She Was An American Spy During WW II

By Jeane Slone

Jeane Slone writes her third historical fiction once again about the amazing women of the forties. In this novel, meet Kathleen Dwyer, who on a whim answers a classified ad for a secretarial position. Little did she know that she would be entering the world of wartime espionage and spy training. The story is about how young women were recruited to become spies, what basic training and finishing school was like and real missions they were sent on. There were very few American women spies during WW II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeane Slone
• Release date: Feb 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370372843

Jeane Slone

Jeane Slone is the Vice President of the Redwood Writer’s Club, a member of the Healdsburg Literary Guild, Military Writer’s Society of America and the Pacific Coast Air Museum. She is a tutor for the Adult Literacy Program. Ms. Slone writes two blogs http://blog.jeaneslone.com and a blog interviewing new authors: http://author-interviews.jeaneslone.com Ms. Slone published the historical fiction, She Flew Bombers about the true adventures of the Women Airforce Service Pilots during WWII. Jeane Slone enjoys researching pieces of the forgotten past especially involving female heroines and multi-cultures. She is currently researching her third novel She Was a Spy During WWII. Ms. Slone is an avid kayaker with the Russian River outside her window. Visit: wwwjeaneslone.com

Book preview

Acknowledgments

Writing this historical fiction took a small army of people in order to complete. I would like to thank…

Dennis Ness, Elizabeth Beryl Vedros, Sivani Lloyd, Mona Mechling, and Thomas J. Tessier for their sharp eyes in finding errors in the beginning manuscript.

Manuscripts To Go, Cris Wanzer, for her fine and enthusiastic professional help in editing and book design.

Elizabeth Vega for her twin theory.

Amy Calhoun, spy web design.

Major Alan Edwards, Corps Historian, for a personal tour of The Military Intelligence Museum, Chicksands Military Base, Bedford, England.

Norcal Skydiving, Cloverdale, CA, where I had the opportunity to skydive.

John Boraggina, curator of the Santa Catalina Island Museum.

Paul Heck, Board of Directors, Pacific Coast Air Museum, Santa Rosa, CA, avid pilot and gun aficionado, for allowing me to practice shooting his father’s WW II Colt .45 on Allan Morgan’s acreage. (Past President of Pacific Coast Air Museum, Santa Rosa, CA.)

Technical Advisors

Thanks to David Harrison for his technical advice regarding wireless transmitters and giving me the opportunity to use his 1948 clandestine RS-1 HF transceiver. He is a technical advisor for wireless transmitters, active ham operator, former communications officer and judge advocate in the USAF, and former patent attorney.

Charley Taylor, for his glider knowledge and his research in military censorship. He is a retired Naval Aviator who flew the A-6 Intruder off the USS Enterprise in Vietnam. He is currently the Guest Speaker Coordinator at the Pacific Coast Air Museum in Santa Rosa, CA.

Margo VanVeen, for her assistance with the French language.

Vic Titoni, for reviewing the weapons parts in the manuscript, co-owner of Schmidt & Titoni Firearms & Accessories, 808 Piner Road, Santa Rosa, CA.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1: Gliders

Chapter 2: Mother

Chapter 3: The Army

Chapter 4: Changes

Chapter 5: Secretarial Position

Chapter 6: An Interview

Chapter 7: Canada

Chapter 8: Camp X

Chapter 9: Basic Training

Chapter 10: Pretty Odd Fish

Chapter 11: Guns

Chapter 12: Parachuting

Chapter 13: Morse Code

Chapter 14: Machine Carbines

Chapter 15: A Mandatory Party

Chapter 16: A Good Friend

Chapter 17: A Uniform

Chapter 18: USS Avalon

Chapter 19: Santa Catalina Island

Chapter 20: Spies

Chapter 21: Vacation

Chapter 22: The Blimp

Chapter 23: Beaulieu, England

Chapter 24: Finishing School

Chapter 25: Biking Around the New Forest

Chapter 26: Jacqueline

Chapter 27: Letters

Chapter 28: Interrogation

Chapter 29: Missing

Chapter 30: Officer Vivian Armstrong

Chapter 31: Mission Washington, DC

Chapter 32: The French Ambassador

Chapter 33: Ciphers

Chapter 34: A New Mission

Chapter 35: Tangmere

Chapter 36: Westland Lysander

Chapter 37: Occupied Paris

Chapter 38: Marie

Chapter 39: Escape

Chapter 40: Two Years Later

Epilogue

Biographies of Real WW II Spies

Virginia Hall

Elizabeth Amy Thorpe (Betty Pack)

Noor Inayat Khan

Vera Atkins

Bibliography

About the Front Cover

About the Author

There were very few American women spies during World War II. Women spies were looked upon as expendable. They received very little pay and no benefits. What they all shared was a strong, fierce conviction to end a long, arduous war. Many women watched their men risk their lives and they too wanted to do their patriotic duty to help end this war.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor ended our isolationism and the men joined the battle. Because women were regarded as expendable, they were taught everything the men were taught, from Jiu-jitsu to gunfighting, and all the tricks of espionage.

Glider school, of all things! I had assumed the school wouldn’t accept my husband when he applied. After all, Fred didn’t have the required college education to be a pilot, and had no flying experience whatsoever. It was the article in the Rochester Times that got him started on the idea. I sat in the kitchen and reread the article once again.

General Hap Arnold, the father of the U.S. Army glider program, has so far rounded up a fearless band of 5,000 volunteer aviators to bring infantry and vital supplies one-way into enemy territory. The program has been very successful and more troops are needed. A pilot’s license is not required. Be a glider pilot in the U.S. Army. It’s a he-man’s job for men who want to serve their country in the air. Help our country soar to victory. See your Army recruitment office today!

Fred told me Germany was the first country to use gliders, as far back as World War I. They had recently attacked Greece by sending in glider planes. Then, Britain saw the potential in gliders. Our isolationism was ended by Pearl Harbor, and we were thrown into the war. Now, two weeks after the bombing, General Arnold wanted 1,000 glider pilots.

After the news of Pearl Harbor, my twin brother Harry had enlisted immediately, angry over the Japanese attack. It only took my husband a short while to button up all the details at his bottle factory in order to join up, as well.

Fred and I had avidly followed the news of the war in Europe together. His pride of wanting to defend his country was a virtue to be admired, but the job seemed too dangerous to me. I was much too young to be a widow. I was under the impression that he was content being the owner of our large bottle factory. The thought of Fred gliding in a plane that had no motor, one-way into enemy territory, sounded extremely risky to me, and I felt this type of job would be better suited for a single man. Fred didn’t share my concerns, nor did he seem to mind leaving me behind with the burden of my mother’s care. Her failing health now required constant attention from me.

Within a few weeks, my anger over him leaving began to soften as I reflected on the past. After all, it had been Fred’s generous idea to move Mother in with us after Dad had passed away the previous year following a sudden heart attack. It was almost as though the approach of another war was too much for my father to take. He had almost lost an arm serving in the infantry during WW I. When Mom called with the shocking news, Fred had held me tightly, rubbing my back with soothing comfort. He knew how close I was to my father.

In the beginning, Fred and I would both go off to work and come home to Mom, who made us dinner and a freshly baked pie each day. Then one day we opened the front door and the smell of burning cotton hit our noses. Fred hurried inside and we saw Mother sweeping the kitchen floor, the same spot over and over. In the next room was an ironing board with the iron flat down, smoking and burning one of my favorite blouses. Fred unplugged it, snapped up the singed blouse, and threw it into the sink of unwashed dishes.

Oh my God, Mother! You could’ve burned the house down! I reprimanded her, surprised by our role reversal.

She had a befuddled look on her face as she mumbled, Wh-what?

That event changed my life, and I had to quit my job as a secretary in Fred’s factory. My concerned husband insisted that she should not be left alone, and he was right. Fred would leave for work and Mom would simply sit on the couch, staring into space.

I found her wicker basket of crocheting and placed it between us on the davenport. I can’t wait until you finish this bedspread, Mom. It will brighten up your bedroom. I placed a half-finished square on her lap with the metal hook in it.

Mom poked at it with one finger, staring down at our braided wool rug that we had once worked on together.

I miss Dad, too, I said. It’s funny. What I miss about him most is his cigar smell. He put Harry and me to bed every night when we were kids and told us stories so you could clean up after dinner. Remember when he took us all to the lake in the summer every weekend?

Hmmm… came from my mother’s mouth as she closed her lips tight.

Sadness covered me like flies sticking to flypaper. I rose slowly and went to the kitchen to do the dishes. The olive green clock on the wall let me know I had four more hours until Fred got home. He knew how to draw Mother away from her blue moods. It was fun hearing them exchange puns back and forth, filling the house with joyful laughter.

The weeks of February crept by after Fred left for glider school, which was in the nearby town of Elmira, where the Elmira Area Soaring Corporation taught courses on glider flying for the Army. It might as well have been on the other side of the country since I couldn’t visit him. My anger at being left alone with my mother began to overwhelm me without Fred coming home from work to relieve the boredom. Before Fred left for the service, he told me to do all my grocery shopping across the city at Mr. and Mrs. Andersen’s store, instead of Mr. Taylor’s, who was a single man. Fred always did have a jealous streak in him. At the glass factory, whenever any of the male workers greeted me he would look them up and down with suspicion and a snarl on his face.

I brewed a pot of coffee in the kitchen and poured it into one of my mother’s fine patterned cups. Mom was on the sofa listening to the radio, which gave me time to study the new coupon book issued by the government. Thank goodness the Rochester Times article explained how to use the War Ration Coupon Book. I studied the instructions on the back of the tan-colored, 6 x 4-inch booklet:

This book is valuable. Do not lose it. Do not throw this book away when all of the stamps have been used or when the time for their use has expired. You may be required to present this book when you apply for subsequent books. Rationing is a vital part of your country’s war effort. Any attempt to violate the rules is an effort to deny someone his share and will create hardship and help the enemy. This book is your government’s assurance of your right to buy your fair share of certain goods made scarce by war. Price ceilings have also been established for your protection. Dealers must post these prices conspicuously. Don’t pay more. Give your whole support to retaining and thereby conserve our vital goods. Be guided by the rules: If you don’t need it, DON’T BUY IT.

In the far right corner of the booklet was a warning statement:

This book is the property of the United States Government. It is unlawful to sell it to any other person, or to use it or permit anyone else to use it, except to obtain rationed goods in accordance to the regulations of the Office of Price Administration. Any person who finds a lost War Ration Book must return it to the War Price and Rationing Board, which issued it. Persons who violate rationing regulations are subject to a $10,000 fine or imprisonment, or both.

With care, I wrote my name and age on the booklet: Kathleen Dwyer, 26 years old. I hesitated, then wrote my weight and height on the front cover. I was proud of my figure, but it was no one’s business what my measurements were, especially a storekeeper’s. I bit my pencil and examined each page. The tiny stamps with pictures of Army tanks and airplanes were quite adorable, but the 48 points allotted each month to buy certain foods did not seem like a sufficient amount.

Oh, darn, I said out loud as I examined the diagram labeled Points on Most Popular Cans. After doing the math, I discovered that if I were to buy three cans of peas it would use up all my points for the entire month. I squeezed the back of my neck.

Between the money Dad had left and the income from Fred’s factory, we were well off, unlike many other families. Unfortunately, everyone got the same amount of points, whether rich or poor. This complicated rationing business would make for a long war, and I hoped I could manage. The best activity I could find to escape my humdrum life was shopping.

I glanced over at Mother after hearing her random mumbles. She was sitting in her usual spot on the sofa sorting torn, tan pieces of paper over and over again, whispering to herself in English, then in her native French.

"Why am I still here? Pourquoi?" she pleaded in her thin, shaky voice.

I found myself missing Fred. He had been a strong buffer against the disagreements I began having with my rapidly aging mother. She wasn’t that old, but since Dad’s death, she acted so feeble, instead of like the staunch French aristocrat I was used to. I couldn’t help but feel resentful that I had to quit my job at the factory, but after the iron incident, there was no choice. She had to be watched. My feelings fluctuated between being upset with her to feeling sorry for her.

After sweeping the kitchen floor, I heard Mother mumble in the next room, When am I going to go?

I went into the living room. "Mom, we’ve gone over this subject before. Try to keep busy. Here, read the Saturday Evening Post."

After placing the magazine on her lap, I tried to take the scraps of paper from her hands. She gripped them and put them under the magazine, then settled back on the sofa, flipping the pages. Her finger began to underline each word as she squinted her eyes. I went into her bedroom and searched around for her eyeglasses, then hurried back to the living room. I watched her struggling with the words again. I placed the glasses on her face, sat down, and read her one of the articles.

Mother patted my lap after I was done. Thank you, dear.

I put a radio show on for her while I went to do the dishes. The episode of The Adventures of the Thin Man was enthralling, and I kept the clatter down as I washed the soapy plates.

When am I going to go? shouted Mother above the mysterious music.

Her constant repetition was getting on my nerves, and I gnawed on the side of my lip. I didn’t want her to go and did love my mother, but my patience was dissipating as the days wore on. Since Dad died, my refined, educated mother was getting wackier by the month. Oh, how I missed being able to discuss this problem with Fred. I had not received even one letter since he left. Fred used to come home from work, give me a perfunctory kiss, then settle right down next to my mother to attempt a conversation with her. I was then able to go off into the bedroom for some alone time, either to polish my nails or brush my hair while listening to a show. The news on the radio from the outside world alleviated my closeted existence. Maybe I would get a letter from Fred today, or perhaps from my brother.

I had just hung my apron on a doorknob in the hall when Mom said once again, Kathleen, why am I still here?

I smiled upon hearing my name this time. Mom, I have to walk into town to get groceries. Do you need anything?

I needed to get out for a short break, and hoped she wouldn’t ask to come. It took too much patience on my part to walk as slow as she did. I timed my departure during her favorite program, Ozzie and Harriet, hoping she wouldn’t get up and get into anything until it was over.

Don’t buy me green bananas, in case the Good Lord does take me today.

I put on my winter hat and coat. She went back to the magazine, penciling under each word as the laughter rose from the radio. I kissed her wrinkled cheek.

Have a nice time, dear, she called out as I left.

Every shop window seemed to display less and less each week because of the shortages. I lingered in front of each one on the way to the store. In the reflection in one of the windows, I turned from side to side, but stopped when I noticed a few stray Army rejects leering at my large breasts beneath my thin coat. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. I buttoned up a few buttons to make my chest look a little flatter—as if that were possible. Some women were blessed with an adequate bust, but mine was enormous and far too large for my small frame. It was almost a handicap, and gave me back pain at times.

Mr. Taylor looked up from his newspaper as the bell rang when I entered the store.

Hello there, Mrs. Dwyer. Nice weather we’re having this winter. His eyes drifted to my breasts.

Yes, I hope we don’t get any more snow this year. Nice bow tie, I flirted, hoping he would help me with my coupons.

He straightened his tie and looked at my legs. You’re lucky to have silk stockings to wear.

I only have one more pair, I’m afraid. I know there won’t be any more available with the way this war is escalating. I looked back at my legs and straightened the seams, knowing he was watching me.

Mr. Taylor pointed to a wooden bin in the corner of his store. After you wear them out, you can bring them here. All the storekeepers are collecting them for the war effort.

Above the bin a sign was hung that read:

Uncle Sam needs your discarded silk and nylon stockings for gunpowder bags. Please launder and leave here!

He stared at me again. I moved away as Fred crept into my mind. I found some semi-ripe bananas, a loaf of bread, and a few cans of vegetables, and put them on the counter.

I flipped and fumbled through the pages of the ration booklet.

Mr. Taylor took it. Here, I’ll help you with the stamps. He thumbed through the booklet, carefully tore the stamps out in the proper direction, then placed a small, dark red coin and a bright blue coin in my hand. He saw my questioning face and explained that they were change coins for the ration stamps.

I felt the itty-bitty coins, smaller than dimes, in the palm of my hand. On each side it said OPA RED POINT and OPA BLUE POINT, then the number one was displayed in the center.

They’re cute, thanks!

You betcha! he exclaimed, winking.

I inched down the block as slowly as possible to avoid the long day ahead at home. Sometimes guilt and a deep sadness crept upon me whenever Mom asked, Why am I still here? I felt pity. I knew all she wanted