by Larry Loftis
The sergeant grabbed Aline’s bag and escorted her upstairs. The room was small and spartan, with twin beds, a single bureau, and two small chairs. A young woman with a gaunt face and thick lashes peered up from one of the beds and set a book aside. Aline paused to allow the sergeant to introduce them, but he placed her suitcase on the floor and left.
She glanced at the open bunk.
“Not a word you don’t want overheard,” the woman said with a distinct French accent. She nodded toward the bed. Below the headrest, Aline saw, was a microphone.
It was a trick the OSS had learned from their big brother, Britain’s secret service agency, MI6. Their ally across the pond had had a two-year head start in the intelligence game, and their training schools at Wansborough and Beaulieu served as models for OSS training. A serious danger for any spy, the British had learned, was the proclivity to talk in one’s sleep. So MI6 and the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain’s sabotage-espionage outfit, tested recruits to see if they did, and if so, in what language. The OSS followed suit.
Someone would be listening to Aline throughout the night, every night. If she talked in her sleep, she would be dismissed.
* * *
That evening during dinner Aline noticed that she and her roommate were the only women among some dozen male recruits, all of whom looked like seasoned soldiers. How would she compete against them? She was the youngest by far and had scarcely seen anything outside of sleepy Pearl River. Even her roommate was years her senior and had a worldly look about her.
When dinner was over, the group made their way into the library. A crackling fire gave the room a warm amber glow, and Captain Williams was leaning against a desk, apparently sizing them up.
“You’re probably wondering where you are,” he said when everyone was seated, “and what you are here for.” He paused, scanning their faces. “You are in the first school of espionage in the United States, and you are here to be made into spies.”
Spies? Aline stirred.
Williams explained that they were being trained for work with an organization called the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, run by a man named General William Donovan.II There were two main sections, he said, Operations and Intelligence. Operations included sabotage, raids, supply drops, and organization of Resistance groups. The intelligence arm involved secret intelligence (SI)—gathering information about the enemy—and counterintelligence (X-2), operations to thwart enemy intelligence. It seemed clear to Aline that she wasn’t being trained to be a commando, so the only question was whether she was being considered for intelligence or counterintelligence.
The course would last several weeks, Williams went on, and some would not make it. “For a few,” he said, “your memory won’t be sharp enough. Or your responses too slow. Or the fatigue will grind you down—I’d better tell you right now you’re going to be put through some pretty rough tests—and you’re going to have to follow every order whether you like it or not. You’re going to have to be a champ just when you think you’re too tired to stay awake another minute—and then you’ll have to make split-second decisions.”
If anyone didn’t like what they had heard, Williams added, they were free to leave. “As long as you sign a paper and swear under oath never to repeat a word you’ve heard in this room, you can leave now and be driven back to Washington in an hour. And forget you were ever here.”
Aline scanned the room. No one moved.
Williams nodded and told them to turn in early and get a good night’s sleep.
“It may be your last.”
* * *
Class began promptly at eight thirty the next morning and Captain Williams introduced their instructor for the day only as “our friend.” His uniform indicated that he, too, was a captain, but his name and background were not mentioned.
“The first thing you’d better get into your heads,” the man began, “is that this is a secret intelligence agency, not a public information service. The intelligence we provide to the military is top secret. Know what that means? It means you can be shot just for knowing it yourself. In other words, one ear doesn’t even tell the other.”
Now the aliases and mystery with meetings and travel made sense, Aline thought. It also explained the international aspect of her group. In addition to Americans, several of the men in her group were French, one or two were German, one was perhaps Belgian, and two seemed to be from somewhere in Eastern Europe.
The instructor went on: “We’re here to save lives. That will be our prime effort. The information our agents obtain of the enemy’s forces, their coastal emplacements, their troop movements, roadblocks, antiaircraft guns, their mines—together with knowledge of their intentions—all indispensable.”
Over the next two hours Aline learned about security abroad, and how to protect and preserve her cover, followed by two hours in basic cipher. The afternoon brought the first round of weapons training in a field behind the house. There she was introduced to the .45 semiautomatic—the most lethal pistol in existence at the time—which was heavy and bulky and intimidating. She fired at the bull’s-eye and missed the target completely, hitting a tree next to it.
The damn thing was too big for her small hand, and it kicked like a mule.
She fired again. And again. And again. Her hand began to ache and it seemed the muscles throughout her body were traumatized, yet she actually enjoyed it. Something about the power, the sound, the concussion, the smell; even the competition with the other recruits was exhilarating.
After dinner the group watched a training film and then had a short class in mapping. Even then, they were not yet finished. Before turning in they had one more class: fighting knife. Unarmed.
Stories about their instructor, Major William Fairbairn, had already circulated among the students. He was a legend, something of a celebrity even. Given his reputation, Aline was surprised to see that the man didn’t look lethal. He was older and quite thin. But Fairbairn’s unassuming appearance was deceiving.
At fifty-eight, he was one of the most dangerous men in the world. For thirty years he had served with the Shanghai Municipal Police, founding its riot squad and rising to the rank of assistant commissioner. Shanghai was a city of gangs, thugs, and drug dealers at the time, and Fairbairn was rumored to have been in more than six hundred street fights. The scars on his torso, arms, and hands bore evidence of countless knife fights, and he had even co-developed his own blade, the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife.I Between 1927 and 1940, he had trained all US Marines stationed in China. The man was a force.
Aline paid close attention, learning—among other things—how to turn a newspaper into a dagger. Hopefully it would be a skill she’d not need.
Day two brought classes on how to acquire and report secret intelligence, as well as how to recruit and handle subagents. After lunch it was another two hours with Major Fairbairn for close combat training.
The more Aline watched this man, the more intimidating he became. He had been nicknamed “Dangerous Dan” and “The Shanghai Buster” by British commandos he had trained, and the monikers were apt. He had trained under the founder of judo, Kanō Jigorō, and held a second-degree black belt. He had also trained extensively in jujitsu, boxing, savate, and other styles and had molded them into a ruthless combat system he called “Defendu.” When his book by that name came out in 1926, Fairbairn was dubbed the “father of hand-to-hand combat.”
The rest of the week brought more cipher and mapping instruction, chain organization, surveillance, and weapons practice. In addition to the .45, they practiced with a .30-caliber carbine and a Thompson submachine gun.
In the late afternoons the recruits were allowed “recreation,” but this was hardly the school or YMCA version. Aline and her roommate, together with the men, jumped stone walls, waded through muddy streams, and crawled through weeds and underbrush. On several occasions, just when she thought she couldn’t make it, Pierre appeared at her side to encourage her.
�
�Come on,” he said one day, “only two more hurdles to go. Don’t get discouraged. You’re doing fine.”
Often, when she felt she couldn’t move another inch, Pierre pushed or pulled her to the finish line.
The second week brought more classes in close combat, weapons, mapping, and coding, and added instruction about German and Japanese intelligence, counterintelligence, searches, reporting, demolition, and booby traps. Another new class Aline found particularly interesting was lockpicking. The rumor was that their instructor, “George,” had been released from prison to teach the class, and it was believable because he also taught pickpocketing and safecracking. His real name, appropriately enough, was Lieutenant Compton Crook.
A huge, gangling man, George explained the significance of the training, telling the group: “Before you get your hands on the enemy, you have to break into his house.” He grinned and added, “Once you’ve broken into his house, you can break into his safe.”
Intelligence classes were equally compelling. In one session Aline was shown several slides of faces with corresponding biographical data; seconds later the faces would reappear without the text and she’d have to supply the missing details. Then there were slides of maps of various places: towns, landmarks, and rivers would be shown, each with names; then the slides would be flashed again with nothing and Aline would have to recall the names.
One day during close combat practice, Aline and Pierre were paired. Again and again throughout the exercise they were in close physical contact, and when Pierre took her hands to help her up from the ground after a throw, she felt a charge of electricity pass between them.
There was something about this dark, handsome man that Aline found intriguing. And dangerous.
He was the only student who seemed completely at ease with the training, she noticed, as though he’d already been through it before.
I. Walt Disney Productions produced several films for the OIAA, including the highly successful Saludos Amigos, released in 1942.
II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had established the Coordinator of Information on July 11, 1941, appointing Donovan as its head, which then became the OSS on June 13, 1942.
III. A double-edged stiletto used by the British SAS and adopted by the OSS. It remains in use today by many commando and special forces units around the world.
CHAPTER 3 CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
On the morning of Saturday, November 13, Aline joined the other recruits in exercises—push-ups, sit-ups, and light jujitsu—and then was back on the shooting range trying to get comfortable with the bulky .45. It had just begun to drizzle when she noticed that Captain Williams was standing a few feet behind her with an umbrella. He motioned for her to follow him and they walked back to the farmhouse.
She needed to change her clothes, he said, because she was once again going to Washington. “You have a meeting this afternoon with Royal.”
Royal? Aline waited for him to elaborate, but he said nothing more.
When she arrived back at the Q Building in downtown Washington, DC, she discovered that “Royal” was none other than Frank Ryan.
“Well, Butch,” he said, “you’ve fared better than some of us expected.”
Aline raised an eyebrow, and Ryan informed her that “Butch” was her new code name, which she would use in the field. And oh, by the way, he added, she would be going to Spain.
“Then I have passed the tests?”
“Yes, but you will need more preparation before we can send you over there. Apart from the normal routine, you will have to study up on your destination. In the library at The Farm there is abundant information on the countries where our agents will be sent. You must become familiar with Spain’s geography and history, and be able to recognize the current political personalities.”
Ryan explained that she would be assigned to SI—Secret Intelligence—and that her posting was an extremely important one since Spain was critical to Allied success in the war. “On the surface,” he said, “the country declares itself neutral. Politically, emotionally, it is aligned with Hitler. Spain is precarious, volatile. Franco won his civil war with German and Italian money [and] troops.”
Aline had studied the Spanish Civil War in college and remembered that King Alfonso XIII had abandoned the throne in 1931 because of violent uprisings. Municipal elections on April 12 of that year had brought a fierce competition between the “republicans”—a coalition of communists, socialists, and anarchists—and candidates supporting the monarchy. While the republicans won a majority of votes in Madrid and the large cities, the monarchists dominated the smaller towns and countryside. The monarchists assumed they had won enough seats to control the government, and thus protect the monarchy,I but in Madrid crowds began to gather in the streets. Republican leaders advised the king’s ministers that King Alfonso should leave the capital “before sunset” to avoid bloodshed, and he capitulated.
The republican government that assumed power was seen by the monarchists as illegal, and they were further incensed when republican mobs began to burn churches. Incredibly, the scenario seemed to repeat itself in the 1936 elections. The republicans won by the slimmest of margins and their opponents on the right, a “nationalist” coalition of the aristocracy, Catholic Church, military, and the fascist Falangists, believed that the vote tabulation was again improper. Not long after this a nationalist politician was assassinated by civil guards and this event seemed to ignite the brewing powder keg.
The nationalists revolted and their movement soon came under the control of General Francisco Franco. Both sides received substantial foreign military aid (republicans from the Russians, nationalists from the Germans), Ryan said, and both sides were guilty of countless atrocities. After a bloody three-year civil war, the nationalists prevailed and Franco was named Spain’s Generalissimo and Head of State.
And while Franco held total power as a military dictator, he was nevertheless walking a tightrope. He was, first and foremost, a Spaniard and a Catholic. He wanted no part of the atheism that communism and Nazism brought, nor the destruction of Spanish culture that would surely occur if Spain became a satellite of Russia or Germany. Like most Spaniards, he wanted a truly independent Spain. But he knew that a neutrality without lip service and a few concessions to Germany would provoke Hitler to invade the country to gain control of Gibraltar, and thus the Mediterranean. So Franco apparently felt that he had little choice but to appease Hitler to keep German troops on the French side of the Pyrenees.
His first concession, in August 1941, was the creation of the Blue Division—a contingent of 45,000 Spanish troops—which fought within the German Army on the Eastern Front.
Another concession, Ryan explained, involved shipments of wolframite, the key ingredient in the manufacture of tungsten, an alloy needed for tanks, bullets, and other military assets. Ironically, only Portugal and Spain—both neutral countries—were sources for wolframite, and they supplied both the Allies and the Germans.
“Spain is still a jumble of factions,” Ryan went on. He explained that many of those on the losing side of the Spanish Civil War were diehard communists, and yet some of them became close American allies because of their hatred of Germany.
And there was one more thing, he said, that created a bit of intrigue. “Admiral Canaris, the head of German intelligence, the Abwehr,II is a close friend of Franco and visits him regularly. HimmlerIII is trying to discredit Canaris with Hitler, claiming Canaris influences Franco not to join the Axis. We are anxious that Himmler not eliminate Canaris from his job because our agents in other countries inform us that CanarisIV is backing plots to assassinate Hitler.”
With that, Ryan placed before her something she needed to sign: the OSS oath of office.
Aline’s Oath of Office, signed November 13, 1943. NARA
Aline signed it and Ryan had it notarized.
Meanwhile, Ryan was working to secure the agent who would eventually be teaming up with her in Madrid: Edmundo Lassalle. Edmundo was eager to
start, but his cover as the Walt Disney Company’s representative on the Iberian Peninsula was still being worked out. First, the OSS would have to hire Edmundo as a civilian, matching his rank and $4,600 annual OIAA salary. Then two contracts would have to be signed: one for Lassalle’s employment with Disney, and one between the OSS and Disney whereby the OSS would secretly reimburse Disney for Edmundo’s salary and expenses. Once both contracts were signed, Edmundo would be terminated by the OSS and begin his new job. In reality, though, Edmundo would be burning the candle at both ends, since the OSS and Disney both expected real, full-time work.
Messy, but Lassalle’s position was critical and it was important that he have an impeccable cover.
* * *
Back at The Farm, Aline began week three of her training. She and the other recruits reviewed everything again, but with added pressure. In the weapons class, they now had to disassemble and reassemble—in the dark—Allied and enemy weapons. At the range, they had to stand alongside targets while others practiced so they’d get the “feel” of being fired upon. But the fun was just beginning. Midweek, Captain Williams called her into his office.
“Ready for a couple of trial missions?”
Aline said she was. The prior two weeks had been a blur of Morse code, cipher, surveillance, maps, weapons, and close combat, but she was confident and anxious to test her skills.
“Tomorrow morning at eight,” the captain said, “you’ll be driven to Union Station, from which you’ll catch the twelve o’clock Penn Central to Richmond, Virginia. You have six hours to deliver this message.” He handed her an envelope and continued: “Return to Washington on the five o’clock train and you will be met at the station.”
He held up a paper. “Memorize this.”
Aline saw a name and address for a second and then Williams crumpled it in his hand.
