Walter W. Orebaugh Jr. (March 19, 1910 – June 12, 2001) was an American

Foreign Service Officer A Foreign Service Officer (FSO) is a commissioned member of the United States Foreign Service. Foreign Service Officers formulate and implement the foreign policy of the United States. FSOs spend most of their careers overseas as members of U ...

, intelligence officer and university director. For the Foreign Service he served posts in

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

Monte Carlo Monte Carlo (; ; french: Monte-Carlo , or colloquially ''Monte-Carl'' ; lij, Munte Carlu ; ) is officially an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco, specifically the ward of Monte Carlo/Spélugues, where the Monte Carlo Casino is ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

and

Bridgetown Bridgetown (UN/LOCODE: BB BGI) is the capital and largest city of Barbados Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Island ...

. For his service in France and Italy during World War II, Orebaugh was awarded the Medal of Freedom. Orebaugh is a native of

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

and is a graduate of University of Wichita.

Service during World War II

In November, 1942, Orebaugh was consul at the American Consulate in

Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its ter ...

. At the order of American ''Chargé d’Affaires'' Pinkney Tuck, he quickly set up a consulate in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

. The reason for setting up a diplomatic mission in Monaco came to light a few days later with the Allied invasion of French North Africa and the quick closing of US diplomatic missions in Vichy France. The US had hoped to have a listening station in independent Monaco for which the consulate would serve. However, shortly after Orenbaugh set up the consulate Monaco was occupied by Italian forces and he and his small staff were taken into Italian custody. He was then shipped to Italy, where he was to be eventually traded for Allied prisoners. But after the

Armistice of Cassibile The Armistice of Cassibile was an armistice signed on 3 September 1943 and made public on 8 September between the Kingdom of Italy and the Allies during World War II. It was signed by Major General Walter Bedell Smith for the Allies and Brig ...

and the subsequent German occupation of northern Italy and the disarming of non-Fascist Italian forces he found himself in the hostile

Italian Social Republic The Italian Social Republic ( it, Repubblica Sociale Italiana, ; RSI), known as the National Republican State of Italy ( it, Stato Nazionale Repubblicano d'Italia, SNRI) prior to December 1943 but more popularly known as the Republic of Salò ...

with risk of becoming a German prisoner as the German army was approaching his detainment location in

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...

. He elected to escape with the help of a local Italian family who hid him in their house. As he was trapped in Italy he decided to assist the

Italian resistance movement The Italian resistance movement (the ''Resistenza italiana'' and ''la Resistenza'') is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social ...

and became a leader in a resistance group called the San Faustino Partisan band. He participated in many actions in the mountains of central Italy and sometimes leading daring raids on German and Italian Fascist supply and ammunition depots. He and another Italian partisan escaped to a hideout with other Allied personnel and he eventually sailed in a boat with some British and Americans to Allied lines on May 10, 1944. To the Allies he was able to give detailed intelligence of Italian resistance and German forces and helped facilitate supply lines to the resistance groups behind Axis lines. After briefly returning to the United States, he returned to Italy before the war's end and served as consul in Florence. Orebaugh wrote a book about his service during the war entitled ''Guerilla in Striped Pants: A U.S. Diplomat Joins the Italian Resistance''.

References

2001 deaths 1910 births {{US-diplomat-stub