Office of Strategic Services (OSS)

Remembering Sterling Hayden, Actor, OSS Operative

Today is the birthday of Sterling Hayden, he would have been 103 years old today. Most people when they hear his name think of the crooked cop, Captain McCloskey in “The Godfather”. Working with a rival faction of Mafiosi, Hayden met his end when Michael Corleone shot him in a restaurant. He was also outstanding as Colonel Jack D. Ripper in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove” which is a classic.

But before those roles, Hayden was an operative in the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), during World War II. OSS was the forerunner of the modern-day CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets). He completed two overseas deployments working with Partisans in Italy and Yugoslavia.

Early Life:

Hayden was born in Montclair, NJ on March 26, 1916. His father died when he was just nine and his mother remarried. His stepfather, moved the family around the East Coast trying to stay one step ahead of his creditors.

By the time Hayden was 16, he quit school for good. He went to see and quickly learned the hard lessons of sailing. By the time he was just 22, he’d earned his master’s license, and was given the command of a square rigger, the Florence C. Robinson, which he sailed from Gloucester, Massachusetts to Tahiti.

He spoke about his voyage to the Adventurer’s Club of New York and some of the pictures of this young sea captain taken at a race in Gloucester, were published and Hollywood immediately came calling. They offered the young captain a seven-year contract paying him $250 a week, no small amount in those days.

He had made a couple of films and then once the United States entered WWII, he enlisted in the Army.

WWII Service:

Hayden joined the Army and was assigned to the O.S.S. General Donovan sent him to Commando training in Scotland. After completing a course there, he moved on to parachute training, also with the Brits. On his tenth and final jump, Hayden shattered his ankle and injured his back. His injuries were thought to be serious enough to be separated from the service. The Army discharged him and he went back to sailing ships for a short time. But that wasn’t the end of his service.

As soon as he was healed up, Hayden enlisted in the Marine Corps, using a pseudonym, John Hamilton. There, while excelling in boot camp he was selected for Officer’s Candidate School. After his commissioning, General Donovan somehow found out who 2LT Hamilton really was and had him assigned back to OSS. After lounging around Cairo waiting for an assignment, he was sent to Bari, Italy.

OSS had set up a smuggling operation using ships to provide food, weapons and other support to partisans fighting in Yugoslavia. Hayden, never one to mince words, described that operation as the first time he’d met OSS operatives who were actually doing a job. But the British Navy was hampering operations, something the Americans felt the British were trying to ensure they failed.

After being forced to move their operation further down the coast at Monopoli, the American commander was called to Cairo. Hayden/Hamilton went to Yugoslavia in his place, his motor quit and he paddled back to the mainland. He hooked up with Tito’s Communist partisans.

Hayden recalled “We hooked up with about thirty of the toughest bastards on earth. None of them had had a bath in years. All had been in the thick of the fighting and marching all up and down Bosnia and Croatia. They would only take one cigarette at a time, which they passed around in circles.”

The year he spent with Tito’s men left an indelible mark on him. “the crews of planes would leave their shoes, anything they could spare, with the Partisans . . . We knew they were Communists, we knew they had commissars, but there was very little discussion of that.”

Hayden was involved in several close calls during combat operations where one evaluation report said that he had a “reckless disregard of his own life.” His men were attacked by Stuka dive-bombers, he captured a German E-boat, their version of the American PT boats, they were ambushed by the Germans where his jeep driver was shot. He arranged for a rescue of 26 downed American airmen, including 11 nurses who were forced down in German-held Albania by engine trouble.

He was awarded the Silver Star and the Bronze Arrowhead for parachuting into Yugoslavia. He received a commendation from Tito who also awarded him an Order of Merit. His affinity for Tito’s men and fighting beside them made him briefly join the American Communist Party.

House Un-American Activities Committee Testimony:

Hayden’s brief fling with the Communist Party got him on the radar with the FBI and J.Edgar Hoover. After the Communist unions in Hollywood tried to take over the remaining ones, the Red Scare took place in Hollywood and Washington.

He was called to testify and the FBI threatened him with losing his children and even jail time if he didn’t cooperate. Hayden “named names” and later would regret having cooperated. In his autobiography, he wrote:

“I don’t think you have the foggiest notion of the contempt I have had for myself since the day I did that thing.”

He maintained a very lucrative career as a “B” action movie star but he never liked being in the films and did so only enough to finance his seagoing adventures. He considered himself more of a sailor or writer rather than an actor.

Sydney Pollack, the film director put a mention of Hayden and his OSS service in one of his films. In his film “Three Days of the Condor” (1975), two veteran CIA officers were reminiscing about their past exploits. Higgins (Cliff Robertson) asked Mr. Wabash, (played by John Houseman) “You served with Col. Donovan in the OSS, didn’t you, sir?” Wabash replies, “I sailed the Adriatic with a movie star at the helm. It doesn’t seem like much of a war now, but it was.”

Hayden died of prostate cancer in Sausalito, California in 1986, he was 70.

In our own favorite film role, as Colonel Jack D. Ripper, here he tells Peter Sellers (who played three roles) about why he launched a nuclear attack on the Soviets.

Silver Star Citation:

The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star (Army Award) to Captain John Hamilton (AKA: Sterling Hayden) (MCSN: 0-22085), United States Marine Corps, for gallantry in action while serving with the Office of Strategic Services in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations from 24 December 1943 to 2 January 1944. Captain Hamilton displayed great courage in making hazardous sea voyage in enemy-infested waters and reconnaissance’s through enemy-held areas. His conduct reflected great credit upon himself and the United States Armed Forces. General Orders: Headquarters, Mediterranean Theater of Operations, General Orders No. 145 (July 31, 1946)

Photos: OSS Archives/IMDB

Remembering Moe Berg, MLB Catcher, OSS Operative, Born March 2, 1902

Moe Berg was one of the more fascinating characters in the world of both professional baseball and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. After playing professional baseball for 15 years and coaching for two more, he joined the OSS and was an operative in Europe during the war. But prior to that, he actually spied for the United States on Japan prior to the war during a pair of “friendship tours” of Japan with fellow baseball players.

Morris (Moe) Berg was born in Harlem, NYC on March 2, 1902. When he was just four, his family moved to Newark, after his father bought a pharmacy. He graduated from Barringer High School at the age of 16 and was named to an All-Star baseball team “Dream Team” as one of Newark’s top ballplayers.

He attended New York University for a year before enrolling in Princeton. He was a captain of the Princeton baseball team and graduated with a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts), magna cum laude in modern languages. He had studied seven languages: Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Sanskrit (ancient Indian).

While playing shortstop in baseball, he and second baseman Crossan Cooper would speak in Latin in calling out their signals whenever a runner was on base. However, because of his Jewish heritage, he was never completely accepted in one of the Ivy League’s premier WASP academies.

In 1923, he signed a professional baseball contract with the Brooklyn Robins for $5000. Thus began a 15-year career in major league baseball. He was never a star, and after catching on with the Chicago White Sox in 1926, he did what at the time was unthinkable. He informed the team that he was going to skip spring training and attend Columbia Law School, in an effort to become a lawyer.

Berg languished on the bench for most of the season before injuries at catcher forced him to be placed there. He did such a good job behind the plate, that catcher became his primary position. In 1928, Berg led the Major Leagues in caught-stealing percentage (60.9). Although the game has changed drastically since then, it should just be noted that the MLB average for runners caught stealing in 2018 was just 27 percent.

Spying On Japan:

During the winter of 1932, MLB arranged for several players, including Berg to tour Japanese universities to teach the finer points of baseball. After their tour was over, while the other players returned home to the United States, Berg remained in Japan and visited other locales such as Manchuria, Shanghai, Peking, Indochina, Siam, India, Egypt, and Berlin. After returning Berg set an American League record of 117 consecutive games without an error by a catcher (since broken).

During his second trip to Japan, Berg, despite being a journeyman backup catcher was asked to be a part of an All-Star team making the rounds in Japan and playing against Japanese All-Stars. The team included such legends as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Earl Averill, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Gomez.

Berg carried a 16-mm Bell & Howell movie camera and was to ostensibly film the tour for a film company in New York. But he’d have another job to do while there in Japan. Berg addressed the Japanese in their own language as the team arrived. While in the country, the team was to play a game in Omiya. Berg, skipped that game to supposedly visit the daughter of American Ambassador Joseph Grew in St. Luke’s Hospital. While there, he snuck up on the roof and using his movie camera to film the city and harbor, providing American intelligence some valuable insight into what, to them was a total mystery.

Later reports surfaced, that has never been confirmed that Berg’s film was used by LTC Jimmy Doolittle to plan his raid of Tokyo during the war. Once again, as soon as the tour was over, Berg didn’t return to the United States, opting to travel to Moscow, Korea, and the Philippines.

As his playing career was winding down, Berg played the final five years of major league baseball playing for the Boston Red Sox. He followed that up with two more with the Red Sox as a coach. During this time, Berg, the athlete scholar who read up to 10 newspapers a day, appeared on the radio quiz show, “Information, Please”. He was a frequent guest and blew people away with his overall knowledge about a variety of subjects.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis told him, “in just thirty minutes you did more for baseball than I’ve done the entire time I’ve been commissioner”, but not everyone was enamored with him. Casey Stengle once described Berg as “one of the strangest men to ever play baseball.”

World War II Service:

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Berg was initially posted at a position that monitored the health of U.S. servicemen in Central and South America. But in early 1943, that all changed when he applied for and was accepted into the OSS.

Berg fit the mold perfectly that General William Donovan had for OSS, “PhDs that can win a bar fight.” Berg was a professional athlete who played 15 years in the bigs, could speak 10 languages, seven of them fluently.

Berg was assigned to the Special Operations Branch (SO). He was a paramilitary operations officer in OSS that would today be part of the CIA Special Activities Division. He was then transferred to the Secret Intelligence Branch, specifically the Balkans Desk.

Berg parachuted into Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia to evaluate the different resistance groups operating against the Germans to determine which was the strongest and which one the United States would lend more of its support. He met with both Draža Mihailović and Josip Broz Tito and got an accurate, detailed look at their different groups, deciding that Tito had a stronger and better-supported group.

From there, Berg then took part in Project Larson and Project Azusa. The mission of the first was for OSS operatives to kidnap Italian rocket scientists and bring them to the U.S. The second project had to do with the grilling of Italian physicists to see what they knew about Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. Those two men were heading up Nazi Germany’s Nuclear Weapons project.

In December of 1944, OSS learned that Heisenberg was giving a lecture in Switzerland. Berg went there to find out if the Nazis were close to building a bomb. If that was the case, Berg’s orders were to eliminate Heisenberg. But Berg learned that Germans were not close to building a bomb and Heisenberg lived (and was resurrected by Walter White in “Breaking Bad…I digress).

After the war when OSS later became CIA, Berg tried to join and get posted to Israel but was rebuffed. He did, however, get tasked by the agency to use his old contacts in 1952 to check on the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapon program. In his debrief, the CIA agent described Berg as “flaky”.

Unfortunately, that wartime service was the high point of his life. Berg never again held a job and lived with his brother for 17 years where he was forced to evict him. Berg then lived with his sister for the final four years of his life. He died from the results of a fall at his home at the age of 70 in 1972. His ashes were spread over Mount Scopus in Jerusalem per his own request.

His true love remained baseball. He once said, he’d “rather be a ballplayer than a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court” In fact, on his death bed, his final words were asking the nurse “How did the Mets do today?”

Berg would be awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to civilians during wartime, but he flat out refused it. After he died, his sister, Ethel, claimed the award, which she later donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

“Mr. Morris Berg, United States Civilian, rendered exceptionally meritorious service of high value to the war effort from April 1944 to January 1946,” reads the Medal of Freedom citation. “In a position of responsibility in the European Theater, he exhibited analytical abilities and a keen planning mind. He inspired both respect and constant high level of endeavor on the part of his subordinates which enabled his section to produce studies and analysis vital to the mounting of American operations.”

A former OSS operative and later the President of the New York Yankees, Michael Burke, said Berg was the ideal operative. “Moe was absolutely ideal for undercover work. Not by design; just by nature,” he said.

“One, because of his physical attributes. He could go anyplace without fear. He had stamina. Also, he had a gift for languages. In addition, he had an alert, quick mind that could adapt itself into any new or strange subject and make him comfortable quickly.”

“He was immensely involved intellectually and active in international affairs through reading and travel. He had the capacity to be at home in Italy or France or London or Bucharest. He was on familiar ground in all those places,” Burke added. “He also possessed a great capacity for being able to live comfortably alone and could do this for a long period of time. The life of an agent sometimes is a lonely one and some people aren’t suited for that.”

Berg’s life was made into a major Hollywood film starring Paul Rudd, “The Catcher Was a Spy.” We wrote a review of that here:

Photos: Wikipedia

RIP To W.E.B. Griffin, Noted Author Novelist, and Korean Veteran

William E. Butterworth, who wrote under the pen name W.E.B. Griffin has died. He was 89. His passing was acknowledged by his publisher, Putnam, but they didn’t add any other details. He also wrote under several other names as well.

Griffin was a prolific and very successful novelist whose, “Brotherhood of War” series along with “The Corps” and “Badge of Honor” series were all wildly successful. Perhaps his best work and our personal favorite here was his “Men At War” series which dealt with the O.S.S. (Office of Strategic Services) in World War II.

Griffin/Butterworth was born in November 1929, in Newark, New Jersey but lived in his formative years in New York and Philadelphia. He joined the Army in 1946 and served as a counter-intelligence specialist in the Army of Occupation in Germany. One of his duties was delivering food to the families of German generals and staff officers, including the widow of Count Von Stauffenberg, who tried to assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944.

Many of the people that he met would be the basis for characters in his novels, including Graf von Greiffenberg, who would be a regular in his “Brotherhood of War” series.

After his hitch was over, he was attending college in Germany when he was recalled to active duty and shipped to Korea when the war began. His war service began as a War Correspondent and later as a PAO with X Corps. He did spend time on the front line and was awarded a Combat Infantryman’s Badge.

After Korea, he was assigned to Ft. Rucker, Alabama as a civilian, working as Chief of the Publications Division of the U.S. Army Signal Aviation Test & Support Activity. While there, he published the first three of his novels. He then decided to pursue being an author as a full-time profession. He wrote more than 250 books of which 160 works of military fiction during his career. He sold more than 50 million books during his lifetime.

Griffin/Butterworth was the co-founder of the William E. Colby Seminar on Intelligence, Military, and Diplomatic Affairs at Norwich University. Vermont.

He said he wrote under so many pen-names was because he felt libraries across the United States may not accept so many submissions to their collections from one author multiple times in one year. So, he became Alex Baldwin, Webb Beech, and Walter E. Blake. He thought of W.E.B. Griffin as a pen name in the 1980s, adding on his web site that Griffin was “the mythical creature with the wings of an eagle and the loins of a lion, which of course is how most colonels think of themselves.”

Putnam Publishing posted on their official web site, “Known for his historical accuracy, richly drawn characters, thrilling adventure, crackling wit, and astute aptitude for the heart and mind of a military hero, Griffin delighted readers for decades with his electrifying novels about the military, police, spies, and counterspies,” they wrote.

“We at Putnam are saddened to share the news of W.E.B. Griffin’s passing,” they added while describing him as “a decades-long bestselling author, decorated military man, and one of the bedrocks of G.P. Putnam’s Sons.”

In a book review, we did on SpecialOperations.com, about “The Double Agents”, we wrote:

The one thing I like about Griffin’s novels is the meticulous detail to get every little facet of life during the World War II years as close to perfect that he can. He weaves his characters around real ones, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Wild Bill Donovan and sometimes you have to remind yourself that it IS a novel when you read the dialogue between FDR and Donovan.

Throw in the machinations of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, the jailed Mafia don who helps the Allies by getting the Sicilian Mafia on board (which really did happen), to pave the way for the invasion, and you have the stuff of intrigue. Griffin obviously had some fun by weaving in the characters of Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond books), and actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov as well in this tale. The two actors, Fleming and OSS operative Lt. Hoche weave a tale about a dead British Major’s body that washes ashore in Spain. It is it believable? Ah, no…but it makes for a fun ride.

That’s exactly what his books were, a fun ride. Meticulous historical detail that immediately transported the reader to another time and place. Whether reading novels or military history, the aim is to not only learn about the subject but to be entertained while doing so. Griffin did that unfailingly in all of his books.

And also from our review, I’ll close with this:

Like the jet-setting Green Berets in Griffin’s later series, one has to roll their eyes at times. But truth be told, I would have loved to serve in Griffin’s Special Forces.

Photos: W.E.B. Griffin and son courtesy AL.com /author

William “Wild Bill” Donovan Born Jan.1, Head of OSS, Forerunner of CIA

William Donovan was a man who many hats, he was a decorated soldier, diplomat, intelligence officer, as well as a lawyer. He’s best known as the founder and commander of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was the forerunner to both the CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Berets). He is considered the “Father of U.S. Intelligence” and a statue of him resides in CIA Headquarters.

Humble Beginnings:

Donovan was born on New Year’s Day 1883 in Buffalo, New York to American-born parents but came from Irish immigrants. His father, Timothy, moved to Buffalo and for a time managed the railroad yard and later the Holy Cross Cemetery.

Donovan attended St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute, a Catholic school where he played football, acted in plays, and won an award for oratory. He would then follow on to Niagara University, a Catholic university, and seminary where he studied pre-law. Donovan briefly considered becoming a priest but would ultimately decide against it. While at Niagra, Donovan won another oratorical contest, for presenting a speech warning of corrupt, anti-Christian forces that threatened the existence of the United States.

Looking to expand his personal horizons he transferred to Colombia University to study law but also attended religious services of the Jewish and Protestant faiths to gauge whether he wanted to change his religion. He continued to be a star athlete, starring with the football and rowing teams. He won another award for oratory and was voted the “most modest” and one of the “most handsome” members of Columbia’s graduating class of 1905.

While at Columbia, one of his classmates was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although polar opposites on the political spectrum, the two would cross paths and have a solid respectful relationship.

Donovan was a partner in a law firm in Buffalo, New York when he decided to help form and lead a unit for the New York National Guard. His unit was mobilized and sent to Mexico during the punitive campaigns to catch Pancho Villa. It was part of the “Fighting 69th, the Irish Brigade” from Civil War fame.

World War I Fame:

When Donovan returned from Mexico, he was promoted to Major and joined the 165th Regiment of the famed “Rainbow Division.” Douglas MacArthur was the Chief of Staff for the division. Donovan was an officer who always led from the front, even as a battalion commander. It was here he developed the nickname “Wild Bill” for his boundless energy. While he publicly claimed to dislike it, his wife would say, that privately, he loved it.

He was wounded by shrapnel and nearly blinded by a German mustard gas attack. He was awarded the French Croix de Guerre for a daring rescue under fire of a wounded soldier.

During the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the 165th was in heavy action at Landres-et-St. Georges. Donovan, now a Lt. Colonel, led one of three regiments with the objective of capturing an enemy position which was well entrenched on a steep ravine surrounded by machine guns and artillery.

Because of the heavy German fire and strong defensive positions, the other two supporting regiments refused to advance, but Donovan persisted and rallied his regiment and led the advance under absolutely murderous conditions.

Donovan refused to conform to the convention of the times, by not stripping off all of his rank and insignia which was common for officers, he told his men, “They can’t hit me and they won’t hit you!” Wounded three times he refused to be evacuated until his men carried the day. He was eventually awarded the Medal of Honor for his courage and 4000 veterans attended the ceremony in New York City.

At the end of World War I, Donovan was arguably the most decorated man in US military history at that time, having been awarded all of the top awards for bravery in combat. Donovan was awarded the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the Silver Star, the Purple Heart, and several foreign awards for valor. Donovan and Teddy Roosevelt started the American Legion after the war was over.

Sowing the Seeds of Intelligence Work Between the Wars:

Despite returning to his law firm in Buffalo, Donovan combined vacation and fact-finding trips to Japan, China, and Korea, and Siberia. He also took an extended trip to Europe, where he conducted work for J. P. Morgan and gathered intelligence about international Communism.

Returning home he was appointed to be the Assistant US Attorney for Western New York and became a dedicated crime fighter, especially against bootlegging which was just recently made illegal. He ran for Lieutenant Governor unsuccessfully in 1924, and Governor in 1932 when FDR left office.

With World War II started and looking like the United States would get drawn into it, President Roosevelt who respected Donovan’s experience called on him in 1940 and 1941. Donovan was FDR’s eyes and ears, but strictly an informal observer to Britain, where he was urged by the President to gauge Britain would be able to stand alone against the Nazis.

Donovan’s travels also impressed upon him that the U.S. needed an intelligence service as the British had. He alone was of the opinion that Britain could withstand the Blitz and urged Roosevelt to help them. Churchill was impressed with Donovan and gave him access to everything, including the intelligence services.

Starting an Intelligence Service From Scratch:

In July 1941, FDR established the Office of the Coordination of Information (COI) and named Donovan as its director. This new title infuriated the Army, Navy, FBI (especially J.Edgar Hoover who hated Donovan) and the State Department, who all had terrible and non-cooperating intelligence services of their own. There WAS no coordination of effort between the agencies.

COI set up shop in NYC in the Rockefeller Center. They were located one floor above the Brits, MI6 shop. Allen Dulles ran the operation, he would later serve as a Chief of Station in Europe and much later as the Director of CIA.

Once the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the U.S. went to a war footing and COI would soon become OSS in July 1942. Donovan was off and running and tried to recruit agents and operators from every walk of life imaginable. He was initially brought back on active duty at his previous rank of Colonel but was promoted to Brigadier General within just a few months in January 1943.

Unfortunately, his turf wars weren’t just with the other Americans. MI6 and their chief, Stewart Menzies began to try to rein in their colonial cousins, trying to protect the empire for after the war. Regardless, by 1944, OSS had spread its wings to the corners of the earth with the exception of South America, where Hoover and the FBI had insisted remain their turf, and had agents and sources in nearly every capital. One of Donovan’s best sources of information turned out to be Catholic priests who were conduits of information unknown to the Vatican.

With the war turned on the side of the Allies, Donovan went ashore with troops on both D-Day and later into Southern France. He met with the Pope in Italy and with Marshall Tito in Yugoslavia. OSS men in Rumania had found a way to funnel over 1300 downed pilots back to Allied control. With the war winding down, Donovan presented a plan to FDR for a post-war intelligence service. One copy of which ended up in the hands of a newspaper reporter who deemed Donovan’s plan akin to creating an American Gestapo.

However, once Roosevelt died in 1945, Donovan found himself on the outs with the new President Harry Truman who disliked Donovan and the OSS. Truman at the war’s end would dissolve OSS and their agents and operators would be scattered to the winds. Donovan would help in the prosecution of the Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. He would go back to practicing law on Wall St.

Truman would finally recognize the need for a national intelligence agency that operated abroad and not in the U.S. and signed the National Security Act of 1947, which established the Central Intelligence Agency. Donovan’s dream had now come to fruition. Several of Donovan’s “glorious amateurs” who began in OSS would serve as directors including Dulles, James Jesus Angleton, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey.

In 1953, now President Eisenhower, who was a believer in Donovan and OSS during the war, appointed him as the Ambassador to Thailand. The covert task for Donovan in Thailand was to “quietly” assume command not only of the embassy but also the propaganda, military aid, and CIA operations for Thailand. He was to build “a bastion” for democracy there and use it to fight communists overtly and covertly in the neighboring countries, which included Vietnam. Donovan, already thinking ahead, had conferred with old OSS men who worked in Thailand and had already visited Ft. Bragg, NC to meet with the new Green Berets there, the Unconventional Warfare group, headed up by Aaron Bank was a product of his OSS. He also got the Psychological Operations people involved.

Donovan died in 1959 at the age of 76 from complications of dementia at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington D.C. Upon his death, CIA sent out a message to all Station Chiefs, “The man more responsible than any other for the existence of the Central Intelligence Agency has passed away.”

Donovan was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 2. General Donovan was the only American to have received the nations four highest awards: the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal.

After his death, Donovan was awarded the Freedom Award of the International Rescue Committee. He is also a member of the Military Intelligence Hall of Fame. The George Bush Center for Intelligence, inside the CIA headquarters building in Langley, Virginia, has a statue of Donovan in the lobby.

Today we remember General Donovan on what would have been his 136th birthday.

Photos: US Army

Marine Col. Peter J. Ortiz, OSS, Career Reads Like Fiction

Marine Colonel Peter J. Ortiz, OSS, Story Reads Like Fiction

The OSS was an eclectic organization; General William Donovan wanted operators, he didn’t care about a soldier’s background or his political beliefs. The OSS wanted as Donovan said, “PhDs who can win a bar fight.” McGeorge Bundy said of the organization, “The OSS was a remarkable institution: half cops and robbers and half faculty meeting.”

But perhaps the most fascinating operator in the OSS was Marine Lieutenant Colonel Peter J. Ortiz. Ortiz’s story reads like a Hollywood fiction story. There were actually two Hollywood films made about Ortiz’s exploits, “13 Rue Madeleine” starring James Cagney and “Operation Secret” starring Cornell Wilde. Ortiz was one of the few Marines who saw combat in Europe during World War II. He was the recipient of two Navy Crosses, an OBE (Order of the British Empire) and numerous French awards. After the war, he became an actor and was in several films.

Ortiz was born in New York to an American Mother of Swiss descent and a French-born Spanish father. He was educated in France and spoke 10 different languages including Spanish, French, German and Arabic.

He did two stints in the French Foreign Legion, the first of which was in 1932 just for the adventure. He father tried to buy his way out once he found out but Ortiz wouldn’t leave. He stayed until 1937 and worked his way up from private to acting Lieutenant. Ortiz was awarded the Croix de Guerre with two palms, one gold star, one silver star, and five citations; the Croix des Combatants; the Ouissam Alouite; and the Medaille Militaire during his first tour and was offered a permanent commission as a Lieutenant if he’d reenlist for five more years and become a French citizen. But he turned them down and returned to the U.S.

He worked briefly in Hollywood as a technical adviser until WWII broke out. With the U.S. officially neutral, he reenlisted in the Legion in October 1939 and by 1940 had gotten a commission again. In 1940 he was wounded and taken prisoner. He escaped 15 months later making his way back to the U.S. thru Lisbon in December of 1941. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre (one palm, one silver star, two citations), Croix des Combattants during his second tour.

He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in June 1942 as a private, but due to his combat experience, his commander at the recruit depot wrote to the Commandant of the Marine Corps about him in July, requesting that he be given a commission. The letter, extraordinary in its own right, considering the subject of it was in boot camp .

Private Ortiz had made an extremely favorable impression upon the undersigned. His knowledge of military matters is far beyond that of the normal recruit instructor. Ortiz is a very well set up an and makes an excellent appearance. The undersigned is glad to recommend Ortiz for a commission in the Marine Corps Reserve and is of the opinion that he would be a decided addition to the Reserve Officer list. In my opinion, he has the mental, moral, professional, and physical qualifications for the office for which he has made application.

With the upcoming invasion of French North Africa looming, the Marine Corps, knowing of Ortiz’s knowledge of French, Spanish, and Arabic, he was offered to the Army to assist in the upcoming campaign. Although he’d only been a 2LT for three months, he was bypassed for 1LT and promoted directly to Captain. He was assigned as the Assistant Naval Attache in Tangiers, Morocco as a cover.

Ortiz organized a patrol of Arabs to scout German forces on the Tunisian front. And while doing so, his men got into a firefight with the Germans. Ortiz was badly wounded in the hand during the action. MG Donovan, Director of OSS, forwarded to the Marine Commandant a message from Algiers which stated, “While on reconnaissance on the Tunisian front, Captain Peter Ortiz, U.S.M.C.R. was severely wounded in the right hand while engaged in a personal encounter with a German patrol. He dispersed the patrol with grenades. Captain Ortiz is making good recovery in hospital at Algiers. The Purple Heart was awarded to him.” Donovan read Ortiz’s after-action report and wrote on it, “Very interesting, please re-employ this man as soon as possible.”

While recuperating in Washington early in May, 1943, Ortiz was reassigned to the Naval Command, OSS. He would become part of the Jedburgh operation.

On January 6, 1944, Ortiz who had over 150 parachute jumps while in the service of the French was air-dropped into the Haute-Savoie region of German-occupied France as part of the three-man “Union” mission, with Colonel Pierre Fourcaud of the French secret service and Captain Thackwaite from the British Special Operations Executive.

Their mission was to evaluate the status of the Maquis and the resistance in the area and impress upon them that to conduct Guerrilla Warfare in their areas, especially after D-Day was the most important factor for everyone involved. But the Maquisards lacked weapons and ammunition. The team arranged several drops of supplies and arms for the Maquis.

Although they jumped into France in civilian clothing, they still carried their uniforms and once there, they became the first Allied troops on the mainland of France since 1940. Thackwaite wrote about Ortiz, that he “knew not fear and did not hesitate to wear his U.S. Marine captain’s uniform in town and country alike” which while it was a morale boost to the French, was infuriating to the Germans.

His team was able to rescue four RAF pilots and Ortiz would accompany them to the border with Spain. Then in an act of derring-do that was particularly amazing, Ortiz raided a German military garage and took off with ten Gestapo vehicles, even snagging a pass which he used frequently. He was awarded the O.B.E. for his action.

His legend grew, there are several stories of him waltzing into German occupied towns in full uniform and having a go with the German troops. While the stories vary, they reinforce the fact that he was not afraid to go anywhere in his operational area. In the book “Herringbone Cloak–GI Dagger: Marines of the OSS” written by LTC Robert Mattingly, perhaps the best version of these events unfolded:

Ortiz, in particular, was fond of going straight into the German-occupied towns. On one occasion, he strolled into a cafe dressed in a long cape. Several Germans were drinking and cursing the maquis. One mentioned the fate which would befall the filthy American swine when he was caught. (The Nazis apparently knew of Ortiz’ existence in the area with the maquis) This proved a great mistake. Captain Ortiz threw back the cape revealing his Marine uniform. In each hand, he held a .45 automatic. When the shooting stopped, there were fewer Nazis to plan his capture and Ortiz was gone into the night.

Operation Union was ended on May 20 and the team exfilled to London. He was then decorated with the first of two Navy Crosses and promoted to Major. Ortiz returned to France on August 1, 1944, the head of a mission entitled UNION II. This OSS mission was no longer a Jedburgh operation but an Operational Group. These were heavily armed teams which were tasked with direct action against the Germans. They were not only to conduct sabotage but they were to also seize key installations to prevent retreating German units from destroying them.

OG members, unlike Jeds, were always in uniform. Along with Ortiz on this mission were Army Air Forces Captain Francis Coolidge, and Marine Gunnery Sergeant Robert La Salle, Sergeants Charles Perry, John P. Bodnar, Frederick J. Brunner, and Jack R. Risler, as well as a Free French officer, Joseph Arcelin, who carried false identification which showed him to be a U.S. Marine.

Things went wrong from the start on the second mission. Perry’s static line snapped causing him to fall to his death on the jump in. The rest of the team buried him on the drop zone. The men were advising the “Bulle” Battalion to support the Allied landings in Southern France. The Army Air Corps dropped 864 bundles of weapons, equipment, and supplies to support the team and their efforts.

The Germans (157th Alpine Division-Reserves) however was on the resistance’s tail almost immediately. On the 14th of August, the Germans shelled the town of Montgirod where they had entered and forced them and the Bulle Battalion into the mountains outside of town. They quickly surrounded them. On the 18th their luck ran out. They ran into a German column of trucks and troops numbering several hundred in the town of Centron.

The Germans kept the men under fire and the fighting was going from house to house. French civilians urged the men to surrender since the Germans had liquidated two entire towns of citizens for reportedly harboring the resistance. Ortiz didn’t want that to happen.

He walked out in full view of the Germans who kicked up the dirt around him with machinegun fire. In perfect German, he asked to speak to the Commander. He agreed to surrender his men if the German officer, a Major Kolb would spare the town any reprisals. Kolb agreed and then he and men were incredulous and then livid when only Bodner and Risler came out. The Germans thought they were in action against a company-sized element, when in fact, the three Marine OSS men held off a battalion.

He spent the rest of the war as a POW but made numerous attempts to escape. His final one in April of 1945 had Ortiz and three others escape and spend 10 days wandering around looking for British Army units. They were starving and eventually went back to their prison of war camp where they were cheered by the other POWs.

On April 29, 1945, the camp was liberated by the 7th Guards Armored Division and the men were returned to Allied control. When he returned to London, Ortiz was given his second Navy Cross. He returned to civilian life and was a technical advisor for Hollywood films. He was good friends with director John Ford and he put Ortiz in several of his films including “Rio Grande” with John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, and Victor McLaglen. And “Wings of Eagles” also with Wayne and O’Hara.

Peter Ortiz with Maureen O’Hara in Rio Grande

By his own admission, he was a terrible actor but thought that the making of films was a lot of fun. He died of cancer in 1988, the only battle he ever fought and lost.

With the news of last week where certain historians question the legacy of OSS and that of the US Army Special Forces, I wonder if many Marines know the legacy of Peter Ortiz. While so much of the Corps history centers around the island campaigns of WWII, one officer had an incredibly, packed career in just a short amount of time in Europe. And when it comes to Special Operators, he stands among the best.

Photos: National Archives, Republic Pictures

Is Special Forces Lineage, Real or “Disinformation”? Really?

Opinion: There are certainly times when one is forced to scratch his own head. And others where you are just forced to throw up your hands and utter WTF! Today would be more of the latter than the former.

But I guess it really shouldn’t be a shock because as our boss Jack frequently says, “SF eats its own.” And in this case, like usual, he’s spot on.

So what’s the flap you say? Well, I’m very glad you asked. Like every Special Forces soldier that came before me and those that followed, we learned our legacy, like Moses coming down from the mountain about where we sprung from, what our true lineage is and the debt we owe to those we followed in World War II.

The current day Special Forces came from the wartime, World War II OSS. OSS, the brainchild of William “Wild Bill” Donovan was created at the beginning of the war and by war’s end numbered around 13,000 personnel, of which about half was stationed overseas.

OSS not only gave birth to the modern day Special Forces groups but to CIA as well. OSS espionage operatives set up stations in foreign countries where the head, the Station Chief ran all operations. That hasn’t changed and the names and hierarchy remain the same.

But now the USASOC (US Army Special Operations Command) Historian’s Office has published an article in the official magazine “Veritas” that states that the lineage that SF has long believed to be gospel is a “fallacy” and a product of “disinformation”.

And yet if you log onto the USASOC official website, and click on SF History you’ll read this:

Special Forces traces its roots as the Army’s premier proponent of unconventional warfare from the Operational Groups and Jedburgh teams of the Office of Strategic Services.
The OSS was formed in World War II to gather intelligence and conduct operations behind enemy lines in support of resistance groups in Europe and Burma. After the war, individuals such as Col. Aaron Bank, Col. Wendell Fertig and Lt. Col. Russell Volckmann used their wartime OSS experience to formulate the doctrine of unconventional warfare that became the cornerstone of the Special Forces. In the Army’s official Lineage and Honors, the Special Forces Groups are linked to the regiments of the First Special Service Force, an elite combined Canadian-American unit that fought in North Africa, Italy, and Southern France.

Aha! You say, then why doesn’t SF simply use the lineage and honors of OSS? Again, glad, you asked. OSS was a joint interagency wartime agency, therefore OSS does not have any history, lineage, and honors, at least as far as the Army Institute of Heraldry is concerned. But Special Forces troops know who they are.

After all, isn’t Aaron Bank considered the “Father of Special Forces” and has been honored by the Regiment as such for longer than we can all remember?

Bank created the 10th Special Forces Group in 1952, during WWII, he was a Jedburgh assigned to Europe and recruited other paratroopers, OSS operators, and the 1st Special Service Force. Using the training and tactics he learned with OSS, Bank created the Special Forces groups that we know today.

The Jedburgh teams received extensive foreign language instruction, as well as training in airborne and amphibious operations, skiing, mountain climbing, Morse code, small arms, land navigation, hand-to-hand combat, explosives, and espionage tactics. Each Jedburgh team carried a communications radio, the Type B, Mark 2 commonly referred to as a “Jed Set,” which encased in a suitcase and later two small containers.

The modern Special Operations Forces under JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) owe a great deal of their legacy to the Jedburgh teams. Here under a joint headquarters, members from all the services come together under one umbrella to conduct Direct Action (DA) missions. But that was just the beginning.

The Special Forces Command HQs has addressed the need for the modern “hybrid” type of warfare command structure by recreating the Jedburgh team concept. The 1st Special Forces Command brings together all the units that are best at unconventional missions, including Green Berets, psychological warfare experts, civil affairs specialists, and special logistics personnel.

The Special Operations side of OSS later morphed into the CIA’s paramilitary Special Activities Division but it became the backbone of the US Special Operations Command of today. The Special Operations branch of OSS was the basis for many of the Unconventional Warfare (UW), Counter-Insurgency (COIN), and Foreign Internal Defense (FID) tactics and techniques used by today’s U.S. Army Special Operations Forces.

During the war, OSS’ Special Operations Branch fielded units called Operational Groups (OGs) that conducted raids, ambushes, sabotage, and armed resistance groups. These OGs were active in Yugoslavia with the partisans, in Burma as well as France, Italy, and Norway. The most well-known was the Jedburgh OGs which carried out operations in Europe.

But back to the beginning. Yes, SF not only had Bank but guerrilla fighters Russell Volckmann, Wendell Fertig and Donald Blackburn who all had tremendous experience fighting the Japanese in the Philippines. But their experiences, while outstanding in its training value, did not come close to following the organization for the Special Forces Groups which took their lineage straight from OSS.

For instance, how did the Operational Detachment Alpha get its name? Early draft papers by Bank and Volckmann, as we’ve noted often referred to the small SF teams as the “Special Forces Operational Group,” reusing OSS terminology. USSOCOM uses the old OSS patch as its own today. Hmm.

But perhaps the best example is to use Colonel Bank’s own words to show the way. Bank made it clear that he and Volckmann based their plans for the Army’s unconventional warfare capability on their World War II experiences with the Philippine guerrillas and OSS, and that Special Forces units were developed “in the OSS pattern of
tiny units with the prime mission of developing, training, and equipping the guerrilla potential deep in enemy territory.”

As for the “official” US Army forerunners of Special Forces, Bank clearly stated that “actually they [Special Forces] have no connection with ranger-type organizations (read 1st SSF) since their mission and operations are far more complex, time-consuming, require much deeper penetration and initially are often of a strategic nature.”

Colonel David Maxwell (Ret) writes in an excellent website which is highly recommended if you aren’t already reading it called “Small Wars Journal”. Colonel Maxwell is a retired SF Colonel and after seeing this mention from “Veritas” I wondered if he had seen it and what his thoughts were. They were exactly what I thought they’d be.

Rather than assess the numbers of OSS members in SF the author would do a great service by reminding readers that today’s SF assessment and selection, organization (especially the ODA), training, doctrine, and most important the foundational mission of SF, unconventional warfare, are directly related to and descended from the OSS. For those interested, I recommend perusing the USASOC website OSS Primer and Manuals accessed HERE… I personally traced the development of SF doctrine and the unconventional warfare mission from the OSS to the present (then 1995) HERE.
What this article indirectly highlights is that the US Army has failed to include the OSS in the lineage of Special Forces. This is most likely because the OSS was not an Army unit (like SOF today it was a very effective joint and interagency (civilian) organization with members from all services). Therefore, the Army chose to make the 1st Special Service Force the predecessor of US Special Forces. While original members of the 1st SSF were recruited by Colonel Aaron Bank to join SF (along with paratroopers and foreign troops through the Lodge Act) the “Force” was a hyper-conventional American and Canadian direct-action raiding unit. While it fought valiantly and deserves recognition for its tremendous exploits it did not make formal contributions to the assessment and selection methodology, the organization of the Special Forces A-Team or the unconventional warfare mission.

I don’t understand the rationale behind this latest hit piece about the history and lineage of Special Forces. Disinformation? Perpetrated by whom? That is such an insult to the men of OSS that it defies description. How can USASOC print this in its own magazine “Veritas” which means truth, when the command’s own website promotes the opposite. What could possibly be the motivation to print such an article? Is there a hidden meaning or agenda that is in play here?

I used to believe Jack was overstating things when I first heard him say, “SF eats their own” No longer. This was incredible. And not in a good way.

Photo: OSS Jedburgh teams with future CIA Director William Colby in the center

LTC Peter Dewey, OSS, Is the 1st US Soldier Killed in Vietnam, Sept.26, 1945

The United States involvement in Vietnam began long before the 1960s as most U.S. citizens tend to believe. Most don’t know that at the end of World War II, the United States sent several Office Of Strategic Services (OSS) operatives into then French Indochina, to facilitate the release of American pilots. LTC Peter Dewey was in command of an OSS team sent to Vietnam to repatriate American POWs.

Dewey was killed by Communist Viet Minh soldiers while leaving Saigon in September 1945 after they mistook him for a French soldier. He has never been listed as a fatality of the Vietnam war since according to the government, US involvement didn’t begin until the mid-1950s.

Early Beginnings:

Dewey was born in 1916 in Chicago. He was a distant cousin to Thomas Dewey, the Governor of New York. He went to school in New Hampshire and then on to Yale University and studied French history. He later attended the University of Virginia, School of Law.

After college, he worked as a journalist in the Paris bureau of the Chicago Daily News. He later worked for Nelson Rockefeller at the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs in 1940 and met secretly with Charles de Gaulle.

Once World War II broke out in Europe in May 1940, during the Battle of France, Dewey was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Polish Military Ambulance Corps with the Polish Army fighting in France. Following the defeat of the French army, Dewey escaped through Spain to Portugal.

Upon return to the United States, Dewey was selected for OSS.

World War II Service:

Dewey parachuted into Southern France in August of 1944 and radioed reports of German troop movements behind enemy lines for six weeks as part of a ten-man OSS team. OSS operatives were the forerunners of the US Army Special Forces and CIA.

For his actions in France, General William “Wild Bill” Donovan personally awarded him the Legion of Merit while the French gave him the Legion of Honor and a second Croix de Guerre.

Dewey was then shipped to Saigon in September of 1945 to command a seven-man OSS team “to represent American interests” and collect intelligence. Working with and sympathetic to the Viet Minh and Ho Chi Minh, whom he considered a freedom fighter, during an operation codenamed Project Embankment, he arranged the repatriation of 4,549 Allied POWs, including 240 Americans, from two Japanese camps near Saigon. Dewey freed the Americans from two Japanese camps in Saigon. The majority of them had been held in Burma for most of the war and employed, as slave labor building a railroad line that was to cross the Kwai River, later made famous by the movie Bridge On The River Kwai.

Camp Poet in Saigon held five POWs, and Camp 5-E, just outside of Saigon, contained 209. Of these, 120 were from the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery of the 36th Division, a National Guard anti-aircraft outfit from Texas that had landed in Java by mistake and had been captured intact. These POWs would later become known as the “Lost Battalion.” Among the other POWs, 86 were survivors of the cruiser Houston, sunk on the night of 29 February 1942 off the coast of Java. Their fate was also unknown until Dewey liberated them. The other eight were airmen shot down over Indochina.

Because the British occupation forces who had arrived to accept the Japanese surrender were short of troops, they armed French POWs on September 22 to protect the city from a potential Viet Minh attack. The French were wanting to re-establish colonial rule in Vietnam, something the Viet Minh were adamantly against and considered themselves the rightful government.

In taking control of the city, the 1400 freed French soldiers quickly ousted the Viet Minh who had just taken power. The British commander, General Douglas Gracey, was firmly against the Viet Minh and only too happy to assist the French in their quest to re-establish their colonial rule.

He established two distinct zones under his authority, the French and the English, and he flew in 300 Gurkha troops to keep control. Dewey who was quite outspoken, and blasted Gracey for his subjecting the Viet Minh to the French again. Eventually, Gracey took exception to Dewey’s objections and declared him persona non grata.

As with military tradition, Gracey prohibited anyone but general officers from flying their nations’ flags from their vehicles. Dewey had wanted to fly an American flag for easy identification among the Viet Minh, who Dewey claimed were only concerned about attacking the French. The jeep he rode in prior to his death had a flag wrapped around a pole that was unidentifiable.

Because the airplane scheduled to fly Dewey out did not arrive on time at Tan Son Nhut International Airport, he returned for a lunch meeting with war correspondents Bill Downs and Jim McGlincy at the villa that OSS had requisitioned in Saigon as well as visit an American who was wounded by Viet Minh soldiers who ironically enough mistook him for a Frenchman. As he neared the villa, he was shot in the head in an ambush by Viet Minh troops. Dewey’s jeep overturned, and Dewey’s subordinate, Captain Herbert Bluechel, escaped, pursued by Viet Minh soldiers. Bluechel informed OSS HQs of the tragedy. “We were returning to the O.S.S. hostel when we passed through a partial double roadblock. As we drive through, Annamese (Vietnamese) in a ditch beside the road opened with a machine gun not ten yards away. The charge caught Peter in the head.”

“The jeep overturned in the ditch. I saw Peter was dead and I couldn’t help him, so I crawled from under the jeep. While the Annamese still were firing, I crawled along a hedge for 150 yards, firing my .45 back at them, slowing them down. When I reached the house I alerted the other offices and we broke out the arsenal. The Annamese besieged the house for about three hours until British Gurkha troops arrived. The natives had cut our telephone wires and I had to radio O.S.S. headquarters in Kandy, Ceylon, who radioed the British in Saigon to send help.”

The Viet Minh afterward claimed that their troops mistook him for a Frenchman after he had spoken to them in French. Bluechel later recalled that Dewey had shaken his fist and yelled insults for some reason at three Vietnamese soldiers in French while driving back to headquarters.

According to Vietnamese historian Trần Văn Giàu, Dewey’s body was dumped in a nearby river and was never recovered. But other reports had Viet Minh troops dumping his body in a well and then burying it elsewhere in a small village after it was learned that he was an American. Reportedly, Ho Chi Minh sent a letter of condolence about Dewey’s death to U.S. President Harry S. Truman while also ordering a search for the colonel’s body. Ho also offered the large sum of 5000 piasters for the return of the Major’s body.

While it may have been another decade before the US was “officially” involved in Vietnam, Dewey was really the first of the more than 58,000 troops who paid the ultimate price there.

Photo: OSS

How OSS Operatives Were Assessed and Selected

Back in World War II, the United States was woefully prepared to enter the war, especially in the field of intelligence operations where they didn’t have a national, professional intelligence service. But that would change very quickly.

After President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed General William “Wild Bill” Donovan to head up the fledgling Office of Strategic Services (OSS), he quickly used his British contacts with getting the Americans the training and experience they would need in the coming months.

After OSS grew from their original COI (Coordinator of Information) roots, the U.S. copied the British program of psychological/psychiatric assessment similar to that in the English War Office Selection Boards (WOSBs).

OSS was searching for what personal makeup would be for assessing the perfect applicant for paramilitary operations (Guerrilla warfare, sabotage, assassination), intelligence operations (espionage), propaganda operations and select skills such as radio operators. They were starting from scratch. No one really knew what would make a perfect candidate for any of those.

So Donovan and his staff assembled a team of psychologists headed up by Dr. Henry Murray, a Harvard-trained psychologist who was a pioneer in personality assessment. He would head up the Assessment and Selection committee. They would screen nearly 5400 candidates to weed out the unfit for the dangerous job of being involved in the U.S.’ first foray into the intelligence and Special Operations business.

The candidates, military and civilian, men and women would be brought to Station S. (Schools and Training) at the prior Willard Estate in Fairfax, Virginia. The initial problem that arose was that there were no job descriptions for the candidates and therefore the psychologists had a difficult time in assessing candidates because they didn’t know what they were actually assessing for.

But what the Training School cadre of doctors came up with is a basic tool that is still used today, not only in Selection and Assessment for Special Operations Forces but in the civilian world in assessing managers.

Candidates would be required to build and maintain as completely as possible a cover
story for himself, claiming to have been born somewhere he wasn’t, to have gone to to school and educated in an institution other than those he had attended, to have been engaged in work or profession different to his own, and to live now in a place that was not his true residence. The cover story was to be maintained with staff and students alike at all times except under when speaking to cadre members for the purposes of assessment. The candidates could reveal anything about themselves except their names and true identities.

During the assessment cycle, this was the first test of what would become the real world test of living undercover abroad in a foreign country that may be under enemy control. The candidates were rated on several key factors which included:
Motivation, Practical Intelligence, Emotional, Stability, Social Relations, Leadership, Physical Ability, Observation and Reporting, Propaganda Skills, and Maintaining Cover.

Each factor was rated on a six-point scale: Very Inferior, Inferior, Low Average, High Average, Superior, Very Superior.

In addition, candidat were assessed in other factors as well:

Motivation: energy, effort, initiative, morale,
Practical Intelligence: speed and accuracy of judgment, resourcefulness in solving problems
Emotional Stability: emotional control and maturity, the absence of neurotic symptoms
Social Relations: social awareness, goodwill, teamwork, tact, the absence of annoying traits
Leadership: social initiative, organizing ability, ability to evoke cooperation
Physical Ability: agility, daring, ruggedness, stamina
Observation and Reporting: ability to search, question, observe and recall,
Infer, report
Propaganda Skills: the ability to affect others through acts, words, or displays
Maintaining Cover: caution, ability to remain inconspicuous, bluff, mislead, keep a secret

One of the more intriguing tasks given to the candidates was the Map Memory Test. in this test, the candidate had to assume that he is an operative in the field and that he has just made a secret face-to-face meeting with a courier who has a map of the territory that the agent will be operating in.

After a few minutes the courier must leave with the map and since it would be dangerous for the agent to have it, he must memorize it. After eight minutes to examine the map, it is taken away and the candidate answers a set of multiple-choice statements about the terrain shown on the map.

Back when I was a cadre in Selection, we came across this and several of the cadre members as well as candidates took the test in one of our first Selection courses in SFAS.

Other tests given to OSS candidates included:

The Brook Situation: This is similar to many of the tasks that SFAS candidates face in today’s course during what is now termed “Team Week”. This leaderless situation is now more apt to current Selection tasks than when the courses first began in the 1980s.

There a group of candidates were asked to cross a 15 foot wide stream, that the candidates were told to be a canyon. The are given a log which is said to be a delicate piece of equipment that they must carry over the canyon and return with a rock. The rock was to be considered to be explosives. The must carry log across, return with rock and all members of the group.

They were not permitted to jump but were asked to solve the problem as a group. They were given 10 minutes to generate a plan. No one was named the leader so there was the opportunity to take leadership and interact as a member of a team.

The candidates were assessed on the following criteria:

number of different suggestions offered
working as a member of a team
volunteering for unpleasant tasks
insight into the problems
evaluation of proposed suggestions
tact in responding to suggestions by other team members
sense of humor
guiding of others to a solution
organizing the workers into a team
combining ideas from others

The Wall Situation:

This was another leaderless evaluation candidates were led to a wall 10′ high,15′ long. Behind the wall which the candidates could see was another wall of the same height
and length, parallel to it, the two walls being 8′ apart. On the candidates’ side of the wall
there were a heavy log, an old board a few inches longer than the log, and a couple of
two-by-fours, two feet and three feet in length.

The candidates were told this wall was a barrier they could not go around or see around. Furthermore, behind this wall was a canyon and on the other side was another wall. The situation is that they were trying to escape from Japanese soldiers and must figure out how to get the entire team to the other side, carrying their bazooka which was an oversized log.. Any item or person that fell between the walls was lost. Solving the problem required getting quickly to the top of the wall to assess the situation and determining a way to measure the gap with the tools that were available in order to decide what could be used to cross it.

Smart leaders quickly realized the best wall climbers had to go first and last to assist the other team members up and across the wall and any apparatus built. The Wall was assessed the same as the Brook.

The Construction Situation: This was a test of emotional stability as well as a test of working with others, outside of the team. In this scenario, a candidate was given the task of constructing a basic wooden structure within ten minutes. The candidate was to serve as the leader and given two “helpers” who were anything but. This was also known as the “Behind the Barn” test.

One was lazy and wanted to do as little as possible the other was more aggressive and criticized everything the leader did. The task was to measure how a candidate handled stress and working with less than ideal “others” who were assigned. The candidate had to explain the task and give specific instructions to each of the “helpers” while maintaining a cool composure and keeping the helpers on task, without resorting to doing it himself.

The Stress Interview: This assessment was one of the most important of all of their tests. OSS operatives faced the danger of being arrested and interrogated by members of the Gestapo in occupied Europe. This small, short test was designed to see who could possibly withstand the emotional and intellectual strain of being interrogated.

Candidates were given 12 minutes to develop a cover story for why the candidate was found going through secret papers in a government office building. They would have no identification papers and could not pretend to be an employee. They were not permitted to answer either”I don’t know” or “I am not permitted to disclose” and had to answer every question. They had to avoid revealing prior personal occupations, residence, etc.

The stress interview lasted only 10 minutes and had the candidate sitting in a hard, uncomfortable chair in a dark room with a light shining in his eyes. The candidate would be subjected to multiple interrogators shouting rapid fire questions at him

At the end of this specific assessment, the cadre would whisper among themselves that the candidate failed the test to watch for any telltale signs. He or she would then be led out of the room and a cadre member would in a relaxed tone try to pry any more information out of him.

The cadre performed other assessments as well and then asked candidates to run an obstacle course at the end of the 2nd day to test their physical attributes. The cadre were looking for an ideal candidate who was a “PHd. who can win a bar fight.” Before they could sharpen the assessment program, the war ended and OSS was disbanded.

However, the same people who founded CIA and the US Army Special Forces dusted off their assessment programs for OSS and used many of the same assessment programs that continue to this day in different forms but essentially still looking for the ideal candidates to continue the mission of the unit and weed out the unsuitable.

So, how would you fare in the Selection and Assessment of OSS back in World War II?

Photos: US Archives

Before She Was a Famous Chef, Julia Child Cooked Up Shark Repellent for OSS

When one mentions Julia Child, the first thing that comes to mind is the marvel and ease of French cooking that she brought to the United States. But long before she was a culinary artist, she served as an intelligence officer during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner to today’s CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces.

Child was born in Pasadena, California in 1912 and attended a private boarding school before attending Smith College, graduating with a degree in history in 1934. The 6’2” Child also played basketball, golf, and tennis in school. She moved to New York and worked as a copywriter for the advertising firm of W. & J. Sloane. One curious bit of her history. While growing up in California, her family had a hired cook and Child had no interest in cooking until she met her husband Paul many years later.

World War II Service: When the war started, Child attempted to join both the WACs (Women’s Army Corps) and the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) in the Navy. But was rejected because of her height.

Undeterred, she volunteered to serve in the OSS and was initially given a typist’s job at the headquarters in Washington D.C. It wasn’t long before she was given a much more challenging position as a researcher working directly under General William Donovan with a Top Secret clearance.

The elite Washington snobs looked down their blue noses at the upstart Intelligence group created by Donovan. They had well-connected enemies from the moment of their inception with J.Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Donovan’s men were a freewheeling, eclectic band of “glorious amateurs” as Donovan called them. He also said he was looking for “PHDs who can win a bar fight”, and he recruited some very well known personas including several who would become the head of CIA including Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey.

Child quickly rose thru the ranks in Washington and lived out of the Brighton Hotel. But growing bored with the administrative work, she heard OSS was searching for volunteers for work in India. And she thought being, “free, white, and thirty-one,” she was ready for an adventure.

But just prior to her transfer to the Orient, the U.S. Navy was having a hard time with sharks. There were reportedly 20 such attacks during the first 18 months of the war and the Navy was looking for a shark repellent that would boost morale.

So Donovan suggested to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that all rescue efforts be coordinated. Thus the OSS Emergency Rescue Equipment (ERE) committee was created to keep other government agencies from duplicating efforts. From the CIA archives, The ERE was headed up by Captain Harold J. Coolidge, a scientist from the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology, and Dr. Henry Field, Curator of the Field Museum of Natural History. Both men were avid explorers, having led expeditions into the arctic, desert, and tropical regions.

Julia Child, then McWilliams worked for Coolidge as his executive assistant for a year in 1943. Child in an interview about OSS had this to say about the work at ERE:

“I must say we had lots of fun,” Child said. “We designed rescue kits and other agent paraphernalia. I understand the shark repellent we developed is being used today for downed space equipment—strapped around it so the sharks won’t attack when it lands in the ocean.”

The group experimented with a variety of different compounds to keep the sharks away but the most effective chemical they found was copper acetate. It was found to be about 60 percent effective in keeping sharks from biting test subjects. CIA reports that the repellent was constructed as follows:

Copper acetate was mixed with black dye, which was then formed into a little disk-shaped “cake” that smelled like a dead shark when released into the water. These cakes could be stored in small 3-inch boxes with metal screens that allowed the repellent to be spread either manually or automatically when submerged in water. The box could be attached to a life jacket or belt, or strapped to a person’s leg or arm, and was said to keep sharks away for 6 to 7 hours.

Despite that, the Navy was unconvinced about the overall effectiveness of the ERE’s shark repellent. In their own tests the Navy felt that the “slight repellent factor” shown in bait tests in small sharks, they didn’t believe that once used in larger sharks known to attack man it wouldn’t be very effective. Even Coolidge didn’t believe that the repellent would work if a group of sharks experienced what we’d call a feeding frenzy.

However, the word leaked out of ERE’s shark repellent and the media picked it up. Requests for the OSS shark repellent began to pour in from the Army Air Corps and the Coast Guard and while the actual value of the repellent may have been dubious, the effect on morale was huge. The repellent remained in use with the Navy until the 1970s and may have even been used by NASA.

But the Navy wanted to let the sailors know about the low probability of being bitten by sharks and once the repellent went into widespread use, they also published a pamphlet called, “Shark Sense” which spelled it all out, and in the military’s never-ending pursuit of the lowest common denominator, published it with a cartoon, something that would continue well into the 1980s.

Once assigned to China and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) Julia Child’s life changed forever. She met Paul Child who was a decade older and an experienced player with women, wine, and food. And he opened all of those horizons up to the inexperienced newcomer. After nearly a year in Ceylon, she was transferred to China and the two were inseparable until the war ended.

She served as Chief of the OSS Registry. In typical self-effacing action, she claimed that she was nothing more than a clerk. Her future husband, however, in later years dispelled those rumors saying that she held a Top Secret Clearance and was handling all of the classified message traffic to include the invasion of the Malay peninsula. It was during this time her first interest in fine food and cooking was born due to her relationship with Child.

After the war, he continued on as a Foreign Service Officer and while stationed in France, is where Julia attended the best cooking schools in Paris and befriended French chefs and together they decided to put together a cookbook for Americans to develop an interest in French food. The rest they say is history.

But long before that, Julia Child was a young woman who couldn’t cook a lick and whose first recipe was for the United States Navy. She would recall much later in life in interviews with the media.

“I could boil water for tea but my first big recipe was shark repellent that I mixed in a bathtub for the Navy, for the men who might get caught in the water.”

Photos: Wikipedia

OSS Captain Martin Gelb Awarded Congressional Gold Medal in NH

Because of security classifications that didn’t expire until 10 years ago, many members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) never were fully recognized for the work they did behind enemy lines during World War II.

But for a Derry, NH man, that oversight has been fixed as he was finally recognized for serving in the unit that was the forerunner for the CIA and the US Army Special Forces of today.

In a ceremony held Monday at the Derry Municipal Center, Capt. Martin Gelb was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, awarded by U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.).

“Martin Gelb is an American hero and I’m honored to have the opportunity to stand with our community and his family to present him with this long overdue recognition for his service to our country,” Shaheen said.
Gelb was part of a critical intelligence unit that shaped the course of World War II, Shaheen noted, saying that the veteran’s service and sacrifice were kept secret for decades, adding it was only recently the level of Gelb’s OSS service was known.
The OSS formed the framework of what became the nation’s intelligence services, including the CIA.
“I am so thrilled that he is finally receiving the acknowledgment and commendation for his extraordinary service and I join with our community in thanking him for his bravery and service to the United States, and to the world,” Shaheen said. “Martin Gelb is a true American hero.”
Gelb, 99, was born in Brooklyn, New York and joined the Army at 22 as a tool inspector.
He then served in England, France, and behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany, serving as a field radio officer, communications officer and military intelligence officer and completed a myriad of missions including providing support to U.S. and British operations while also assisting with the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp, the largest of the Nazi camps that imprisoned about 250,000 people between 1937 and 1945.
Gelb said he was “speechless, ovewhelmed” and receiving the honor was unbelievable.
The humble soldier took a moment after the ceremony to answer questions from those attending, saying he wasn’t sure why this was such a big deal, but to those in the room, it was.

For Gelb, being honored and receiving the medal has brought back memories of his service — and he will never forget those years.
“I think of them all the time,” Gelb said. “This occasion has opened up a lot of memories stored in my mind which I chose to forget about. It brings up good and bad memories.
The Derry veteran loves America and said he did the job he was asked to do.
“I love the country we have and I don’t care what anybody says, this is one great country,” Gelb said. “We were called up, guys like me, to perform a task and we did the best we could.”

Gelb was interviewed by an author for a book that detailed the stories of the veterans, telling their stories. He remains friends with author Bill Graser after meeting him at a veterans event in 2011.

To read the entire article from Derry News, click here:

Photo courtesy WMUR TV, Martin Gelb