OSS Operation Black Mail by Ann Todd

Author:Ann Todd
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781682471517
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2017-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

In Calcutta it was decided that someone should head down to Ceylon to “find out how the other half of MO lived.” Betty drew the short straw to her intense delight (she later admitted the game was rigged). Her task was to get some coordination going with the group in Kandy. Over the course of a weekend, she was to determine how much actionable intelligence had been extracted from the Brits there and to collect samples of the kind of MO propaganda being sent to Sumatra, Java, and Thailand. This would be the first of several trips. Getting useful intelligence from Ceylon to Calcutta was a persistent problem. For some reason, probably proximity to SEAC and Supremo, Ceylon enjoyed channels of communication seemingly blocked in Calcutta and Delhi. Cora DuBois and Julia McWilliams found it impossible to send bulletins to the staff at Detachment 505, let alone try to include personal letters in mail pouches. People in Calcutta had to travel to Ceylon to get their mail.26

Before Betty’s departure on her fact-finding trip to Ceylon came a visit from General Donovan and the “Flying Circus,” his entourage of branch chiefs from Washington, their aides, and various and sundry Far Eastern theater officers, all fresh from a jaunt through China. This presented the classic challenge: how to look busy when no presses in the press room were operational. Printing MO material was what they were supposed to be all about. What to do? Betty sent a Mayday to Peter Glemser.

“We have the same trouble with our big fellows too,” he sympathized. “Always have to dress up the old shop. We lose all sorts of valuable time that way.” He offered up his own Sergeant Farnsworth to carry a hand-cranked proof press to R House, and while one person inked the rollers, another could pull off “operation leaflets,” which could in fact be anything from a list of the ranking officer’s favorite cocktails to the ingredients for a pound cake. Since the leaflets would be in Japanese, no one would know the better.27

It was a good plan. Essential to the plan, however, was getting set up in time to spirit all trace of the very British Sergeant Farnsworth off the premises. As bad luck would have it, the Flying Circus landed early. When the General and his bemedaled and beribboned entourage made their unexpected entrance, Betty and her helpers were still struggling to align the British press stand with the uneven floor. All scrambled to their feet, leaflets flying, and snapped to attention. Sergeant Farnsworth, with his “unmistakable salute of the British soldier, with concave back and rigid hand twanging at his forehead like a broken string,” could not have been more conspicuous. His presence did not, however, faze the General, and only the bevy of Far Eastern colonels appeared frosty about the unwelcome presence of British unfriendlies.28

The circus pulled out. Betty had met Donovan before but was once again struck by the way his very presence seemed to electrify everyone around him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.