Where was Robert Sarbacher in 1945 and the spring of 1946?

[Geoff]

“O’Riley’s” account

In writing “Defying Gravity” Chapters 55, 56, and 61, Paul Schatzkin had little choice but to rely very heavily upon the account of events provided to him by “O’Riley” (aka “twigsnapper”).

These chapters chronologically cover the period from late April 1945 until sometime in the spring of 1946.

Chapter 55: Situation Normal
This chapter contains “O’Riley’s” account of how the plan for Dr. Brown to rendezvous with a German tank commander at a farmhouse and ‘vet’ a German scientist who accompanied him ended in calamity.

O’Riley tells us how it all unfolded:
Dr. Brown’s team arrived at daybreak after driving carefully through the night … All was quiet at this second farmhouse but I am sure the Arkansas kid’s back teeth were grinding. Dr. Brown walked right to the front door and simply knocked.
A German soldier opened the door and stepped back. A man behind a table reached for something that he was going to hand to Dr. Brown but the kid had stepped in by then and his senses went into overload. He drew and fired.
In the next instant a firefight erupted in the farmhouse, with German sentries adding fire from the periphery - a fusillade of chaos that was started by a “trigger-happy 18-year old from Arkansas” who would not have been there had Campaigne not forced O’Riley to sit out the mission.
When the shooting stopped, the German scientist - dressed as a common soldier - was dead, three Americans including the radio operator were dead, and Townsend Brown lay bleeding from the wound where a bullet had ripped through his shoulder and penetrated a lung before exiting out his back.

Chapter 56: All Flags Flying
This chapter contains “O’Riley’s” first-hand account of how Robert Sarbacher had blazed onto the scene with “all flags flying” and taken charge of the operation to rescue Dr. Brown and seize German cipher machines.

With “O’Riley” in tow, Sarbacher set off for the farmhouse:

The first shots had already been fired by the time Sarbacher and O’Riley pulled into the farmhouse yard. “It was all eerily quiet,” O’Riley recalled. “Sarbacher went in ahead of me and went straight to the corner where the tank commander lay sprawled,” his dead body providing cover to the barely breathing Townsend Brown. “He carefully and respectfully put the body to the side as I walked in. The fact that Dr. Brown was still alive came as a shock to me, actually. Sarbacher just pointed, and then went off to do whatever it was that he was originally planning to do with the cipher gear and related paperwork.”
O’Riley tended to Dr. Brown, “who was conscious enough to tell me that the tank commander had saved his life by keeping the German cipher team from shooting him. He must have gotten most of them. But of course when the Americans burst in the door it was all over for them - and the tank commander too. It looked to me like he had pulled Dr. Brown into a corner and had died protecting him from of the other German staff members. He was quite dead, unfortunately.”
O’Riley says he tended to Dr. Brown, “getting some medics to him.” Meanwhile, “Sarbacher sent another team to collect our jeep and radio and tend to the other men we had lost. … I slowly faded to black along with Sarbacher once our chores were finished."

(to be continued)

[Geoff]

“O’Riley’s” account

Chapter 61, Will You Please Come With Us?
This chapter describes how, following Dr. Brown’s evacuation from Germany, Sarbacher and “O’Riley” turned their attention to tracking down another ‘high value’ German scientist on their ‘Caroline’ laundry list, and how they obtained his release from a POW camp in Georgia and secured his passage to the West.

Snips:

Although Townsend Brown was no longer present, the operations that he’d spearheaded before being injured and flown out of Germany continued in his absence. Sarbacher and O’Riley continued where Dr. Brown had left off, in the pursuit of German scientists of a certain stripe.

Quoting “O’Riley”:

“We had been given news that there was another physicist who had been captured by the Russians. Sarbacher was determined to go after him…” but the circumstances in those first months after the war ended were hardly conducive to the easy location and extraction of valuable personnel.

It turned out that the scientist they now sought had been shipped off to a prison camp in Soviet territory of Georgia; the effort to recover him could not proceed right away.

Both O’Riley and Sarbacher wound up spending the remainder of 1945 [so from May onwards] completing various missions and assignments in Germany - "networking the area," as O’Riley puts it - before resuming their quest for this one particular scientist.

After spending the winter separately in different parts of Europe, O’Riley and Sarbacher joined forces again in the early spring of 1946, and headed off to find the physicist.

O’Riley then describes the sojourn that he and Sarbacher endured to find their man. As usual, he’s reticent about the details, although he does say that they attached themselves to a supply convoy. “Large shipments were being supplied,” O’Riley begins, “and we hitched a ride as ‘shipping agents’ or some such.”

“Picture days and days - no, weeks - groaning along in a 6x6 2½ ton Studer,” he says, using the nickname the Russians had given to a Studebaker military vehicle that the U.S. had supplied as part of an extensive lend-lease program.

The trucks in question were loaded to the hilt with supplies from the West. “Ours was mostly loaded with bolts of flannel,” O’Riley recalls, “which I have never entirely understood. We had quite a bit to do before we even reached the POW camp and my recollection is that it was in the spring.”

“We found our scientist building houses as part of a work detail,” O’Riley said, still unwilling to mention the scientist by name. “Some of the other German prisoners had taken care of him, somehow sensing that this was a man of unusual qualities. When we found him, he was holding a string line while the others in his crew were making the concrete.”

After identifying their man, O’Riley says, Sarbacher “just shook his head, walked up to the man and said, "Sir, will you please come with us?"”

“Once the scientist was secured, Sarbacher walked over to the prisoner who was in charge of the work detail. After a long pause, Sarbacher simply looked Hans Von Luck squarely in the eye and said, “thank you, Sir,” and walked away with O’Riley and their scientist, leaving Von Luck behind in the muck.”

O’Riley says little about his return journey, describing only a circuitous itinerary that took them over some ancient caravan routes, through parts of Iran. At some point along the way, “another team picked the scientist up somewhere along the line and I understand that he did in fact make it to Canada.”

The scientist that Sarbacher and O’Riley went to such lengths to retrieve, the high voltage expert who found his way from a prison camp in Russia to an unnamed destination somewhere in Canada, other sources have revealed, was Richard Miethe.

For more information about Richard Miethe, see: viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1025

(to be continued)

[Geoff]

Dr. Robert Irving Sarbacher

In his research Paul Schatzkin discovered that there was very little to be found about Dr. Robert Irving Sarbacher.
He had Dr. Sarbacher’s entry in “Who’s Who,” and on the web he found a copy of Dr. Sarbacher’s November 29, 1983 letter to William Steinman, but the only published description he could find of the man himself was in a 1950 newspaper article:

Snips from chapter 56:

In April 1950 …. the Saturday Evening Post published a lengthy profile on him entitled “Look Out - Here Comes a Genius!” Written by Sidney Shallet, the sub-head introduced “…the man of the future, Dr. Robert Sarbacher, who earned $35,000 before he was old enough to vote and now invents devices more fantastic than Jules Verne’s.”

Of his service during World War II, the article says only:
…he was a Navy consultant in electronics and development, and then he went to Georgia Tech in Atlanta to become, at thirty eight, dean of the graduate school.

That last item is curious, because it puts him in Atlanta in 1945 - at the same time my own reliable sources assure me that Sarbacher was barnstorming around Germany in a jeep, flying the flag of the British Admiralty’s Director of Naval Intelligence.

(to be continued)

[Geoff]

Georgia Tech’s student newspaper the ‘Technique’

Founded in 1911, the Technique is the student newspaper of the Georgia Institute of Technology and an official publication of the Georgia Tech Board of Student Publications.

Georgia Tech is in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Here is the top of the front page of the July 14, 1945 edition of the Technique, showing the article headed “New Administrative Officers”:

The caption beneath the photographs of the three gentlemen reads:

“Three distinguished engineers have taken up their duties as deans and departmental heads here. They are, left to right, Cherry L. Emerson, dean of engineering; Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher, dean of the graduate division, and Lt. Col. Frank F. Groseclose, head of the department of industrial engineering.”

From the same edition:

Emerson Believes Tech Can Be Best Engineering School
Distinguished Men Assume New Posts

"Georgia Tech has the opportunity of becoming the best engineering school in the country," Cherry L. Emerson, Tech's new dean of engineering, declared in an interview this week. "I believe in Georgia Tech and I want to have a part in building it up," he said.
Mr. Emerson assumed his duties on the campus at the beginning of this semester along with Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher, dean of the graduate division, and Lieut. Col. Frank F. Groseclose, head of the department of industrial engineering. Appointment of the three to important administrative posts was approved last March. [1]

Those appointments were first announced in the Saturday, March 17, 1945 edition of the Technique:

4 Prominent Engineers Added To Tech Faculty
Administrative Changes Approved By Regents

The appointment of four distinguished engineers to the faculty of Georgia Tech was approved this week by the Board of Regents of the University System upon the recommendation of President Blake Van Leer.
The new appointees are Cherry L. Emerson, dean of engineering; Dr. Robert Irving Sarbacher, dean of the graduate division; Lieut. Col. Thomas H. Evans, professor of civil engineering and head of the civil engineering department; and Lieut. Col. Frank F. Groseclose, professor of industrial engineering and head of the department of industrial engineering. [2]

Radio, Radar Authority
The new dean of the graduate division, Dr. Sarbacher, was director of research and development in aircraft radio and radar for the U. S. Navy Department from 1942 until 1944. Since that time he has held positions as vice-president in charge of engineering and director of electronic division of Maguire Industries, Inc., of New York; and vice-president in charge of engineering and director of research for the Air Track Manufacturing Company of Maryland.

Dr. Sarbacher graduated from the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, took a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida, a Master of Science degree from the University of Princeton, and a Doctor of Science from Harvard University.

The author of numerous engineering texts and articles, he has served upon the faculties of Harvard University, Radcliffe College, and the Illinois Institute of Technology. [2]

Returning to the July 14, 1945 edition, another article reads:

Graduate Division In Ceramics Building

The Graduate Department will be temporarily housed in the Ceramics Building, Dr. R. I. Sarbacher, dean of the graduate division, disclosed today.
The building will be used by the graduate department until the ceramics course, discontinued when all of the professors entered service, is resumed. This is expected to be six or eight months. [1]

The articles quoted are from PDF versions of the Technique, which Georgia Tech has made available for download on the following pages of their web site:

[1] Technique [Volume 27, Issue 02] 1945-07-14
http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/26041

[2] Technique [Volume 25, Issue 02] 1945-03-17
http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/26058

(to be continued)

[Geoff]

Georgia Tech’s student newspaper the ‘Technique’

The August 18, 1945 edition of the Technique includes the following article:

Inspire Confidence of Students

The administrative shake-up made by President Van Leer at the beginning of the current term added new blood to the faculty and brought distinguished and accomplished engineers to the campus.
But it also brought something more. It brought not only men who know their jobs and know how to teach, but men who have personality and traits of character which inspire the confidence and respect of students.
Men who have had an opportunity to talk with Mr. Emerson, dean of engineering; Mr. Sarbacher, dean of the graduate division; Mr. Evans, head of the civil engineering department; Mr. Groseclose, head of the industrial engineering department; or Mr. Dickert, head of the textile engineering department, will tell you immediately how pleasant and friendly their visits were.
These men are all planning and working for a better Tech. It is easy to see that they have their heart in their work. If it were money they are seeking, not one of them would have left his previous job. [3]

The August 25, 1945 edition has this article:

Sarbacher Sees New Industrial Era for South
Graduate Division To Provide Specialists

Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher, former vice-president of Maguire Industries and newly appointed Dean of the graduate division, foresees a new era for southern industry with the graduate division at Tech offering "the greatest possible assistance."
In a recent interview, he said:
"I firmly believe that the industrial opportunities existing in the South are the greatest that exist anywhere in this country. I feel that great strides in industrialization will be made in the very near future and that progress will continue at an ever-increasing pace; that the South will create from its own soil, with its own labor, its own capital and technical skill, products that will not only compete with but can be superior to the products of manufacturers anywhere.
"I know the resources are here and I believe that the energies of the people will be directed toward the realization of tremendous industrial activities."

The article continues on page six under the headline:

Sarbacher Believes Technical Training Has Been Slighted

In explaining the part the graduate division will play in expanding industries of the South, Dr. Sarbacher stated that the present graduate program is being set up in-such a way as to offer the greatest possible assistance to southern industry. He outlined the program of the graduate school:

1. To plan and carry out constructive academic and research programs to fit the needs of society and industry.
2. To get greater acceptance of academic training as a necessity for industrial efficiency and progress and to aid industry in advancements in research, production and testing techniques.
3. To produce scientists and highly trained technological specialists.
4. To establish the position of the school as an integral part of the industrial functions and responsibilities of the South.

Specialist in Radar and Electronics
As vice-president of Maguire Industries, Dr. Sarbacher, a specialist in radar and electronics, had cognizance over all activities of General Electronics Industries, a subsidiary of Maguire Industries, which does a business in research and production of over ten million dollars annually. During, the war he did a great deal of research for private industry and acted as a special consultant for the Navy department on secret and confidential radar developments.
He has published numerous articles on all phases of radio and electronics, was senior author of HYPER AND ULTRA HIGH FREQUENCY ENGINEERING, a text for senior and graduate students in electrical engineering and physics, and is author of two more books in preparation for publication.
Technical education has not received all of the support to which it is entitled, Dr. Sarbacher believes. He feels that technological training deserves more support from the government, private industry and the people; that technology creates devices which make possible a much better way of life, and which can be converted to other forms to protect us from our enemies. Even in time of peace, we should never relinquish our efforts to make better and more efficient technological advances, he thinks. [4]

The articles quoted are from PDF versions of the Technique, which Georgia Tech has made available for download on the following pages of their web site:


[3] Technique [Volume 27, Issue 07] 1945-08-18
http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/26109

[4] Technique [Volume 27, Issue 08] 1945-08-25
http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/26127


(to be continued)

[Geoff]

Georgia Tech’s student newspaper the ‘Technique’

From the December 15, 1945 edition:

Van Leer Announces Graduate Expansion
Scholarships To Be Given

In order to fill the needs of industrial, research and educational organizations in Georgia and the South for engineers and scientists with graduate training, Georgia Tech is expanding considerably its Division of Graduate Studies, starting with the opening of the Spring Term on March 4, 1946, it was announced by President Blake R. Van Leer.
In connection with this plan, the Division is offering a series of graduate awards, ranging up to $1,800.00 per academic year, in engineering and allied sciences to qualified graduates of Georgia Tech and other colleges and universities in the United States. Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher, Dean of the Division of Graduate Studies, is in charge of the program. [5]

Another article from the December 15, 1945 edition:

Van Leer Announces Faculty Committees

In accordance with the recently approved statutes of the Georgia School of Technology which provide for the democratic administration of the college through faculty committees, President Blake R. Van Leer announced the membership of the various committees:
ADMISSION: Chapin, Hefner, W. S. Taylor, H. S. Weber.
ATTENDANCE: Narmore, Field, Fulmer.
CEREMONIES: Narmore. Zsuffa, Little, Strite, Howey, Spicer.
CURRICULUM: Emerson, Narmore, Hefner, Chapin, J. W. Mason, Walker, Evans.
EXECUTIVE: Narmore, Emerson, Hefner, Field, Sarbacher, Chapin, Walker, J. W. Mason, H. S. Weber. [5]

From the February 2, 1946 edition:

Research Group Elects Callaway To Chair'ship

The newly formed Georgia Tech Research Institute elected Fuller Callaway, Jr., of LaGrange, Georgia, chairman of the board of trustees at its first meeting last Friday in the conference room of the research building.
The Research Institute will aid in expanding research at Tech through commercial contracts for applied research with various large industries. It will assist in solving industrial problems in this area, especially in Georgia. The experiments will be conducted in the experimental station headed by Dr. G. A. Rosselot.
Colonel Blake R. Van Leer, vice chairman of the Institute, expressed great satisfaction after the meeting over Mr. Callaway's acceptance of chairmanship of the board of trustees. Mr. Callaway is a graduate of Georgia Tech and is a man who has attained an eminent position in industry, while heading one of the largest and most successful cotton mill groups in the country.
Other meetings of the board will be held in the near future to decide far-reaching policies and discover means for encouraging research activities at Georgia Tech.
The board of trustees include Col. Van Leer, vice chairman, Dean Cherry L. Emerson, treasurer, Dr. Rosselot, and Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher from Georgia Tech; Frank H. Neely, Fuller Callaway, Jr., Judge Frank A. Hooper, M. A. Frist from industry at large; Preston Arkwright, chairman of the Geirgia Power Co., Robert H. White, president of the Southern Wood Preserving Co., and G. J. Yundt of Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Co. One trustee is still to be elected. [6]

From the April 27, 1946 edition:

Sarbacher Attends Engineering Forum

Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher, head of the Graduate Division, will represent Georgia Tech at a gathering of engineering educators and research men at Vanderbilt University April 25-27 for the first post-war meeting of the South-eastern Section of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education.
Topics scheduled for discussion include promotion of engineering research, patent policies, college participation in disposal of war surpluses, and the relationship of military training to technical education.
Dr. Robert I. Sarbacher will participate in a panel discussion of special training problems in engineering. [7]

The articles quoted are from PDF versions of the Technique, which Georgia Tech has made available for download on the following pages of their web site:

[5] Technique [Volume 28, Issue 07] 1945-12-15
http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/26128

[6] Technique [Volume 28, Issue 13] 1946-02-02
http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/26124

[7] Technique [Volume 29, Issue 07] 1946-04-27
http://smartech.gatech.edu/handle/1853/26180




Conclusion:

These 1945/46 articles from Georgia Tech’s student newspaper the Technique clearly show that Dr. Sarbacher took up his appointment as dean of the graduate division in mid-July 1945.
They further show that Dr. Sarbacher was an active member of the faculty who was working hard to create a better Georgia Tech, not an absent ‘nominal head’.

These newly available articles therefore entirely disprove “O’Riley’s” account of Dr. Sarbacher’s whereabouts in 1945/46. Additionally, Mikado’s research into Miethe has revealed no evidence of him being captured by the Russians, and no evidence of him being held with Colonel Hans von Luck in a prison camp in Georgia. [A]

The events “O’Riley” described are now laid bare as deceitful fabrications. Some of the fabricated events have been woven around accepted true accounts, such as those written by Colonel Hans von Luck in his memoir, Panzer Commander, in a clear attempt, I believe, to garner the story some credibility.

Chronologically, “O’Riley’s” fictitious account follows on from “Morgan’s” fictitious account of Dr. Brown being parachuted into enemy territory from Halifax NA337. [B]


I do not believe Paul Schatzkin deserves any criticism for relating this (now evident) fiction in his first draft, for at that time I believe it was reasonable for him to accept the information given to him by “O’Riley” – ostensibly Dr. Brown’s Royal Marine bodyguard and man on the spot with Dr. Sarbacher - as being a faithful account of events provided expressly to enable him to include them in his biography of Dr. Brown.

The truth about Dr. Sarbacher’s whereabouts in 1945/46 was reported in editions of the Technique at the time, but these editions have only become available to the general public in the last three years or so, and therefore Mr. Schatzkin would not have known about the existence of this archive at the time he was researching and writing his first draft of “Defying Gravity”.

Geoff


[A] Who was Richard (Walter) Miethe?
viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1025

[B] A flight into Germany?
viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1026

[Geoff]

To whom it may concern.
For the avoidance of doubt, I’ve counted all my words and they are present and correct. There are no usurpers and there are no deserters, though two sets seem to have been kidnapped!
Geoff