Action for Men, May 1960 — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Gustav Jager, or Sepple, was tried by a military court and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. On the way to the ancient red sandstone Fort, he managed to pry a tiny vial of poison from the lining of his shoe and died within minutes after swallowing the contents. His capture was the first important coup by Miller and his girls. Leamington was pleased. ‘“‘How would you like to try your hand at plate-making again, Miller? Turn- ing out the queer ?” Miller grinned. The major continued: “I’m going to give you a chance to counter- feit for us. You might even get a medal for it some day. We want Japanes. occupation currency, thousands of sheets of yen. The Nippies are making a big talk about their ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.’ We want to puncture that balloon by flood- ing Burma with worthless yen. It'll under- mine the Jap economy and hurt the army’s morale when the Burmese refuse to accept their bank notes.” Lucky frowned. “That's a big order, sir. I'll need special rice paper, Japanese inks or something very like them, and somebody to show me a few things about Nip art- work,” The major had the answers. ‘We've arranged for the paper and ink. Our people in Yokohama are sending the stuff out on a Swedish boat. But the artwork is more difficult. You’re going to prison for a while, my boy, and become a student!” Miller was clad in prison denims, a num- ber was sewn in a red circle on his back, and he was lodged in the Red Fort on a charge of sedition. Not by coincidence, his cellmate was one Fuyoki Ito, a prominent Japanese artist and illustrator. Ito had worked in relative peace on sev- eral Indian magazines until his blatant pro- Axis rantings and pictures led the British to intern him. He was a delicate-boned, smallish man with a great disdain for the garden variety of uneducated or boorish prisoners. But he admired Miller. The little Japanese bowed stiffly and said to the newcomer: “I have heard of your own feelings about the war, Miller-san. Even though your paper is a shoddy thing, the sentiments it expresses are commendable. You will have a place in the New Order after our glorious victory comes.” WITHIN a short time, Lucky had wheedied the artist into giving him lessons in the intricacies of Japanese brush work. Miller, no mean artist himself in certain illicit pursuits, was an adept pupil. The daily lessons lasted for several months. He acquired enough dexterity with the dainty brushes and paint pots to duplicate the lettering and curlicues on the occupation yen issued by the Japanese government. Suddenly, he was yanked out of the Red Fort, leaving Fuyoki Ito to wonder fretfully what had happened to Miller-San. Had he been liquidated so quickly? In a curtained Daimler, Lucky Miller was driven to a low, heavily guarded building adjoining a jetty on the holy Jumna River. “From now on, this is your home, office and printing plant, Miller,” said Major Leam- ington. “See how you like it.” The place was a tribute to British in- genuity and the resourcefulness of the Amer- ican OSS in India, whose agents had aided the major in locating the tools, presses and other equipment Lucky would need. There were multilith machines and large glass-plate cameras used by engravers in preparation for making their delicate plates. Here were Japanese typewriters that oper- ated vertically and horizontally. Plus en- gravers’ lathes and cutting implements which had been stolen by pro-British Burmese from the plant of the Biruma Shimbun in Ran- goon which published a small weekly paper for the occupation troops from Nippon. (THERE were opaque projectors—actually outsize magic lanterns — which flashed images of genuine Jap occupation currency magnified on a screen 50 times. And there was a raw-boned Russian girl named Olga Sesslov, whose parents had fled the Reds years before. She knew how to read, write and print Japanese, for she had been born and raised in Tokyo. Lucky Miller, happy to be among objects and machines with which he was familiar, sat chain-smoking and studying the blown-up letters, the magnified horizontal and vertical lines, the shadings of the 50-yen notes. He squinted at the sharp points around the outer edge of the seal of the Imperial Treasury. “Vour lads are thorough!” he said in ad- miration. “I see we have a geometric lathe, a serial number machine, a stippler, and intaglio frames. How can I miss? When I was turning out the queer stuff in London, I had to work practically out of my suitcase!” Major Leamington snorted and rapped the palm of his hand with his swagger stick for emphasis. “Forget the compliments and get down to business, Miller. Get those plates made soon. We need Japanese yen, and plenty of them.” & On a busy Sunday ten days later, Lucky picked up a phone which was connected directly with the major’s office. “I’ve got them, sir. Three wonderful plates. Ten, twenty, and fifty-yen denominations. The Mikado himself couldn’t tell our money from his own.” Leamington experimented with the bogus Japanese money on officers and enlisted men in the Red Fort. “Why do you give us this money?” asked a wiry lieutenant named Oshida. He sneered. “It is a great tempta- tion to accept it, but I will not betray our Emperor.” When a 50-yen note was given to the artist, Ito, for some cigarettes by a prisoner who was a British plant, the artist carefully pocketed the money without looking at it twice. Leamington was jubilant. “If it passed Ito without arousing sus- picion, that money will be accepted any- where—until the Nips get their wind up about it!” The counterfeit bank notes were produced in large quantity and smuggled by sea and air into Jap-occupied lands. Almost 50,000,000 yen in bogus currency was intro- duced into the commerce of Burma alone. When the Japanese authorities issued a warning that worthless money was flooding the country, storekeepers refused to accept paper bills, harlots spurned the CURESICY, and Jap troops became irate. On September 1, 1943, a Major Kyoshi Oto offered 500 yen worth of Miller-de- signed money in payment for three dinners and a singing girl. He was set upon by a mob of furious Burmese, and was stoned and trampled to death. Other Rangoon Café operators, theater owners, shopkeepers and even the keepers of brothels—incensed over the spate of bogus money—poured into the “Honest, Mrs. Smith, your husband just left.’’ (C(O) nn) (C 6)(0)(0) Saxe) am aD)