by Peter Finn
Gertie took a “terrific beating”: All descriptions of the 1928–29 Indochina expedition are from Gertie’s journal unless otherwise stated. Box 130, folders 12–13, LP.
“saddles, zinc-lined chop boxes”: GL, Time of My Life, 81.
“seemed equal only to the Ritz”: Persia diary, box 134, folder 5, LP.
“It was very fortunate”: SL, Land of the White Parasol, 3.
“in the wickedest city in the world”: Ibid., 291.
inhaled deeply four or five times: Ibid., 294.
“I do hope the U.S.”: Persia diary, box 134, folder 5, LP.
“With German efficiency, we went”: Shooting in Hungary Diary, box 133, folder 3, LP.
“Larry is sweet. Very nice”: GL to SL, Nov. 22, 1942, LP.
“I feel the future and the new horizons”: GL to SL, June 7, 1943, LP.
CHAPTER 6
Sidney was commissioned as a lieutenant: Sidney Legendre, Military Record, National Archives, St. Louis.
Hoover told the White House: Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 86.
she wrote to F. Trubee Davison: GL to Davison, June 9, 1942, RG226-e92-box16-f261.
“I am physically fit”: GL résumé, RG226-e92-box16-f261.
“I would stick at a job”: GL to David Bruce, June 28, 1942, RG226-e92-box16-f261.
“He was the most marvelous man”: GL, Time of My Life, 147.
“All around you anti-aircraft guns”: Virginia Cowles, Looking for Trouble (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1941), 404–5.
“intrepid and madcap”: Smith, OSS, xii.
“Woe to the officer”: Ibid., 3.
Her background security check: OSS investigation report, Aug. 3, 1942, RG226-e92-box16-f261.
“instructed him in what to wear”: Martin Clark, Mussolini, 70.
Her salary was $150 a month: GL to SL, Oct. 19, 1942, LP.
“Wartime Washington, in the view of those”: Brinkley, Washington Goes to War, 144.
“We get all the crocks”: GL to SL, Feb. 6, 1943, LP.
sanctioning bizarre schemes: Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 101.
“We don’t seem to be doing anything”: GL to SL, Oct. 19, 1942, LP.
“there are so many damn islands”: GL to SL, Nov. 20, 1942, LP.
“those sinking burning ships”: GL to SL, Nov. 8, 1942, LP.
“haunted. He could not have been more”: SL to GL, Nov. 29, 1943, LP.
“I know more about paper clips”: SL to GL, Oct. 3, 1942, LP.
“zealous, aggressive and unceasing devotion to duty”: Sidney Legendre, Military Record, National Archives, St. Louis.
nearly $4 a minute: GL to SL, Aug. 25, 1942, LP.
“two fried eggs, three pancakes”: SL to GL, Sept. 7, 1942, LP.
“I sat between Henry Hopkins”: GL to SL, Oct. 16, 1942, LP.
“Sat beside John D. Rockefeller Jr.”: GL to SL, Dec. 13, 1942, LP.
“When I hung up the telephone”: GL to SL, March 1, 1943, LP.
“Many women’s husbands will never come back”: SL to GL, Jan. 13, 1943, LP.
“a life that was almost mythical”: SL to GL, Jan. 20, 1943, LP.
“You said I did not understand”: GL to SL, Oct. 16, 1942, LP.
“I am afraid I selfishly hope”: GL to SL, Jan. 4, 1943, LP.
“Every night I kiss”: SL to GL, Nov. 3, 1942, LP.
family lore suggests he wasn’t: Sandy Wood (Gertie’s grandson), interview with author, Feb. 18, 2017, Upperville, Va.
“I do all the work”: GL to SL, Oct. 19, 1942, LP.
“invisible apron strings of an organization”: McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 11.
“has energy and initiative as well”: OSS memo, March 20, 1943, RG226-e190-f772A.
“entrusted with the responsibility”: GL to Alfred Tozzer, Feb. 19, 1943, RG226-e92-box16-f261.
“I should also add a doubt”: Legendre correspondence, Feb. 19, March 2 and 11, 1943, RG226-e190-f772.
“Would like Legendre to handle crèche”: OSS memo, June 10, 1943, RG226-e92-box16-f261.
“craves affection”: SL to GL, Dec. 31, 1942, LP.
“I do believe that the lonely hotel life”: SL to GL, Jan. 20, 1943, LP.
“didn’t much like children around”: Bokara Legendre, Not What I Expected, 40.
“worlds to conquer type of thing”: GL to SL, May 11, 1943, LP.
CHAPTER 7
“NO Portuguese boat has been sunk”: GL to SL, Aug. 17, 1943, LP.
Gertie’s crossing was smooth: GL to SL, Aug. 25, 1943, LP.
“certain it is impoverished and a rather unhappy city”: SL to GL, Aug. 22, 1943, LP.
Her colleagues took to calling her Mussolini: GL to SL, Nov. 19, 1943, LP.
“I am about to flounder out”: GL to SL, Dec. 4, 1943, LP.
carried a blackjack in her purse: GL to SL, Oct. 15, 1943, LP.
the OSS provided a list: Waller, Disciples, 159.
“Mummy was able to have”: Bokara Legendre, Not What I Expected, 152.
“Why don’t I go back to Virginia”: GL to SL, July 17, 1944, LP.
“a choir of 200 Negro soldiers”: GL to SL, Sept. 28, 1943, LP.
“white women not to go out”: Ziegler, London at War, 218.
“The Colored Troops are much argued about”: GL to SL, Nov. 5, 1943, LP.
“You can sit in the Ritz”: GL to SL, Nov. 27, 1943, LP.
“The streets are full of [British] girls”: GL to SL, Sept. 30, 1943, LP.
“The Russians are going to be the first”: GL to SL, Oct. 29, 1943, LP.
“It’s quite like old times”: Ziegler, London at War, 269.
“I suppose you read in the papers”: GL to SL, Jan. 24, 1944, LP.
“It is the biggest, bulkiest”: GL to SL, April 18, 1944, LP.
“all so sad and frightful”: GL to SL, Nov. 27, 1943, LP.
“Not a soul in the streets”: GL to SL, Aug. 10, 1944, LP.
She had been practicing her French: GL to SL, Nov. 10 and 14, 1943, LP.
“Every big shot I know is over there”: GL to SL, Aug. 15, 1944, LP.
“The pilotless plane, flying bomb”: Orwell, As I Please, 177.
“One is apt to sleep anywhere”: GL to SL, June 29, 1944, LP.
“The new development of the Germans”: MJP to MBW, June 17, 1944, MBW Papers.
“Those Big Shots are all really swell”: GL to SL, Aug. 29, 1944, LP.
CHAPTER 8
“a nonentity in the huge business of war”: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 3.
slipped Jennings some papers: Robert Jennings Report on Time as POW, April 4, 1945, RG226-e99-box14-f5.
“Nearly fried to a crisp”: GL, POW Diary, transcript, RG226-e190-f772.
“The reaction [to] our terrific might”: GL memo, Terror Bombing, RG226-e190-f772.
about eight feet by ten: GL statement, Bern, Switzerland, March 28, 1945, RG226-e216-wn27600.
American prisoners called “mucker fuck”: GL, “Sands Ceased to Run,” early draft, 8.
“Have no cigarettes, no books”: GL, POW diary, Sept. 29, 1944, entry, transcript, RG226-e190-f772.
CHAPTER 9
“The party was missing in action”: Twelfth Army Group memo, Sept. 29, 1944, RG226-e190-f772.
calling Gertie a “loose cannon”: McIntosh, Sisterhood of Spies, 129.
“Her knowledge of these activities”: Ibid., 141.
“has acquired a tremendous fund”: Donovan to McCloy, Nov. 4, 1944, RG226-e190-f772.
Donovan personally called Sidney: OSS memo, Jan. 7, 1945, RG226-e190-f772.
“Naturally, I had gone over”: SL to GL, April 6, 1945, LP.
&
nbsp; “I’m one of the oldest active jumpers”: MJP to MBW, July 13, 1944, MBW Papers.
“detection and prevention of the enemy’s espionage”: SCI, T Force, Report on Missing Personnel, Sept. 29, 1944, RG226-e190-f772.
“passes bearing wording of a less”: OSS memo, Sept. 19, 1944, RG226-e190-f772.
“My general feeling is that”: Pearson to Forgan, Oct. 23, 1944, Papurt incident, RG226-e122-box4-f1.
under the heading “SCI”: The accounts of Gertie, in her Bern statement and memoir, and Jennings, in his statement after being liberated, differ in an important way on what the heading of the Papurt document included. Jennings said it was the letters “SCI” only; Gertie said it was “SCI Agents.” If it was the latter, the Germans would surely have seized on the word “agents,” and their interrogations would have been much more focused and grueling. The letters “SCI” alone left enough ambiguity for the prisoners to dissemble.
One was Lieutenant Pierre Haas: interrogation of Ursula Zieschang, April 26, 1945, RG226-e92-f30126.
“told him I was not up”: Dulles debrief of GL.
“Does not believe me at all”: GL, POW Diary, transcript, RG226-e190-f772.
“undoubtedly meant ‘Supply Corps, Infantry’ ”: Jennings Report on Time as POW, April 4, 1945, RG-226-e99-box14-f5.
“Come here, sister, and blow”: GL, “Sands Ceased to Run,” early draft, 10.
ninety-five thousand U.S. servicemen: Foy, For You the War Is Over, 13.
on the ground in vast tents: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 81.
“I stood there in the sunshine”: GL manuscript on captivity, June 1945, RG226-e190-f771.
Of the 5.7 million Red Army soldiers: Burleigh, Third Reich, 512–13.
“All of these things are partially true”: Ibid., 513.
CHAPTER 10
“quite well to do”: Gosewisch to GL, Aug. 29, 1945, OSS scrapbook, LP.
offered a number of different explanations: See GL, Sands Ceased to Run; GL statement in Bern, RG226-e190-f772; Gosewisch postwar letters to GL, OSS scrapbook, LP; and Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 93–95.
joined the Nazi Party, in 1937: Alien case file A8109455 William Gosewisch, Record Group 566, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, National Archives, Kansas City.
about 850,000 Nazi Party members: Gellately, Backing Hitler, 16.
trained as a military interpreter in Berlin: Wilhelm Gosewisch military file, Bundesarchiv.
“New Year’s Sonnet”: The Oflag 64 Item, Jan. 1, 1945, 6. http://www.oflag64.us/ewExternalFiles/theitem-01-01-45.pdf.
a U.S. military report noted: Foy, For You the War Is Over, 57.
something “sinister” about their presence at Wallendorf: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 99.
“A great deal of interest”: Report on interrogation of Werner Mueller, April 25, 1945, SCI, T-Force, RG226-e92-f30126.
they were shot without warning: Bard, Forgotten Victims, 62.
“Mental strain, psychological threats”: Foy, For You the War Is Over, 58.
“You probably belong to the FBI”: GL, “Sands Ceased to Run,” early draft, LP.
penetration of Germany by OSS agents: Bruce, OSS Against the Reich, 182.
“Giblin was in a very dangerous business”: Robert Jennings Report on Time as POW, April 4, 1945, RG226-e99-box14-f5.
CHAPTER 11
“Reports concerning [Papurt], though conflicting”: OSS report, German and Japanese Penetration of OSS in ETO, July 6, 1945, RG226-e210-box345-13442.
Both Wehrmacht and Foreign Ministry reports: See Interrogation of Ursula Zieschang, April 26, 1945, RG226-e92-f30126 and PAAA RZ214-100130-199.
20 percent of them died: Bard, Forgotten Prisoners, 103.
“So far as we can learn”: Norman Holmes Pearson (acting chief, X-2) to Lieutenant Colonel Russell Forgan, OSS memo, Oct. 23, 1944, Papurt incident, RG226-e122-box4-f1.
“German knowledge of OSS was fragmentary”: German and Japanese Penetration of OSS.
“spent their evenings singing songs”: Goldberg, Margaret Bourke-White, 277.
“From Africa and Italy the word”: MJP to MBW, Nov. 19, 1943, MBW Papers.
news to his wife: Sorel, Women Who Wrote the War, 241.
“Don’t let your fear spoil”: Goldberg, Margaret Bourke-White, 277.
“I was struck by the polka-dotted effect”: MBW, Portrait of Myself, 238.
“Peggy, you are either the bravest”: Goldberg, Margaret Bourke-White, 280–81.
He told her she had an “adolescent”: MJP to MBW, Nov. 19, 1943, MBW Papers.
“I’d rather spend two months”: MJP to MBW, Dec. 9, 1943, MBW Papers.
“a past master of this kind”: MBW, Portrait of Myself, 310.
“I love you. I will marry you”: Ibid.
He was already up on crutches: GL to MJP’s brother, July 30, 1945, LP.
CHAPTER 12
“interrogation of Allied POWs”: Foy, For You the War Is Over, 58.
“seeing everything you want”: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 97.
“the hisses and catcalls of the people”: United Press report, March 15, 1939, UPI archives.
until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning: GL statement in Bern, RG226-e190-f772.
a GI fighting in the Pacific: Wilhelm Gosewisch to GL, August 29, 1946, OSS scrapbook, LP.
“I do worry about the distress”: Jennings military personal file, National Archives, St. Louis.
“You see how my innocent little trip”: GL to Marian Hall, Oct. 14, 1944, OSS scrapbook, LP.
who the “fair prisoner” was: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 95.
“Whoever she is, she has given”: Ibid.
Jennings was taken to an: Robert Jennings Report on Time as POW, April 4, 1945, RG226-e99-box14-f5.
“International News Service had the story”: OSS memo, Oct. 13, 1944, RG226-e90-box3-f40.
“member of New York society circles”: OSS dispatch, London to Donovan, Oct. 26, 1944, excerpts from BBC monitoring report, RG226-e90-box3-f40.
“they do not regard her as connected”: OSS memo, Papurt incident, Oct. 23, 1944.
“I do hope you are well”: SL to GL, Dec. 7, 1944, LP.
authority over all POW affairs: Foy, For You the War Is Over, 28.
“was interested in Mrs. Legendre”: Interrogation of Ursula Zieschang, April 26, 1945, RG226-e92-f30126.
“sympathetic treatment” of VIP prisoners of war: Memo on meeting with Obergruppenfuehrer Berger. RZ214-100347-111, PAAA.
“explicitly asked for [Gertie]”: File note, Oct. 27, 1944, RZ214-100130-200, PAAA.
she might in fact be Eisenhower’s secretary: Report on the interrogation of Ursula Zieschang, April 26, 1945, SCI, T-Force, RG226-e92-f30126.
order came directly from Hitler: Ibid. Zieschang said the order came from Hitler. Zieschang, who worked for the Gestapo and typed some of the reports on Gertie in late 1944, when Gertie was held in Berlin, told her American interrogators that she had read Gertie’s entire Gestapo file in January 1945. She also kept her shorthand book of all of the correspondence dictated by the Gestapo officer in charge of Gertie’s case and reread it shortly before her arrest in April 1945, when she destroyed the document as being compromising. But her American interrogators noted that her memory of the Legendre case was fresh and detailed.
CHAPTER 13
Toward the end of October: Gertie dates her departure from Diez as November 3, but Zieschang’s interrogation and documents from the German Foreign Ministry would put her in Berlin on October 28.
“that in order to destroy anything”: Atkinson, Guns at Last Light, 356.
“wrecked cities made me realize”: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 120.
in some cases killing prisoners: Foy, For You the War Is Over, 41.
“There is block after block”: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 176.
“faces of refugee columns fleeing”: Ibid., 103.
Parts of the staff and their files: Interrogation of Ursula Zieschang, April 26, 1945, RG226-e92-f30126.
“strut around with the old pomposity”: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 114.
two women from the Kripo: Interrogation of Ursula Zieschang, April 26, 1945, RG226-e92-f30126.
boyhood friend of Adolf Eichmann’s: Wistrich, Who’s Who in Nazi Germany, 135.
they were to be shot immediately: Foy, For You the War Is Over, 23.
It was Kaltenbrunner who ordered: Bard, Forgotten Victims, 62.
“articles on racial inferiority”: Deflem, “Logic of Nazification,” 29.
“little problem child”: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 144.
The Gestapo, despite memos stating: Memo, Nov. 7, 1944, RZ214-100130-202, PAAA.
“was ‘the Jewish Question’ ”: Wistrich, Who’s Who in Nazi Germany, 157–58.
Clemens had previously headed: Michael Wildt, An Uncompromising Generation: The Nazi Leadership of the Reich Security Main Office (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009), 364.
Lischka was upset that Gertie: Memo, October 31, 1944, RZ214-100130-201, PAAA.
One of the “best linguists”: Report on interrogation of Werner Mueller, April 25, 1945, SCI, T-Force, RG226-e92-f30126.
“refused flatly to say anything”: Report on interrogation of Ursula Zieschang, April 25, 1945, SCI, T-Force, RG226-e92-f30126.
“a series of attempts”: Longerich, Heinrich Himmler, 720.
“In a grotesque irony, Himmler”: Black, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, 227.
“capture was a mistake”: Beattie, Diary of a Kriegie, 144.
“live[d] in a strange world”: Ibid., 110.
