Office of Strategic Services
U.S. Intelligence Service in World War II
(1942 - 1945)
Prior to World War II, America had no overall intelligence system beyond that operated by the armed forces. To coordinate secret information of all types at the start of U.S. involvement in World War II, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), on January 13, 1942, created the Central Office of Information and placed General William "Wild Bill" Donovan at its head. Donovan, a World War I hero, quickly organized a vast network of experts in all intelligence fields. The organization's title was changed a short time later to the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. The agency was responsible for espionage and sabotage in countries occupied by the Germans, Italians, and Japanese. It became legendary through the feats of its agents.
OSS Insignia WWII
Donovan was a tolerant spymaster, allowing his agents a great deal of freedom in accomplishing their missions. He encouraged inventiveness, even recklessness. More than 13,000 men and women worked for the OSS during World War II. They parachuted or were smuggled into all the countries occupied by the enemy to work closely with underground units, the SOE, and the SIS, as well as other national intelligence agencies operated by Allied countries.
One of the most effective operations conducted by the OSS was its preparations for the Allied landings in North Africa in 1942. OSS agents deftly negotiated terms with Vichy French officials to make sure that no French warships in African ports would be given over to the Germans who then occupied most of France. Moreover, they were able to place scores of agents in North Africa, ostensibly as monitors of foodstuffs going to refugees. These agents spent most of their time recording the movements of German warships and aircraft through the Mediterranean, while placating indecisive French officials and military commanders in preparation for the Allied landings.
When American and British troops did storm the beaches, OSS agents were waiting for them to lead them through minefields and direct them to the strategic objectives, OSS agents performed the same kind of incredible feats in preparation of the 1944 Normandy landings. The agency's agents were also effective in China, 1943-1945, working with Chiang Kai-shek in discovering weaknesses in the Japanese war machine.
In 1943, OSS agents, with Donovan's approval and without informing the Joint Chief of Staff, broke into the Japanese Embassy in Lisbon, Portugal, in search of documents and codebooks. They managed to obtain information that was, for the moment, valuable, but in the long run, this covert operation, which was quickly discerned by the Japanese, was devastating to U.S. military intelligence.
Though U.S. military intelligence had broken the Japanese "Ultra Code" in early 1942 and continued to monitor all important military and diplomatic messages throughout the war, the OSS break-in caused the Japanese to change its entire military attachß code, or that used by its intelligence service.
General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander of South Pacific Operations, refused to allow the OSS to operate in his theater of war, preferring to rely upon the intelligence provided to him form the Army's G-2. The most truculent opponent facing the OSS was J. Edgar Hoover, chief of the FBI, who thought Donovan's OSS to be and upstart agency that might usurp his own power and the jurisdiction of the Bureau, even though FDR constantly assured Hoover that the OSS mandate was to operate outside the Western Hemisphere, a regulation that later applied to the CIA, which succeeded the OSS.
"To those of us here today, this is General Donovan's greatest legacy. He realized that a modern intelligence organization must not only provide today's tactical intelligence, it must provide tomorrow's long-term assessments. He recognized that an effective intelligence organization must not allow political pressures to influence its counsel. And, finally, he knew that no intelligence organization can succeed without recognizing the importance of people—people with discretion, ingenuity, loyalty, and a deep sense of responsibility to protect and promote American values."
>From DCI William Webster's remarks
at the dedication of the statue of
Gen. William J. Donovan,
CIA Headquarters, 28 October 1988.
British intelligence during World War II was, on the other hand, extremely cooperative with Donovan who visited SIS chiefs in 1940 to confer about his aims in establishing the OSS. He was shown the complete operations of the SOE (Special Operations Executive), which worked with the underground resistance fighters in occupied Europe. So impressed was Donovan that he modeled the OSS organization after the SOE. The British gave Donovan full cooperation, much more than might otherwise have been given in any other time, in that England was then desperate to draw the U.S. into the war against Germany.
At the end of World War II in 1945, President Harry Truman disbanded the OSS, believing that America had no more need of a super intelligence agency. This attitude quickly changed, however, when the Soviet Union was perceived to be a very real threat to the security of the U.S. and the world, causing the creation of another intelligence agency in 1946, the CIA.
Additional Sources:
www.larrystonebooks.com
www.homeofheroes.com
www.cia.gov
www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
www.arlingtoncemetery.net
aia.lackland.af.mil
www.joric.com
graphics.boston.com
www.randomhouse.com
www.thebattlezone.com
www.worldwar1.com
