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The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda,
subversion Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...
, and post-war planning. The OSS was dissolved a month after the end of the war. Intelligence tasks were shortly later resumed and carried over by its successors, the
Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) and the independent Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). On December 14, 2016, the organization was collectively honored with a Congressional Gold Medal.


Origin

Prior to the formation of the OSS, the various departments of the executive branch, including the State, Treasury, Navy, and War Departments, conducted American intelligence activities on an ''ad hoc'' basis, with no overall direction, coordination, or control. The US Army and US Navy had separate code-breaking departments: Signal Intelligence Service and OP-20-G. (A previous code-breaking operation of the State Department, the
MI-8 The Mil Mi-8 (russian: Ми-8, NATO reporting name: Hip) is a medium twin-turbine helicopter, originally designed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and introduced into the Soviet Air Force in 1968. It is now produced by Russia. In addition to ...
, run by
Herbert Yardley Herbert Osborn Yardley (April 13, 1889 – August 7, 1958) was an American cryptologist. He founded and led the cryptographic organization the Black Chamber. Under Yardley, the cryptanalysts of The American Black Chamber broke Japanese diplomatic ...
, had been shut down in 1929 by Secretary of State Henry Stimson, deeming it an inappropriate function for the diplomatic arm, because "gentlemen don't read each other's mail.") The FBI was responsible for domestic security and anti-espionage operations. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was concerned about American intelligence deficiencies. On the suggestion of William Stephenson, the senior British intelligence officer in the western hemisphere, Roosevelt requested that
William J. Donovan William Joseph "Wild Bill" Donovan (January 1, 1883 – February 8, 1959) was an American soldier, lawyer, intelligence officer and diplomat, best known for serving as the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Bur ...
draft a plan for an intelligence service based on the British
Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
(MI6) and Special Operations Executive (SOE). Donovan envisioned a single agency responsible for foreign intelligence and special operations involving commandos, disinformation,
partisan Partisan may refer to: Military * Partisan (weapon), a pole weapon * Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line Films * ''Partisan'' (film), a 2015 Australian film * ''Hell River'', a 1974 Yugoslavian film also know ...
and guerrilla activities. Donovan worked closely with Australian-born British intelligence officer Charles Howard 'Dick' Ellis, who has been credited with writing the blueprint. Said Ellis:
I was soon requested to draft a blueprint for an American intelligence agency, the equivalent of BSC ritish Security Co-ordinationand based on these British wartime improvisations... detailed tables of organisation were disclosed to Washington... among these were the organisational tables that led to the birth of General William Donovans OSS.
After submitting his (and Ellis's) work, "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information", Donovan was appointed "Coordinator of Information" on July 11, 1941, heading the new organization known as the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI). Ellis, described as Donovan's "right-hand man", "effectively ran the organization". Writes Fink:
Ellis was sent from New York by William Stephenson "to Washington to open a sub-station to facilitate daily liaison with Donovan, who reciprocated by sending uture Director of Central Intelligence, DCI
Allen Welsh Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ...
to liaise with BSC in the Rockefeller Center". According to Thomas F. Troy, paraphrasing Stephenson, Ellis 'was the tradecraft expert, the organization man, the one who furnished Bill Donovan with charts and memoranda on running an intelligence organization".
Donovan had responsibilities but no actual powers and the existing US agencies were skeptical if not hostile to the British. Until some months after Pearl Harbor, the bulk of OSS intelligence came from the UK. British Security Co-ordination (BSC), under the direction of Ellis, trained the first OSS agents in Canada, until training stations were set up in the US with guidance from BSC instructors, who also provided information on how the SOE was arranged and managed. The British immediately made available their short-wave broadcasting capabilities to Europe, Africa, and the Far East and provided equipment for agents until American production was established. Writes Fink:
William Casey, who headed up OSS's Europe-based human-intelligence operations, the Secret Intelligence Branch, and went on to become director of the CIA, wrote in his autobiography, ''The Secret War Against Hitler'', that Ellis was not only writing blueprints but involved in on-the-ground, logistical programs: "Dick Ellis, nexperienced British pro, helped establish training centres, mostly around Washington." United States Assistant Secretary of State
Adolf Berle Adolf Augustus Berle Jr. (; January 29, 1895 – February 17, 1971) was an American lawyer, educator, writer, and diplomat. He was the author of ''The Modern Corporation and Private Property'', a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, a prof ...
commented: "The really active head of the intelligence section in illiamDonovan's SSgroup is llis... in other words, tephenson'sassistant in the British intelligence icis running Donovan's intelligence service."
The Office of Strategic Services was established by a Presidential military order issued by President Roosevelt on June 13, 1942, to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies. During the war, the OSS supplied policymakers with facts and estimates, but the OSS never had jurisdiction over all foreign intelligence activities. The FBI was left responsible for intelligence work in Latin America, and the Army and Navy continued to develop and rely on their own sources of intelligence.


Activities

OSS proved especially useful in providing a worldwide overview of the German war effort, its strengths and weaknesses. In direct operations it was successful in supporting
Operation Torch Operation Torch (8 November 1942 – Run for Tunis, 16 November 1942) was an Allies of World War II, Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of secu ...
in French North Africa in 1942, where it identified pro-Allied potential supporters and located landing sites. OSS operations in neutral countries, especially
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
,
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
, provided in-depth information on German advanced technology. The Madrid station set up agent networks in France that supported the Allied invasion of
southern France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French language, French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi ...
in 1944. Most famous were the operations in
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
run by
Allen Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
that provided extensive information on German strength, air defenses,
submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
production, and the
V-1 V1, V01 or V-1 can refer to version one (for anything) (e.g., see version control) V1, V01 or V-1 may also refer to: In aircraft * V-1 flying bomb, a World War II German weapon * V1 speed, the maximum speed at which an aircraft pilot may abort ...
and
V-2 The V-2 (german: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit=Retaliation Weapon 2), with the technical name ''Aggregat 4'' (A-4), was the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed ...
weapons. It revealed some of the secret German efforts in chemical and biological warfare. Switzerland's station also supported resistance fighters in France, Austria and Italy, and helped with the surrender of German forces in Italy in 1945. For the duration of World War II, the Office of Strategic Services was conducting multiple activities and missions, including collecting intelligence by spying, performing acts of sabotage, waging
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
war, organizing and coordinating anti-Nazi resistance groups in Europe, and providing military training for anti-Japanese guerrilla movements in Asia, among other things.Smith, R. Harris. ''OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972. At the height of its influence during World War II, the OSS employed almost 24,000 people."Chef Julia Child, others part of WWII spy network"
, CNN, 2008-08-14
From 1943 to 1945, the OSS played a major role in training Kuomintang troops in China and Burma, and recruited Kachin and other indigenous irregular forces for sabotage as well as guides for Allied forces in Burma fighting the Japanese Army. Among other activities, the OSS helped arm, train, and supply resistance movements in areas
occupied ' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...
by the Axis powers during World War II, including Mao Zedong's Red Army in China (known as the
Dixie Mission The United States Army Observation Group, commonly known as the Dixie Mission, was the first US effort to gather intelligence and establish relations with the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army, then headquartered in the mo ...
) and the Viet Minh in French Indochina. OSS officer Archimedes Patti played a central role in OSS operations in French Indochina and met frequently with Ho Chi Minh in 1945. One of the greatest accomplishments of the OSS during World War II was its penetration of Nazi Germany by OSS operatives. The OSS was responsible for training German and Austrian individuals for missions inside Germany. Some of these agents included exiled communists and Socialist party members, labor activists, anti-Nazi prisoners-of-war, and German and Jewish refugees. The OSS also recruited and ran one of the war's most important spies, the German diplomat Fritz Kolbe. From 1943 the OSS was in contact with the Austrian resistance group around Kaplan Heinrich Maier. As a result, plans and production facilities for V-2 rockets,
Tiger tank Tiger tank may refer to: *Tiger I, or ''Panzerkampfwagen'' Tiger ''Ausf. E'', a German heavy tank produced from 1942 to 1944 *Tiger II, or ''Panzerkampfwagen'' Tiger ''Ausf. B'', a German heavy tank produced from 1943 to 1945, also known as ''Kön ...
s and aircraft (
Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...
, Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, etc.) were passed on to Allied general staffs in order to enable Allied bombers to get accurate air strikes. The Maier group informed very early about the mass murder of Jews through its contacts with the Semperit factory near Auschwitz. The group was gradually dismantled by the German authorities because of a double agent who worked for both the OSS and the Gestapo. This uncovered a transfer of money from the Americans to Vienna via Istanbul and Budapest, and most of the members were executed after a People's Court hearing. In 1943, the Office of Strategic Services set up operations in Istanbul.Hassell and McCrae, p.158 Turkey, as a neutral country during the Second World War, was a place where both the Axis and Allied powers had spy networks. The railroads connecting central Asia with Europe, as well as Turkey's close proximity to the Balkan states, placed it at a crossroads of intelligence gathering. The goal of the OSS Istanbul operation called Project Net-1 was to infiltrate and extenuate subversive action in the old Ottoman and
Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
s. The head of operations at OSS Istanbul was a banker from Chicago named Lanning "Packy" Macfarland, who maintained a cover story as a banker for the American
lend-lease program Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...
. Macfarland hired Alfred Schwarz, an Austrian businessman (* 25. April 1904 in Prostějov, Austria-Hungary; † 13. August 1988 in
Lucerne Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking po ...
,
Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
) who came to be known as "Dogwood" and ended up establishing the Dogwood information chain.Hassell and MacRae, p.166 Dogwood in turn hired a personal assistant named Walter Arndt and established himself as an employee of the Istanbul Western Electrik Kompani. Through Schwarz and Arndt the OSS was able to infiltrate
anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...
groups in Austria, Hungary, and Germany. Schwarz was able to convince Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, and Swiss diplomatic couriers to smuggle American intelligence information into these territories and establish contact with elements antagonistic to the Nazis and their collaborators. Couriers and agents memorized information and produced analytical reports; when they were not able to memorize effectively they recorded information on microfilm and hid it in their shoes or hollowed pencils.Rubin, B: ''Istanbul Intrigues'', page 168. Pharos Books, 1992. Through this process information about the Nazi regime made its way to Macfarland and the OSS in Istanbul and eventually to Washington. While the OSS "Dogwood-chain" produced a lot of information, its reliability was increasingly questioned by British intelligence. By May 1944, through collaboration between the OSS, British intelligence, Cairo, and Washington, the entire Dogwood-chain was found to be unreliable and dangerous. Planting phony information into the OSS was intended to misdirect the resources of the Allies. Schwarz's Dogwood-chain, which was the largest American intelligence gathering tool in occupied territory, was shortly thereafter shut down. The OSS purchased Soviet code and cipher material (or Finnish information on them) from émigré Finnish army officers in late 1944. Secretary of State
Edward Stettinius, Jr. Edward Reilly Stettinius Jr. (October 22, 1900 – October 31, 1949) was an American businessman who served as United States Secretary of State under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman from 1944 to 1945, and as U.S. Ambassador ...
, protested that this violated an agreement President Roosevelt made with the Soviet Union not to interfere with Soviet cipher traffic from the United States. General Donovan might have copied the papers before returning them the following January, but there is no record of Arlington Hall receiving them, and CIA and NSA archives have no surviving copies. This codebook was in fact used as part of the
Venona The Venona project was a United States counterintelligence program initiated during World War II by the United States Army's Signal Intelligence Service (later absorbed by the National Security Agency), which ran from February 1, 1943, until Octob ...
decryption effort, which helped uncover large-scale Soviet espionage in North America. RYPE was the codename of the airborne unit who was dropped in the Norwegian mountains of Snåsa on March 24, 1945 to carry out sabotage actions behind enemy lines. From the base at the Gjefsjøen mountain farm, the group conducted successful railroad sabotages, with the intention of preventing the withdrawal of German forces from northern Norway.
Operasjon Rype RYPE was the codename of the American airborne unit who in WW2 was dropped in the Norwegian mountains of Snåsa on March 24, 1945 to carry out sabotage actions behind enemy lines. From the base at the Gjefsjøen mountain farm, the group conducted su ...
was the only U.S. operation on German-occupied Norwegian soil during WW2. The group consisted mainly of Norwegian Americans recruited from the 99th Infantry Battalion. Operasjon Rype was led by William Colby. The OSS sent four teams of two under Captain Stephen Vinciguerra (codename ''Algonquin'', teams Alsace, Poissy, S&S and Student), with Operation Varsity in March 1945 to infiltrate and report from behind enemy lines, but none succeeded. Team S&S had two agents in Wehrmacht uniforms and a captured Kϋbelwagon; to report by radio. But the Kϋbelwagon was put out of action while in the glider; three tires and the long-range radio were shot up (German gunners were told to attack the gliders not the tow planes).


Weapons and gadgets

The OSS espionage and sabotage operations produced a steady demand for highly specialized equipment. General Donovan invited experts, organized workshops, and funded labs that later formed the core of the Research & Development Branch. Boston chemist Stanley P. Lovell became its first head, and Donovan humorously called him his "
Professor Moriarty Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and criminal mastermind created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to be a formidable enemy for the author's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. He was created primarily as a device by which Doyle could ...
".Waller, Douglas C. ''Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage''. New York: Free Press, 2011. Throughout the war years, the OSS Research & Development successfully adapted Allied weapons and espionage equipment, and produced its own line of novel spy tools and gadgets, including silenced pistols, lightweight sub-machine guns, "
Beano Beano may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Beano, another name for the American version of Bingo, a game of chance * Beano, a character on the American television sitcom ''Out of This World'' * ''The Beano'', a British children's comic featuri ...
" grenades that exploded upon impact, explosives disguised as lumps of coal ("Black Joe") or bags of Chinese flour ("Aunt Jemima"), acetone time delay fuses for
limpet mine A limpet mine is a type of naval mine attached to a target by magnets. It is so named because of its superficial similarity to the shape of the limpet, a type of sea snail that clings tightly to rocks or other hard surfaces. A swimmer or diver m ...
s, compasses hidden in uniform buttons, playing cards that concealed maps, a 16mm Kodak camera in the shape of a matchbox, tasteless poison tablets ("K" and "L" pills), and cigarettes laced with tetrahydrocannabinol acetate (an extract of Indian hemp) to induce uncontrollable chattiness. The OSS also developed innovative communication equipment such as wiretap gadgets, electronic beacons for locating agents, and the "Joan-Eleanor" portable radio system that made it possible for operatives on the ground to establish secure contact with a plane that was preparing to land or drop cargo. The OSS Research & Development also printed fake German and Japanese-issued identification cards, and various passes, ration cards, and counterfeit money. On August 28, 1943, Stanley Lovell was asked to make a presentation in front of a hostile Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were skeptical of OSS plans beyond collecting military intelligence and were ready to split the OSS between the Army and the Navy. While explaining the purpose and mission of his department and introducing various gadgets and tools, he reportedly casually dropped into a waste basket a Hedy, a panic-inducing explosive device in the shape of a firecracker, which shortly produced a loud shrieking sound followed by a deafening boom. The presentation was interrupted and did not resume since everyone in the room fled. In reality, the Hedy, jokingly named after Hollywood movie star Hedy Lamarr for her ability to distract men, later saved the lives of some trapped OSS operatives. Not all projects worked. Some ideas were odd, such as a failed attempt to use insects to spread anthrax in Spain.Lockwood, Jeffrey Alan.
Six-Legged Soldiers: Using Insects As Weapons of War
'. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Stanley Lovell was later quoted saying, "It was my policy to consider any method whatever that might aid the war, however unorthodox or untried". In 1939, a young physician named
Christian J. Lambertsen Christian James Lambertsen (May 15, 1917 – February 11, 2011) was an American environmental medicine and diving medicine specialist who was principally responsible for developing the United States Navy frogmen's rebreathers in the early 1940 ...
developed an oxygen rebreather set (the
Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit The Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU) is an early model of closed circuit oxygen rebreather used by military frogmen. Christian J. Lambertsen designed a series of them in the US in 1940 (patent filing date: 16 Dec 1940) and in 1944 (i ...
) and demonstrated it to the OSS—after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy—in a pool at the
Shoreham Hotel The Omni Shoreham Hotel is a historic resort and convention hotel in Northwest Washington, D.C., built in 1930 and owned by Omni Hotels. It is located one block west of the intersection of Connecticut Avenue and Calvert Street. The hotel is known ...
in Washington D.C., in 1942.Shapiro, T. Rees
"Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93"
'' Washington Post'' (February 18, 2011)
The OSS not only bought into the concept, they hired Lambertsen to lead the program and build up the dive element for the organization. His responsibilities included training and developing methods of combining self-contained diving and swimmer delivery including the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit for the OSS "Operational Swimmer Group". Growing involvement of the OSS with coastal infiltration and water-based sabotage eventually led to creation of the OSS Maritime Unit.


Facilities

At
Camp X Camp X was the unofficial name of the secret Special Training School No. 103, a Second World War British paramilitary installation for training covert agents in the methods required for success in clandestine operations. It was located on the ...
, near Whitby, Ontario, an "assassination and elimination" training program was operated by the British Special Operations Executive, assigning exceptional masters in the art of knife-wielding combat, such as
William E. Fairbairn Lieutenant-Colonel William Ewart Fairbairn (; 28 February 1885 – 20 June 1960) was a British Royal Marine and police officer. He developed hand-to-hand combat methods for the Shanghai Police during the interwar period, as well as for the all ...
and
Eric A. Sykes Major Eric Anthony Sykes (5 February 1883 – 12 May 1945), born Eric Anthony Schwabe, was a soldier and firearms expert. He is most famous for his work with William E. Fairbairn in the development of the eponymous Fairbairn–Sykes fighting kni ...
, to instruct trainees. Many members of the Office of Strategic Services also were trained there. It was dubbed "the school of mayhem and murder" by George Hunter White who trained at the facility in the 1950s. From these incipient beginnings, the Office of Strategic Services opened camps in the United States, and finally abroad. Prince William Forest Park (then known as Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area) was the site of an OSS training camp that operated from 1942 to 1945. Area "C", consisting of approximately , was used extensively for communications training, whereas Area "A" was used for training some of the OGs (Operational Groups).
Catoctin Mountain Park Catoctin Mountain Park, located in north-central Maryland, is part of the forested Catoctin Mountain ridge−range that forms the northeastern rampart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in the Appalachian Mountains System. Approximately 5120 acres o ...
, now the location of
Camp David Camp David is the country retreat for the president of the United States of America. It is located in the wooded hills of Catoctin Mountain Park, in Frederick County, Maryland, near the towns of Thurmont and Emmitsburg, about north-northwe ...
, was the site of OSS training Area "B" where the first Special Operations, or SO, were trained. Special Operations was modeled after Great Britain's Special Operations Executive, which included parachute, sabotage, self-defense, weapons, and leadership training to support guerrilla or partisan resistance. Considered most mysterious of all was the "cloak and dagger" Secret Intelligence, or SI branch. Secret Intelligence employed "country estates as schools for introducing recruits into the murky world of espionage. Thus, it established Training Areas E and RTU-11 ("the Farm") in spacious manor houses with surrounding horse farms." Morale Operations training included psychological warfare and propaganda. The Congressional Country Club (Area F) in Bethesda, Maryland, was the primary OSS training facility. The Facilities of the
Catalina Island Marine Institute The Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) is a non-profit educational program founded in 1979 and run by Guided Discoveries on Santa Catalina Island, California. It is the host to approximately 15,000 students a year, who visit it in school-orga ...
at
Toyon Bay Toyon Bay is located on Catalina Island off the coast of California. Originally inhabited by a group of natives called Pipi Mari (or Pimugnans), and the Torqua, after whom a nearby spring is named. During the ownership of the island by William Ba ...
on Santa Catalina Island, Calif., are composed (in part) of a former OSS survival training camp. The National Park Service commissioned a study of OSS National Park training facilities by Professor John Chambers of Rutgers University. The main OSS training camps abroad were located initially in Great Britain, French Algeria, and Egypt; later as the Allies advanced, a school was established in southern Italy. In the Far East, OSS training facilities were established in India, Ceylon, and then China. The London branch of the OSS, its first overseas facility, was at 70 Grosvenor Street, W1. In addition to training local agents, the overseas OSS schools also provided advanced training and field exercises for graduates of the training camps in the United States and for Americans who enlisted in the OSS in the war zones. The most famous of the latter was
Virginia Hall Virginia Hall Goillot DSC, Croix de Guerre, (April 6, 1906 – July 8, 1982), code named Marie and Diane, was an American who worked with the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the American Office of St ...
in France. The OSS's Mediterranean training center in Cairo, Egypt, known to many as the ''Spy School'', was a lavish palace belonging to King Farouk's brother-in-law, called ''Ras el Kanayas''. It was modeled after the SOE's training facility STS 102 in Haifa, Palestine. Americans whose heritage stemmed from Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece were trained at the "Spy School" and also sent for parachute, weapons, and commando training, and Morse code and encryption lessons at STS 102. After completion of their spy training, these agents were sent back on missions to the Balkans and Italy where their accents would not pose a problem for their assimilation.


Personnel

The names of all 13,000 OSS personnel and documents of their OSS service, previously a closely guarded secret, were released by the US National Archives on August 14, 2008. Among the 24,000 names were those of Sterling Hayden,
Milton Wolff Milton Wolff (October 7, 1915 – January 14, 2008) was an American veteran of the Spanish Civil War, the last commander of the Lincoln Battalion of XV International Brigade, and a prominent communist.Douglas, 2008. Early life He was born i ...
,
Carl C. Cable Colonel Carl C. Cable Regulation and licensure in engineering, PE (11 June 1911 to 6 May 1982), also known as Carl Cable and Carlos Cable was an American public works engineer, energy research scientist, army officer and musician. He was one of the ...
,
Julia Child Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, '' ...
,
Ralph Bunche Ralph Johnson Bunche (; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize f ...
, Arthur Goldberg,
Saul K. Padover Saul Kussiel Padover (April 13, 1905 – February 22, 1981) was a historian and political scientist at the New School for Social Research in New York City who wrote biographies of philosophers and politicians such as Karl Marx and Thomas Jeffers ...
,
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a spe ...
, Bruce Sundlun, William Colby,
René Joyeuse René Joyeuse, M.D., MS, FACS (17 January 192012 June 2012) was a Swiss, French and American soldier, physician and researcher. He distinguished himself as an agent of Allied intelligence in German-occupied France during World War II. Early lif ...
, and John Ford. The 750,000 pages in the 35,000 personnel files include applications of people who were not recruited or hired, as well as the service records of those who served. OSS soldiers were primarily inducted from the United States Armed Forces. Other members included foreign nationals including displaced individuals from the former czarist Russia, an example being Prince Serge Obolensky. Donovan sought independent thinkers, and in order to bring together those many intelligent, quick-witted individuals who could think out-of-the box, he chose them from all walks of life, backgrounds, without distinction to culture or religion.
Donovan Donovan Phillips Leitch (born 10 May 1946), known mononymously as Donovan, is a Scottish musician, songwriter, and record producer. He developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelic rock and world mus ...
was quoted as saying, "I'd rather have a young lieutenant with enough guts to disobey a direct order than a colonel too regimented to think for himself." In a matter of a few short months, he formed an organization which equalled and then rivalled Great Britain's
Secret Intelligence Service The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
and its Special Operations Executive. Donovan, inspired by Britain's SOE, assembled an outstanding group of clinical psychologists to carry out evaluations of potential OSS candidates at a variety of sites, primary among these was Station S in Northern Virginia near where Dulles International Airport now stands. Recent research from remaining records from the OSS Station S program describes how those characteristics (independent thought, effective intelligence, interpersonal skills) were found among OSS candidates One such agent was Ivy League polyglot and
Jewish American American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by religion, ethnicity, culture, or nationality. Today the Jewish community in the United States consists primarily of Ashkenazi Jews, who descend from diaspora Je ...
baseball catcher
Moe Berg Morris Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American catcher and coach in Major League Baseball, who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, ...
, who played 15 seasons in the major leagues. As a Secret Intelligence agent, he was dispatched to seek information on German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his knowledge on the
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
. One of the most highly decorated and flamboyant OSS soldiers was US
Marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...
Colonel
Peter Ortiz Pierre (Peter) Julien Ortiz OBE (July 5, 1913 – May 16, 1988) was a United States Marine Corps colonel who received two Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism as a major in World War II. He served in North Africa and Europe during the war, as a ...
. Enlisting early in the war, as a French Foreign Legionnaire, he went on to join the OSS and to be the most highly decorated US Marine in the OSS during World War II.
Julia Child Julia Carolyn Child (née McWilliams; August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004) was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, '' ...
, who later authored cookbooks, worked directly under Donovan.
René Joyeuse René Joyeuse, M.D., MS, FACS (17 January 192012 June 2012) was a Swiss, French and American soldier, physician and researcher. He distinguished himself as an agent of Allied intelligence in German-occupied France during World War II. Early lif ...
M.D., MS, FACS was a Swiss, French and American soldier, physician and researcher, who distinguished himself as an agent of Allied intelligence in German-occupied France during World War II. He received the US Army Distinguished Service Cross for his actions with the OSS, after the war he became a Physician, Researcher and was a co-founder of The American Trauma Society. "Jumping Joe" Savoldi (code name Sampson) was recruited by the OSS in 1942 because of his hand-to-hand combat and language skills as well as his deep knowledge of the Italian geography and Benito Mussolini's compound. He was assigned to the Special Operations branch and took part in missions in North Africa, Italy, and France during 1943–1945. One of the forefathers of today's commandos was Navy Lieutenant Jack Taylor. He was sequestered by the OSS early in the war and had a long career behind enemy lines. Taro and
Mitsu Yashima was an artist, children's book author, and civic activist. World War II and later years Mitsu was the daughter of a shipbuilding company executive. She attended Kobe College, and later enrolled at Bunka Gakuin in Tokyo. In the 1930s, she join ...
, both Japanese political dissidents who were imprisoned in Japan for protesting its militarist regime, worked for the OSS in psychological warfare against the Japanese Empire. Nisei linguists In late 1943, a representative from OSS visited the 442nd Infantry Regiment looking to recruit volunteers willing to undertake "extremely hazardous assignment." All selected were Nisei. The recruits were assigned to OSS Detachments 101 and 202, in the China-Burma-India Theater. "Once deployed, they were to interrogate prisoners, translate documents, monitor radio communications, and conduct covert operations... Detachment 101 and 102's clandestine operations were extremely successful."


Dissolution into other agencies

On September 20, 1945, President Truman signed Executive Order 9621, terminating the OSS. Due to administrative error, the order only allowed the agency ten days to close. The State Department took over the Research and Analysis Branch; it became the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, The War Department took over the Secret Intelligence (SI) and Counter-Espionage ( X-2) Branches, which were then housed in the new
Strategic Services Unit The Strategic Services Unit was an intelligence agency of the United States government that existed in the immediate post–World War II period. It was created from the Secret Intelligence and Counter-Espionage branches of the wartime Office of ...
(SSU). Brigadier General John Magruder (formerly Donovan's Deputy Director for Intelligence in OSS) became the new SSU director. He oversaw the liquidation of the OSS and managed the institutional preservation of its clandestine intelligence capability. In January 1946, President Truman created the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), which was the direct precursor to the CIA. SSU assets, which now constituted a streamlined "nucleus" of clandestine intelligence, were transferred to the CIG in mid-1946 and reconstituted as the Office of Special Operations (OSO). The
National Security Act of 1947 The National Security Act of 1947 ( Pub.L.br>80-253 61 Stat.br>495 enacted July 26, 1947) was a law enacting major restructuring of the United States government's military and intelligence agencies following World War II. The majority of the pro ...
established the Central Intelligence Agency, which then took up some OSS functions. The direct descendant of the paramilitary component of the OSS is the CIA Special Activities Division. Today, the joint-branch United States Special Operations Command, founded in 1987, uses the same spearhead design on its insignia, as homage to its indirect lineage. The Defense Intelligence Agency currently manages the OSS' mandate to provide strategic military intelligence to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense and to coordinate human espionage activities across the United States Armed Forces (through the
Defense Clandestine Service The Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) is an arm of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which conducts clandestine espionage, intelligence gathering activities and classified operations around the world to provide insights and answer national-l ...
) and was awarded status as an OSS Heritage organization by the OSS Society.


Branches

* Censorship and Documents * Field Experimental Unit * Foreign Nationalities * Maritime Unit *
Morale Operations Branch Morale Operations was a branch of the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. It utilized psychological warfare, particularly propaganda, to produce specific psychological reactions in both the general population and military forces of the ...
* Operational Group Command * Research & Analysis * Secret IntelligenceFor all branch information: * Security * Special Operations * Special Projects * X-2 ( counterespionage)


Detachments

* OSS Deer Team: Vietnam *
OSS Detachment 101 Detachment 101 of the Office of Strategic Services (formed under the Office of the Coordinator of Information just weeks before it evolved into the OSS) operated in the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II. On 17 January 1956, it was ...
: Burma * OSS Detachment 202: China * OSS Detachment 303: New Delhi, India * OSS Detachment 404: attached to British South East Asia Command in Kandy,
Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
* OSS Detachment 505: Calcutta, India ;US Army units attached to the OSS * 2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion *
2677th Office of Strategic Services Regiment 2677th Office of Strategic Services Regiment was a special infantry regiment that was seconded to the Office of Strategic Services as an operational armed force. The regiment was organized on 15 July 1944 at Algiers, North Africa, sponsored by ...


See also

*
Charles Douglas Jackson General Charles Douglas (C. D.) Jackson (March 16, 1902 – September 18, 1964) was a United States government propagandist and senior executive of Time Inc. As an expert on psychological warfare he served in the Office of Strategic Services in W ...
* Dick Ellis * Operation Jedburgh * Operation Paperclip * Paramarines * Special Forces (United States Army) *
X-2 Counter Espionage Branch The head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), William Donovan, created the X-2 Counter Espionage Branch in 1943 to provide liaison with and assist the British in its exploitation of the Ultra program's intelligence during World War II. A few ...
*
History of espionage Spying, as well as other intelligence assessment, has existed since ancient times. In the 1980s scholars characterized foreign intelligence as "the missing dimension" of historical scholarship." Since then a largely popular and scholarly literatur ...
* Art Looting Investigation Unit (ALIU)


General and cited references

* * *


Citations


Further reading

* Aldrich, Richard J. ''Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) * Alsop, Stewart and Braden, Thomas. ''Sub Rosa: The OSS and American Espionage'' (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1946) * Bank, Aaron. ''From OSS to Green Berets: The Birth of Special Forces'' (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986) * Bartholomew-Feis, Dixee R. ''The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War against Japan'' (Lawrence : University Press of Kansas, 2006) * Bernstein, Barton J. "Birth of the U.S. biological warfare program" '' Scientific American'' 256: 116 – 121, 1987. * Brown, Anthony Cave. ''The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan'' (New York: Times Books, 1982) * Brunner, John W. ''OSS Weapons''. Phillips Publications, Williamstown, N.J., 1994. . * Burke, Michael. "Outrageous Good Fortune: A Memoir" (Boston-Toronto: Little, Brown and Company) * Casey, William J. ''The Secret War Against Hitler'' (Washington: Regnery Gateway, 1988) * Chalou, George C. (ed.) ''The Secrets War: The Office of Strategic Services in World War II'' (Washington: National Archives and Records Administration, 1991) * Chambers II, John Whiteclay. ''OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II'' (NPS, 2008)
online
chapters 1-2 and 8-11 provide a useful summary history of OSS by a scholar. * Cibulka, Erich. ''Deckname Dogwood. Erinnerungen an Alfred Schwarz.'' Buchschmiede, Wien 2022, * Dawidoff, Nicholas. ''The Catcher was a Spy: The Mysterious Life of Moe Berg'' ( New York: Vintage Books, 1994) * Doundoulakis, Helias.
Trained to be an OSS Spy
' (Xlibris, 2014) . * Dulles, Allen. ''The Secret Surrender'' (New York: Harper & Row, 1966) * Dunlop, Richard. ''Donovan: America's Master Spy'' (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1982) * Fink, Jesse. ''The Eagle in the Mirror'' (Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, 2023) * Ford, Corey. ''Donovan of OSS'' (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970) * Ford, Corey, MacBain A. "Cloak and Dagger: The Secret Story of O.S.S." (New York: Random House 1945,1946) * Grose, Peter. ''Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles'' (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994) * Hassell, A, and MacRae, S: ''Alliance of Enemies: The Untold Story of the Secret American and German Collaboration to End World War II'', Thomas Dunne Books, 2006. * Hunt, E. Howard. ''American Spy'', 2007 * Jakub, Jay. ''Spies and Saboteurs: Anglo-American Collaboration and Rivalry in Human Intelligence Collection and Special Operations, 1940–45'' (New York: St. Martin's, 1999) * Jones, Ishmael. ''The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture'' (New York: Encounter Books, 2008, rev 2010) * Katz, Barry M. ''Foreign Intelligence: Research and Analysis in the Office of Strategic Services, 1942–1945'' (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989) * Kent, Sherman. ''Strategic Intelligence for American Foreign Policy'' (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1965
949 Year 949 ( CMXLIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab-Byzantine War: Hamdanid forces under Sayf al-Dawla raid into the theme of Ly ...
* * * McIntosh, Elizabeth P. ''Sisterhood of Spies: The Women of the OSS'' (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998) * Mauch, Christof. ''The Shadow War Against Hitler: The Covert Operations of America's Wartime Secret Intelligence Service'' (2005), scholarly history of OSS. * Melton, H. Keith. ''OSS Special Weapons and Equipment: Spy Devices of World War II'' (New York: Sterling Publishing, 1991) * Moulin, Pierre. ''U.S. Samurais in Bruyeres'' (CPL Editions: Luxembourg, 1993) * Paulson, A.C. 1989. ''OSS Silenced Pistol''. Machine Gun News. 3(6):28-30. * Paulson, A.C. 1995. ''OSS Weapons''. Fighting Firearms. 3(2):20-21,80-81. * Paulson, A.C. 2002. ''HDMS silenced .22 pistols in Vietnam''. The Small Arms Review. 5(7):119-120. * Paulson, A.C. 2003. ''WWII vintage silent .22LR'' igh Standard OSS HDMS pistol Guns & Weapons for Law Enforcement. 15(2):24-29,72. * Persico, Joseph E. ''Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage'' (2001). * Persico, Joseph E. ''Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II'' (New York: Viking, 1979) Reprinted in 1997 by Barnes & Noble Books. * Peterson, Neal H. (ed.) ''From Hitler's Doorstep: The Wartime Intelligence Reports of Allen Dulles, 1942–1945'' (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996) * Pinck, Daniel C. ''Journey to Peking: A Secret Agent in Wartime China'' (Naval Institute Press, 2003) * Pinck, Daniel C., Jones, Geoffrey M.T. and Pinck, Charles T. (eds.) ''Stalking the History of the Office of Strategic Services: An OSS Bibliography'' (Boston: OSS/Donovan Press, 2000) * Roosevelt, Kermit (ed.) ''War Report of the OSS'', two volumes (New York: Walker, 1976) * Rudgers, David F. ''Creating the Secret State: The Origins of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1943–1947'' (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2000) * Smith, Bradley F. and Agarossi, Elena. ''Operation Sunrise: The Secret Surrender'' (New York: Basic Books, 1979) * Smith, Bradley F. ''The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA'' (New York: Basic, 1983) * Smith, Richard Harris. ''OSS: The Secret History of America's First Central Intelligence Agency'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972; Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2005) * Steury, Donald P. ''The Intelligence War'' (New York: Metrobooks, 2000) * Troy, Thomas F. ''Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency'' (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981) * Troy, Thomas F. ''Wild Bill & Intrepid'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996) * Waller, John H. ''The Unseen War in Europe: Espionage and Conspiracy in the Second World War'' (New York: Random House, 1996) * Warner, Michael. ''The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency'' (Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2001) * Yu, Maochun. ''OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996) *Sutton, M. A. (2019). Double crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War. Basic Books.


External links


"The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency"




and ttp://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box4/folo55.html Part 2
The OSS Society

OSS Reborn
* * Office of Strategic Services collection at Internet Archive * * {{Authority control 1942 establishments in the United States 1945 disestablishments in the United States Agencies of the United States government during World War II Congressional Gold Medal recipients Defunct United States intelligence agencies Government agencies disestablished in 1945 Government agencies established in 1942 Intelligence services of World War II World War II espionage