This week in history

February 21, 1942, only 76 days following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Julius Otto Kuehn was found guilty of spying and sentenced to be executed. In November 1941, Kuehn had offered to sell intelligence on U.S. warship movement in the area of Hawaiian to the Japanese.

Kuehn was a member of the Nazi party and arrived in Hawaii in 1935. The FBI was suspicious of him and his contacts with Germans and Japanese. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI raided the Japanese Consulate and found officials burning reams of paper. Those documents included Navy ship movements that pointed to Kuehn, who was arrested and confessed.

Source(s): FBI History

Compiled by Bob Valen