Roy Burton Gray 1884-1975

GRAY

Posted By: D. Broz (email)
Date: 11/6/2002 at 15:11:57

DES MOINES BOY ARRESTED TWICE AS SPY IN GERMANY
Roy B. Gray, Just Back in Iowa From Russia -- Says the Bear Expected War Sixty Days in Advance. (From the Des Moines Capital, November 17, 1914."

Roy B. Gray, 1417 Woodland avenue, former East High and Ames football star, is 27 years old. He hasn't been out of college long enough to forget his college yells.

But Gray has seen three wars in three years and has been arrested three times as a spy. He was arrested first as a Bulgarian spy in the Bulgarian-Roumanian troubles a year ago. Uncle Sam saved him then.

He was arrested twice in Germany in the last two months once as the spy of the Russian government and the second time as the sleuth of the British. Uncle Sam saved him again.

It isn't any wonder the Gray fondles the [soiled?] and badly worn bit of paper he carries with him at all times and exhibits with such pleasure. It is the passport that Uncle Sam gave him when he went across the Atlantic three years ago as the experimental engineer of the International Harvester company. It has saved his sca[lp?] from prison or death and given him safe transportation out of the war countries where every man is looked upon with suspicion.

Gray just came back to Des Moines from Germany. He sailed from Copenhagen, Denmark October 13 and even then did not get safely away from the war troubles
[yet b?]ut being stopped by two English ve[ssels?].

Russia was Prepared.

Gray was representing his company in experiments at Stallupoenen [see note 1], three miles from the Russian border, before the war broke out. Several days before war was declared, however, 60,000 troops were massed on the border line. They were ordered to retire by the kaiser, but refused. Furthermore, Gray says the townsfolk knew that Russian spys were in their midst and in Germany many days before the war started. This, says Gray, indicates that Russia knew what was coming.

But to follow Gray's journey across country for a moment. (For Gray picked out Des Moines as his point of hibernation the moment bullets began to fly).

Arrested in Germany.

"I went down to Berlin," Gray told a Capital reporter today. "Two days later Russia declared war. They they picked me up for a Russian spy. Golly, I do look like a Russian. I showed them my passports and they turned me loose. I went on to Hamburg and then to Stolp. In Stolp, [some?] office[rs?] walked alongside of me on the street and suggested that we go to my room. We did, for I had no reason to object. When they saw my passport in English one of them smiled and took my arm. They took me to the prison. I was examined. The officer thought I was an English spy. He cursed me in good old German for not having my passports in German. But the officers who could read English were satisfied that I was not a spy and so released me.

"Oh, yes, it is delightful in Germany. On our way to Copenhagen we were riding along peacefully on a train. Suddenly soldiers entered, pulled down all the curtains and told us that the first one who tried to look out the window would be shot. Of course nobody desired to look. When the curtains were raised again we found that these precautions were taken to prevent an enemy from dropping a bomb on the famous Kiel canal bridge, over which we had just passed and which means so much to German transportation. Tickled to get out of Germany? Well, I wonder!

Kaiser the "Whole Cheese."
"Two years ago I was in the Balkan states when the war broke out and had to get out. [see note 2 -- First Balkan War] Last year I was in Roumania and my passports saved me [see note 2 -- Second Balkan War]. I was in South Africa immediately after the Boer trouble. I hope to goodness that they get this war stuff settled before I get back into those countries.

"Germany swears by the kaiser. 'Hoch der kaiser!' -- they yell it day and night. They think he is the whole cheese. In Germany they get nothing but the German side of the war. If a newspaper publishes anything the least bit derogatory the plant is put out of business. I cannot recall of ever seeing or hearing of a bad war report in Germany. When that march on Paris was on there wasn't a German that did not believe the Germans would enter Paris without trouble. Then, when the retreat commenced, the Germans were not told about it.

"The war offices gave out that fierce fighting was still in progress at the gates of Paris. The only way the people became 'wise' to the real situation was to get out their geographies and find out where some of the towns mentioned in the dispatches are located. Outside of the closing of a few coffee houses Berlin is going along nicely. Germany doesn't feel the war very much. Her agricultural pursuits go on just the same. The prisoners are used to till the fields and build barracks. All prisoners work in Germany.

Thousands of Wounded.

"Wounded were brought into Hamburg at night by the thousands while I was there. And you had to keep moving in Hamburg. The wounded Germans were in good spirits, they were loyal to the kaiser and anxious to get back to the fight for him. There is much hatred between the Germans and the allies.

"Do you know what the Germans believe? They think that Russia declared war because of greed for more territory. They say that because England became jealous of the German merchant marine and started war that she might not be robbed of her supremacy on the seas. And France, the Germans say, declared war because of their ill feelings as the result of the war of 1870.

"There is no grumbling in Germany. The women have been compelled to give up their home occupations and knit socks and make bandages for the soldiers. Women and the few men left at home smash an English sign whenever they see one. The use of French, English, and Russian words is taboo.

"And there isn't a German who believes Germany cannot win."

[Historical notes:
1. Stallupoenen was in Ostpreussen/East Prussia east of the Vistula River. On August 17, 1914 the Russians crossed the border. German forces began a successful engagement near Stallupoenen, and then retreated. This was followed by German infliction of heavy losses on the Russians at the battle of Gumbinnen, after which the Germans again retreated. At the end of August the German army defeated the Russians at Tannenberg, "a most perfect example of a modern battle of annihilation. The German official history of World War I goes so far as to rank Tannenberg higher than all other battles of envelopment in history and rates it above the classical model of Cannae itself." This quote from a Marine Corps historical text.

2. The First Balkan War of 1912-1913 was a multilateral (Montenegro, Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria) effort to erase the remaining belt of Turkish territory that stretched across the peninsula from Albania on the Adriatic to Thrace on the Black Sea. Bulgaria gained the Western Thrace (giving Bulgaria direct access to the Mediterranean Sea) and claimed Macedonia, both of which had been part of the medieval Bulgarian kingdom. This claim led immediately to the Second Balkan War. Serbia and Greece refused to evacuate Macedonia, and in 1913 Bulgaria attacked its erstwhile allies. Meanwhile, Romania struck Bulgaria from the north in order to obtain Southern Dobrudja (the wedge of land south of the mouth of the Danube). Overextended Bulgaria lost, and Greece and Serbia divided Macedonia between them. Greece also took Western Thrace from Bulgaria.]