Did you know that frogs are cannibals,
fashion can be fatal and the dinosaurs
never died? Or that redheads were
once burned at the stake as witches?
Find out why rubbish tips are like lasagna,
and how maggots help solve crimes!
To Max, Amelia, Dezzy and Rachel,
with love from Auntie Sue
First published in 2006
Copyright © text Sue Bursztynski 2006
Copyright © illustrations Mitch Vane 2006
Series design copyright © Ruth Grüner
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Bursztynski, Sue.
It’s true! your cat could be a spy.
Bibliography.
Includes index.
For children.
ISBN 1 74114 606 2.
1. Spies – Juvenile literature. I. Vane, Mitch.
II. Title. (Series: It’s true; 15)
327.12
Series, cover and text design by Ruth Grüner
Cover photographs: Getty Images and G K Kart/Vikki Hart (cat), Comstock (spy) and BrandX Pictures (magnifying glass)
Set in 12.5pt Minion by Ruth Grüner
Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Teaching notes for the It’s True! series are available
on the website: www.itstrue.com.au
CONTENTS
WHY SPIES?
1
SNEAKY SPIES AND GREEK GIFTS 1
2
WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET – NOT! 9
3
BELLE, BET AND HARRIET:
WOMEN UNDERCOVER 15
4
SECRET SERVICE
IN THE TWO WORLD
WARS 25
5
SPY GADGETS AND
SECRET WEAPONS 38
6
COOL CATS AND COLD
WAR DISASTERS 51
7
BEST-SELLING SPIES 60
8
CYBER-SPYING 68
9
SHORT NINJA, TALL TALES 76
Thanks 85
Glossary 86
Where to find out more 87
Index 88
WHY SPIES?
Spying is the world’s oldest profession, ever since one tribe needed to know what the other tribe was doing. Men, women and children have been spies. During World War II, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland were fighting the Nazis, who wanted to murder them.
Children and teenagers often made their way in secret through the sewers to find out information and bring back weapons needed by the fighters. A boy called Baruch Bursztynski rode a bicycle rickshaw as part of his disguise. One day, he drove a Nazi passenger who had no idea that he was sitting on top of a pile of weapons! Although many spies and agents didn’t survive their missions, Baruch did. He grew up to become my Dad!
1
SNEAKY SPIES
AND GREEK
GIFTS
Spies live in a dangerous world.
Their job is to find out enemy
secrets and bring this
information back to their
leaders. They could be
killed if they are caught,
so they often wear a disguise or go
undercover and live among the enemy.
1
Spies have to be very careful and very cunning.
In ancient times, soldiers made good spies and so did
travellers, because they could go from city to city.
There is a story about King Alfred the Great,
ruler of Wessex, in Britain, over 1000 years ago.
Alfred thought he might do some hands-on spying.
The Danes had invaded his country and Alfred
disguised himself as a wandering minstrel and cheekily
went to the Danish camp. He played his harp and sang
love songs while the Danish leaders were meeting to
plan their next battle. Did anyone in that tent wonder
about the singer sitting in the corner playing beautiful music? We’ll never know. But Alfred won the battle.
Alfred was a real king, but this story may be a
legend, like the legend of the Trojan War.
THE TROJAN WAR
According to Greek myth, beautiful Queen Helen ran
off with a prince called Paris to the powerful city of
Troy (in what is now Turkey). Her husband, Menelaus,
and other Greek kings followed with a huge army.
2
They besieged Troy, but the Trojans wouldn’t give in.
After ten long years of fighting, everyone just wanted
the war to be over.
Finally, one Greek hero, Odysseus, thought of a
clever plan to defeat the Trojans. First he had to go on a secret mission. There was a prophecy that Troy would
not fall as long as it had the Palladium, a sacred stone belonging to the goddess Athena. The stone was in a
temple under the city. Odysseus disguised himself as
an old beggar and slipped through the gates into Troy.
Nobody looked twice at him, but Odysseus was taking
note of all the landmarks in the city.
Then Helen recognised Odysseus, even with his
disguise. When Odysseus told her what he wanted,
she showed him where the stone was, because she too
was fed up with the long war. Odysseus smuggled the
Palladium out of the city.
It was time for the second part of his plan.
The Greeks built a huge wooden horse, big enough
to hold a band of soldiers. Some soldiers hid inside
the horse, and others hid nearby, while the Greeks
pretended to sail their ships away.
3
One man was left,
a spy called Sinon.
He told the Trojans
that he had been
beaten and left behind.
The wooden horse,
he said, was an
offering to the
gods for a safe voyage home. The Trojans took the
horse inside the gates. Can you guess what happened?
Late that night when everyone was asleep, tired out
from partying, the Greeks attacked. Poor Trojans – for
ten years they had held out against the Greeks, and
then their city was destroyed in one night!
4
Trojan horse
Today ‘Trojan horse’ is a computer term for
a program that is smuggled on to a system
to do secret damage.
RUTHLESS ROMANS
The Romans
believed they were descended from the
Trojans. And they weren’t
going to be beaten by
anyone. Rome was full
of spies. Noble families
had their own,
and the Roman
army used spies
when Rome was
at war with other
powerful states.
Rome fought a series of wars against the
African city of Carthage from 272 to 146 BCE.
The Carthaginian general, Hannibal, had spies
everywhere. Any spy who made a mistake was in big
trouble. Hannibal once ordered the execution of one
unlucky spy who sent him to the wrong city (which
had a name that sounded like the right city).
On the Roman side, General Scipio Africanus
had his own spying methods. He sent officers to the
Carthaginian camp to discuss a truce, but the Romans
took along some slaves – only they were really officers
in disguise. There was one officer who might have
been recognised, so he was beaten in front
of the enemy, as if he was really a slave.
They knew the Carthaginians wouldn’t believe an
officer would let himself be beaten in public like that.
The Roman soldiers and their ‘slaves’ looked carefully
at the layout of the camp. They attacked that night
– and won.
Years later, Roman emperors had their own spies.
Some of them, the frumentarii, started out as supply sergeants. No one suspected supply sergeants of spying,
because they had to travel around to buy supplies for
the army. They became a sort of secret police, spying
on those who might be against the
Emperor. They were hated and feared
by the people.
Roman emperors believed
they needed their spies to
survive. Did the spies help?
Well . . . only a quarter of
the emperors died of old
age or illness. The rest
were murdered.
7
READ IT, JULIUS !
Julius Caesar was a great Roma
b
n
o
g
o
e
k
n
s
e
a
ra
b
l
o
w
ut
h
o
h
is
w
m
ro
i
t
l
e
it
ary advent
s
u
p
re
ie
s
s
.
C
to
a
e
g
s
a
a
t
r
h
e
u
r
s
e
in
d
f
ormation and
m
h
es
e
s
m
ag
a
e
d
s
e
w
s
e
u
r
r
e
e
coded, in case
c
a
h
p
is
tu
s
r
p
e
i
d
e
.
s
B
w
u
e
t
r
t
e
h
en he made
S
a
o
m
cru
e
c
m
ia
e
l
m
m
b
is
e
ta
rs
k
e
o
.
f
the Senate,
R
t
o
h
m
e
e
go
, p
ve
la
r
n
n
n
m
e
e
d
n
t
t
o
o
k
f
ill him. A
t
h
fe
e
w
S
e
m
n
i
a
n
t
u
e
t
e
m
s
e
b
e
e
ti
f
n
o
g
re
,
one of his
a
s
p
li
i
s
e
t
s
o
h
f
a
th
n
e
d
e
m
d
e
C
n
a
w
es
h
a
o
r
were plot
h
ti
i
n
m
g
.
t
o
.
.
a
b
ss
u
a
t
s
h
s
e
in
d
at
id
e
n
’t read it! Julius Cae
s
s
t
a
a
r
b
w
b
a
e
s
d
to death in 44 BCE.
8
2
WHAT YOU SEE
IS WHAT YOU
GET – NOT!
Secret agents have to know more than the language and
details of the country they are spying in. They have to
know how to act like the locals so they are not noticed.
If they are ‘sleeper agents’ they have to live in the place where they’re spying, as ordinary members of that
community, till they are ordered into action.
They need a range of old clothes and good clothes,
so they blend in. If they are on the run, they might
cut their hair, wear glasses, grow a beard or stain their 9
teeth. In some
even have plastic
surgery before
they go on
a mission.
In World War II,
British secret agents slipped into
France wearing French-styled clothes, and maybe a
Swiss watch. They cut off British clothing labels and
even had their dental fillings changed to match French
ones. Over the centuries, spies have worn all sorts of
disguises. Men have disguised themselves as women,
and women have dressed as men. One white woman
spy, Sarah Emma Edmonds, disguised herself as a
black man!
10
THE SPY IN A PINK NIGHTIE
A hundred years ago, when ladies wore elegant long
dresses and hats with veils to protect them from the sun, a lovely young woman was holidaying on a yacht off
the coast of France. Each day she would paint charming
scenes of French boats and then the yacht would sail on
to the next harbour. But, if you looked closer, you might have noticed that Miss Edith Murphy’s shoulders were
rather broad. And her gloved hands were large – most
unusual for a well-bred lady of 1903.
In fact, Miss Edith was an Australian spy working
for the British, and ‘she’ was really a man! Herbert Dyce Murphy was painting watercolours to record
information about the French navy and railways.
Herbert Dyce Murphy was born in Melbourne in
1879. He studied at Oxford University in England, and
in his summer holidays he worked as a sailor. But he
had been spotted in a university play, in a female role.
He acted so well that a man from British Intelligence
who was in the audience asked him to work as a spy in
Europe, disguised as a woman. The British government
11
wanted someone to check out the condition of French
and Belgian railways. If the French were planning for
war, the railways would be used to carry soldiers and
equipment. A man snooping around the trains would
be more suspicious than a young lady painting pictures.
Herbert was short of money, so he said yes.
He learned how to act like a girl and grew his hair,
which was safer than wearing a wig. As a spy, he had
a chaperone – an older woman who travelled with
him – as all respectable young ladies did in those days.
The chaperone’s real job
was to make sure nobody
caught ‘Edith’ putting on
his disguise or shaving.
Herbert had some
strange experiences
during his spying career.
It's True! Your Cat Could Be a Spy Page 1
