thread that prevents the garment from etretching and at the same time I assures minimum warmth. 71,415 new IteXtUre is nsecl in different weaves to I achieve the •effect of tucks, pleats, fancy ribbing and so forth. Different designs are worked out in the weav- ing and at a distance look exactly like fine hand -blocked prints. Costume slips made for wear with the new Spring chiffon and crepe dreesee *ow a wealth of detail in the flnishing, • The hems are no longer merely machine stitched, but are now made with hemstitched scallops, picot edges, petal effects and cut-out tabs following the trend of uneven hem- lines. To wear with some of the very slinky fabrics, there are numerous models with tiny ruffles put in circa - lar lines. The tops are made to fit snugly and serve as foundation for the dress. At the waist there is a decided bodice effect, fitting snugly to prevent any suggestion of bulk or extra fullness that might destroy the smart, smooth lines needed about the hips. Shoulder straps are made most- ly of flea -colored net. .A. ship or two was picked up and sunk off Gibraltar and the captured crews were transferred to the Seead- ler. The next nine seizures—British, French and an Italian—were made be- tween Brazil and Africa. Luckner as- sorts, that he treated his captives Eke guests. No group of passengers on a liner ever enjoyed such happy comradeship as did we esiboard our buccaneering craft. The fact that we were captors and captives only seemed to make it all the jollier. We took the greatest pleasure in making the time agrere- able for our passengers, with games, concerts, cards and story -telling. We served special meals for all the na- tions whos ships we captured. . . The prisoners seemed to appreciate our intentions thoroughly. They wanted to do everything they could for us in return. But with the crows of ten ships overflowing Seeadler's accommoda- tion, such days of care -free hunting came to an end. Prisonrs and cap- tains were transferred to the next ship captured, its spars were shorten- ed and the vessel limped into Buenos Aires with th news of the Seeadler and the solution of the mystery of the long overdue merchantman. Know- ing that now the allied cruisers would b after him, Luckner rounded Cape Horn itno the Pacific and the south seas, whre he sunk three American ships and transferred their crews to the Seeadler. Then with symptoms lof scurvy on board, the raider put in at a coral atoll for fresh food and 'water. Adventures of another kind befell • the German raiders and their Ameri- can captives, for here a tidal wave destroyed the Seeadler. The ship's company and their "guests" escaped to the shore and set up a Swiss Family Robinson sort of existence. Na- ture was munificent, but it was not war. Luckner grew restless. Within three weeks of the disaster to the Seeadler, Luckner, with three of his officers and two sailors set sail in a lifeboat with the hope of capturing a trading schooner, which in turn would capture a larger ship and enable the resumption of raiding on a large scale. They cruised 2,300 miles in a month and, after a number of thrill. Ing adventures, they were eaptured. Lackner and his companions could have overpowered the men who set out to capture them, but the Germans were not in uniform; eo rather than violate the rules 'of war, Luckner played the game and submitted. They were transported to New Zealand, where they narrowly escaped a legal lynching, and thence to an internment camp. From here Luckner and some German merchant cadets escaped in a launch. They captured a small trad- ing schooner, but in turn they were recaptured by an Australian auxiliary cruiser and were sent baek to the Pre -Nuptial Certificates Pro- posed as Law in France Paris.—Pre-nutial medical certifi- cates fer all French men and women are proposed in a bill which has been laid before the Chamber of Deputies by Dr. Pinard, the oldest member of the LoWnr House, and approved by the Commission on Hygiene, which recommends adoption. Deputy Nicollet, the reporter of the commission which examined the pro- posal, urges that for the good of the whole future of the nation every man and woman about to contract mar- riage should submit to a medieal examination. ' This certificate would be dated the have to 13e presented to the civil authorities, who in France nittet per- form the civil ceremony of marriage, ol. 1 Tommy (hearing ' punting Oat): "Just listen—he has million asleep and, lett WS engine running," Out "Switzing" Switzerland 00 sae 1 vantomazawettroNAMPVIAratiO • ittliVISZMOZAZIERMt.,trIzIMMTW'iligtVetrAtirk=143,PS:2;z.N.,.,1,rmrtoftriv..„ ..t A VIEW OF CANADA% 'WONDERFUL ;SCENERY Alpinisttraversing a glacier tongue on the way to Mount President in Yoho National Park, 13,0, Mounts Larometer and Baltour hi Lite distanee. prison camp. Luckner had another escape planned when the armistice came and his wartime career was ever. Times Change Cape Town's White Hansoms and Malays in Big Hats Missed By Visitor of 'Ws Durban..— Leonard Merrick, the well -know novelistr who is on a pro- tracted visit to South Africa, is glad, to use his own words, that "he has never attempted to write a South African story." "I should not like," he said, "tc provoke comparison with the South African authors I met recently—Mrs. Millin, Mrs. Lewis, and Leonard Flemming—by writing a South Afri- can tale." Mr. Merrick knew Cape Tom). 40 years ago. The place offered many contrasts to his memories of the serene and 'beautiful town he then found it to be. "The quaint foreign town his gone," he -observed. "The high steeps, white hansom cabs, Malays with immense straw hats— they have all vanished. My favorite walk from Papendorff along avenues of silver -leaf trees to Rondebosh is now covered with houses many ol them ugly houses. Such is the price of progress. "It may be difficult to preserve the charm of a town, but it is sad to find that so many distinctive sights have disappeared. Cape Town once had a stro individuality. To -day it has some excellent things that it lacked then, but its individuality has gone. "Cape Town is the noisiest city in the Union," Mr. Merrick declared. "It is noisier than big cities like Mel- bourne, Sydney, London and New York. MARY'S LAMB Mary had a little Iamb And had it trained just so; it paid wherever Mary went To dinner nr Dentists eware Bride -to -Be Quit as French- man Lost Teeth; Now He SIM'S, Dentist for Wrecking His Bliss Paris—In a singular lawsuit re- cently Bonsienri X, a 50+ -year-old nur. sery gardener in the North of France, accuses a Parisian dentist of alienat- ing the affections of his 47 -year-old bride -to -bo at the very altar. On New Year's Day, two clays be- fore the Intended wedding, the bride- groom was in a taxi accident, Ile suffered no injury, but his false teeth were knocked out and the plate was broken. " The next day the (leaded agreed to mile emergency repairs, and when teeey were concluded Mon- sieur X presented himself for the ceremony in perfect condition. However, in a conversation just be- fore the wedding a march beban, the bridegroom, unfortimately, laughed, the false teeth plate was cracked and ejected cr. to the floor and the bride- to-be fainted. Tho ceremony was sus- pended and the enegagement has since been broken aff. The unhappy nrld egroom now charges the dentist with deficient re- pair work as well as wrecking a pro- spective happy home. Maitre Bele stardom represents the plaintiff, who asks 10,000 fronts' damages. First Youth—"I tell you, old Matt when 1 get married I'll be the boss, or know the reason why." Second Ditto—"011, you'll know t -he reason all right. Don't worry about that." "Can't get along with your partner, you say. Have you tried the milk of human kindness?" "Yes, but he's one of those fellows who want the meant, of everything."