The year was 1919, and the Navy was investigating gay service members.
They recruited handsome young sailors to be undercover “operators” to collect evidence against men who engaged in sodomy.I'm sure.
The operators were told to “catch them in the act.”
That was precisely where they caught them.
The operators seduced sailors in Newport and participated in numerous sex acts with them — mostly by accepting oral sex to completion. They recorded their encounters in daily reports.
Seventeen sailors caught in the sting were arrested, held in solitary confinement on a prison ship and then court-martialed. Several went to jail.
The operators who accepted oral sex received notations in their records “in recognition of their interest and zeal” in pursuing the evidence.
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