The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II by Gregory A. Freeman

Author:Gregory A. Freeman [Freeman, Gregory A.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Eastern Europe - General, War, Europe, Eastern, 1939-1945 - Aerial operations, 1944, History - Military, Military - United States, History, 1939-1945, United States, American, Military, World War, Escapes - Yugoslavia, World War II, 1939-1945 - Search and rescue operations - Yugoslavia, Airmen - United States, Escapes, Military - World War II, Airmen, General, World War II - Europe, Aerial Operations, Operation Halyard, History.war
ISBN: 9780451224958
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2008-09-02T07:00:00+00:00

Established in June 1942 as the country revved up for full-scale war with the Axis, the OSS was charged with collecting and analyzing strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and conducting special operations not assigned to other agencies. Right off the bat, however, those other agencies started to feel that the OSS was encroaching on their turf. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of the fiery and extremely powerful J. Edgar Hoover, was insistent that this upstart bunch of academics and wannabe spies neither get in the way nor usurp its own areas of operation. The FBI retained all responsibility for fieldwork in Latin America and essentially shut the OSS out of work in the Western Hemisphere. But the OSS was nobody’s meek little brother. The organization was conceived and developed by William J. Donovan, known as “Wild Bill,” a charismatic, energetic leader and one of the few men who could stand toe-to-toe with Hoover and not be intimidated.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Donovan was a college football star at Columbia University, graduating in 1905. Donovan was a member of the New York City establishment, a powerful Wall Street lawyer and a Columbia law school classmate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Donovan first became known for his military exploits in 1912, when he formed and led a troop of cavalry of the New York State Militia that in 1916 served on the U.S.-Mexico border in the Pancho Villa Expedition. In World War I, Donovan led a regiment of the United States Army, the 165th Regiment of the 42nd Division, the successors to the famed 69th New York Volunteers, on the battlefield in France. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for leading a successful assault despite serious wounds. By the end of the war he was a full colonel.

The disaster at Pearl Harbor had underscored what many in Washington already knew: The country was terribly deficient in its foreign intelligence and special operations. Nobody in Washington or anywhere else had put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured out that Japan was about to strike, and intelligence in the ever-darkening Europe was no better. President Roosevelt was preparing for the next world war, and he was ready to take bold news steps regarding intelligence, ready to undertake operations that the country had never pursued before. He was looking for men who had already proven themselves, and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox recommended Donovan. Roosevelt gave him a number of increasingly important assignments, trusting him absolutely even though Roosevelt was a Democrat and Donovan a staunch Republican. In 1940 and 1941 Donovan served as an emissary for Knox and President Roosevelt, traveling to Britain and parts of Europe that were not under Nazi control. When he persuaded Roosevelt in 1942 that the country needed a more extensive and aggressive network of spies, analysts, and secret agents across the world, the OSS was born and Donovan became one of the most powerful men in Washington.

This cloak-and-dagger

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