Fritz Joubert Duquesne - First World War

First World War

After meeting a German-American industrialist in the Midwest around 1914, Duquesne became a German spy and was sent to Brazil as "Frederick Fredericks" under the disguise of “doing scientific research on rubber plants.” From his base in Rio de Janeiro he planted time bombs disguised as cases of mineral samples on British ships that led to the sinking of 22 ships. Among the ships sunk were: the Salvador; the Pembrokeshire; the Tennyson, and one of his bombs started a fire on the Vauban.

Also in 1916, Duquesne placed an article in a newspaper, reporting on his own death in Bolivia at the hands of Amazonian natives. When he was arrested in New York on 17 November 1917 on charges of fraud for insurance claims on “mineral samples that were lost” with the ships he sank off the coast of Brazil, including the British steamship Tennyson which he sank on 18 February 1916, he had in his possession a large file of news clippings concerning bomb explosions on ships, as well as a letter from the Assistant German Vice Consul at Managua, Nicaragua. The letter indicated that Captain Duquesne was one who has rendered considerable service to the German cause. By this time, the British authorities were also looking at Duquesne as the agent responsible for “murder on the high seas, arson, faking Admiralty documents and conspiring against the Crown”. American authorities agreed that they would extradite Duquesne to Britain, if the British sent him back afterwards to serve his sentence for fraud.