As I said in my last blog, I have done a great deal of research into WWII espionage activities both in the U.S. and abroad for my wartime thriller Codename: Parsifal, and my new spy thriller, The Last Saboteur, due out next year.
One of the facts no one talks much about these days is that prior to the U.S. entering the war, there was a substantial pro-Nazi movement in this country. In the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack and Germany's declaration of war on the U.S., the movement’s leaders were rounded up and deported or imprisoned. However, most of its rank-and-file membership went underground, becoming for all intents and purposes, a potential traitorous Fifth Column.
Two of these American traitors were Dale Maple and William Colepaugh.
Dale Maple was born in 1920 in San Diego, California, where I now live. By all accounts, he was a genius, graduating from San Diego High School at the age of 16 and winning a scholarship to Havard where he earned a degree in comparative linguistics, specializing in German. His choice of language wasn’t arbitrary, because by the time he graduated from Havard, Maple was a confirmed Nazi.
In fact, when Maple enlisted in 1942, both the Army and the FBI already had files on him. As a result, the Army assigned him to the 620th Engineer General Service Company, one of several special labor units for soldiers with suspected loyalties. Maple was stationed at Camp Hale, Colorado, where a German POW camp also existed. Soldiers like Maple often worked labor details alongside German prisoners.
Security at Camp Hale was notoriously slack, and fraternization with prisoners was widespread. (Many local women and Army WACs had affairs with the POWs.) In 1944, Maple and three other soldiers from the 620th plotted to help German POWs escape from Camp Hale.
On February 15, Maple loaded Afrika Korps Sergeants Heinrich Kikillus and Erhard Schwichtenberg into a 1934 REO sedan he recently purchased and headed for the Mexican border.
Maple was a genius, but he wasn’t a criminal mastermind. Seventeen miles shy of the border, the REO ran out of gas. The three men crossed the border on foot but were apprehended by a Mexican customs officer and turned over to American authorities.
Dale Maple faced court martial on charges of “relieving, corresponding with or aiding the enemy” which the Army considered the “closest equivalent” to a treason charge. Found guilty, Maple was sentenced to hang. However, President Franklin Roosevelt commuted his sentence to life imprisonment. That sentence was later reduced to ten years. Maple and his three 620th coconspirators were all released in 1950. Maple died in El Cajon, California, in 2001.
While Maple was considered a genius, William "Billy" Colepaugh was considered an idiot. Born in 1918 in Connecticut, Colepaugh attended the private Admiral Farragut Academy and later flunked out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By the time he left MIT, he was known as a fervent antisemitic, launching into tirades against Jews with little provocation.
Colepaugh joined the Navy Reserve but was quickly discharged for his pro-Nazi beliefs. In 1944, he signed on to a Swedish merchant ship to get across the Atlantic. When the ship docked in Lisbon, Portugal, Colepaugh jumped ship and presented himself to the German Embassy offering his services to the Reich.
After weeks of vetting by the Gestapo, Colepaugh was recruited as a spy by the Sicherheitsdienst, the foreign intelligence arm of the SS.
After receiving limited training, Colepaugh was matched with Erich Gimpel, an experienced agent who had spied for Germany in South America and Spain.
Gimpel had been assigned a mission to sail to the U.S. by U-boat and collect information on the American atomic bomb program, the Manhattan Project. Though Gimpel spoke English, he felt he needed someone well acquainted with American customs. Colepaugh, who didn’t speak German, was selected as that man.
At that point, Gimpel’s mission—called Operation Magpie—was doomed.
The night before the two men left for the States, Colepaugh got drunk in a public restaurant and loudly bragged about being a spy. Things only got worse once they reached the States.
The two men were given $60,000 in cash for living expenses. While Gimpel set to work on his mission, Colepaugh threw money around on floosies and booze—not an ideal way of remaining anonymous.
One day, Gimpel returned to their New York apartment to find Colepaugh had absconded with all their money and suitcases. While Gimpel tracked down and retrieved the suitcases and money, Colepaugh disappeared. Gimpel, the professional, continued his mission alone.
While Gimpel continued his spying, Colepaugh started getting second thoughts about being a Nazi spy. Still drinking heavily, Colepaugh looked up an old friend who convinced him to turn himself into the FBI.
Agents at the Bureau immediately recognized Colepaugh for what he was—a flake. But armed with his descriptions of Gimpel and his habits, they were eventually able to track down the German spy and arrest him.
As Gimpel was taken into custody, an FBI agent told him, “You made only one mistake. You should have given Billy a shot between the eyes as soon as you landed.”
Colepaugh and Gimpel were both convicted of espionage and sentenced to death. Their execution was stayed by the sudden death of FDR.
By the time the national period of mourning was over, Germany had surrendered. President Harry Truman commuted each man’s sentence, with Colepaugh serving 17 years and Gimpel 10. Gimpel died in 2001 at age 100; Colepaugh died four years later.
Dale Maple doesn’t appear in my new book, The Last Saboteur, but he did inspire one of the characters, a Nazi sleeper agent codenamed Introvert.
Colepaugh and Gimpel both appear in the book in a fictionalized version of their failed mission. Espionage historians have long wondered why the Germans assigned an unqualified, mentally unbalanced person like Colepaugh to Operation Magpie. In The Last Saboteur, I speculate on that reason.