Using human intelligence to combat submarine attacks in the Gulf of Mexico
LeMaistre describes what he and other naval intelligence officers did after what he ironically calls "the Battle of the Gulf." They debriefed "neutrals" from places like Chile and Argentina, unsure what they were trying to find out. Nevertheless, their investigations sometimes uncovered useful information, especially with help from volunteers, such as one Communist Party member who found that his loyalty to his country exceeded his loyalty to his party.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with George A. LeMaistre, April 29, 1985. Interview A-0358. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ALLEN J. GOING:
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After New Orleans, where did you go then?
- GEORGE A. LeMAISTRE:
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After the battle of the Gulf, so to speak, subsided, after that submarine
was dealt with, we didn't have any more sinkings for a while. Although
one or two of those ships that were sunk out there were heavily loaded
with aviation fuel and gasoline; they made spectacular torches. I
remember seeing one of them blow up. I was walking along the levee down
at Venice which is 100 miles south of New Orleans on the river. I heard
this noise and looked over to the east and there was this huge ball of
flame. We borrowed a boat as usual, we had none of our own, and went out
there to it and didn't find anybody. We never found a soul. We found
the board off the bridge of the ship which had the
ship's name on it. It was the Raleigh Warner. Raleigh
Warner is now the president of one of the big oil companies. He was the
son of the president of Pure Oil Company. But after the shipping scare
subsided, we spent a great deal of time setting up travel control,
because most of the neutrals, or so called neutrals, came in by ship in
those days. Not many planes flew in. We had passenger ships coming in
from Spain, a great many ships from South America; Chile and Argentina
just continuous traffic between New Orleans and their home ports. The
Delta shipping lines based in New Orleans had passenger ships and cargo
ships. Mostly mixed cargo and passenger ships. Freighters carrying a few
passengers. And all the United Fruit ships carried passengers. Some of
them as many as 150. Standard Fruit was still running a big fleet of
white ships, all of them carrying passengers. So we had to set up some
kind of control to interview every passenger that came in to find out
where he came from, what he had seen. In effect, a debriefing without
him really knowing what we were trying to find out. Most of them
volunteered information and were very helpful. The Spanish government
had a little bit of a problem with us or maybe we had one with them. I
don't know. On one or two occasions they were suspected of bringing
information that was helpful to the German fleet—submarine
fleet. That they would either drop off in South America or Corn Island
or somewhere down in the Gulf, or maybe bring it on
with them. I assume we would use the same tactics if we were trying to
get information to somebody. It would be a lot easier to let some
neutral take it than it would be to try to get the word there yourself.
We used to visit with the officers of these ships—spend maybe
half a day quizzing them. In a few cases we actually put surveillance on
those officers and followed them everywhere they went to see what kind
of contacts they made. You'd be surprised how many times a man with a
name like Fernandez would make his first contact with somebody
named—a name like von Peppinon [?] or
[laugh]
something like that. They seemed to have an affinity for people
with German names. And, of course, at that time everybody was suspicious
of anybody with a German name. I guess there were no Japanese names. I
don't remember anybody ever contacting the Japanese. Which did two
things: it gave us a chance to observe the man who come in on the ship
and it also pinpointed some of his contacts. By cross checking lists
like the German-American Bund and organizations like that.
We quite often found that the people that they were making contact with
were engaged in other subversive activities. Matter of fact, we had a
great setup in New Orleans in one regard. A young man who had joined the
Communist Party and had become a minor official, assistant secretary or
something like that of the cell that was located in New Orleans, decided
that that was the wrong thing to do. He had joined before the war and
when the United States became involved, he decided
he was a loyal American. So instead of just quitting and going into the
army, he came to see us in Naval Intelligence and asked if he could be
helpful. We said, "Yes, stay right where you are." So
we had the entire roster of the Communist set up not only in Louisiana
but throughout the entire mid-South. We ran into some interesting
problems with it. For instance, this boy's number in the draft came up.
We had a problem. We couldn't just let him escape the draft when nobody
else could, but we wanted to keep him where he was, so we managed to get
him assigned to Algiers Naval Base. So he remained in uniform a member
of the Communist Party. It was a dangerous job for him but he did a good
job. He kept us pretty well informed.
- ALLEN J. GOING:
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You could keep track that way.
- GEORGE A. LeMAISTRE:
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We knew when meetings were going to take place, and we could infiltrate
the meeting—have someone there who would otherwise attract
attention—let them join up with some group before the meeting
started.
- ALLEN J. GOING:
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When you identified actual subversives and informants, what happened?
- GEORGE A. LeMAISTRE:
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I never did quite understand why we were so reluctant to make examples of
some of those people, but I do now understand it. It was much better for
us to watch those people and to somehow neutralize their activity
without them knowing it than it was to punish them. Because punishment
would just mean that they would search for somebody else,
and you'd lose your contact and your information. Whereas
to let them go and observe them closely kept them, we hoped, from being
suspicious and they became more open with their activity. I will say
this, though; when Russia came into the war on our side, or when they
began activities on our side I should say against the Germans, the
Communist activity slowed down a great deal. They became pretty much
interested in the welfare of the American military. It was not a source
of worry really.
- ALLEN J. GOING:
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Yeah that, I guess, was '42.
- GEORGE A. LeMAISTRE:
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I don't know exactly when they declared war on Hitler, but remember in
'40, I guess it was, they had had a nonaggression pact.
[NOTE: Germany invaded Russia June 22, 1941.]
- ALLEN J. GOING:
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It might have been '41.
- GEORGE A. LeMAISTRE:
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Yeah, I think it might have been before our actual participation in the
war that they came out on our side. But as they began to suffer more and
we were trying to get goods to Murmansk and that kind of thing, we got a
great deal more cooperation.