Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 293, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 December 1920 — 300 SPIES IN ARMY [ARTICLE]

300 SPIES IN ARMY

Former* Captain Was Sent to U. S. by Germany. •' \ '*** *?. . Absconded With $6,000 of %Hls Com* pony's Funds at Camp Sevier Few Weeks After Armistice. New York, Dec. 9.—An amazing Jtory of German espionage during the war was disclosed when John Willet, former captain In the 48th United States Infantry, confessed he was really Hans Wlllers, a cadet in the German army until 1914, when he was sent to thia country with 300 other cadets to join the American army and become United States officers. Willet, Wlllers or Wlllars, as his name was variously recorded by police and military authorities, admitted he had absconded with $6,000 of his company’s funds at Camp Sevier on November 28, 1918, a few weeks after the armistice, and deserted. It was this offense and not any suspicion of his spy role which resulted In his arrest here when Hugh J. Hannigan, formerly a first lieutenant in the 48th, recognized the deserter on the street and nailed a policeman. “You would be surprised how many high German officials held jobs in Washington during the war,” Willet told Detective Sergeant O’Leary. The prisoner made this statement after he had narrated how he came here and what he would have done had his regiment been sent tp France. “I would have led my men to slaughter, and-Could have been useful to my own country in many other ways,” Willet declared, according to the police, In explaining why he and others were sent to the United States to enlist in the American army. After Willet had told his story the detectives got touch with the commandant’s office at Fort Jay, N Governor’s Island, and learned Willet was wanted by the army authorities. A half hour later an armed guard handcuffed Willet and took him to Fort Jay, where he was locked up In the Castle William prison. < Lieut. M. D. Chandler, prison officer, said later that the prisoner had admitted he was John A. Willhrs, former captain of K company, 48th infantry. Confronted by two ex-lieutenants of the 48th infantry, Sidney P. Howell, a lawyer, and Francis Hatch, Wlllars began to respond to questions. As to his pedigree, he said he was born In Germany and educated there. “I was trained for spy work when I was a boy and later when I was a cadet In a German military academy,” the detectives quote Wlllars as saying. “When the world war began In 1914' I was selected to join a band of-cadets who were to come to the United States with orders to join the American army. Other groups went to the French army and to the British. About 300 others came over here with me.”