Hide Article Text (OCR)
The Orange County RegisterThursday, November 15, 1990Bill AlkoferVThe Orange County RegisterHarry Skittles’ Hengshoon, 77, of Fountain Valley was an OSS spy, one of the first recruited by the US during World War II.Local author, a WWII veteran, reunites intelligence players of a ‘grim and savage game’By Laura SaariThe Orange County RegisterSpies.A roomful of them.Spies who strangled men with their bare hands. Spies who decoded cryptic radio messages and saved ships from sinking. Spies who slinked in behind enemy lines and spies who stole secrets.This week, nearly half a century after they performed intelligence work, a group of 75 veteran spies from World War II and some family members gathered at the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach for their first West Coast reunion.When they signed on as America’s first official spies, they left behind all traces of their past.Their names. Their hometowns. Their ethnic backgrounds.They told no one where they were going. They removed the labels from their clothes and the photos from their wallets.They knew each other only by the secret missi'lis they carried out — and their code nameJ Tiger. Mozart. Jupiter.“Ti is a chance to put together the piece of the puzzle,” said former spy Tom Moon, 66, Orange, who organized the eventand whose second book on spies, “This Grim and Savage Game” (Burning Gate Press) is due this spring.The spies were members of the Office of Strategic Services, the organization that gave birth to the Central IntelligenceAgency.Often the spies carried out such a small piece of the operation that they didn’t know how their mission fit into the larger picture, said Harry “Skittles” Hengshoon, 77, of Fountain Valley.“Nowadays the details are unclassified, so we can go ahead and talk about old times,” he said. “We’re all here trying to get the whole picture.”Hengshoon became a spy for love.When he agreed to become a spy in 1942, all he wanted to do was see his wife and two children.He’d been away on an engineering mission when Japanese soldiers invaded his native Burma. Families were evacuated. He was unable to return home.He figured that becoming a spy would get him hack into Burma to find his family.It didn’t turn out that way.The Americans hired him gladly. He wasPlease see SPIES/2
Newspaper Details
Santa Ana Orange County Register
Santa Ana, California, US
Thu, Nov 15, 1990
Page 102
Full Page
Clipped by
Dakota W.
SD, USA 17 Apr 2023
Other Publications Near Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana Pacific Weekly Blade
Santa Ana Excelsior
Santa Ana News
Santa Ana Evening Blade
Santa Ana Orange County Register Evening
