by Dick Camp
By the time of Eddy’s assignment the situation in North Africa had deteriorated. With the entry of the United States into the war after Pearl Harbor, the collaborating French Vichy government imposed severe restrictions on Americans and carried out reprisals against any Frenchman who associated with them. Americans were denied access to docks, airfields, and other militarily significant installations. Gestapo agents who had previously maintained a hands-off policy now began to apply political and strong-arm methods against them. Journalist Thomas Lippman noted, “Eddy and his agents were engaged in serious and sometimes deadly business. Smuggled weapons blew up. People disappeared. At one point Eddy began to carry a pistol … against the possibility of an attack on the street.” Unscrupulous double agents thrived by passing information to the highest bidder. “Dirty work” abounded: car bombings, sabotage, assassinations, and intimidations. One night Eddy’s assistant, 1st Lt. Franklin P. Holcomb, USMC, son of the commandant, was accosted by a group of Italian thugs. In the ensuing brawl, Holcomb upheld the highest traditions of the Corps. President Roosevelt learned of the Marine “victory” and directed that Holcomb be immediately promoted to captain.
Eddy was concerned that the Axis powers, assisted by the Vichy government, might act before he could carry out his mission. The Vichy government had changed hands, the new prime minister, Pierre Laval, was friendlier toward Nazi Germany than in the past. This cozy relationship offered advantages to the German and Italian agents in the duel of intrigue that was playing out. The two Axis powers enjoyed a near-monopoly on intelligence and propaganda because of the wave of anti-British sentiment as a result of their attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir and Dakar in July and September 1940. Vichy then severed diplomatic ties and ejected the British from North Africa. Two powerful collaborationist organizations, the Service d’ordre legionnaire (SOL) and the Parti Populaire Français (PPF) supported the Axis and made Eddy’s undercover work even more difficult. The United States continued to have diplomatic relations with the Vichy government and maintained a consulate in the Tangier International Zone of the old city, where it enjoyed extra-territorial rights under a 1786 agreement with Sultan Sidi Mohammed (which remained in effect until 1956, when Moroccan independence was attained).
One important factor was in Eddy’s favor. An economic pact between the United States and Vichy France, known as the Murphy-Weygand Agreement, had been signed allowing twelve U.S. vice-consuls, dubbed the “Twelve Apostles,” to oversee the allocation of humanitarian aid. The twelve men were in actuality undercover intelligence agents that Eddy “was to be given appropriate authority over …” As Kermit Roosevelt wrote in War Report of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), “The agents were recruited from all walks of life, principally for their knowledge of the French language and their experience abroad. Most of them had seen service in World War I; several had served with the French Army prior to the entry of the United States into that conflict.” They were stationed in the port cities of Tunis, Oran, Algiers, and Casablanca. In Cloak & Gown: Scholars in the Secret War, 1939–1961 Robin W. Winks wrote, “… the group was dismissed by the Germans as representing ‘a perfect picture of the mixture of races and characters in that savage conglomeration called the United States’ … The group proved quite effective … because they were wisely chosen and because Colonel Eddy was extraordinarily competent.” Eddy immediately began the process of setting up a coordinated intelligence and special operations system to meet the possibility of an Axis invasion. One of his first steps was to route all the agents’ intelligence reports through his office to ensure proper dissemination. The vice-consuls, with their diplomatic immunity, were able to routinely make courier trips to Tangier to deliver their reports to him without raising too much suspicion.
Eddy was particularly anxious to establish a clandestine radio network in the event of a diplomatic rupture or Axis military action. He tasked the vice-consuls to recruit pro-Allied locals to man the stations. The “recruits” were secretly transported to Gibraltar for training by British radiomen. By the summer of 1942, the secret network was up and running. Washington was given the code name VICTOR, the base station in Tangier was MIDWAY, with YANKEE at Algiers, FRANKLIN at Oran, PILGRIM at Tunis, and LINCOLN at Casablanca, which had to be mobile because the Germans had a triangulation unit that could zero in on the station’s location. The base station in Tangier was in the naval attaché’s office, across a narrow street from the Consulate. Carleton Coon, who considered Eddy “one of the greatest men he had ever met,” noted in Adventures and Discoveries, “Soon Mrs. Childs, a White Russian lady who had no knowledge of what we were doing, complained that the bussing and crackling of our radio transmitter spoiled her sleep, and it had to go. It is idle to point out that the success of the invasion was more important than Mrs. Child’s sleep. Colonel Eddy moved the set to a small rented villa on the mountain.”
With the agents and the radio network in place, Eddy concentrated on developing an agent network, which was not without its risks. “We are followed everywhere we go,” Eddy wrote to his son, “so we have to be very careful about meeting our confidential agents. I know the men who follow me because I have photographs of the fifty-five Axis agents in Tangier and Spanish Morocco. It is lots of fun to turn on them and stare them in the face. They dare no overt action because the Germans are most unpopular here. The people of Tangier want only to be left alone, they do not want anybody bringing violence to the town. Our telephones are all tapped. We never say anything confidential over the phone so it is lots of fun to say, ‘I’ll meet you for lunch at the El Minzah Hotel [Eddy and other Allied agents lived in the hotel, while Axis agents lived in the Riff Hotel] but we will not invite the damned German who is listening to this conversation!’” In a letter to his daughter, Eddy wrote, “We have quite a time with counterespionage. The head telephone operator in the El Minzah Hotel (a very well educated man on our side who prepared for months to disguise himself as a mere telephone operator) has just been offered five thousand francs a month by the Germans to report to them … he promptly told us. We are taking the francs and composing faked conversations for him to report to them, conversations which should give the Germans plenty of phony information.”
Eddy established contact with the leader of the most powerful religious brotherhood in northern Morocco, codenamed “Strings.” Kermit Roosevelt noted, “Members of the ‘Strings’ group numbered tens of thousands of Moors from every walk of life, ready to obey unquestioningly the will of their divine leader. ‘Strings’ reports to [Eddy] came from sheiks and holy men who penetrated areas forbidden by the French authorities to the general populace and from farmers and shepherds who relayed pertinent items of intelligence in comparative anonymity.” Eddy also bankrolled one of the most influential Berber tribesmen, designated “Tassels,” to smuggle arms and equipment. Roosevelt wrote, “The Riffs [a Berber tribe] under ‘Tassels,’ on the other hand were Berber adventurers, willing to carry out any job regardless of the danger involved, and highly adept at avoiding detection by Spanish or French police. These men knew how to handle arms and conduct guerrilla warfare in difficult terrain.” Eddy kept the two groups separate, never letting the other know about the other. He conducted secret meetings where detailed combat intelligence was passed—such as battle order, troop movements, or fortifications—and significant political events.
Axis agents kept close watch on Eddy and his confederates. “Bars and restaurants and lodgings were staffed by double agents who took money with both hands impartially,” Eddy noted. “Our hotel bureau drawers were ransacked regularly, as we proved many times by placing ‘confidential papers’ in marked positions …” Meetings with agents had to be carefully planned so as not to give their identity away. On one occasion Eddy waited on a roof while a subordinate, Carleton Coon, “lay in the bushes next to a reed fence, and spiders and ants crawled over me and spun webs over me. Meanwhile, a pair of Spanish lovers lay down on the other side of the fence; I was treated t
o all their physiological noises as well as their periodic inane conversation … After what seemed to me a distinguished effort, they left, and I was able to move and brush off a few cobwebs. I retired to the roof and Gordon [Browne, another agent] made a sortie, finally picking Tassels, who was wondering about lost several blocks away.” Coon related that, “Tassels gave us much combat intelligence … in great detail … [I]t was seldom that Tassels was inaccurate.”
The agent network also included individuals with occupational covers. A fisherman provided the location of antiaircraft guns and the movement of German submarines; herdsmen located hidden fortifications; two coding clerks turned over all decoded copies of German cables; an airline chief technician passed on the blueprints of all airfields, their defenses, and recognition signals, etc., providing a treasure trove of intelligence. Roosevelt noted, “To meet a possible German attack or to support an Allied sea and airborne assault, the Riff and Moslem groups were directed by [Eddy] to plan for an organized revolt … This planned uprising involved some 80,000 natives … [S]imilar preparations were being made in ports where landings might be attempted. In Oran, combat groups totaled more than 2,500 men.” These groups needed weapons and equipment, which Eddy pleaded with Donovan to provide. “We have days before us, not weeks,” he told the spy master. “We will not find such leaders elsewhere, and we dare not lose them. … They are taking all the risk; they will receive, distribute, and use the supplies, every step being taken with the threat of execution as traitors if they are uncovered. The least we can do is to help supply them on their own terms, which are generous and gallant.”
Eddy’s request for massive amounts of supplies was turned down. “If I cannot be trusted with a few million francs in an emergency then I should be called back and someone who can be trusted sent,” he responded petulantly. What he did not realize at the time was that the equipment and weapons were simply not available, given the limited U.S. production capability at this stage of the war. Eddy continued to rely on the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), formed in July 1940 to conduct reconnaissance, espionage, and sabotage against the Axis powers in occupied Europe and to support local resistance movements. Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s charge to the SOE was to “set Europe ablaze!” The SOE had a cache of weapons in Gibraltar to help supply Eddy’s agents. Roosevelt wrote that, “Sten guns, .45 pistols, ammunition, flares, explosives and other needed items were loaded in British diplomatic pouches in Gibraltar and shipped across on a Portuguese tugboat to the British Legation at Tangier. Here they were shifted to the U.S. Legation where they were reloaded into U.S. Navy or State Department pouches and smuggled through the Spanish Zone to Casablanca.” Hand grenades were a different story. They could not be shipped in the diplomatic pouches so they were obtained from “Tassels.” The grenades were left over from the Spanish Civil War and were of dubious value.
Eddy selected Carleton Coon as one of the couriers. “During late August, September, and early October, I became the commuter between Gibraltar and Tangier,” Coon related. “My business was to load [the weapons] into British diplomatic pouches … and see that they got to Legation.” On one occasion, Coon was separated from his “goods.” “When I arrived in Tangier empty-handed, I saw Colonel Eddy on the dock waiting for me, with a number of armed men to take custody of the pouches.” Eddy was extremely disappointed that Coon did not have the weapons. He approached his trusted confederate and, in a voice that brooked no discussion, ordered, “Go back tomorrow, and come back with your shield or on it!” Coon “took this literally and came back with the pouches.”
Operation Torch
Operation Torch, the landing in North Africa in November 1942, was the first major British-American operation in World War II. Under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, it was a dress rehearsal for subsequent landings in Italy and southern France two years later.
In late July 1942, Eddy was in London to pitch his requirements when he was invited to a dinner party with several high ranking officers, including General Patton and the director military intelligence Gen. George Strong. After meeting Patton (the “SOB’s been shot at enough” meeting), Eddy was invited to brief the officers on his views of North Africa. Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden wrote in Sub Rosa: The O.S.S. and American Espionage that, “They took chairs in the room, and Eddy began to talk about Africa. Before he could get fairly underway, Strong interrupted him. ‘Now wait a minute, Eddy,’ Strong said, ‘I’m G-2 [intelligence chief] of this army and I’m going to tell you something. If you’re going to tell us what you think instead of what you know, you might find yourself contributing to the murder of thousands of your own countrymen. Now for God’s sake, tell us the facts!’” Eddy was unshaken by Strong’s remark and proceeded to lay out the situation in North Africa. “He named the groups he had trained outside the Army and his plans for them,” Alsop and Braden wrote. “He told of his own organization and of the intelligence on ship movements and defenses which his group had already assembled.”
Harris Smith noted in his book, OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency, “Even General Strong was impressed by Eddy’s seemingly factual, detailed account of the French underground—its strength, organization, leadership, and potential. And all three took particular note of Eddy’s conclusion: ‘If we sent an expeditionary force to North Africa, there would be only token resistance.’” Strong was indeed impressed. “You seem to know what you’re talking about,” he conceded. The successful briefing earned Eddy an audience with General Eisenhower (Allied supreme commander) the next afternoon. After the briefing Ike telegrammed the Army chief of staff, Gen. George C. Marshall, “Colonel Eddy of the Marines will arrive in Washington this week. He possesses much information which will be valuable to the Chiefs of Staff.” Before leaving Washington, Eddy learned that an operation in North Africa was going to be approved, although he was not given its scope, its timing, or its objectives.
During this time, the COI was undergoing a radical organizational change. Donovan proposed that the COI be placed under the military Joint Chiefs of Staff (which itself was first formed for World War II) to improve trust and gain access to military resources. On 13 June 1942, Roosevelt established the Office of Strategic Services to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct special operations not assigned to other agencies.
Throughout the fall of 1942, rumors persisted of an Allied invasion of Africa. “Both sides originated and encouraged these: the Axis in order to smoke out denials; the Allies for the purpose of misleading German opposition,” Kermit Roosevelt noted. “COI agents spread the word that Americans would land at Dakar.” Eddy found out later that the Germans fell for the disinformation. He also learned that the Nazis were planning their own landing, but at a later date than Torch. On 14 October he received the long awaited Special Operations Instructions outlining the plan for Operation Torch. Eddy was one of a very few who knew the landings were scheduled for 8 November. “The Allied Force is divided into three task forces, Eastern Task Force, landing at Algiers, Center Task Force at Oran, Western Task Force at Port Lyautey, Fedala, and Safi, at a date and hour that will be communicated to you separately,” it noted. “From Algiers, Eastern Task Force (1st Army) is to advance with all speed into Tunisia with the object of forestalling any German or Italian counter mover.” The directive appointed Eddy as Eisenhower’s staff officer, dual-hatted him as the head of the joint OSS/SOE organization in French North Africa, and directed him “to carry out subversive activities prior to the landing.” In a subsequent directive, Eddy was assigned to the Civil Affairs Section under Robert D. Murphy, the civil affairs officer of Allied Forces.
With the Torch plan and tasking order in hand, Eddy ordered the final arrangements made at each of the ports and beaches where the landings were to take place. “Strong-arm squads were appointed to guard all important public buildings and to make arrests if the order not to resist were ignored,�
�� Kermit Roosevelt wrote. “Others were instructed to cut telegraph and telephone lines. … obstruct public utilities … detonate mines on roads and beaches. … Groups were assigned to beachheads and parachute fields with flares to signal in troops … . [G]uides and interpreters were assigned to meet them. … [A]n OSS representative led an armed group with a ‘Rebecca’ radio beacon to guide paratroopers. …” The Rebecca navigation system consisted of an airborne receiver (Rebecca) and a ground-based transponder, which was actually called Eureka. Rebecca determined the range to Eureka by the time difference of signals between the units, and its highly directional antenna yielded relative position. Obviously, the correct positioning of the ground-based component was critical. Coon described the challenges of placing the beacon: “Gordon [Browne] posted himself in a slight depression in a field where the paratroopers were supposed to land. … Vichy troops appeared and began shooting at Gordon. He killed several and kept Rebecca-signaling until the planes came in sight.” Browne was awarded the Silver Star for this brave act.
OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created on 13 June 1942 and placed under the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), with Donovan as its director, reporting directly to President Roosevelt. Donovan told the president when the OSS was created that the Germans were the “big league professionals” of warfare, and America the “bush league club.” The only way to quickly get up to speed against Germany was to “play a bush league game, stealing the ball and killing the umpire.” The OSS quickly grew in size and became America’s primary espionage and unconventional warfare agency during World War II. It focused on special intelligence, psychological warfare, and special operations—espionage, counter-intelligence, disinformation, and guerrilla leadership. At its peak in 1945, the OSS reached thirteen thousand personnel, nearly three-quarters; some nine thousand were uniformed members of the Armed Forces.
