Book tells other side of Hancock Point’s German spy incident

Some 30 years ago, after reading the book “Iron Coffins,” an account of German U-boat operations during World War II written by former U-boat commander Herbert A. Werner, I wrote Werner asking for his take on the landing of two German agents via submarine at Hancock Point on Nov. 29, 1944, ostensibly to spy on the American armaments industry.

Werner, then living in New Jersey, replied that he was unaware of the landing, but he could not imagine why his country would have pursued such an undertaking so late in the war, when the Third Reich was crumbling and Germany’s defeat was pretty much a done deal. (I still have Werner’s coveted letter but, of course, haven’t a clue as to where it might be.)

As U-boat commander, Werner had preyed upon Allied shipping in the Atlantic Ocean, the English Channel, the North Sea and the Mediterranean and had even planted mines in Chesapeake Bay. If he couldn’t elaborate on the 1944 spy mission, probably no one other than the participants could. Fat chance of that happening. And so, after the late Peter Mills of Farmington, then U.S. Attorney for Maine, helped in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to locate the former spies, I gave it up as a bad job.

Eventually, it became known that the specific mission of master spy Erich Gimpel and American turncoat William Colepaugh, a Connecticut native, was to find out whether the Allies intended to drop the atomic bomb on Germany, or whether they planned to continue using only “ordinary” bombs. If they could sabotage America’s Manhattan Project, the top-secret plan to develop the A-bomb, so much the better. How they nearly succeeded before they were nabbed by the FBI in New York City several weeks after they were put ashore in Frenchman Bay by the German boat U-1230 makes for one hell of a story.

The details of the escapade – perhaps piled on a bit thick – are contained in a fascinating book “Agent 146,” written by Gimpel, now 92 and living in Germany. The book, originally published in Germany and Britain in 1957, has just been published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press (274 pages, hardcover, $24.95).

Old-timers in these parts well know the Maine angle of the story. How alert teenage Boy Scout Harvard Hodgkins of Hancock, and later, housewife Mary Forni had been driving home late at night when they spotted the two men, ill-clad for the elements, carrying their gear (including a radio transmitter, scads of jewelry and American currency) while trudging along the highway in a snowstorm. How Hodgkins observed that the men’s tracks had appeared to exit the woods near Howard Crabtree’s mailbox, and how the whole thing seemed just too fishy for words in small-town Maine. How the spies had caught a ride to Bangor to board a train heading south. How the local residents contacted the FBI to report their suspicions, and how the FBI subsequently collared the pair in New York.

Now, with “Agent 146” we get the enemy’s version of the deal. And a spellbinding tale it is, despite the disconcerting British translation of the German text, which results in spellings such as “harbour” and “realisation” and phrasing decidedly more Brit than Germanic.

Four days from the scheduled landing, German headquarters informs Gimpel that “the enemy may be apprised of our undertaking,” and he is ordered to use his discretion as to whether to continue. The charts are studied in search of another landing spot, but the waters are too shallow. It’s Hancock Point, or nothing. Onward they press.

“When we had neared the coast, I took bearings from a Boston radio station and confirmed my new position. We were in Fundy Bay,” Gimpel wrote. “If your bearings are correct,” said the U-boat commander, “we shall be seeing the lights of Mount Desert Rock in two hours’ time.” The bearings were correct.

“The bay was guarded by a destroyer,” Gimpel relates. “We dived below it and remained on the sea bed. Throughout the day ships moved over us. We could hear the sound of engine and screws with our ears alone. We waited for the night and high tide. We rose to periscope depth and let ourselves be carried into Frenchman Bay between two islands. If the American coast defences had not been asleep we should have been discovered long since. …”

They remain submerged, awaiting their chance. Surfacing, they are about to heave their rubber dinghy into the water for the short row to shore, when an automobile’s headlights appear to be coming directly at them, off the coastal road. The car stops. Its interior light remains on. Through binoculars, the Germans see that the car contains two lovers smooching in a seaside tryst. Gimpel’s mind races. Is it some kind of trap?

Snow begins to fall and Gimpel decides it’s now or never. Two hefty sailors, their oars wrapped in rags to deaden the sound, row the pair ashore, “not knowing if the night has eyes.” The U-boat’s artillery remains trained upon the shoreline. The pair, each with a suitcase in one hand and revolver in the other, scramble through underbrush, then woods. The going is impossible. They must take to the highway, whatever the consequences.

“I had a luminous compass attached to my watch and had worked out even before I left Germany what direction I would have to take when I was once in the woods,” Gimpel explains. “The nearest sizable place was Ellsworth, a small town two to three miles away, and this we wanted to avoid, for strangers always attract attention in a small town…”

Prophetic words. Later, in court, the spies would learn of the role that Harvard Hodgkins (misidentified in the book as “Johnny Miller”) had played in their eventual capture. But for the moment they slogged on “tired, bad-tempered and already a little apathetic when we were not actually in the beam of a headlamp. Our hair was plastered down on to our perspiring brows, our feet ached, our arms were numb from carrying the heavy cases. I no longer had any illusions about our appearance. At best we looked like a pair of criminals. Even the most dim-witted policeman could not fail to notice us and the least he would want to do would be to examine our cases. And then that would be that. …”

Eventually, a car stops. But rather than a cop, it’s an off-duty taxi driver. Colepaugh, the American, does the talking, telling the man that their car has become stuck in the ditch and the pair wishes to be taken to Bangor. The silent Gimpel rides in the back seat behind the driver, hand in pocket, finger on trigger of his revolver. The trip to Bangor is uneventful.

“Where shall I put you down?” asks the driver. “At the railroad station,” replies Colepaugh. And the rest is history.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.