09 Mar They Came to Blow up America
They Came to Blow up America, WWII movie starring George Sanders
(1943) An FBI agent, posing as a German saboteur, travels to Nazi Germany in order to infiltrate a spy ring.
In this case, the true story is so much better than the movie. The Germans had an organized plan to create havoc inside the United States by training German agents to plant bombs inside factories. These agents had all lived and worked in the U.S. and were given intensive training in the use of explosives. You can read all about “Operation Pastorius” in this article.
In June of 1942, eight agents traveled by submarine and went ashore in New York and Florida. One of them, George John Dasch, had second thoughts almost immediately and went to the FBI and had a hard time getting anyone’s attention there.
The spies were caught and tried. Six were executed. Dasch was sentenced to 30 years in prison, later deported to Germany by President Truman. He wasn’t welcome there either, it seems, but lived until the ripe old age of 89.
The FBI reports that “Although many allegations of sabotage were investigated by the FBI during World War II, not one instance was found of enemy-inspired sabotage.”
They Came to Blow Up America at amazon.com
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