ODDS’N’SODS — A draftsman under suspicion

In 1936-37, the reorganized Paymaster Consolidated gold mine near Timmins, Ont., was limping along; money was scarce for several years. Our master mechanic, Bill White, needed a draftsman-designer but could not get approval to hire one. So we in the shops had to operate by using hand sketches and verbal instructions.

One day, Bill proudly introduced a new draftsman, Wolfgang Walter Holmsberger, and this pleased everyone. Wolfgang was a middle-aged German with a heavy accent, and he requested that everyone call him “Valter.” He was an excellent draftsman, but I sometimes found the door to the little drafting room locked, and Walter appeared to be working on things that, in my mind, had nothing to do with an operating gold mine.

The Buffalo-Ankerite gold mine was directly across the valley from Paymaster and was operated by Americans of German descent from Buffalo, N.Y. Walter tried to become friendly with the folks at Ankerite but to no avail. My friend Ted, in the Ankerite machine shop, advised me to “keep an eye on the Holmsberger, something just isn’t right about him.” So I watched Walter closely.

Bill took Walter on a rush trip to Noranda for a few days and the drafting room was locked up. However, when prints were needed for Sunday maintenance, we had to remove the door hinges. Ted and I spent Sunday evening in the drafting room and Ted translated Walter’s notes into English. We were convinced that this operation looked extremely suspicious. We found several mailing tubes containing pictures, maps, access road and power-line details of every hydroelectric plant in northern Ontario, all addressed to an office in Bremen, Germany.

Ted had a friend in the Royal Canadian Mountain Police and when Bill and Walter returned, a Mountie took charge of Walter while the contents of the mailing tubes were reviewed in detail. With an escort, Walter departed for Ottawa that evening.

Bill, Ted and I received complimentary letters from Paymaster directors, and Bill, in his typical John Wayne manner, growled at me and said, “Darn it, Alpine, you manage to get into trouble the minute I leave the property.” Then he smiled and offered me his snuff box.

Fortunately, it appears the Nazis never did get to use much of the information gathered by their agents in the interior of North America. — A.E. Alpine, a frequent contributor to the column, resides in Boyertown, Pa.