ALLIED spies & saboteurs

Allen Dulles – OSS Intelligence I.D.

There is no way for me to include all the information for every spy and/or saboteur of WWII for two reasons – there were far too many and because they did their job and stayed top-secret. An example of this would be the French Resistance and the BCRA, made up of British, French and Cajun-American volunteers. But some, due to the fact that they became famous or their work finally de-classified, I have included here as a matter of interest.

“High Pockets”

Claire Phillips, aka Dorothy Clara Fuentes, aka Claire Fuentes, aka Madame Tsubaki was also known as “High Pockets” and the “American Mata Hari.” She operated a nightclub in Manila and used he cunning ways to extract data from the Japanese officers that frequented her establishment. The agent then sent her intel directly to Gen. MacArthur or the U.S. Navy. Claire managed to deliver food and other necessary items to Allied POWs and had an underground of Filipino guerrilla to assist her. Mrs. Fuentes was eventually caught, put on trial and sentenced to die, but this verdict was never carried out. She was liberated on 10 February 1945 and returned to the U.S. The movie, I Was an American Spy was based on her life.

Richard Sakakida was inadvertently included in Gen. Yamashita’s army when he moved east and was assigned to Japanese intelligence on Luzon. He gained the trust of the Imperial Army in Manila and gave what data he discovered to the Filipino ROTC Group of guerrillas until they were captured. Sakakida then began forging release papers to get some of the members out of prison. He was never suspected, but later slipped away from his post and hid out in northern Luzon for months. Although he had received medals for his work from the government, his actual loyalty was brought into question in later years.

Arthur Komori

Army Chief Warrant Officer, Arthur Komori, was an agent as part of the Counter Intelligence Corps. He enlisted with Richard Sakakida in Hawaii at the start of the war. He allowed himself to be captured and placed in a Japanese interment camp in the Philippines until he was ordered to escape by Gen. Wainwright 16 April 1942.

Julia Child – OSS quarters in Kandy, Ceylon

Julia McWilliams Child would gain fame as a chef and t.v. personality, but she performed far different duties during WWII. When the war began, she wanted to join the WACS or Waves, but was rejected due to her height of 6’2″. Instead, Julia became part of the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) and as one of her projects, she helped to develop a shark repellent for downed pilots and crews. Later on, she supervised an OSS facility in China where she dealt with top-secret documents and in Ceylon. Her life as a WWII agent was documented in the book, A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS.

Marlene Dietrich, better known for her work as an actress, was German born. She joined the OSS where she entertained the troops and then secretly broadcast propaganda to the weary enemy soldiers. She received the Medal of Freedom for her operations.

Elizabeth McIntosh – on the job

Elizabeth McIntosh was a war correspondent that began working with the OSS directly after Pear Harbor. While stationed in India, she intercepted and rewrote Japanese postcards being sent home. She also found an Imperial Order that discussed surrender terms and many other documents.

The OSS did most of its work in Europe and in Detachment 101 of the Burma-India-China Theater, where they trained Chinese soldiers to fight the Japanese and supplied target information to Gen. Chennault, the creator of the famous ‘Flying Tigers’ besides their regular duties. Both MacArthur and Nimitz refused their service and used their own intelligence units, but much of the OSS data was relayed to them via Washington. Allen Dulles was station chief of the OSS (his I.D. card is pictured at the top of the post) and looked and dressed like a middle-aged college professor. A lawyer by trade, he worked for the State Department during WWI. He collected intelligence with a complex espionage network. Dulles recruited Mary Bancroft, daughter to the publisher of “The Wall Street Journal” to analyze German newspapers, but she quickly became an agent in the cloak-and-dagger fashion.

Hans Bernd Gisevius, code name “Dr. Bernhard,” was an agent of the Alwehr, the German secret service (SS). In 1939, he became part of Schwarze Kapelle (the Black Orchestra), the group formed to kill Hitler. He contacted Dulles in 1943 and Mary Bancroft became his contact.

One group, barely spoken of, was the SOA (or Z Special Unit, as it is known today), the Special Operations of Australia. Many were barely 18 years old when they were recruited and trained to infiltrate the Japanese lines. They were formed by a group of British covert executives operating in Malaya in mid-1943; even the Australian Army was unaware of this unit’s existence. Over the 3 remaining years of the war, over 1,000 men were taught parachuting, explosives and espionage on Fraser Island. After their training, most were dropped on Borneo and other islands in S.E. Asia; over 100 were killed in combat. They even carried the infamous cyanide tablets. They were honor-bound by the Secrecy Act for 30 years to never speak of their activities; even as the other WWII soldiers were celebrated on ANZAC Day. Twenty-one remaining SOA men held their first reunion in 2010 on the island where they were trained.

Wing Commander Forest “Tommy” Yeo-Thomas

The British spy who went by the code names, “Seahorse” and “Shelley” was the actual agent that inspired Ian Fleming to write his 007 series of books. Wing Commander Forest Frederick “Tommy” Yeo-Thomas was known to the German Gestapo as “The White Rabbit” and operated out of Vichy, France. An excellent accounting of his story is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._F._E._Yeo-Thomas

The most unsuspecting man (in my opinion) to become a spy – was already dead. Early 1943, Allied forces, planning their invasion, needed to convince the enemy that their landing site was somewhere else. “Operation Mincemeat” originally came from Ian Fleming. A Welsh laborer, already deceased after ingesting rat poison, had his pockets filled with false papers and left where the Germans could find him. The operation proved very successful.

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Farewell Salutes –

Paul Adams – Nebraska & Greenville, S.C.; U.S. Army WWII, Tuskegee Airman, 332nd Fighter Group

Pauline V. Simsovic – Dayton, OH & W. Palm Bch., FL; First Lieutenant WACS, WWII London

Marvin J. Newberg – Bronx, NY & Boca Raton, FL; First Lieutenant U.S. Army Air Force, B-25 navigator in India

Frank Richard Stranahan – Toledo, OH & W. Palm Bch., FL; U.S. Army Air Force, pilot, WWII

Richard Neuber – Port St. Lucie, FL.;U.S. Navy, WWII

Walter Stankard, Jr. – Waltham, MA & Boynton Bch., FL; U.S. Navy, USS Enoree, Korean War

Army Spc. John L. Burgess of Sutton Bay, Michigan, missing since his helicopter was shot down in 1970, Vietnam, was finally brought home for burial. He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in a single casket along with the partial remains of two members of his crew.

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Please stop back and see the article I wrote for Judy over at http://greatestgenerationlessons.wordpress.com. Let us know what you think of it. I will later re-blog the guest post for your convenience. Thank you.