William Colepaugh
| William Colepaugh | |
|---|---|
Defected to Germany in World War II
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| Born |
March 25, 1918 Niantic, Connecticut |
| Died | March 16, 2005 (aged 86) Paoli, Pennsylvania |
| Occupation | Able seaman, secret agent |
| Spouse(s) | Dolores Campetti |
| Children | none |
| Parent(s) | William C. and Havel G. (Schmidt) Colepaugh |
William Curtis Colepaugh (March 25, 1918 – March 16, 2005) was an American who, following his 1943 discharge from the US Naval Reserve ("for the good of the service", according to official reports), defected to Nazi Germany in 1944. While a crewman on a United States Merchant Marine ship that stopped off in Lisbon, Colepaugh defected at the German consulate. Colepaugh had attended Admiral Farragut Academy in Pine Beach, New Jersey.
Colepaugh was given extensive firearms and espionage training at a spy-school in the German-occupied Den Haag. He spoke virtually no German. With the German agent Erich Gimpel, he was transported back to the USA by the U-1230, landing at Hancock Point in the Gulf of Maine on 29 November 1944. Their mission, Operation Elster, was to gather technical information on the Allied war effort and transmit it back to Germany using a radio they were expected to build.
Together Colepaugh and Gimpel made their way to Boston and then by train to New York. Before long Colepaugh abandoned the mission, taking US$48,000 ($653,000 today) of the currency they had brought and spending a month partying and carousing with local women. After spending $1,500 ($20,400 today) in less than a month, Colepaugh visited an old schoolfriend and asked for help to turn himself in to the FBI, hoping for immunity. The FBI was already searching for the two German agents following the sinking of a Canadian ship a few miles from the Maine coastline (indicating a U-boat had been nearby) and reports of suspicious sightings by local residents. The FBI interrogated Colepaugh, which then enabled them to track down Gimpel.
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Wikipedia