Operation Elster
Operation Elster ("Magpie" in English) was a German espionage mission intended to gather intelligence on U.S. military and technology facilities during World War II.
Colepaugh quickly lost his commitment to espionage, and hoping to avoid the death penalty for treason, turned himself in to the FBI and betrayed his partner Gimpel, effectively ending the operation in late December 1944.
[4][1][5] The idea of landing spies in the United States originated with Nazi Germany's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and this particular operation was developed by the Schutzstaffel (SS).
[8] The mission was intended to last for two years, and called for information to be communicated to Germany by morse code radiotelegraphy using a shortwave radio transmitter the agents were expected to build.
[4] In the event they could not transmit by radio, they were to send the information via postal letters written in secret ink and addressed to a number of "mail drops", which included both American prisoners of war and intermediaries in Spain.
[7] On the evening of November 29, 1944, after spending eight days resting on the ocean floor off the coast of Maine to avoid American patrols, the U-1230 passed into Frenchman Bay and Gimpel and Colepaugh were put ashore at approximately 11 p.m. Eastern Standard Time in an inflatable rubber raft rowed by two German seamen.
[7] Gimpel and Colepaugh made their way from the rocky beach to a local road, hiked 5 miles (8.0 km) to United States Route 1, and were fortunately able to flag a cab that was making its way to Bangor.
The men were spotted twice while on foot in the Hancock Point area, with both observers noting with suspicion their city garb, suitcases, and lack of hats on the snowy night.
[8][4] In addition to false identity papers, they were equipped with US$60,000 (equivalent to about $1,038,000 in 2023), a "backup" cache of 99 diamonds, two .32 caliber Colt automatic pistols, a Leica camera with a special lens for document copying, two Krahl wristwatches, secret inks and developers, and microdots that contained radio schematics and transmission schedules as well as mail drop addresses.
[1] Using the aliases Edward Green (Gimpel) and William Caldwell (Colepaugh), they rented a studio apartment on the top floor of a building at 39 Beekman Place, selected for its lack of steel frame construction that might interfere with radio signals.
A bulky magnifier unit was supplied to them by Berlin to read the microdots containing radio plans, however they left it behind when disembarking the submarine because of its excessive weight.
Gimpel obtained a 1944 edition ARRL Radio Amateurs Handbook containing transmitter plans, as well as a multimeter, several milliamp meters, a roll of copper bell wire, and some small hand tools.
Although Gimpel tried to persuade him to record shipping activity in New York harbor[11] and assist in shopping for radio parts, Colepaugh preferred to take advantage of the many attractions the city had to offer.
However, he was not immune to the enticements of New York City; he and Colepaugh often ate together in restaurants such as Longchamps and the Hickory House, visited nightclubs such as the Latin Quarter and Leon and Eddie's, and patronized numerous bars in Greenwich Village.
[9][4][13] On December 21, Colepaugh permanently deserted Gimpel, making off with $48,000 (equivalent to about $831,000 in 2023) of their currency, and taking a room at the Hotel St. Moritz to continue his spree of nightclubbing and womanizing.
[1] The bureau had already been searching for the two German agents following the sinking of a Canadian ship a few miles from the Maine coastline (indicating a U-boat had been nearby) and reports of suspicious sightings by local residents Forni and Hodgkins.
[4][1] It was learned that Gimpel, who could read and speak Spanish, habitually visited a Times Square newsstand located at the corner of 42nd Street and 7th Avenue where he bought Peruvian newspapers.
At the time, the military tribunal which named American citizens in a conspiracy to commit treason was only the third of its type convened in the history of the US; the first was in 1865 after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the second in 1942 following the capture of German agents involved in Operation Pastorius.
[4] During the trial, Colepaugh's defense claimed that the accused had a change of heart while in Germany, undertook the espionage mission as a way to get back to the US and turn himself in, but could not easily get away from a watchful Gimpel.
Claims that Gimpel had a secret mission not disclosed to Colepaugh to sabotage heavy water works related to the Manhattan Project are without foundation in the documentary record.
[4][5] Author David Kahn wrote that “Gimpel’s ghostwritten account of the mission, Spy for Germany, must be used with the greatest caution, as it differs in a number of critical points from his (FBI) statement.
[4] Gimpel co-authored an autobiographical book about his experiences entitled Agent 146 in the mid 1950s, later published as Spy for Germany in Great Britain, and adapted for a west German film of the same name in 1956.
