Standing Well Back
1970-1980

Left, Right, Anarchist and Nut Job

The history of IED attacks in the US is full of surprises. The two organizations responsible for the most IED attacks, numerically, in the last 120 years is the Puerto Rican separatists organization the FALN (in the 1970s and 1980s ) with 126 IED attacks that killed 6 people in total, and the Iron Workers Union who between 1906 and 1910 used 111 IEDs to attack industrial targets, then finally the “bombing of the century” as it was called, when it blew up the offices of the Los Angeles Times. The subsequent fire killed 26 people.

I have blogged before about union attacks in the period, clearly industrial relations were very much an issue then, but the volume of attacks is remarkable.  But remember at the time there were other violent attacks on going – the “black hand” extortion gangs in the New York area were very active, as were the early bomb squads in terms of responding to them.

The LA Times bombing was the fourth worst bombing (I think) in US history, after the Oklahoma bombing, the Wall Street bombing and the Bath School bombing – tell me if I have that wrong.

The LA Times device consisted of a suitcase of dynamite left on some sort of timer. It was reportedly set to detonate at 4.00 am when no-one was expected to be in the building, but detonated early at 1.07 a.m. The whole case is fraught, even now, with question marks and conspiracy theories.  Indeed even the defendants lawyer the famous Clarence Darrow was caught bribing a juror. The end result of the bombing and the subsequent trial was a considerable set back for the Unions in Los Angeles.

At the same time as the incident at the LA Times, another IED was found on a windowsill at the residence of the owner, General Otis and another targeting another opponent of the unions.

So, in terms of perpetrators, the most fatal bombings in US history are the responsibility in each case of domestic terrorists:

  1. Radical right wing extremist (Oklahoma Bombing) 168 killed
  2. Regular nut job (Bath School Bombing) 45 killed
  3. Anarchist extremists(Wall St bombing) 38 Killed
  4. Radical left wing unions (LA Times bombing) 21 killed

Of course the 9/11 attacks killed more, but they weren’t IEDs per se.

1910-1920

Kurt Jahnke: the legendary German saboteur

I’ve blogged before about the German sabotage campaign just before the US entered World War 1.    I’ve been digging slowly through much new material with regard to Kurt Jahnke.  Jahnke was one of the key German saboteurs operating in the USA before and during the First World War and along with his close colleague Lothar Witzke and a more distant colleague, Franz Rintelen, they played key roles in the extensive and, in my opinion, largely underestimated or unrecognized, IED campaign and associated disruptive activities in the period. This disruptive campaign involved extensive use of IEDs, biological warfare attacks (anthrax and glanders attacks on US soil), arson, encouraging labor disputes, encouraging Mexico’s entry into the war against the US, etc I’m building extensive files on this campaign, bit by bit.

There’s enough for a couple of books, and frankly I’m a bit overwhelmed and the material demands much more beyond a short blog.  For those of you who haven’t heard of him, here’s a very brief potted history of Jahnke:

  • 1888 Born Gnesen in West Prussia
  • ? Enlisted in the German Navy
  • ? worked in Peking as a member of the International Customs service, possibly as a German Agent
  • 1909 Emigrated to the USA
  • ? Enlisted in the US Marines and served in San Francisco, Pearl Harbor and the Philippines
  • ? Discharged for medical reasons (malaria?)
  • 1912 Posted to the German Consulate in San Francisco as a diplomatic official
  • 1912 onwards – developed connections with China whilst in the San Francisco post
  • 1916. Almost certainly involved in the Black Tom explosion, New Jersey
  • 1916 Strongly suspected of fomenting and encouraging labor strikes in San Francisco
  • 1916 Claimed to be responsible for sinking 14 allied munitions ships
  • 1917 Almost certainly responsible for the Mare Island munitions depot explosion near San Francisco.
  • 1917 Involved in other bombings on the US east Coast
  • 1917 After declaration of war, operated from Mexico with numerous plots
  • 1923 Undertook sabotage attacks against occupying French forces in the Ruhr, Germany
  • 1920’s Possibly involved with official, but secret German collaboration with Russian forces
  • 1920’s Possibly recruited as a Russian agent
  • 1934 Formed the Jahnke Buro , a semi-official intelligence agency, aka “Abteilung Pfeffer” Possibly responsible for handling of a German agent in the US embassy
  • 1939 By this date Jahnke’s “Abteilung Pfeffer” was under direct control of Rudolf Hess.
  • 1941 – After Hess’s flight to Britain he “retired” . Some reports suggest he was fired in 1940
  • 1943? – Tempted out of retirement by Walter Schellenberg, head of the Nazi’s foreign intelligence department to return to intelligence activities.  Suggestions he opened a dialogue with Allied intelligence agencies in 1944
  • 1945 – Fled to Switzerland
  • 1945 – Returned to Germany, arrested and tortured by Russian SMERSH
  • 1945- Killed by SMERSH or perhaps not till 1950… or perhaps not at all… suggestions that he worked for one Russian intelligence agency but was arrested by another in a  turf war. Suspected by everyone of being a double agent of one sort or another.

As one might expect with such a full and complex life, establishing the truth is nigh on impossible.  Certainly Jahnke at times claimed responsibility for things he probably hadn’t done, such as the sinking of the USS San Diego, which he claimed responsibility for to the Russians interrogating him. Other things about Jahnke worth considering, which I’m digging at:

  1. Could he have played a part in the 1916 “Preparedness Day bombing” in San Francisco
  2. If so, could he be involved in the 1921 Wall St bombing (there’s a possible connection)
  3. Details of his sabotage attacks on the Ruhr in 1921
  4. Details of the explosive devices he employed
  5. Details of the China connections
  6. Details of US and UK operations in Mexico to counter his activities (quite a bunch of stories there)

There’s lots more to come.

1900-1910

Multiple suicide bomber attacks in 1904 or 1905

This is very intriguing – a second hand report about Japanese troops using multiple suicide bombing as a tactic against the Russians in 1904 or 1905. I’ve spent a few hours looking for a primary source or even a better secondary source and can’t find one – vague references to the tactic but no specifics.  Fascinating in its implications.   Rather than lift the story, here’s a straight image from the book, as is.

 

1900-1910

A most unusual IED attack from the Russo-Japanese war

I’ve found a new source of interesting historical explosive incidents that will fill several blog posts.  But I couldn’t resist posting this story straight away. (It’s a little apocryphal I admit). Stand-by for more from this source.

During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, a certain Russian officer was an impatient, overbearing martinet. He took particular pleasure in treating his Chinese servants with the utmost of harshness, for the slightest delinquency or indeed for no reason at all.  One of his favoured forms of punishment was to dismiss his servants and as they left kick them roundly around the backside as they left through the door.

 On of his servants became very irritated with this treatment, and one day related the circumstances to a man he met who happened to be a Japanese spy. The spy gave the Chinese servant much sympathy and promised him a solution – a pair of padded breeches which he would supply himself the following day. A rubber hot water bottle was filled with absorbent cotton wool and topped up with nitroglycerine. An initiation system using a percussion cap was fitted alongside such that any blow would cause detonation. The unfortunate Chinese servant was oblivious to this, thinking that he had a fine, but bulky new pair of trousers which would protect him. 

At the next meeting the servant inadvertently spilled a little tea on the officer’s uniform. Thereupon the master raged and raged and dismiised the servant in the usual way, but with perhaps a little more precipitation than usual.

One of the officer’s legs was blown off, an arm was crushed, four ribs were broken and the Russian was unconscious for a good period of time. When he came to, he found himself a prisoner of the Japanese who had overrun the hospital.  The Chinaman, well, he was never seen…

1770-1780

An American terrorist in England

A friend of mine asked me my opinion on the most significant terrorist attacks in history. Here’s one which had pretty significant implications.

“John the Painter ” aka James or John Aitken, aka Jack the Painter, aka John Hill aka James Hinde was born a Scotsman but adopted America as his cause.  A petty, and not so petty, criminal he made his living as a painter and clearly his daily dealing with turpentine and flammable liquids prompted a thought.  He was also seized with enthusiasm for the cause of Independence for America, having arrived there in 1775. He became a prototype lone wolf terrorist.

In 1776 he knocked on the door of the leading American diplomat in Paris, France, Mr Silas Deane, and with a little encouragement described a plot to set on fire the key naval dockyards in England, thus crippling the British Royal Navy. He showed Deane his incendiary device:

Producing a portable infernal machine of his own invention, he explained his scheme. The machine consisted of a wooden box to hold combustibles, with a hole in the top for a candle, a tin canister, no larger than a half-pound tea can and perforated for air, to cover it; the whole to be filled with inflammable materials—hemp, tar, oil and matches. The candle, having been lighted, would burn down until it ignited the inflammable materials, and these exploding would scatter the fire for yards around.  

Deane gave him a little encouragement and a little money and sent him on his way.  On returning to England, John the Painter successfully burnt down the Rope House at Portsmouth Naval dockyard. He also set a number of fires in Bristol.  This created the public impression that gangs of American revolutionaries were active in the country. The King himself offered a reward for his capture and demanded daily briefings.

 

In an early form of Weapons Intelligence Investigation a failed device of the same design was discovered in an adjacent building to the burnt down rope house and subsequently witnesses attested that John the Painter had had it made in Canterbury.   John the Painter was hunted, arrested and tried – the transcript of his trial is available on line in Cobbett’s State Trials.  The device is described very clearly on a number of occasions by witnesses. An intriguingly thorough trial even down to the calling of a witness from whom he had bought matches.

He was duly transported to Portsmouth where he was strangled at the gates to the Naval Dockyard then hoisted up the 64 foot mizzenmast of the HMS Arethusa [specially unbolted and placed on land for the occasion]  then they eviscerated his body, tarred it, hauled it back up the mast and left him to waft in the wind for years as a warning to all and sundry.

The mast was the highest gallows in England’s history. 20,000 people attended the execution (quite a number, given the population of Portsmouth was 13,000)

So, why was this so significant in its implications? Here’s why:

  1. The fires in Portsmouth and Bristol caused terror across England. Vigilante groups patrolled the streets of ports.  Thus the arson attacks really did terrorize the nation.
  2. The attacks turned the public opinion – there had been significant support for the American revolution, especially in Bristol, but this public support was turned on its head. Had this not occurred, and more negotiated independence may have been achieved. Who knows what that may have looked like?
  3. The public mood allowed the production of the 1777 Treason Act and for years after the death sentence for murder in the UK had been abolished in 1965, the death sentence was still permitted for treason, and explicitly included in the list of treasonous acts was arson in the naval dockyards.

 A newspaper of the time stated:

“Of all bad characters, an incendiary is the foulest. He acts as an assassin armed with the most dreadful of mischiefs, and in executing his diabolical purposes, involves the innocent and the guilty in the same ruin.” 

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