One of two groups of saboteurs delivered by German subs to US in 1942

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about the recent arrests of Russian spies and their use of CW as a communications method. This friend is also an ex-submariner and he asked me if I knew about Operation Pastorius during World War II.

I’d never heard of it.

Enter Google, Wikipedia and my friend’s knowledge of the event. The more I heard & read, the more I wanted to know.

So I’m currently halfway through Betrayal by David Alan Johnson and have to say that it’s an incredibly interesting story with a good amount of J. Edgar Hoover’s eccentricities thrown in for relevent seasoning.

Content for the book comes from eye-witness accounts (of German submarine U-202 temporarily stranded on a Long Island beach), confessions of the would-be saboteurs, court transcriptions and FBI files, all woven into a compelling story of a relatively little-known event.

CQDXVW and AOR were the callsigns used by the US-based spies and their controllers back in Hamburg, respectively.

Rather than writing what’s already available online, check out these links for more info on this fascinating story:

The FBI archived summary of the event

Operation Pastorius from Wikipedia

Passport to Treason book excerpt

Court transcripts of the cases

This story is as much an adventure tale as an historical account. Players include German spies, German-American traitors, submarines, Morse Code, high explosives and executions.

Good fun reading all around…

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One Response to ““CQDXVW de AOR” and Operation Pastorius”

1. Glen Torr says:

   October 20, 2010 at 3:20 am

   John,

   Thanks for the heads up on the book.

   Many years ago Pat Hawker’s (G3VA) articles inspired me into CW QRP. Later in my career while working in Europe I marvelled at the work of CW in WW2.

   Kind Regards,

   Glen VK1FB

   Reply