by Mark Moyar
“… frayed their spirits”: Le Francois, “We Mopped Up Makin Island.”
“… son on the island”: Wukovits, American Commando, 170.
“… at least ten years”: Peatross, Bless ’Em All, 84.
“… they never smiled”: Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary (New York: Random House, 1943), 72.
“Mad Merritt the Morgue Master”: Jon T. Hoffman, Once a Legend: “Red Mike” Edson of the Marine Raiders (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1994), 213.
“… before we went by”: Dick Camp, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Stories of American Special Operations During WWII (Minneapolis: Zenith, 2013), 100.
“… enemy was thrown back”: Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary, 73.
17 flasks of sake: Samuel B. Griffith II, The Battle for Guadalcanal (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1963), 109.
“… their Samurai swords”: Alexander, Edson’s Raiders, 153.
“… dark jungle as a corpse”: George W. Smith, The Do-or-Die Men: The 1st Marine Raider Battalion at Guadalcanal (New York: Pocket Books, 2003), 279.
“Death to Roosevelt!”: Alexander, Edson’s Raiders, 179.
“Get back!”: Richard Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (New York: Random House, 1990), 240.
better man for the job: Hoffman, Once a Legend, 204.
“… Come up on this hill and fight!”: Merrill B. Twining, No Bended Knee: The Memoir of Merrill B. Twining USMC (Ret.) (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1996), 100.
advance on Henderson Field: Ibid.
total may have been much higher: Frank, Guadalcanal, 245.
all thoughts of taking prisoners: Edwin P. Hoyt, The Marine Raiders (New York: Pocket Books, 1989), 110–132; Wukovits, American Commando, 204.
“… same underwear on for thirty days”: Wukovits, American Commando, 236–237.
Marines at Henderson Field: Blankfort, The Big Yankee: The Life of Carlson of the Raiders (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), 305.
“… half-sock of rice a day”: Wukovits, American Commando, 257–258.
could conduct raids: Alexander, Edson’s Raiders, 235–236.
“… like a bull captain in the old navy”: Twining, No Bended Knee, 43, 139, 145.
250 casualties: Charles L. Updegraph Jr., U.S. Marine Corps Special Units of World War II (Washington, DC: US Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1972), 30.
“… good Marine battalion couldn’t do”: Alexander, Edson’s Raiders, 307.
fully capable of conducting raids: John W. Gordon, “The U.S. Marine Corps and an Experiment in Military Elitism: A Reassessment of the Special Warfare Impetus, 1937–1943,” in William Love Jr., ed., Changing Interpretations and New Sources in Naval History: Papers from the Third United States Naval Academy History Symposium (New York: Garland, 1980), 367–368.
wreaking havoc on the Japanese: Gavin Mortimer, Merrill’s Marauders: The Untold Story of Unit Galahad and the Toughest Special Forces Mission of World War II (Minneapolis: Zenith, 2013), 3–5.
officer in the new unit lamented: Charles Ogburn, The Marauders (New York: Harper, 1959), 34.
less than big weapons: Frank McLynn, The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942–45 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 328–337; Scott R. McMichael, A Historical Perspective on Light Infantry (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, 1987), 36–43.
“stuffed baboons,” and worse: Ian Fellowes-Gordon, The Magic War: The Battle for North Burma (New York: Scribner, 1971), 37; Geoffrey Perret, There’s a War to Be Won: The United States Army in World War II (New York: Random House, 1991), 294–295.
Chinese and British to continue fighting: Charles F. Romanus and Riley Sutherland, Stilwell’s Command Problems (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1987), 188–191.
injury, illness, capture, or death: Mary Ellen Condon-Rall and Albert E. Cowdrey, The Medical Department: Medical Service in the War Against Japan (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1998), 309–310.
set flares for naval gunfire: John B. Dwyer, Scouts and Raiders: The Navy’s First Special Warfare Commandos (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993).
thirty-foot waves and enemy machine-gun fire: Michael Lee Lanning, Blood Warriors: America’s Military Elites (New York: Ballantine, 2002), 14–15.
program by week’s end: Elizabeth Kauffman Bush, America’s First Frogman: The Draper Kauffman Story (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004), 82–83.
queuing up for D-Day: Chet Cunningham, The Frogmen of World War II: An Oral History of the U.S. Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams (Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2005), 58–70.
channels on Omaha Beach were fully cleared: Francis Douglas Fane, The Naked Warriors: The Story of the U.S. Navy’s Frogmen (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1995), 57.
thirty-one were killed and sixty wounded: Orr Kelly, Brave Men—Dark Waters: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALS (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1992), 27.
across the beaches: John B. Dwyer, Commandos from the Sea: The History of Amphibious Special Warfare in World War II and the Korean War (Boulder: Paladin Press, 1998), 188–191.
“… train and equip the Teams”: Fane, Naked Warriors, 122.
“… courageous work of the Underwater Demolition Teams”: Andrew L. Hargreaves, Special Operations in World War II: British and American Irregular Warfare (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013), 217.
CHAPTER 3: OSS
“… adaptable to any problem”: Richard Dunlop, Donovan: America’s Master Spy (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1982), 25.
poor Irish Catholics: Anthony Cave Brown, The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan (New York: Times Books, 1982), 19–21.
“… fixed on some other object”: Dunlop, Donovan, 25.
“a youngster at Halloween”: Douglas Waller, Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (New York: Free Press, 2011), 22.
“delusions of grandeur”: Ibid., 44.
“… he never knew me”: Dunlop, Donovan, 44.
“… cannot afford to be a sissy”: Thomas F. Troy, Donovan and the CIA: A History of the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency (Frederick, MD: University Publications of America, 1981), 29.
favorable impression on the American: Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt’s Centurions: FDR and the Commanders He Led to Victory in World War II (New York: Random House, 2013), 380–381.
telescopic bombsights: Michael Fullilove, Rendezvous with Destiny: How Franklin D. Roosevelt and Five Extraordinary Men Took America into the War and into the World (New York: Penguin, 2013), 93–94.
“… paralyzing Washington”: Dunlop, Donovan, 222.
revolver to and from work: Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: HarperCollins, 1995), 77–78.
bored him terribly: Bradley F. Smith, The Shadow Warriors: O.S.S. and the Origins of the C.I.A. (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 89–90.
“… liable to sudden changes”: Brown, Last Hero, 191.
“… men and women who wanted to help”: Ray S. Cline, Secrets, Spies and Scholars: Blueprint of the Essential CIA (Washington, DC: Acropolis, 1976), 39–40.
and William Casey: Joseph E. Persico, Piercing the Reich: The Penetration of Nazi Germany by American Secret Agents During World War II (New York: Viking, 1979), 6.
soprano pitch: Stanley P. Lovell, Of Spies & Stratagems (New York: Pocket Books, 1963), 84–85.
“… mad with longing”: Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 108.
froze to death: Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only, 126.
Spanish embassy at the same time: Curt Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets (New York: Norton, 1991), 294–295.
“… responsibility for a war activity”: Breckinridge Long, The War Diary of Breckinridge Long: Selections from the Years 1939–1944 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1966), 234.
create guerrilla and commando forces using US
military personnel: Troy, Donovan and the CIA, 190; Smith, Shadow Warriors, 203.
“… maximum volume”: Richard Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines: With the OSS in Burma (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1979), 245.
“… talented and unusual men”: Thomas N. Moon and Carl F. Eifler, Deadliest Colonel (New York: Vantage, 1975), 42.
inches into his desk: Ibid., 44–45.
able to fend them off: Troy J. Sacquety, The OSS in Burma: Jungle War Against the Japanese (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013), 20.
Stilwell informed Eifler: Ibid., 2.
“… less than three months to do it in”: Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines, 121.
“… verification of his belief”: Richard Harris Smith, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 248.
Anglo-Burmese descent: James R. Ward, “The Activities of Detachment 101 of the OSS,” Special Warfare 6, no. 4 (October 1993): 14–21.
never heard from again: Sacquety, The OSS in Burma, 39–43.
pull Eifler onto the deck: Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines, 208–210.
until none were left: Sacquety, The OSS in Burma, 41–42.
had not fallen to the Japanese: Edward Hymoff, The OSS in World War II (New York: Richardson and Steirman, 1986), 146–147; Sacquety, The OSS in Burma, 35–36; Roger Hilsman, American Guerrilla: My War Behind Japanese Lines (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1990), 122.
bow to Japan’s will: Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines, 33–34.
as invisibly as they had come: Thomas N. Moon, This Grim and Savage Game: OSS and the Beginning of U.S. Covert Operations in World War II (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2000), 109–110.
volunteers were flown: Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines, 214–220.
architect planning a building: William R. Peers and Dean Brelis, Behind the Burma Road: The Story of America’s Most Successful Guerrilla Force (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963), 144.
cleaving it in two: Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines, 248–249.
somehow had to be aborted: Moon and Eifler, The Deadliest Colonel, 168–173, 193, 214, 233.
“… get a Bull Dozer and level it”: Sacquety, The OSS in Burma, 71.
“… buoy their spirits”: Dunlop, Behind Japanese Lines, 425–426.
“… before we even got started”: Sacquety, The OSS in Burma, 133.
15 Americans killed: Kermit Roosevelt, The Overseas Targets: War Report of the OSS, vol. 2 (New York: Walker and Company, 1976), 391–392.
“set Europe ablaze”: William Manchester and Paul Reid, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965 (Boston: Little, Brown, 2012), 273.
one fell swoop: Jean Overton Fuller, The German Penetration of SOE: France 1941–1944 (London: Kimber, 1975), 30–35.
loyal to the Germans: David A. Walker, “OSS and Operation Torch,” Journal of Contemporary History 22, no. 4 (October 1987): 668–675; Dunlop, Donovan, 370–375.
“They haven’t burned the White House yet”: Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 140.
parachuting, sabotage, and guerrilla warfare: Albert Lulushi, Donovan’s Devils: OSS Commandos Behind Enemy Lines—Europe, World War II (New York: Arcade, 2016), 61–74; War Report of the OSS (New York: Walker and Company, 1976), 223–225.
“… when we got back”: Dunlop, Donovan, 399.
dinners in black tie: Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 180.
“… prerequisite for success”: Max Corvo, The O.S.S. in Italy, 1942–1945: A Personal Memoir (New York: Praeger, 1990), 131.
away from the Winter Line: Brown, Last Hero, 474; Lulushi, Donovan’s Devils, 190–202.
the sixtieth day: Will Irwin, The Jedburghs: The Secret History of the Allied Special Forces, France 1944 (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005), 67–70.
“… unpleasant assignment”: Aaron Bank, From OSS to Green Berets (Novato, CA: Presidio, 1986), 1–3.
meats and starches: Dick Camp, Shadow Warriors: The Untold Stories of American Special Operations During WWII (Minneapolis: Zenith, 2013), 64; Irwin, The Jedburghs, 43–44.
punched out five-mile runs: Douglas Waller, Disciples: The World War II Missions of the CIA Directors Who Fought for Wild Bill Donovan (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015), 98–100; Bank, From OSS to Green Berets, 5–6.
piercing of vital organs: Serge Obolensky, One Man in His Time: The Memoirs of Serge Obolensky (New York: McDowell, Obolensky, 1958), 347–348; Irwin, The Jedburghs, 47–48; Lulushi, Donovan’s Devils, 73–74.
French military and police forces: Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain, Cloak and Dagger: The Secret Story of the OSS (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1945), 64; Waller, Disciples, 171–172; William B. Dreux, No Bridges Blown (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1971), 49–52.
“… our mutual war effort”: Colin Beavan, Operation Jedburgh, D-Day and America’s First Shadow War (New York: Viking, 2006), 93.
good cheer: Waller, Disciples, 173–175; Beavan, Operation Jedburgh, 92–104.
“… I am your commanding officer”: Smith, OSS, 184–185.
intended for his forces: Roger Ford, Steel from the Sky: Behind Enemy Lines in German-Occupied France (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004), 155.
“Vive les Américains!”: Bank, From OSS to Green Berets, 34–37.
“… needling the enemy”: Ibid., 41.
“… consider necessary”: Ibid., 48.
and other Allied officers: David W. Hogan Jr., U.S. Army Special Operations in World War II (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1992), 53–54.
11th Panzer Division: Benjamin F. Jones, Eisenhower’s Guerrillas: The Jedburghs, the Maquis, and the Liberation of France (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 224–225.
harassing the withdrawing Germans: Ford, Steel from the Sky, 156.
personnel, aircraft, and supplies for the mission: Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower: The Personal Diary of Captain Harry C. Butcher, USNR, Naval Aide to General Eisenhower, 1942 to 1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 654; Smith, Shadow Warriors, 291–292.
laid down their weapons: Robert E. Mattingly, “Herringbone Cloak–GI Dagger: Marines of the OSS,” US Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1989, 120; Phil Mehringer, “Operation Union II: Marines Land in France 60 Years Ago,” Leatherneck.com, August 23, 2004.
1,574 personnel into occupied France: Smith, Shadow Warriors, 293; Beavan, Operation Jedburgh, 164–165; Jay Jakub, Spies and Saboteurs: Anglo-American Collaboration and Rivalry in Human Intelligence Collection and Special Operations, 1940–1945 (Houndmills, UK: Macmillan, 1999), 180–181.
212 urban centers: Waller, Wild Bill Donovan, 247; Waller, Disciples, 196–197, 257–259; Jones, Eisenhower’s Guerrillas, 274–276.
“… cowboys and red Indians”: Andrew L. Hargreaves, Special Operations in World War II: British and American Irregular Warfare (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2013), 120.
“… elements in his community”: Louis Huot, Guns for Tito (New York: L. B. Fischer, 1945), 229.
rivals against the Germans: William L. White, “Some Affairs of Honor,” Reader’s Digest 47 (December 1945), 138.
ensuing war between the United States and North Vietnam: Dixee R. Bartholomew-Feis, The OSS and Ho Chi Minh: Unexpected Allies in the War Against Japan (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 188–264.
“… no thought of its elimination”: Smith, Shadow Warriors, 307.
“… agencies of this government”: Maochun Yu, OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 250.
CHAPTER 4: THE FORGOTTEN WAR
“… become an infantry leader”: Chuck Williams, “Sunday Interview with Retired Col. Ralph Puckett,” Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, August 2, 2014.
“… take me into that Ranger company”: Ibid.
culled seventy-three enlisted men: Robert W. Black, Rangers in Korea (New York: Ivy Books, 1989), 13–14.
“… a lot of Mexicans live in
Texas”: T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 190.
frozen tundra: S. L. A. Marshall, The River and the Gauntlet: Defeat of the Eighth Army by the Chinese Communist Forces, November 1950, in the Battle of the Chongchon River, Korea (New York: William Morrow, 1953), 195–196; Roy E. Appleman, Disaster in Korea: The Chinese Confront MacArthur (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008), 106–107.
“We’re depending on you”: Williams, “Sunday Interview.”
were being overrun: Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1988), 464.
“… key communications centers or facilities”: Richard L. Kiper, Spare Not the Brave: The Special Activities Group in Korea (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014), 232.
performed acts of sabotage: David W. Hogan Jr., Raiders or Elite Infantry? The Changing Role of the U.S. Army Rangers from Dieppe to Grenada (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1992), 109–110; Black, Rangers in Korea, 19–20; “Rangers ‘Reborn,’ Filter Red Lines,” New York Times, March 11, 1951.
“… hitting the ground”: William B. Breuer, Shadow Warriors: The Covert War in Korea (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1996), 160.
moped about in dejection: Black, Rangers in Korea, 35–36.
eighty-four Rangers were injured: Billy C. Mossman, United States Army in the Korean War: Ebb and Flow, November 1950–July 1951 (Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 1988), 339–340.
short of its objective: Martin Blumenson, “The Rangers at Hwachon Dam,” Army 17 (December 1967): 36–53.
vulnerable point: See, for example, Bob Channon, ed., The Cold Steel Third: 3rd Airborne Ranger Company, Korean War (1950–1951) (Franklin, NC: Genealogy Publishing Service, 1993), 147–171; “Rangers Fight Toe to Toe on Bloody Nose Ridge,” Army Times, June 2, 1951; Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea, 1950–1953 (New York: Times Books, 1987), 438.
special capabilities squandered: Hogan, Raiders or Elite Infantry, 119; Hanson Baldwin, “Rangers Broken Up as Misfits in Korea,” New York Times, August 26, 1951.
matters that were decided by generals: Robert W. Black, A Ranger Born: A Memoir of Combat and Valor from Korea to Vietnam (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002), 122.
