The Ritchie BoysJohn Patrick Finnegan, ''Military Intelligence,'' Center of Military History United States Army, Washington, D.C., 1998. /ref> were a special collection of soldiers, with sizable numbers of German-Austrian recruits, of
Military Intelligence Service
The Military Intelligence Service ( ja, アメリカ陸軍情報部, ''America Rikugun Jōhōbu'') was a World War II U.S. military unit consisting of two branches, the Japanese American unit (described here) and the German-Austrian unit based ...
officers and enlisted men of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
who were trained at
Camp Ritchie
Fort Ritchie at Cascade, Maryland was a military installation southwest of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and southeast of Waynesboro in the area of South Mountain. Following the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, it closed in 19 ...
in
Washington County, Maryland
Washington County is located in the western part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 154,705. Its county seat is Hagerstown. Washington County was the first county in the United States to be named for the ...
. Many of them were German-speaking immigrants to the United States, often Jews, who fled
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
persecution. They were used primarily for
interrogation
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...
of prisoners on the front lines and
counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
in Europe because of their knowledge of the German language and culture. They were also involved in the
Nuremberg trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945 ...
as prosecutors and translators.
Camp Ritchie
The Ritchie Boys consisted of approximately 20,000 servicemen, and 200
Women's Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an Auxiliaries, auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on 15 May 1942 and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the U ...
members who were trained for U.S. Army Intelligence during WWII at the secret Camp Ritchie training facility. Approximately 14%, or 2,200, of them were Jewish refugees born in Germany and Austria. Most of the men sent to Camp Ritchie for training were assigned there because of fluency in German, French, Italian, Polish, or other languages needed by the US Army during WWII. They had been
draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...
ed into or volunteered to join the
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
and when their ability to speak the language of an enemy was discovered, they were sent to Camp Ritchie on secret orders. Some of the Jewish refugees who were part of this program had originally arrived in the US as children, many without their parents, and were also among the
One Thousand Children
The One Thousand Children (OTC) is a designation, created in 2000, which is used to refer to the approximately 1,400 Jewish children who were rescued from Nazi Germany and other Nazi-occupied or threatened European countries, and who were taken di ...
. (One such OTC was Ambassador
Richard Schifter
Richard Schifter (July 31, 1923October 4, 2020) was an Austrian-American attorney and diplomat who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs from 1985 to 1992.
Early life and education
Richard Schifter w ...
.)
They were trained at the Military Intelligence Training Center at
Camp Ritchie
Fort Ritchie at Cascade, Maryland was a military installation southwest of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and southeast of Waynesboro in the area of South Mountain. Following the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, it closed in 19 ...
in
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, later officially known as
Fort Ritchie
Fort Ritchie at Cascade, Maryland was a military installation southwest of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and southeast of Waynesboro in the area of South Mountain. Following the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, it closed in 199 ...
counterintelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
, interrogation, investigation and
psychological warfare
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Mi ...
, 900 of these men also attended special training at
Camp Sharpe
Camp Sharpe was a World War II military installation on the Gettysburg Battlefield that trained soldiers for psychological operations (e.g., morale operations) in the European Theater of Operations (see Operation Cornflakes Frontpost newspap ...
, Pennsylvania. The Jewish refugees were qualified for these tasks because they knew the German language and understood the German mentality and behavior better than most American-born soldiers. The role of these soldiers was therefore to work in the front lines, at strategic corps and army levels, at interrogation, analyzing German forces and plans, and also to study and demoralize the enemy. The majority of them went on to work as members of the US
Counter Intelligence Corps
The Counter Intelligence Corps (Army CIC) was a World War II and early Cold War intelligence agency within the United States Army consisting of highly trained special agents. Its role was taken over by the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps in 1961 and ...
.
Europe
After the
German declaration of war against the United States
On 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States declaration of war against the Japanese Empire, Nazi Germany declared war against the United States, in response to what was claimed to be a serie ...
on Dec 11, 1941, the Ritchie Boys became an important weapon for the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
. Many of them entered Europe on
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...
, 6 June 1944. Others followed over time. Shortly after reaching land, they left their units and pursued their special tasks. They were able to feed the Allies valuable information. Gen. Oscar Koch ( Gen. Patton's G-2) acknowledged that the advance warning of the German Bulge offensive was made possible by information gathered by their MIS units. Moreover, the Ritchie Boys helped break German resistance by demoralizing them in both open and covert operations. They interrogated
POWs
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...
and
defectors
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
to obtain information about German force levels, troop movements, and the physical and psychological state of the Germans. A common interrogation tactic was to use the Germans' fear of transfer into Soviet custody. By means of targeted
disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...
via newspaper announcements, flyers, radio broadcasts, and sound trucks, the German population and military were encouraged to cease their resistance to the Allied invasion.
Pacific
Ritchie pulled in over five hundred Japanese
Nisei
is a Japanese-language term used in countries in North America and South America to specify the ethnically Japanese children born in the new country to Japanese-born immigrants (who are called ). The are considered the second generation, ...
for the PACMIRS program (Pacific Military Intelligence Research Service) to translate captured documents the U.S. Navy captured in Saipan. Fifteen crates of documents were sent to Camp Ritchie for training purposes and were not considered to have any military intelligence. One Nisei, Kazuo Yamane, dug into a crate, retrieving what he believed to be a textbook, but soon discovered it to be meeting minutes from a gathering of all of Japans armories. The notes contained locations of the armories, the number of weapons held by Imperial Japan, spare parts held, and indicated that Japan had half the number of weapons available to them in 1944 as they did in 1943. Yamane immediately contacted his superior who contacted the War Department in translating the text into English which allowed the United States to take out the armories. Yamane called this act his "Proof of Loyalty" because he claimed he could have easily not reported the document to his superiors. A 2018 film, PROOF OF LOYALTY: Kazuo Yamane and the Nisei Soldiers of Hawaii detailed his time in the service and at Ritchie.
Post-war
A classified postwar report by the U.S. Army found that nearly 60 percent of the credible intelligence gathered in Europe came from the Ritchie Boys.
After the war, many of the Ritchie Boys served as translators and interrogators, some during the
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II.
Between 1939 and 1945 ...
. Many of them went on to successful political, scientific, or business careers.
The first-ever reunion of the Ritchie Boys took place from 23–25 July 2011 at the
Holocaust Memorial Center
The Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, near Detroit, is Michigan's largest Holocaust museum.
History
The Zekelman Holocaust Center, found as the Holocaust Memorial Center (The HC), the first free-standing institution of ...
in
Farmington Hills
Farmington Hills is a city in Oakland County, Michigan, Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. Part of the affluent suburbs northwest of Metro Detroit, Detroit, Farmington Hills is the second most-populated city in Oakland County, after Tro ...
, Michigan. Another reunion was held in June 2012 in Washington, D.C., and at
Fort Ritchie
Fort Ritchie at Cascade, Maryland was a military installation southwest of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania and southeast of Waynesboro in the area of South Mountain. Following the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, it closed in 199 ...
, which by then had closed.
In August 2021 the Ritchie Boys were honored in a congressional resolution.
Following the sale of Fort Ritchie in April 2021, a museum and educational center is being planned to continue commemorating the story of the Ritchie Boys in the location where they originally trained. On April 25, 2022, Maryland State Senator Paul Corderman officially announced $400,000 of state funding for the creation of a museum at Camp Ritchie to honor the legacy of the Ritchie Boys and the history of the Army Post.
The Ritchie Boys were honored by the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...
with the Elie Wiesel Award, the museum's highest honor to recognize "the unique role they played serving the United States and advancing our victory over Germany". Ritchie Boys Arno Mayer and Gideon Kantor were present to accept the award while a keynote speech was given by
Mark Milley
Mark Alexander Milley (born June 20, 1958) is a United States Army general who serves as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He previously served as the 39th chief of staff of the Army from August 14, 2015 to August 9, 2019, and hel ...
.
On October 31, 2022, a press conference was held at Fort Ritchie and Congressman
David Trone
David John Trone (born September 21, 1955) is an American politician and businessman serving as the U.S. representative for Maryland's 6th congressional district. The district includes most of the western third of the state, but the bulk of its p ...
announced he expected to introduce in Congress a bill to award the Ritchie Boys the
Congressional Gold Medal
The Congressional Gold Medal is an award bestowed by the United States Congress. It is Congress's highest expression of national appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions by individuals or institutions. The congressional pract ...
.
Notable Ritchie Boys
Anyone who attended Camp Ritchie is considered a Ritchie Boy for this list, whether or not they went on to serve in Europe.
Instructors at Camp Ritchie included
Rex Applegate
Rex Applegate (June 21, 1914 – July 14, 1998) was an American military officer who worked for the Office of Strategic Services, where he trained Allied special forces personnel in close-quarters combat during World War II. He held the rank of co ...
and professional wrestler
Man Mountain Dean
Frank Simmons Leavitt (June 30, 1891 – May 29, 1953) was an American professional wrestler of the early 1900s, known by the ring name Man Mountain Dean.
Early life
Leavitt was born in New York City, the son of John McKenney Leavitt and Henriet ...
.
Film and TV
In 2004, the documentary movie '' The Ritchie Boys'' by Christian Bauer featured ten of the Ritchie Boys.
On May 9, 2021, the story of the Ritchie Boys was presented in a forty-minute segment of the
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
news show ''
60 Minutes
''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...
''. Victor Brombert, 97, and Guy Stern, 99, gave personal testimony. On January 2, 2022, an expanded one hour version called "60 Minutes Presents" was shown. The program re-aired on July 3, 2022, due to its popularity.
See also
*
P. O. Box 1142
P.O. Box 1142 was a secret American military intelligence facility that operated during World War II.
, codename for
MIS
MIS or mis may refer to:
Science and technology
* Management information system
* Marine isotope stage, stages of the Earth's climate
* Maximal independent set, in graph theory
* Metal-insulator-semiconductor, e.g., in MIS capacitor
* Minimally ...
special wing, MIS-Y,
POW
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...
interrogation, at
Fort Hunt
Fort Hunt is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. The area is named after Fort Hunt, which was built on the bank of the Potomac River in 1897 to defend Washington, D.C. from naval attack and is now a public ...
,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...