John Bevilaqua Posted November 10, 2007 Share Posted November 10, 2007 (edited) Carleton S. Coon served with the OSS and Colonel Ulius Amoss in Northern Africa during World War II and later was very heavily involved with Wickliffe Draper and The Pioneer Fund. Amoss and Coon and Robert E. Johnson from Interpen later worked together in Baltimore for Amoss' Intl Services of Information which was little more than an intelligence gathering service dealing with running a covert band of former spies, convicts and assassins for anyone with the money to hire them. This joint effort started the week after Oswald returned from Russia. Coon is the missing link between the Amoss and Draper lines of research just like Dr. Hans Eysenck links both the CIA'S MKULTRA efforts at Mind Control and Programmed Assassins with those run by Wickliffe P. Draper and The Pioneer Fund. Eysenck worked for both groups simultaneously. Here is Carleton S. Coon proposing a "United States of the World" (New World Order or United Nations?) and the use of selected assassins and assassinations in order to bring those who would oppose this plan into a state of non-interventionism and total compliance, i.e. death. This might be the first known reference to both the feared New World Order and to Political Assassinations. Just like Ulius Amoss, Coon's Chief of Staff with the OSS in Cairo, was known for Leaderless Resistance, Coon should be known as the Father of the New World Order and the Mastermind behind political assassinations and later... Mind Control. Carey, Frank, "It's Anthropologists' Plan To Prevent Future Wars", The Washington Post, April 19, 1942. http://www.well.com/user/jmalloy/gunterand.../resources.html "Carleton S. Coon, Harvard, Conrad M. Arensberg, Brooklyn College, and Eliot D. Chapple, Harvard Medical School and President of the Society for Applied Anthropology propose a "United States of the World" with a world police force that would control the whole federation. The proposal would seem merely ludicrous but for the fact that subsequently Carleton Coon was chosen by "Wild Bill" Donovan as an agent of the fledging OSS.(that later became the CIA) Anthony Cave Brown (Anthony Cave Brown, The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan, NY: Times Books, 1982, pp. 269-270) quotes a memo from Coon to Donovan in which Coon not only advocates political assassination but also suggests that a group of men be chosen for this purpose from the OSS and the British SOE." "One of the other men who proposed this global police state (couched in idealistic language) was Eliot Chapple, an early brain wave researcher. See Waldemar Kaempffert, "Science in the News: Brain Waves", The New York Times, July 7, 1940 for a report of Eliot Chapple's use of brain wave recordings in the study of relationships." Coon's father was also a Cotton Broker according to a note in this biography http://books.nap.edu/html/biomems/ccoon.pdf which would lend additional credence to his association with The Pioneer Fund of Wickliffe P. Draper whose family manufactured textile loom equipment and other machinery. Robert B. Snowden was the other Cotton Broker from Tennessee who once hired George Lincoln Rockwell. Draper considered himself to be an amateur Anthropologist as well, once joining an expedition that disovered the remains of Asselar Man. Draper also measured the skulls of The Tuaregs in Africa which was apparently one of Carleton Coon's main methods for gathering "metrics" about various races. Richard Condon in The Manchurian Candidate mentions The Tuaregs, in an obvious reference to this Draper expedtion. If Gerry Patrick Hemming knows all about Carleton S. Coon and Robert E. Johnson you know it must be important. His friend, Roy Hargraves, knew all about the other Baltimore contacts with CIA and Metals Processing connections involved in my line of research confirming what I have uncovered already. So we have come full cycle again linking Amoss through Draper to Johnson via Coon and Eysenck both Pioneer Fund recipients of cash from Draper. Conclusion: Oswald in Taiwan and Johnson in Tsingtao were probably subjected to Manchurian Candidate styled mind control training and later turned out to be excellent programmed assassins. That is why Oswald was chosen to be either a shooter or a patsy, take your pick. But if Johnson was a crack shooter then Oswald, under hypnotic suggestion, could have also been made into a crack shooter as well. After all Marksmanship is little more than mind over matter. Control your breathing and your heart rate and anyone can be a good shot. Who took over from Amoss in 1961 after he died? First Carleton S. Coon in 1961 and later Ray S. Cline, from the CIA, ASC and WACL also featured in The Manchurian Candidate in 1981 after Coon expired. Carleton Stevens Coon, (June 23, 1904 – June 3, 1981) was a American physical anthropologist best remembered for his books on race. Contents [hide] <LI class=toclevel-1>1 Biography 1.1 Racial theories<LI class=toclevel-1>2 Brief overview of The Races of Europe[3] <LI class=toclevel-1>3 Falling into disfavor <LI class=toclevel-1>4 Works by Carleton S. Coon <LI class=toclevel-1>5 Quotes <LI class=toclevel-1>6 Further reading and sources <LI class=toclevel-1>7 External link <LI class=toclevel-1>8 References [*]9 See also if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } [edit] Biography Carleton Coon was born in <a href="http://en.metapedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wakefield%2C_Massachusetts&action=edit" target="_blank">Wakefield, Massachusetts. He developed an interest in prehistory, and attended Phillips Academy, Andover where he studied hieroglyphics and became proficient in ancient Greek. Coon went on to study at Harvard, where he began to study Egyptology with George Reisner. However he, like many students, was swayed to the field of anthropology by Earnest Hooton and he graduated magna cum laude in 1925. He became the Curator of Ethnology at the University Museum of Philadelphia.[1] Coon continued on in Harvard, making the first of many trips to North Africa in 1925 to conduct fieldwork in the Rif area of Morocco, which was still politically unsettled after a rebellion of the local populace against the Spanish. He earned his Ph.D. in 1928[2] and returned to Harvard as a lecturer and later a professor. His work from this period included a 1939 rewrite of William Z. Ripley's 1899 The Races of Europe. Coon was a colorful character who undertook adventuresome exploits and, like his mentor Earnest Hooton, wrote widely for a general audience. He published several novels and fictionalized accounts of his trips to North Africa, including The Riffians, Flesh of the Wild Ox, Measuring Ethiopia, and A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent. This last book was an account of his work during World War II, which involved espionage and the smuggling of arms to French resistance groups in German-occupied Morocco under the guise of anthropological fieldwork, a practice generally condemned by working anthropologists today, in the context of 21st century science ethics. During this time, he worked in the United States Office of Strategic Services. Coon did physical anthropological studies abroad. He studied Albanians from 1929-1930, he traveled to Ethiopia for research in 1933, and in Arabia, North Africa and the Balkans, he worked on sites from 1925 to 1939 and discovered a Neanderthal on a site in 1939. In 1948, Coon left Harvard to take up a position as Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, which had an excellent museum attached to it. Throughout the 1950s he produced a series of academic papers, as well as many popular books for the general reader, the most notable being The Story of Man (1954). Coon's own interest was in attempting to use Darwin's theory of natural selection to explain the differing physical characteristics of various racial groups. From 1954-1957, Coon did photography work for the United States Air Force. He photographed areas where US planes might be attacked. This led him to travel throughout Korea, Ceylon, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Taiwan, Nepal, Sikkim, and the Philippines. </a> [edit] Racial theories Coon hypothesized that different racial types fought for domination and annihilation of other types. He asserted that Europe was the refined product of a long history of racial progression. He stated that historically "different strains in one population have showed differential survival values and often one has reemerged at the expense of others (in Europeans)", in The Races of Europe, The White Race and the New World.<a href="http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Carleton_Coon#_note-racesofeurope" target="_blank">[3] He also stated that the "maximum survival" of Europeans was increased by their replacement of the indigenous peoples of the New World.[3] He asserted the history of the White race to have involved "racial survivals" of the different White subraces.[4] In his book The Races of Europe, The White Race and the New World, he uses the term "Caucasoid" and "White race" synonymously. In his introduction he states the concern (of his book), "the somatic character of peoples belonging to the white race". Also, this can be seen in his first chapter, "Introduction to the Historical Study of the White Race" and his ending chapter, "The White Race and the New World".[5] He considered the European racial type to be a subrace of the Caucasoid race which warranted more study. In other sections of The Races of Europe he mentions people to be "European in racial type" and having a "European racial element"[6] He advised that the study of some major versions of European racial types was sadly lacking compared with other typologies, "For many years physical anthropologists have found it more amusing to travel to distant lands and to measure small remnants of little known or romantic peoples than to tackle the drudgery of a systematic study of their own compatriots. For that reason the sections in the present book which deal with the Lapps, the Arabs, the Berbers, the Tajiks, and the Ghegs may appear more fully and more lucidly treated than those which deal with the French, the Hungarians, the Czechs, or the English. What is needed more than anything else in this respect is a thoroughgoing study of the inhabitants of the principal and most powerful nations of Europe."[3] Main article: Multi-regional originCarleton Coon believed Whites followed a separate evolutionary path from other humans. He believed "The earliest Homo sapiens known, as represented by several examples from Europe and Africa, was an ancestral long-headed white man of short stature and moderately great brain size." and "the negro group probably evolved parallel to the white strain". (The Races of Europe, Chapter II) Coon hypothesized that modern humans, Homo sapiens, arose five separate times from Homo erectus in five separate places, "as each subspecies, living in its own territory, passed a critical threshold from a more brutal to a more sapient state". Discovery of a possible hybrid Homo sapiens X neanderthalensis fossil child at the Abrigo do Lagar Velho rock-shelter site in Portugal in 1999 raised hopes of rehabilitating the Multiregional hypothesis of which Coon was a proponent, but these hopes have been criticized in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.[7] Carleton Coon believed some races were less evolved than others. For example, he considered the Lapps of Northern Europe to represent a transitional Mongoloid race, or a mix of the Nordic subrace and the Mongoloids. He hypothesized that if they were indeed a transitional Mongoloid, then they have retained their brachycephalization from a previous stage in evolution but have the blondism of the higher Caucasoid stage of evoluion.[8] He also believed some races reached the Homo Sapiens stage in evolution before others, resulting in the higher degree of civilization among some races.[9] He considered the Mongoloid race and the Caucasoid race to be racially superior to the Australoid, Capoid and Congoid races.[10] One page in Coon's book contrasted a picture of an Australian Aborigine called "Topsy" with a Chinese professor, and was captioned "The Alpha and the Omega"). Template:Cquote In 1962, he published his magnum opus The Origin of Races. Unfortunately for Coon, physical anthropology had changed greatly since his time as an undergraduate at Harvard. Contemporary researchers such as Sherwood Washburn and Ashley Montagu were heavily influenced by a Boasian revolt against typological racial thinking. The human species was now seen as a continuous serial progression of populations rather than the five parallel genetically distinct races. The 1960s were a controversial time for racial theories, and Carleton Putnam suggested that Coon's work, among others, justified racial segregation. Coon stepped down as President of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in disgust after the association voted to censure Putnam's book Race and Reason: A Yankee view.[11] Coon continued to write and defend his work. He died on June 3, 1981, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Template:Carleton S. Coon Racial Definitions </a> [edit] Brief overview of The Races of Europe<a href="http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Carleton_Coon#_note-racesofeurope" target="_blank">[3] Coon's book concludes the following: The White race is of dual origin consisting of Upper Paleolithic (mixture of sapiens and neandertals) types and Mediterranean (purely sapiens) types. The Upper Paleolithic peoples are the truly indigenous peoples of Europe. Mediterraneans invaded Europe in large numbers during the Neolithic period and settled there. The racial situation in Europe today may be explained as a mixture of Upper Paleolithic survivors and Mediterraneans. When reduced Upper Paleolithic survivors and Mediterraneans mix, then occurs the process of dinarization which produces a hybrid with non-intermediate features. The White race encompasses the regions of Europe, the Middle East, the South Asia and North Africa. The Nordic race is part of the Mediterranean racial stock, being a mixture of Corded and Danubian Mediterraneans. </a> [edit] Falling into disfavor Coon showed discontent over the decision of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists to censure "Race and Reason", which caused him to resign. His racial theories were sidelined by the rise of <a href="http://en.metapedia.org/w/index.php?title=Boasian_anthropology&action=edit" target="_blank">Boasian anthropology which denied race as a valid concept, promoted by Jews like Franz Boas and Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, Lieberman and others. In his autobiography, Coon says he was offered the chance to write an article about race relations, but he was neither paid nor was the article published because he wrote that races had a natural inclination for separatism.Template:Fact </a> [edit] Works by Carleton S. Coon <a href="http://en.metapedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Origin_of_Races&action=edit" target="_blank">The Origin of Races (1962) The Story of Man (1954) Culture Wars and the Global Village: A Diplomat's Perspective The Races of Europe (1939) Races: A Study of the Problems of Race Formation in Man The Hunting Peoples Anthropology A to Z (1963) Living Races of Man (1965) Steven Caves: Archaeological Exploration in the Middle East Adventures and Discoveries: The Autobiography of Carleton S. Coon (1981) Mountains of Giants: A Racial and Cultural Study of the North Albanian Mountain Ghegs Yengema Cave Report (his work in Sierra Leone) Caravan: the Story of the Middle East (1958) A North Africa Story (1980) Racial Adaptations (1982) Flesh of the Wild Ox (1932) The Riffian (1933) Adventures and Discoveries: The Autobiography of Carleton S. Coon </a> [edit] Quotes <a href="http://en.metapedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Wikiquote&action=edit" target="_blank">Template:Wikiquote "It is the retention by twentieth-century, Atom-Age men of the Neolithic point of view that says: You stay in your village and I will stay in mine. If your sheep eat our grass we will kill you, or we may kill you anyhow to get all the grass for our own sheep. Anyone who tries to make us change our ways is a witch and we will kill him. Keep out of our village." —The Story of Man, 1954, page 376 </a> [edit] Further reading and sources <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lagarvelho.html" target="_blank">The Lagar Velho 1 Skeleton Hybrid Humans? Archaeological Institute of America Volume 52 Number 4, July/August 1999 by Spencer P.M. Harrington [1] Carleton Steven Coons, 23 June 1904 - 3 June 1981 (obituary). 1989. W.W. Howells in Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, v.58 108-131. Two Views of Coon's Origin of Races with Comments by Coon and Replies. 1963. Theodosius Dobzhansky; Ashley Montagu; C. S. Coon in Current Anthropology, Vol. 4, No. 4. (Oct., 1963), pp. 360-367. In Ways Unacademical: The Reception of Carleton S. Coon's "The Origin of Races" by JOHN P. JACKSON JR. Journal of the History of Biology 34: 247–285, 2001. Retrieved 17 November 2006. The Races of Europe (1939) by Carleton S. Coon - physical anthropological information on the indigenous peoples of Europe.[3]</a> [edit] External link <a href="http://www.nmnh.si.edu/naa/guide/_c3.htm#jrg446" target="_blank">Carleton Stevens Coon Papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution</a> [edit] References <LI id=_note-0><a href="http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Carleton_Coon#_ref-0" target="_blank">^ Coon, Carleton S. (1962) . The Origins of Races. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. <LI id=_note-1>^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2005. <LI id=_note-racesofeurope>^ a b c d e The Races of Europe by Carleton Coon 1939 (Hosted by the Society for Nordish Physical Anthropology) <LI id=_note-2>^ The Races of Europe, Chapter II, Section 12 <LI id=_note-3>^ The Races of Europe, Chapter XIII, Section 2 <LI id=_note-4>^ The Races of Europe, Chapter 7, Section 2 <LI id=_note-5>^ Hominids and hybrids: The place of Neanderthals in human evolution, Vol. 96, Issue 13, 7117-7119, June 22, 1999 <LI id=_note-6>^ Coon, Carleton S. The Races of Europe. Racial Classification within the White Family. August 11, 2006. <http://www.snpa.nordish.net/chapter-VIII6.htm>. <LI id=_note-7>^ Coon, Carleton S. (1962) . The Origins of Races. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. <LI id=_note-8>^ Bindon, Jim. University of Alabama. Department of Anthropology. August 23, 2006. <http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant275/pre...arion%20garn%22>. ^ Academic American Encyclopedia (vol. 5, p.271) . Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Incorporated (1995).</a> [<A title="Edit section: See also" href="http://en.metapedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carleton_Coon&action=edit§ion=10">edit] See also List of racial theoristsRaces Caucasoids, Indo-Europeans(Aryans), Negroids, Mongoloids, American Indians Racial theorists Carleton Coon, Lothrop Stoddard, Madison Grant, William Ripley, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Arthur de Gobineau Differences among races Race and crime, Race and intelligence, Race and social behavior, Race and Psychopathic Personality Race scientists and scholars Richard Lynn, John Philippe Rushton, Jared Taylor Organizations studying races American Renaissance, Pioneer Fund Evolution of races Genetics, Human evolution, Charles Darwin Edited November 11, 2007 by John Bevilaqua Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 (edited) June 6, 1981 CARLETON S. COON IS DEAD AT 76; PIONEER IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY By HAROLD M. SCHMECK JR. Dr. Carleton S. Coon, one of the last of the great general anthropologists, died Wednesday at his home in Gloucester, Mass. He was 76 years old. In a career that began in the mid-1920's and was still in progress at his death, Dr. Coon made important contributions to most of the major subdivisions of modern anthropology. Sometimes his field investigations in the social anthropology of contemporary societies were conducted virtually in conjunction with archeological and biological studies of ancient man. In addition to writing scientific papers and monographs, he was the author of novels and textbooks on anthropology and books for a more general readership on the development of humanity from the forerunners of the species to the first primitive agricultural societies. To the public, he was probably best known for ''The Story of Man,'' published in 1954, and ''The Seven Caves,'' an account of archeological explorations in the Middle East, published in 1957. Autobiography to Be Published His autobiography, ''Adventures and Discoveries,'' is to be published this summer by Prentice-Hall. In World War II Dr. Coon served in Africa and the Middle East with the Office of Strategic Services. ''A North Africa Story,'' a book on his wartime experiences, was published about a year ago. After the war, in addition to his research work and writing, he appeared as a regular panelist on the CBS television science program ''What in the World?'' In archeology, Dr. Coon made pioneering contributions to the study of human transition from the hunter-gatherer culture to the first agricultural communities. He also did important early work in studying the physical adaptations of humans in such extreme environments as deserts, the Arctic and high altitudes. Basic Anthropology Textbook In social anthropology he wrote one of the basic textbooks, ''A Reader in General Anthropology,'' published in 1948. He was also the author of a definitive monograph on the Rif tribes of Morocco in 1931. Dr. Coon studied contemporary tribal groups in the Middle East, the Patagonia region of South America, and the Hill country of India and often conducted archeological excavations while on those expeditions. He spoke 10 languages including those of some of the isolated tribes that he studied. A deep interest in the origins of race led Dr. Coon to expound a theory that five major races of man differentiated even before the emergence of homo sapiens as the dominant human species. This theory was never widely accepted by scientists and is now largely ignored. Dr. Coon's theory was sometimes used by racists to support their views, but he explicitly repudiated their contentions in the second edition of ''The Story of Man'' in 1962. Carleton Stevens Coon was born June 23, 1904, in Wakefield, Mass., the son of John Lewis and Bessie Carleton Coon. He was graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., in 1921, and received a bachelor of arts degree magna cum laude from Harvard in 1925 and M.A. and Ph.D.'s in anthropology there in 1928. Was on Harvard Faculty Dr. Coon was on the Harvard faculty and was involved in both teaching and field research until he entered the military in World War II. In 1948, Dr. Coon became curator of ethnology at the University Museum in Philadelphia and professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He retired from these positions in the early 1960's and moved to Gloucester, where he had a summer home. He kept an office there and continued his research and writing. He maintained an affiliation with the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology at Harvard until his death. Dr. Coon was married to the former Mary Goodale in 1926. They had two sons, Carleton S. Coon Jr., who is now Ambassador to Nepal, and Charles A. Coon, a real estate broker in Gloucester. The first marriage ended in divorce and in 1945 he married Lisa Dougherty Geddes, who drew the maps for many of his books. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his wartime services and the Viking Medal in Physical Anthropology in 1952. He was also named a Membre D'Honneur of the Association de la Liberation Fran,caise du 8 Novembre 1942. Dr. Coon was a member of several scientific associations and the Congregational Church. In addition to his wife and two sons, Dr. Coon is survived by six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Edited November 11, 2007 by John Bevilaqua Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Download a free Carleton S. Coon book... http://www.snpa.nordish.net/TRoE.zip This guy was a true, Nordic, White Supremacist in the mold of Wickliffe P. Draper himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 10, 2007 Author Share Posted November 10, 2007 Pioneer Fund Professors of Hate and the Racial Segregation of Schools November 30, 2006 Jared Taylor On Carleton Putnam’s Race And Reason [Peter Brimelow writes: Carleton Putnam, already very old, was living in retirement in Northern Virginia when I was on the staff of the U.S. Senate in 1979. A trickle of staffers, including some surprising names, would visit this forgotten but remarkable man—airline entrepreneur, scholarly biographer, brilliant polemicist. American Renaissance has just rescued and republished his most famous pamphlet. We post here Jared Taylor’s introduction.] By Jared Taylor [Recently by Jared Taylor: American Renaissance’s 2006 Conference: A Gathering of Thought Criminals] When I was growing up, one of the books in my father’s library was a slim, grey volume called Race and Reason: A Yankee View. I must have glanced at it dozens of times when I was searching the shelves, but I do not think I ever took it in my hands. My father never mentioned it, and I have no recollection of even wondering what the book was about, but I remembered its title. I did not see another copy of Race and Reason until I was in my 30s, when it and its sequel, Race and Reality: a Search for Solutions, became important milestones in my slow divorce from conventional views of race. My life might have taken quite a different turn if I had read that old copy 20 years earlier. The powerful, unorthodox arguments in this book made me wonder why it was even in my father’s library. He was an egalitarian with no special interest in race, and it must have been the only racially heterodox book he owned. When I asked him about it, he told me his father sent it to him in the 1960s, that my grandfather had been so impressed by the author, Carleton Putnam, that he bought copies of Race and Reason and sent them to all his children. My grandfather, therefore, was part of the great wave of Southern resistance to the racial revolution of the 1950s and ’60s. Learning that my grandfather admired Putnam made me feel closer to both men. Today, at a time when almost no one openly opposes the goals and assumptions of the Civil Rights movement, it is common to think there was no thoughtful, reasoned opposition to across-the-board integration. Today, anyone who fought to maintain Southern traditions can be dismissed as a frothing bigot. The images of resistance are always the same: whites snarling at the black students at Little Rock High School, officers clubbing blacks on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, police dogs snapping at demonstrators in Birmingham. This caricature completely ignores the movements that sprang up to defend Southern traditions in courts, state houses, activist organizations, and in the pages of scientific journals. Groups now known mostly to scholars—the International Society for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics, the Northern League, the Citizens Councils of America—attracted top scientists and leaders of their communities. This resistance, which undoubtedly represented the majority of Southern whites, had no more dedicated or eloquent a spokesman than Carleton Putnam. Putnam, a proud Yankee descended from Revolutionary War general Israel Putnam, graduated from Princeton in 1924 and from Columbia Law School in 1932. Instead of practicing law, he built up a small California airline into an important carrier, Chicago and Southern, which became part of Delta Airlines in 1953. He served as chairman and remained on the board until his death in 1998. Putnam was an admirer of Theodore Roosevelt, and in 1958 completed the first of a projected three-volume biography. Despite critical acclaim, Putnam set aside Roosevelt for something more important: fighting the racial egalitarianism represented by the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v Board of Education. Putnam had no illusions about race, and recognized that forced integration would eventually displace whites and erode their civilization. Putnam first stepped into the racial fray after Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to integrate Little Rock High School in 1957. His "Open Letter to the President" was immensely popular in the South, where it was reprinted in many newspapers. The Citizens Councils distributed it as a pamphlet, and it even appeared as a paid advertisement in the New York Times. [VDARE.com note: A great many facts about this era are available in a paper by John P. Jackson Jr. which is somewhat hostile to Putnam's thesis, of course, but otherwise informative. “In Ways Unacademical”: The Reception of Carleton S. Coon’s The Origin of Races, [PDF] Journal of the History of Biology 34: 247–285, 2001] In 1961, he followed this success with Race and Reason, which remains to this day one of the most lucid, persuasive treatments of racial differences and what they mean for society. Much of the work of the Southern resistance of 1960s is dated and mainly of historical interest; not Race and Reason. The calm, authoritative arguments that moved my grandfather are as persuasive as they ever were. Putnam never overstated his case or drove his conclusions beyond what the scientific data permit. His insights and parallels are as fresh today as they were 45 years ago. It is no wonder that the book was a tremendous success. Although it is difficult to imagine such a thing today, Race and Reason was made part of the high school curricula in Mississippi and Virginia. Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi even declared October 26, 1961 "Race and Reason Day," and invited Putnam to Jackson to give a major address. Putnam emphasized to his audience of supporters and politicians that it was futile to defend Southern traditions in the name of states’ rights; that the race question had to be approached in straightforward, biological terms. It was science, not the Constitution, that would protect whites from miscegenation and chaos. Putnam was such a force, and had so obviously captured the mood of the South, that academic associations felt compelled to condemn him. The first to do so was the American Anthropological Association which, in November, 1961, voted 192-0 to " repudiate statements now appearing in the United States that Negroes are biologically and in inherent mental ability inferior to whites." Putnam was the clear but unnamed target. The next year the American Association of Physical Anthropologists voted to "deplore the misuse of science to advocate racism." President of the association and chairman of the meeting that passed the vote was Carleton Coon, who taught at University of Pennsylvania and was the author of The Story of Man and The Origin of Races. He and Putnam were kinsmen, and agreed on many matters. Coon asked how many of the assembled anthropologists had read the book they were condemning; only one raised his hand. Later Coon wrote: "There they were, some of them old and trusted friends, apparently as brainwashed as Pavlov’s puppies . . . . I told my fellow members that I would no longer preside over such a craven lot, and resigned from the presidency." From this point, Putnam threw himself into a campaign to overturn the Brown decision. In his view, the Supreme Court had based its decision on faulty information: blacks and white were not equal, and segregation did not harm blacks psychologically. He was convinced that if the facts were put before federal judges, they would use their talent for sifting the evidence, and expose the Supreme Court’s error. Accordingly, he played a key behind-the-scenes role in the 1963 case of Stell v. Savannah-Chatham Board of Education, which did exactly what Putnam had hoped for: a blue-ribbon panel of scientists—Henry Garrett, Frank McGurk, Robert Osborne, Ernest van den Haag, Wesley Critz George, and Robert Kuttner, under the direction of Georgia lawyer R. Carter Pittman—presented an overwhelming biological and sociological case for segregated schools. Judge Frank M. Scarlett duly found that the Brown decision had been based on incorrect facts, and that it was a reasonable use of state power to separate students on the basis of race. The NAACP appealed the decision to the Fifth Circuit, which declined to join Judge Scarlett in overturning a Supreme Court decision. The appellate court noted that the Supreme Court had already found segregated schools unconstitutional, and told Judge Scarlett that his job was to determine whether schools were segregated and to integrate them if they were, not to justify segregation. The Pittman team appealed this reversal to the Supreme Court, which refused to intervene. The challenge to Brown that had begun so hopefully was dead. This was a great disappointment to Putnam. "The appeal to truth, the levy upon honor, had failed," he remarked. Since judges had shirked their duty, he concluded, it would be up to scientists to put the facts before the public. He spent much of the rest of his life in correspondence with scientists and other prominent figures, trying to awaken them to racial differences. In 1967 Putnam wrote a companion volume to Race and Reason, entitled Race and Reality: a Search for Solutions. This, too, was popular in the South, but by then everything Putnam held dear was disintegrating. With the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, America had lurched violently into racial folly from which it has yet to recover. Already in Race and Reason, Putnam had recognized the power of modern mass media. He warned against "those who influence public opinion most," pointing out that "such men are responsible to no electorate and can keep on slanting news and warping the public mind long after the statesman in a similar position would have been retired." He wrote with the express purpose of counteracting this menace. Ultimately, it was Carleton Putnam’s love for the nation and civilization of his forebears that drove him to take up an unpopular cause, and this love shines through the pages of his book. He had no disdain for other races; only the desire that his beloved country continue on the path that had made it great. He was convinced—and helped convince me—that to turn our backs on the wisdom of our ancestors is to invite catastrophe. "To alter the foundations on which a house is built is a doubtful way to preserve it," he wrote. "Let us continue building, let us extend the foundations, but let us not change rock to sand." (VDARE.COM note: Click here to purchase Race and Reason: A Yankee View through American Renaissance; here through Amazon.com) Jared Taylor (email him) is editor of American Renaissance and the author of Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America. (For Peter Brimelow’s review, click here.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Peter Tompkins, Carleton Coon and Operation Torch... http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/tompkins-obit Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 24th, 2007 Hot on the heels of the death of superspy E. Howard Hunt (whose first wife had a magical middle name, Wetzel), now comes word of the passing of a Fortean writer of some note who also was a spy, Peter Tompkins. Peter Tompkins, 87, a former journalist, World War II spy and best-selling author, died this morning, Wednesday, January 24, 2007, at his home in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Among those interested in the unknown, Tompkins will be remembered for several books about pyramids and other “mysteries,” the most famous being The Secret Life of Plants. He also had several friends (with varied OSS and other intelligence backgrounds) who were interested and involved in the backstory to the search for the Yeti. His son, Ptolemy Tompkins, once wrote that Tompkins home frequently visited by “Yeti hunters.” I think I know some of those Ptolemy was talking about. Peter Tompkins was born April 19, 1919, in Athens, Georgia, but spent much of his childhood in Rome after his parents moved there to study art. His father was a sculptor; his mother, a painter. Schooled in France, Italy and Switzerland, Tompkins returned to the United States to attend Harvard College, but left early to become a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and NBC. In 1941, Tompkins was recruited by “Wild Bill” Donovan to join the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. He served as deputy to the chief of psychological warfare during the British-American invasion of north Africa in November 1942, as part of Operation Torch. Guess who was the head of Operation Torch? None other than someone who was to become one of Tom Slick’s earliest Yeti consultants, Carleton Coon, who was also a friend of Ivan T. Sanderson (who was in British naval intelligence, as was Ian Fleming). Coon was to go on to be a famed professor of anthropology after World War II, who wrote and spoke about Yeti and Bigfoot. Coon died on June 6, 1981, soon after he granted me an interview shortly before his death at his seaside home in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Within espionage circles Coon’s work for the OSS was legendary. One of the first missions of Donovan’s spy organization was Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, and Coon worked with Peter Tompkins. Carleton Coon was in charge of Torch and the affair was such a success that it insured the future of the OSS. OSS’s leadership, who were later connected to the Central Intelligence Group, then the Central Intelligence Agency, would never forget Coon for his contributions to the budding American intelligence community. Tompkins too became linked to spy work for several years and was thought of very highly within the OSS. With paramilitary, parachute and secret radio training, Tompkins was sent to Salerno in southwestern Italy in 1943 to infiltrate agents into enemy territory. Tompkins spent five months filing intelligence by secret radio and promoting partisan activities before being transferred to Berlin to spearhead OSS activities there. He was OSS Officer in Charge, Rome Area, and after the liberation of Italy moved on to spy in France and Germany. He resigned from the OSS in 1946 and declined to join the CIA, unlike Carleton and the former OSS agent George Agogino who would go on to be associated with the CIA and the Yeti search. After the war, Tompkins was hired by CSB newsman Edward R. Murrow to cover the 1948 elections in Italy. Later, in 1954, he returned to New York to join CBS-TV as writer-director of hour-long weekly features: “Adventure” and “The American Week.” Tompkins later wrote mainstream magazine articles and numerous books, including The Secret Life of Plants (written with another shadowy figure, Christopher Bird, with whom he wrote other works), Secrets of the Great Pyramid, Mysteries of the Mexican Pyramids, The Magic of Obelisks, A Spy in Rome and Italy Betrayed. Here’s hoping Peter Tompkins is solving some of those mysteries now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Operation Torch run by Carleton S. Coon and Peter Tompkins... From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia • Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia •Jump to: navigation, search Operation Torch Part of World War II, North African Campaign Allied troops hit the beaches near Algiers, behind a large American flag (left). Date 8 November 1942 Location Morocco, Algeria Result Allied victory Combatants United States United Kingdom Free French Forces Vichy France Commanders Dwight Eisenhower Andrew Cunningham François Darlan Strength 73,500 60,000 Casualties 479+ dead 720 wounded 1,346+ dead 1,997 wounded [show]v • d • eMediterranean Campaign Mers-el-Kébir – Calabria – Spada – Taranto – Spartivento – Matapan – Tarigo – Crete – Duisburg – Bon – 1st Sirte – 2nd Sirte – Harpoon – Vigorous – Pedestal –Agreement – Torch – Toulon – Skerki – Sicily – Sinking of Roma [show]v • d • eNorth African campaign Libya & Egypt – Torch – Tunisia Operation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast) was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started 8 November 1942. The Soviet Union had pressed the United States and Britain to start operations in Europe, and open a second front to reduce the pressure of German forces on the Russian troops. While the American commanders favored Operation Sledgehammer, landing in Occupied Europe as soon as possible, the British commanders believed that such a course would end in disaster. An attack on French North Africa was proposed instead, which would clear the Axis Powers from North Africa, improve naval control of the Mediterranean Sea, and prepare an invasion of Southern Europe in 1943. American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt suspected the African operation would rule out an invasion of Europe in 1943 but agreed to support British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Contents [hide] 1 Background 1.1 Preliminary contact 2 Battle 2.1 Casablanca 2.2 Oran 2.2.1 Airborne landings 2.3 Algiers 2.3.1 Resistance and coup 2.3.2 Invasion 3 Aftermath 3.1 Political results 3.2 Military consequences 4 See also 5 References 5.1 War Official reports 5.2 War correspondent report 5.3 Academic work 5.4 General 6 External links [edit] Background The Allies planned an Anglo-American invasion of northwestern Africa — Morocco and Algeria, territory nominally in the hands of the Vichy French government. The Vichy French had around 60,000 soldiers in Morocco as well as coastal artillery, a handful of tanks and aircraft, with ten or so warships and 11 submarines at Casablanca. The Allies believed that the Vichy French forces would not fight, partly because of information supplied by American Consul Robert Daniel Murphy in Algiers. However they harboured suspicions that the Vichy French navy would bear a grudge over the British action at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940. An assessment of the sympathies of the French forces in North Africa was essential, and plans were made to secure their cooperation, rather than resistance. The Allies intended to advance rapidly eastwards into Tunisia and attack the German forces in the rear. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was given command of the operation, and he set up his headquarters in Gibraltar. The Allied Naval Commander of the Expeditionary Force would be Sir Andrew Cunningham; his deputy was Vice-Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay; Ramsay would plan the landing effort. [edit] Preliminary contact To gauge the feeling of the Vichy French forces, Murphy was appointed to the American consulate in Algeria. His covert mission was to determine the mood of the French forces and to make contact with elements that might support an Allied invasion. He succeeded in contacting several French officers, including General Charles Emmanuel Mast, the French commander-in-chief in Algiers. These officers were willing to support the Allies, but asked for a clandestine conference with a senior Allied General in Algeria. Major-General Mark W. Clark, one of Eisenhower's senior commanders, was dispatched to Cherchell in Algeria aboard HMS Seraph, a submarine, and met with these Vichy French officers on 21 October 1942. The Allies also succeeded, with resistance help, in slipping French General Henri Giraud out of Vichy France on Seraph, intending to offer him the post of commander in chief of French forces in North Africa after the invasion. However, Giraud would take no position lower than commander in chief of all the invading forces, a job already given to Eisenhower. When he was refused, he decided to remain "a spectator in this affair." [edit] Battle Map of Operation TorchThe Allies planned a three-pronged amphibious landing to seize the key ports and airports of Morocco and Algeria simultaneously, targeting Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. The Western Task Force (aimed at Casablanca) comprised American units, with Major General George Patton in command and Rear Admiral Henry K. Hewitt heading the naval operations. This Western Task Force consisted of the U.S. 2nd Armored Division, the U.S. 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions—35,000 troops in all. They were transported directly from the United States. The Center Task Force, aimed at Oran, included the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, 1st Infantry Division, and the 1st Armored Division—18,500 troops. They sailed from Britain and were commanded by Major-General Lloyd Fredendall, the naval forces being commanded by Commodore Thomas Troubridge. The Eastern Task force, aimed at Algiers, was commanded by Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson and consisted of the British 78th and the US 34th Infantry Divisions - 20,000 troops. Naval forces were commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Harold Burrough. Aerial operations were split into two, east of Cape Tenez in Algeria, with British aircraft under Air Marshal Sir William Welsh and west of Cape Tenez, all American aircraft under Major General Jimmy Doolittle, under the direct command of General Patton. [edit] Casablanca The Western Task Force landed before daybreak on 8 November 1942, at three points: Safi, Morocco (Operation Blackstone), Fedala, Morocco (Operation Brushwood), and Mehdiya-Port Lyautey, Morocco (Operation Goalpost). Because it was hoped that the French would not resist, there was no preliminary bombardment. During the previous night, a coup attempt had been made by French General Bethouard, whose forces surrounded the villa of pro-Vichy General Auguste Paul Nogues. However, Nogues managed to telephone nearby Vichy forces which prevented Nogues's capture. In addition, the coup attempt alerted Nogues to the likelihood of an impending Allied amphibious invasion, and he immediately bolstered Vichy coastal defenses. At Safi, Morocco, the landings were mostly successful. The landings were initially conducted without covering fire, hoping that the French might not resist at all. However, once the Allied transports were fired on by Vichy coastal batteries, the Allied ships returned fire. By the time Allied commanding General Harmon arrived, French snipers had pinned the assault troops (most of whom were in combat for the first time) on Safi's beaches. Most of the landings occurred behind schedule; air support from the carriers destroyed a French convoy of trucks intended to reinforce the defenses. Safi surrendered on the afternoon of 8 November. By 10 November, the remaining defenders were pinned down, and the bulk of Harmon's forces raced to join the siege of Casablanca. Around Port-Lyautey, Morocco, the landing troops were uncertain of their position, and the second wave was delayed. This gave the Vichy defenders time to organize resistance, and the remaining landings were conducted under artillery bombardment. With the assistance of air support from the carriers, the troops pushed ahead, and the objectives were captured. Around Fedala, Morocco (the largest landing with 19,000 men), weather disrupted the landings. The landing beaches again came under Vichy fire after daybreak. U.S. General Patton landed at 08:00, and the beachheads were secured by later in the day. The Americans surrounded the port of Casablanca by 10 November, and the city surrendered an hour before the final assault was due to take place. Patton entered the city unopposed. In general, Vichy French resistance in Morocco (apart from the coastal batteries) was sporadic. A strong squadron of the Vichy French navy at Casablanca, including the unfinished battleship Jean Bart, along with numerous cruisers and destroyers, made a sortie to oppose the landings but was defeated by superior firepower. Many French ships were lost, mainly running aground, and those that survived joined the Allies. [edit] Oran The Center Task Force was split between three beaches, two west of Oran and one east. Landings at the westernmost beach were delayed because of a French convoy which appeared while the minesweepers were clearing a path. Some delay and confusion, and damage to landing ships, was caused by the unexpected shallowness of water and sandbars; although periscope observations had been carried out, no reconnaissance parties had been landed on the beaches to determine local conditions. This was in contrast to later amphibious assaults, such as Operation Overlord, in which considerable weight was given to pre-invasion reconnaissance. The U.S. 1st Ranger Battalion landed east of Oran and quickly captured the shore battery at Arzew. An attempt was made to land U.S. infantry at the harbour directly, in order to quickly prevent destruction of the port facilities and scuttling of ships. The operation, code named Operation Reservist, failed as the two destroyers were shattered by crossfire from the French vessels there. The French Navy broke from the harbour and attacked the Allied invasion fleet but were sunk or driven ashore. French batteries and the invasion fleet exchanged fire throughout 8 November and 9 November, with French troops defending Oran and the surrounding area stubbornly. Heavy fire from the British battleships brought about the surrender on 9 November. [edit] Airborne landings Torch was the first major airborne assault carried out by the United States in World War II. The U.S. 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion flew all the way from Britain, over Spain, intending to drop near Oran and capture airfields at Tafarquay and Youk-Les-Bains. The drop was marked by navigational and communication problems with French forces on the ground, and the extreme range forced several aircraft to land in the desert. Nevertheless, both airports were captured, despite the 509th being widely scattered. [edit] Algiers [edit] Resistance and coup As agreed at Cherchell, starting at midnight and continuing through the early hours of 8 November, as the invasion troops were approaching the shore, a group of 400 French resistance under the command of Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie and José Aboulker staged a coup in the city of Algiers. They seized key targets, including the telephone exchange, radio station, governor's house and the headquarters of 19th Corps. Robert Murphy then drove to the residence of General Alphonse Juin, the senior French Army officer in North Africa, with some resistance fighters. While the resistance surrounded the house, making Juin effectively a prisoner, Murphy attempted to persuade him to side with the Allies. However he was treated to a surprise: Admiral François Darlan, the commander of all Vichy French forces, was in Algiers on a private visit. Juin insisted on contacting Darlan, and Murphy was unable to persuade either to side with the Allies. In the early morning the Vichy Gendarmerie arrived and released Juin and Darlan. During the day Vichy troops lost their time retaking almost all the positions seized by the resistance during the coup, allowing the Allied landed forces to encircle Algiers with practically no opposition. [edit] Invasion The invasion was led by the U.S. 34th Infantry with one brigade of the British 78th, the other acting as reserve. Major-General Charles W. Ryder, commander of the 34th, was given explicit command of the first wave, since it was believed that the French would react more favourably to an American commander than a British one. The landings were split between three beaches—two west of Algiers and one east. Some landings went to the wrong beaches, but this was immaterial since there was practically no French opposition; coastal batteries had been neutralized by French resistance. One French commander openly welcomed the Allies. The only fighting took place in the port of Algiers itself, where in Operation Terminal two British destroyers attempted to land a party of U.S. Rangers directly onto the dock, in order to prevent the French destroying port facilities and scuttling ships. Heavy artillery fire prevented one from landing, and drove the other from the docks after a few hours, leaving 250 of the infantry behind. The landing troops pushed quickly inland; General Juin surrendered the city to the Allies at 18:00. [edit] Aftermath [edit] Political results It quickly became clear that Henri Giraud lacked the authority to take command of the French forces. Moreover, he preferred to wait in Gibraltar for the result of the landing. Eisenhower, with the support of Roosevelt and Churchill, therefore made agreements with Admiral François Darlan that he would be given control if he joined the Allied side. This meant the Vichy regime was maintained in North Africa, with its Hitlerian laws and concentration camps for opponents. Consequently, Charles de Gaulle of the Free French, French resistants, along with Allied war correspondents, all responded with fury. The problem did not vanish when a local French anti-Nazi, Ferdinand Bonnier de la Chapelle, murdered Darlan on December 24, 1942: Giraud was then installed in his place. He maintained the Vichy regime and arrested the Algiers resistance leaders of 8 November, without any opposition from Murphy. When Adolf Hitler found out what Admiral Darlan intended to do, he immediately ordered the occupation of Vichy France and reinforced German forces in Africa. The Darlan-Giraud authority, initially resolutely Vichyist, was gradually forced to take part in the war effort against Nazi Germany, to democratize, to eliminate its principal head Vichyist rulers, and to eventually merge with the French national Committee of London. Months later, the "Comité Français de la Libération Nationale" (CFLN) born from this fusion passed under the authority of General de Gaulle (despite opposition from President Roosevelt), becoming the U.S.- and British-recognized government of France. [edit] Military consequences Main article: Tunisia Campaign As a result of the German occupation of Vichy France and their failed attempt to capture the interned French fleet at Toulon (Operation Lila), the French Armée d’Afrique sided with the Allies, providing a third corps (XIX Corps) for Anderson. Elsewhere, French warships, such as the battleship Richelieu, rejoined the Allies. On 8 November and 10 November, French Tunisian forces under the command of General Barré left the whole country open to the Germans, withdrawing to the Algerian border. Starting on 14 November, Juin ordered Barré to resist, but he waited until 18 November to begin fighting against the Germans. From then on the Tunisian army fought courageously despite its lack of equipment. The French were quickly helped by British forces. After consolidating in French territory, the Allies struck into Tunisia. Forces in the British 1st Army under Lieutenant General Kenneth Anderson almost reached Tunis before a counterattack at Djedeida by German troops under General Walther Nehring thrust them back. In January 1943, German troops under General Erwin Rommel retreating westwards from Libya reached Tunisia. The British 8th Army in the East, commanded by General Bernard Montgomery, stopped around Tripoli to allow reinforcements to arrive and build up the Allied advantage. In the West the forces of General Anderson came under attack in February at Faïd Pass on 14 January and at Kasserine Pass on 19 January. The Allied forces retreated in disarray until heavy Allied reinforcements blunted the German advance on 22 January. General Harold Alexander arrived in Tunisia in late February to take command. The Germans attacked again in March, eastwards at Medenine on 6 March but were easily repulsed. Rommel counselled Hitler to allow a full retreat to a defensible line but was denied, and on 9 March Rommel left Tunisia to be replaced by Jürgen von Arnim, who had to spread his forces over 100 miles (160 km) of northern Tunisia. These setbacks forced the Allies to consolidate their forces and develop their lines of communication and administration so that they could support a major attack. The 1st Army and the 8th Army then attacked the Germans. Hard fighting followed, but the Allies cut off the Germans from support by naval and air forces between Tunisia and Sicily. On 6 May, as the culmination of Operation Vulcan, the British took Tunis, and American forces reached Bizerte. By 13 May the Axis forces in Tunisia had surrendered. [edit] See also Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski. RMS Mooltan Troopship [edit] References [edit] War Official reports Les Cahiers Français, La part de la Résistance Française dans les évènements d'Afrique du Nord (Official reports of French Resistance Group leaders who seized Algiers on 8 November 1942, to allow allied landing), Commissariat à l'Information of Free French Comité National, London, Aug. 1943. [edit] War correspondent report Melvin K. Whiteleather, Main street's new neighbors, J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, 1945. [edit] Academic work Anderson, Charles R. (1990?). Algeria-French Morocco 8 November 1942-11 November 1942, CMH Online bookshelves: WWII Campaigns. Washington: US Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 72-11. Aboulker, Professeur José; Levisse-Touzé, Christine (2002). "8 novembre 1942 : Les armées américaine et anglaise prennent Alger en quinze heures" (in French). Espoir (n° 133). Breuer, William B. (1985). Operation Torch: The Allied Gamble to Invade North Africa. New York: St.Martins Press. Danan, Professeur Yves Maxime (1963). La vie politique à Alger de 1940 à 1944 (in French). Paris: L.G.D.J.. Funk, Arthur L. (1974). The politics of Torch. University Press of Kansas. Howe, George F. [1957] (1991). North West Africa: Seizing the initiative in the West, CMH Online bookshelves. Washington: US Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 6-1. Levisse-Touzé, Christine (1998). L'Afrique du Nord dans la guerre, 1939-1945 (in French). Paris: Albin Michel. Meyer, Leo J. [1960] (2000). "Chapter 7: The Decision To Invade North Africa (TORCH)", in Greenfield, Kent Roberts: Command Decisions, CMH Online bookshelves. Washington: US Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 72-7. Michel, Henri (1993). Darlan. Paris: Hachette. Moses, Sam (Nov. 2006). At All Costs; How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Mariners Turned the Tide of World War II. Random House. [edit] General Rick Atkinson, An Army at Dawn, Henry Holt, 2002 (ISBN 0-8050-6288-2). [edit] External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Operation TorchThe Decision To Invade North Africa (TORCH) US Army history of the operation A detailed history of 8th November 1942 Combined Ops USS Augusta (CA-31) - Flagship of Operation Torch (Western Naval Task Force) The accord Franco-Américan of Messelmoun (in French) Operation TORCH Planning Exercise by Stephen Sledge (Very detailed) Royal Engineers Museum Royal Engineers and Second World War (Operation Torch) Report of the Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces to the Combined Chief of Staff on Operations in North Africa Operation Torch: Allied Invasion of North Africa article by Williamson Murray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Carleton S Coon invented detonating mule turds during World War II... http://books.google.com/books?id=imz1pPtkq...4#PRA1-PA278,M1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Colonel Edwin A. Walker and Darby's Rangers... CHAPTER 2 Special Operations in the Mediterranean The opening blows against Hitler's Fortress Europe came not in Western Europe but in the Mediterranean. Once the United States had entered the war, American leaders pressed for a direct cross-channel assault against the Continent. Through 1942 and much of 1943, however, they yielded to British concerns over Allied readiness for such a large step and accepted less ambitious endeavors against the "soft underbelly" of Axis-dominated Europe. The soft underbelly proved to be a hard shell as Allied armies, after driving the Germans and Italians from North Africa and Sicily, made slow progress against a tenacious German defense in the wet climate and rugged highlands of the Italian peninsula. In this theater of sandy wastes and jagged mountains bordered by the placid waters of the Mediterranean, American forces discovered both a need and a favorable environment for their first major special operations of the war. Darby's Rangers While the U.S. Army's Rangers would perform several special operations in the course of the war, they traced their origins to a provisional formation created by the chief of staff to remedy the Army's lack of combat experience during the early months of 1942. When Marshall visited Great Britain in April to urge a cross-channel invasion, he met Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the charismatic head of British Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ), and later visited COHQ's commando training center in Scotland. In Mountbatten's commando raiding program, Marshall perceived a means of providing American soldiers with at least some combat experience. At his direction Col. Lucian K. Truscott met with British lead- Page 12 ers to determine the best way of fulfilling this objective. Subsequently, Truscott recommended the formation of an American commando unit which would bear the designation Ranger. Under Truscott's concept, most personnel would join the new Ranger force on a temporary basis and then return to their parent units after several months of field operations. Marshall approved the proposals, and on 19 June 1942, Truscott officially activated the 1st Ranger Battalion in Northern Ireland.1 As commander of the battalion, Truscott selected Capt. William O. Darby. At the time Darby was serving as an aide to Maj. Gen. Russell P. Hartle, the commander of American forces in Northern Ireland. When Hartle recommended Darby for the command of the new unit, Truscott was receptive, having found the young officer to be "outstanding in appearance, possessed of a most attractive personality, . . . keen, intelligent, and filled with enthusiasm." 2 His judgment proved accurate. The 31-year-old Darby, a graduate of West Point in 1933, soon demonstrated an innate ability to gain the confidence of his superiors and the deep devotion of his men.3 Using the model of the British commandos, Darby energetically organized his new unit. Circulars, calling for volunteers, soon appeared on bulletin boards of the 34th Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Division, and other American units training in Northern Ireland. Darby and an officer from Hartle's staff personally examined and selected officers, who, in turn, interviewed the enlisted volunteers, looking especially for athletic individuals in good physical condition. The recruits, ranging in age from seventeen to thirty-five, came from every part of the United States; they included a former lion tamer and a full-blooded Sioux Indian. Although several units attempted to unload misfits and troublemakers on the new unit, most recruits joined out of a yearning for adventure and a desire to be part of an elite force. As the volunteers arrived at the battalion's camp, Darby formed them into a headquarters company and six line companies of sixty-seven men each, an organization which sacrificed firepower and administrative self-sufficiency for foot and amphibious mobility.4 The advanced commando training of the battalion lasted approximately three months. Immediately on arriving at Fort William in northern Scotland, the recruits embarked on an exhausting forced march to their camp in the shadow of Ach- Page 13 Photo: Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott Jr. (U.S. Army photograph) Photo: Col. William O. Darby (U.S. Army photograph) nacarry Castle, a trek that foreshadowed a month of rigorous training. The future Rangers endured log-lifting drills, obstacle courses, and speed marches over mountains and through frigid rivers under the watchful eye of British commando instructors. In addition, they received weapons training and instruction in hand-to-hand combat, street fighting, patrols, night operations, and the handling of small boats. The training stressed realism, including the use of live ammunition. On one occasion, a Ranger alertly picked up a grenade that a commando had thrown into a boatload of trainees and hurled it over the lake before it exploded. In early August the battalion transferred to Argyle, Scotland, for training in amphibious operations with the Royal Navy and later moved to Dundee where they stayed in private homes while practicing attacks on pillboxes and coastal defenses.5 While training proceeded, fifty Rangers participated in the raid on Dieppe on 19 August 1942. Although the Allies apparently hoped that the raid would ease German pressure on the Soviets, the ostensible purpose was to test the defenses of the port and force the German Air Force to give battle. To clear the way for the main assault on the town by the 2d Canadian Page 14 Photo: Rangers train on the terrain of the 8 November assault at Arzew (U.S. Army Photograph) Page 15 Division, two British commando battalions, accompanied by American Ranger personnel, were to seize a pair of coastal batteries flanking the port. Although one of the battalions successfully landed, destroyed its assigned battery west of Dieppe, and withdrew, the flotilla carrying the second battalion was dispersed by German torpedo boats, permitting only a fraction of the force to reach shore. By accurate sniper fire, a small party of this group prevented the battery from firing on the Allied fleet, but many of their American and British comrades were captured. In the meantime, the main assault had turned into a disaster, suffering 3,400 casualties of the 5,000 engaged. While the Allied high command claimed to have learned lessons that proved invaluable to the success of the landings on Normandy two years later, the raid remains a subject of controversy.6 North Africa Dieppe proved to be the only operation undertaken by Darby's Rangers in accordance with Marshall's original concept. In late July the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, under pressure from a president anxious for action against the Germans on some front, reluctantly bowed to British arguments for an invasion of French North Africa, code named Operation TORCH. As planners examined the task of securing the initial beachheads, they perceived a need for highly trained forces that could approach the landing areas and seize key defensive positions in advance of the main force. Accordingly, Darby's battalion received a mission to occupy two forts at the entrance of Arzew harbor, clearing the way for the landing of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division of the Center Task Force (Map 1). 7 The performance of the Rangers in their first independent mission reflected their emphasis on leadership, training, and careful planning. In the early morning hours of 8 November two companies under Darby's executive officer, Maj. Herman W. Dammer, slipped through a boom blocking the entrance to the inner harbor of Arzew and stealthily approached Fort de la Pointe. After climbing over a seawall and cutting through barbed. wire, two groups of Rangers assaulted the position from opposite directions. Within fifteen minutes, they had the fort and sixty startled French prisoners. Meanwhile, Darby and the remaining four companies landed near Cap Carbon and Page 16 Map1: Darby's Rangers in Northwest Africa, November1942-March 1943 Page 17 climbed a ravine to reach Batterie du Nord, overlooking the harbor. With the support of Company D's four 81-mm. mortars, the force assaulted the position, capturing the battery and sixty more prisoners. Trying to signal his success to the waiting fleet, Darby, whose radio had been lost in the landing, shot off a series of green flares before finally establishing contact through the radio of a British forward observer party. The Rangers had achieved their first success, a triumph tempered only by the later impressment of two companies as line troops in the 1st Infantry Division's beachhead perimeter. Ranger losses were light, but the episode foreshadowed the future use of the Rangers as line infantry.8 While Allied forces occupied Northwest Africa and advanced into Tunisia, Darby kept his Rangers busy with a rigorous program of physical conditioning and training in night and amphibious operations. Rumors of possible raiding missions spread within the battalion, but, as December and January passed without any further assignments, morale rapidly declined. Many Rangers transferred to other units. As yet, the Army still had no doctrine or concept of the employment of such units on the conventional battlefield, or elsewhere, and American field commanders were more concerned about their advance into the rear of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps than in any program of seaborne commando raids.9 In early February 1943 the Allied high command finally found a mission for the Rangers. Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's theater headquarters attached the battalion to Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall's II Corps in Tunisia. Hoping to gather intelligence and mislead the enemy regarding Allied strength and intentions, Fredendall directed the battalion to launch a series of raids against the Italo-German lines. The Rangers struck first against the Italian outpost at Sened. On the night of 10-11 February three Ranger companies marched through eight miles of rugged Tunisian terrain to a chain of hills overlooking the position. After observing the outpost by day, the Rangers, about midnight, began a four-mile approach march, advancing to successive phase lines and using colored lights to maintain formation. At 200 yards the Italians spotted their advance and opened fire, but most of the shots passed harmlessly overhead. The Rangers waited until they were fifty Page 18 yards away before launching a bayonet assault. Within twenty minutes, they had overrun the garrison, killing fifty and capturing eleven before withdrawing to friendly lines.10 The raiding program was soon cut short by developments to the north. Within days of the action at Sened, the Germans launched a counteroffensive through Kasserine Pass, roughly handling the green American units and forcing Fredendall to withdraw his exposed right flank. After serving as a rear guard for the withdrawal, the Rangers held a regimental-size front across Dernaia Pass and patrolled in anticipation of a German attack in the area. It would not be the last time that field commanders, short of troops, used the Rangers as line infantry in an emergency.11 When the II Corps, now under Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., returned to the offensive in March, the 1st Ranger Battalion played a key role in the Allied breakthrough. After spear-heading the 1st Infantry Division's advance to El Guettar, the Rangers found the Italians blocking the road at the pass of Djebel el Ank. The terrain to either side of the position appeared impassable, but Ranger patrols found a twelve-mile path through the mountains and ravines north of the pass to the Italian rear. During the night of 20-21 March, the battalion, accompanied by a heavy mortar company, followed this tortuous route, reaching a plateau overlooking the Italian position by 0600. As the sun rose, the Rangers, supported by the mortars, struck the Italians from flank and rear, while the 26th Infantry made a frontal assault. The enemy fled, leaving the pass and 200 prisoners in American hands. After patrolling and helping to repulse enemy counterattacks from a defensive position near Djobel Berda, the Rangers returned to Algeria for a rest. Shortly afterward, the Axis surrender of Tunis and Bizerte concluded the North African campaign.12 Sicily and Italy The performance of Darby's forces in North Africa and the continuing need for troops to spearhead amphibious landings led Eisenhower's headquarters to form additional Ranger units. Patton and Maj. Gen. Terry Allen, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, praised the Rangers in glowing terms, and Allied planners requested authorization from the War Department to form two more battalions for the invasion of Sicily. Page 19 Map 2: Southern Italy and Sicily, 1943-1944 Page 20 Marshall approved the expansion but again stipulated that Ranger-trained soldiers be returned to their parent units once the need for the battalions had passed. His attitude underlined the continuing status of these battalions as temporary organizations. Nevertheless, Darby and his officers enthusiastically sought out volunteers for the new formations, making stump speeches at replacement depots throughout North Africa. At Nemours, where Dammer had created a replica of the commando training depots, the recruits endured physical conditioning, weapons training, and amphibious landings under live fire.l3 In Sicily the Rangers served first as assault troops in the landing and then in various task forces in the drive across the island (Map 2). At Gela in the early morning darkness of 10 July the 1st and 4th Ranger Battalions, under Darby and Maj. Roy Murray, attacked across a mined beach to capture the town and coastal batteries. They then withstood two days of counterattacks, battling tanks with thermite grenades and a single 37-mm. gun in the streets of Gela. For all the courage of individual Rangers, naval gunfire support proved decisive in holding the town. As Allied forces expanded the beachhead, one Ranger company captured the formidable fortress town of Butera in a daring night attack, while to the west Dammer's 3d Ranger Battalion moved by foot and truck to capture the harbor of Porto Empedocle, taking over 700 prisoners. In the ensuing drive to Palermo, the 1st and 4th Ranger Battalions joined task forces guarding the flanks of the advance, and the 3d Ranger Battalion later aided the advance along the northern Sicilian coast to Messina by infiltrating through the mountains to outflank successive German delaying positions. By the fall of Messina on 17 August, marking the end of the Sicilian campaign, the Rangers were already preparing for the invasion of Italy.14 At Salerno the Rangers once again secured critical objectives during the amphibious assault, but, cut off by the rapid German response to the main landings, they were forced to hold their positions for about three weeks, a defensive mission unsuitable for such light units. Landing on a narrow, rocky beach to the left of the main beachhead early on the morning of 9 September, the Rangers quickly occupied the high ground of the Sorrentino peninsula, dominating the routes between Page 21 Photo: Soldiers of the 3d Ranger Battalion board LCIs that will take them to Anzio. Two weeks later, nearly all would be killed or captured at Cisterna (U.S. Army Photograph) Page 22 the invasion beaches and Naples. To the south the Germans contained the main landing, preventing Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark's Fifth Army from linking up with the Ranger position. Nevertheless, Darby's three battalions, assisted by paratroopers and British commandos, held their position against repeated German attacks. Lacking enough troops to hold a continuous line, the Rangers adopted a system of mutually supporting strongpoints and relied on the terrain and naval gunfire, which they directed to harass the routes from Naples until Clark's force broke through to them on 30 September.l5 Casualties mounted when the Rangers served as line infantry in the offensive against the German Winter Line. Lacking troops on the Venafro front, Clark used the Rangers to fill gaps in Fifth Army's line from early November to mid-December. Attached to divisions, the battalions engaged in bitter mountain fighting at close quarters. Although reinforced by a cannon company of four 75-mm. guns on half-tracks, they still lacked the firepower and manpower for protracted combat. By mid-December the continuous fighting and the cold, wet weather had taken a heavy toll. In one month of action, for example, the 1st Ranger Battalion lost 350 men, including nearly 200 casualties from exposure. Moreover, the quality of the battalions declined as veterans were replaced by enthusiastic, but inadequately trained, replacements.l6 A botched infiltration mission on the Anzio beachhead in early 1944 completed the destruction of Darby's Rangers. After a nearly unopposed Allied amphibious assault on 22 January 1944, Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, commander of the VI Corps, failed to press his advantage, and the Germans were able to contain the Allies within a narrow perimeter. Seeking to push out of this confined area, Truscott, now a major general and commander of the 3d Infantry Division, ordered the 1st and 3d Ranger Battalions to infiltrate four miles behind enemy lines to the crossroads town of Cisterna. One hour after their departure, the 4th Ranger Battalion and the rest of the division would launch a frontal assault and use the confusion created by the infiltrating Rangers to drive a deep wedge into the German defenses. American intelligence, however, had failed to notice a large German buildup opposite the American lines, and Ranger reconnaissance of the target area was poor. Page 23 When the two battalions began their infiltration on the night of 29-30 January, the enemy quickly detected them and by dawn had surrounded them with infantry and armor just outside Cisterna. In a desperate attempt to rescue the isolated units, the 4th Ranger Battalion repeatedly attacked the German lines throughout the morning but succeeded in losing half of its combat strength in the futile effort. About noon, the remnants of the 1st and 3d surrendered. Only eight men escaped to American lines.17 Left with a fragment of the Ranger force, American theater commanders decided to deactivate rather than reconstitute the damaged units. Even before Cisterna, the lack of time to train replacements had diluted the quality of the battalions. In truth, the Rangers had become little more than line infantry units, but without the firepower of the normal American infantry regiments of the time. Anticipating tough, methodical fighting for which Ranger units were unsuited, theater commanders preferred to use the remaining Rangers to alleviate the perennial shortage of replacements. Accordingly, in March Rangers with enough points for overseas service returned to the United States, while the remainder joined the 1st Special Service Force, a similar type of formation that had recently arrived in the theater. 18 The 1st Special Service Force The 1st Special Service Force traced its origins to Marshall's trip to Great Britain in early 1942, the same visit that had inspired the formation of the 1st Ranger Battalion. Between conferences on grand strategy, Mountbatten had introduced Marshall to Geoffrey Pyke, an eccentric British scientist who had developed a scheme to divert up to half-a-million German troops from the main fronts. Under Pyke's plan, commandos, using special vehicles, would conduct a series of winter raids against snowbound German garrisons of such vulnerable points as hydroelectric stations in Norway and oil refineries in Romania. Exactly how the raiding units would enter and leave the target areas remained hazy, but the concept fascinated Marshall. After returning to the United States, he gave the project a high priority despite the skepticism of War Department planners. Studebaker, an automobile manufactur- Page 24 Photo: Brig. Gen. Robert T. Frederick (U.S. Army Photograph) er, received a contract for the design and production of the vehicle later known as the Weasel. In June the Allies also agreed to form a Canadian-American force under Col. Robert T. Frederick to conduct the raids. Although as a War Department staff officer he had opposed the project, the tall, vigorous Frederick proved to be a natural leader, respected by superiors and idolized by his men.19 At Fort William Henry Harrison, an isolated post near Helena, Montana, Frederick assembled his new unit, which he named the 1st Special Service Force in an apparent attempt to disguise its true purpose. Initially, it consisted of three battalion-size units of light infantry (officially designated as regiments) and a service echelon. For American personnel, who would constitute about 60 percent of the unit, inspection teams canvassed Army units in the Southwest and on the Pacific seaboard for hardened volunteers, especially those with a background as "lumberjacks, forest rangers, hunters, north-woodsmen, game wardens, prospectors, and explorers." 20 As was the case with the Rangers, many post commanders used the recruiting drive to empty their stockades and rid themselves of malcontents, and some "volunteer" contingents even arrived at Fort Harrison under armed guard. Frederick soon weeded out unfit recruits, driving his men through an intensive Page 25 program that stressed physical conditioning, weapons training, hand-to-hand fighting, demolitions, rock climbing, and the operation of the Weasel. For training in winter warfare, the recruits lived in boxcars on the Continental Divide while receiving instruction in cross-country skiing from Norwegian instructors. The accelerated schedule allowed only six days for airborne training. Frederick wanted to have the unit ready for operations by the winter of 1942-43. 21 Unfortunately for Frederick's raiders, the Allied high command canceled their mission before they could even take the field. When Frederick visited Great Britain in September 1942, he found that support for the project had evaporated. The Royal Air Force showed little enthusiasm for the diversion of the necessary planes from its bombing campaign, and the Special Operations Executive had already laid plans for a more economic sabotage program that was preferred by Norway's government-in-exile. Mountbatten thus recommended that the project be canceled, and Frederick agreed. While his unit broadened its training to include more general infantry skills and amphibious operations, Frederick investigated other areas Page 26 Photo: Mount La Difensa (U.S. Army Photograph) where his men could use their special capabilities, including the Caucasus Mountains, New Guinea, and the North Pacific. In August 1943 the unit finally went into action for the first time, spearheading the bloodless recapture of Kiska in the Aleutians. The rapid conclusion of the campaign again left Frederick's unit without a mission. Finally, in October, General Clark, desperate for troops, secured the transfer of the 1st Special Service Force to his Fifth Army in the Mediterranean, and the combat history of the 1st Special Service Force began.22 Shortly after its arrival in late November, the 1st Special Service Force received its initial mission. Looming over Fifth Army's front, the twin peaks of Monte La Difensa and Monte La Rementanea presented formidable barriers to the Allied advance into the Liri River Valley. A German panzer grenadier division deeply entrenched along the slopes of the two masses had already thrown back repeated Allied attempts to gain control of the heights. Attached to the 36th Infantry Division, the 1st Special Service Force received orders to carry the two peaks. After a personal reconnaissance of the 3,000-foot La Difensa, Frederick decided to avoid the trail leading up the Page 27 south side and instead to launch a surprise attack via a 200-foot cliff on the opposite slope. On the night of 2-3 December 600 riflemen of the 2d Regiment moved silently up the face to a position only yards away from the German defenders on the crest. When noise from displaced stones alerted the enemy, the special servicemen assaulted the position and within two hours gained control of the crest. From there, they pushed down a saddle to capture neighboring Monte La Rementanea and to link up with British units on the other side of the valley. The fall of the twin peaks cracked the Winter Line and opened the way for the Allied advance to Cassino.23 Any euphoria that Frederick's men might have felt over their success dissipated soon after the unit reentered the fighting as line infantry in late December. Poor weather and a skillful German defense among rocks and gullies slowed the advance to a crawl and took a heavy toll of the special servicemen. Like the Ranger units, they lacked the heavier weapons needed to blast the Germans out of their positions, as well as an adequate system to replace their growing combat and non-combat casualties. After a bitter struggle, the 1st Regiment captured Monte Sammucro but lost much of its fighting power. The 3d Regiment used a surprise night assault to overwhelm the defenders of Monte Majo but then suffered heavy casualties in a three-day defense of the height against German counterattacks. In one month of service before its transfer to Anzio, the force had lost 1,400 of its 1,800 men and badly needed the qualified replacements made available by the disbandment of the Rangers.24 Deploying to the Anzio beachhead in early February 1944, the 1st Special Service Force anchored the Allied right flank along the Mussolini Canal and later spearheaded the drive on Rome. At Anzio Frederick's 1,300 troops defended 13 kilometers of the 52-kilometer-long Allied perimeter. Their position in the flat, open tableland adjoining the canal was dominated by German artillery in the heights overlooking the beachhead. Defending its sector, the unit used night patrols to locate targets for artillery, conduct raids on German outposts, and maintain control of the area between the lines. In late May Frederick's troops participated in the breakout from the beachhead and reinforced an armored task force covering the flank Page 28 of the subsequent Allied drive on Rome. Early on the morning of 4 June the first elements of the combined force entered Rome and secured the bridges over the Tiber River. The 1st Special Service Force then withdrew to Lake Albano for rest and reorganization.25 After the fall of Rome, the unit's final six months proved anticlimactic. Assigned to Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch's Seventh Army for the invasion of southern France, the force received orders to seize German batteries on the Iles d'Hyeres, three rocky land masses on the left flank of the invasion beaches. On the night of 14-15 August the special servicemen, now under the command of Col. Edwin A. Walker, used rubber boats to land on the shores of Ile de Port Cros and Ile du Levant. Within forty-eight hours, the surprised defenders on both islands had surrendered, and Walker's troops prepared to join the main army. Guarding the right flank of Patch's advance, the unit's ensuing drive along the Riviera, the so-called Champagne Campaign, seemed more like an extended route march than a battle. Only a few German rear guards offered any resistance. By early September the unit had established a static defensive position in the mountains along the Franco-Italian border, where it remained for the next three months. In early December Eisenhower's headquarters, under orders from the War Department, dissolved the unit, returning the Canadians to their own army and transferring the Americans to a separate infantry regiment assigned to Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley's 12th Army Group.26 The Office of Strategic Services in the Mediterranean In North Africa and Italy the Army ignored the role that commando-type units, such as the 1st Special Service Force, might have played in operations behind enemy lines, leaving the field to the Office of Strategic Services. Both OSS personnel and their British counterparts in the Special Operations Executive were supervised by the G-3 Division of the theater headquarters, but the Americans tended to be dominant in North Africa, while the British enjoyed greater influence in the eastern Mediterranean. Although OSS personnel initially lacked experience, resources, and the respect of skeptical staff officers in the theater, the agency soon proved its value. Prior Page 29 to TORCH, agents established contact with Allied sympathizers in North Africa and gathered intelligence vital to the invasion. To guard against a possible Axis thrust through Spanish Morocco into the Allied rear, two civilian operatives even organized warrior tribesmen of the region into a guerrilla force. At Salerno an OSS detachment provided critical tactical intelligence to Darby's Rangers during their defense of the Sorrentino peninsula. Nevertheless, OSS personnel often complained that their operations were misunderstood by field commanders, citing one colonel who expected them to "sit in foxholes and toss petard grenades and Molotov cocktails at German heavy tanks as they rolled over us." 27 Nevertheless, their activities earned the interest and approval of General Clark, who gave them vehicles, rations, and a free hand. 28 As the Allied armies expanded their foothold on the Italian peninsula during the fall of 1943, the newly arrived operational groups began to establish bases on offshore islands for raids against the German-held northern coastline. In February 1943 Eisenhower agreed to allow the OSS's Special Operations staff at Algiers to employ four to eight of these commando cells to organize and otherwise assist guerrilla forces in Italy and southern France. Shortly after the Italian surrender in September, Donovan, who was visiting Algiers at the time, ordered an operational group to accompany a French expeditionary force to Corsica, where partisans had revolted against the German garrison. Since the Germans had already decided to withdraw their troops to the Italian mainland, the operational groups and their French allies merely harassed the departing enemy. Immediately following the German evacuation, the groups established an advance base there, as well as observation posts on the nearby islands of Gorgona and Capraia. At Corsica, they were only thirty-five miles from the Italian coast.29 From their new bases, the operational groups conducted raids against German communications along the Italian coast in an attempt to divert enemy troops from the main front (Map 3). The narrow, rocky coastal plains of the Italian peninsula were crossed by numerous roads and railways, which the Germans used as lines of supply. Night after night, operational groups crawled ashore to attack the most vulnerable points and reconnoiter enemy installations. Observers at Gorgona Page 30 Map 3: Northern Italy, 1943-1945 Page 31 directed air strikes against oil tanks in the harbor at Livorno before German raids finally forced evacuation of the island. But not all OG missions ended successfully. In March 1944 a fifteen-man force, code named GINNY, landed south of La Spezia with orders to dynamite a railway tunnel on the main supply line for the front south of Rome. Local inhabitants discovered the party's poorly concealed rubber boats and alerted the Germans, who found the party hiding in a barn. Although in uniform at the time, the captured OG members were summarily executed in accordance with Adolph Hitler's orders to liquidate all commandos.30 After transferring its bases to the Italian mainland in the late summer of 1944, the Office of Strategic Services placed a greater emphasis on partisan warfare. Up to that time, the lack of airlift and other resources and the confused political situation resulting from the sudden collapse of Italy in the fall of 1943 had hindered OSS efforts to establish contact with the resistance in northern Italy. In mid-1944, however, the Americans began to drop supplies and operatives into the region on a much larger scale. At that time, nine operational groups parachuted into the area to discover an indigenous resistance movement already in place, but desperately in need of equipment and supplies. As supply drops and word of Allied successes swelled their strength, the partisans subsequently took the offensive, harassing German forces withdrawing to the Gothic Line during the summer and fall of 1944. With winter, the decline in air resupply due to poor flying weather enabled the Germans to strike back against the guerrillas, who faded into the mountains. Their retreat proved only temporary, for by the spring of 1945 seventy-five OSS teams were equipping and training the resistance bands in preparation for the final Allied effort in Italy.31 When the Allied offensive crossed the Po River in late April 1945, partisans, supported by operational groups, rose in revolt throughout northern Italy. Assisted by these American operatives, partisans cut key routes from Lake Como to the Brenner Pass, while south of Piacenza and Parma OG teams organized successful roadblocks on key transport routes and harassed German columns and troop concentrations. Guerrilla roadblocks aided the 92d Infantry Division in its capture of Page 32 Pontremoli, and in Genoa 15,000 partisans, directed by operational groups, prevented the destruction of the port facilities and took some 3,000 prisoners. In all, Italian partisans killed or wounded over 3,000 Axis troops, captured 81,000 others, and prevented the destruction of key facilities in the Genoa, Milan, Venice, and Modena areas.32 Although British SOE agents dominated operations in the eastern Mediterranean, the Office of Strategic Services still played an important role there. Seeking to pin down German forces far from the OVERLORD invasion, American operatives agreed to provide arms to Communist and socialist guerrillas in Greece as early as October 1943 in return for their subordination to the authority of the theater commander. While the partisans increased their activities, operational groups began to infiltrate into Greece early in 1944 to conduct a series of raids against German road and rail communications in Macedonia, Thessaly, and the Peloponnesus. With the aid of Communist guerrillas, an SO party in May demolished two bridges on the Orient Express line, temporarily interrupting the supply of Turkish chrome to Germany. Extensive OSS operations in Greece continued up to the German withdrawal, ending only in December with the outbreak of a local, but bitter, civil war between the various resistance groups. Off the coast of Yugoslavia, operational groups helped defend the island of Vis, a key base for the supply of Communist partisans under Josip Broz Tito, and joined British commandos in raids along the Dalmatian coast, remaining in the field up to the German departure from Yugoslavia in July 1944. 33 In the initial assault against Axis-dominated Europe, U.S. forces could thus claim many significant achievements in the field of special operations. At Arzew, El Guettar, Gela, Salerno, Monte La Difensa, Anzio, and the Iles d'Hyeres, the Ranger battalions and 1st Special Service Force had performed missions critical to the success of conventional forces, while in the interior OSS commandos had raided German communications and provided direct support to partisans in northern Italy and the Balkans. The ability of these forces to take advantage of the rough terrain and extended coastlines characteristic of the theater proved to be a major factor in their success. Nevertheless, for the most part, the conventional Allied campaign in the Mediterranean proceeded as if special operations never exist- Page 33 ed. The relative insignificance of such activities reflected both American inexperience and a chronic shortage of materiel and manpower resources. But the basic cause was the absence of any doctrine of special operations. Field commanders, uncertain about the proper employment of the Ranger battalions and the 1st Special Service Force, depleted their strength in line operations and eventually disbanded them rather than employ them in a systematic program of raids that would have used their special capabilities. Moreover, the partisan efforts in Italy and the Balkans had only a nuisance value and were rarely tied into the operations of conventional Allied combat units. Thus, despite some isolated successes, special operations made only a limited contribution to the hard-earned success of Allied arms in the Mediterranean. Notes 1. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., Command Missions: A Personal Story (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1954), pp. 22-25, 37-40; Memo, Truscott for Brig Gen Charles L. Bolte, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army Forces British Isles (USAFBI), 26 May 42, Box 10, Folder 3, Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., Papers, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Va.; Cable, Marshall to USFOR, 27 May 42, Section IA, Ranger File, U.S. Army, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 Operations, Records Section, Decimal File, March 1950-1951, 322 Ranger, Record Group (RG) 319, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C. 2. Quote from Michael J. King, William Orlando Darby: A Military Biography (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1981), p. 32. 3. Ibid., pp. 1-3, 9, 16, 177. Testimonies of Darby's leadership ability abound: see James J. Altieri, The Spearheaders (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), pp. 31-32; William O. Darby and William H. Baumer, Darby's Rangers: We Led the Way (San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1980), pp. 1-2. 4. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 25-27, 83; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 15-22, 66-67; Memo, Col I.B. Summers, Adj Gen, USAFBI, for Hartle, 13 Jun 42, Theodore J. Conway Papers, U.S. Army Military History Institute, (USAMHI), Carlisle, Pa. 5; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 38-41, 80-81; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 27-49; Instructions and Key to Programme of Work for USA Rangers, 1st to 31st July 1942, and Darby's Progress Report to Truscott, 17 Jul 42, both in Sgt Harry Perlmutter Ranger Battalions of World War II Collection, Ranger Battalions: Historical Background Information on Ranger Battalions and Tables of Organization and Equipment (hereafter cited as Perlmutter Collection), Roll 8, John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center Library, Fort Bragg, N.C. 6. Rpt, Darby to Adj Gen, 11 Jan 43, and Capt Roy Murray's report on Dieppe, 26 Aug 42, both in U.S. Army, Adj Gen's Office, World War II Operations Reports, 1940-1948, Infantry (hereafter cited as WWII Ops Reports), INBN 1-0, RG 407, Washington National Records Center (WNRC), Suitland, Md. From the extensive literature on Dieppe, note especially Lord Lovat, March Past. A Memoir (New York: Homes & Meier, 1978), pp. 237-78; Peter Young, Commando (New York: Ballantine, 1969), pp. 128-53. 7. Maurice Matloff, ea., American Military History, Army Historical Series, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 444; AFHQ Outline Plan, TORCH, 20 Sep 42, U.S. Army Staff, Plans and Operations Division, ABC Decimal File, 1942-48, 381 (7-25-42), Sec. I to 4, RG 319, NARA; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 10-13; King, William Orlando Darby, p. 44. 8. Darby's report of action at Arzew, I Jan 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 8-10, 17-23; Altieri, The Spearheaders, p. 137. 9. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 53-55; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 146-53, 169-91; Michael J. King, Rangers: Selected Combat Operations of World War II, Leavenworth Papers 11 (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 1985), p. 14. 10. Leilyn M. Young, "Rangers in a Night Operation," Military Review 24 July 1944): 64-69; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 56-60; Darby's report of Sened, 5 Mar 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC. Page 35 11. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 60-65; Darby's report for the period 14-28 Feb 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC. 12. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 67-77; Darby's report of El Guettar, 9 Apr 43, in WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC; King, Wilham Orlando Darby, p. 62; King, Rangers, pp. 15-22. 13. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 78, 83-84; King, Wilham Orlando Darby, pp. 68, 75-76; Msg. Algiers to War Department, 18 Apr 43, U.S. War Department, Operations Division, War Department Message File: Incoming Top Secret, April 1-30, 1943, RG 165, NARA; Cable, Marshall to Eisenhower, 19 Apr 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 241, 246-47. 14. Darby's report of action at Gela, Sicily, 5 Aug 43, U.S. War Department, Operations Division, OPD 381 ETO, Section V, Cases 108-137, Case 108, RG 165, NARA; Rpt, Dammer to Adj Gen, 31 Jul 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 3-0.3, RG 407, WNRC; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 85-99, 104-09; King, Wilham Orlando Darby, p. 88; King, Rangers, pp. 23-28. 15. Darby's report of Salerno, 15 Nov 43, INBN 1-0, and Dammer's report, 25 Nov 1943, INBN 3-0.3, both in WWII Ops Reports, RG 407, WNRC; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 113-22; Alexander M. Worth, Jr., "Supporting Weapons and High Ground: The Rangers at Salerno," Infantry Journal 56 (May 1945): 33-34. 16. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 128-40; King, William Orlando Darby, pp. 103, 106, 121, 129-30, 137, 145, 185; Darby's report of offensive against Winter Line, 29 Mar 44, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC. 17. See reports on Cisterna in WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0.3 and INBN 3-0.3, RG 407, WNRC; King, William Orlando Darby, pp. 136, 145; King, Rangers, pp. 29-40; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 148-55, 159-69; Truscott, Command Missions, p p. 312- 14. 18. Memo, Lt Gen Jacob Devers, Commanding General, North African Theater of Operations, for War Department, 25 Feb 44; Memo, Devers for War Department, 13 Mar 44; and Memo, Maj Gen Thomas T. Handy, Asst Chief of Staff, for FREEDOM, 28 Feb 44. All in U.S. War Department, Operations Division, OPD 320.2 Africa, Cases 584-616, RG 165, NARA; King, William Orlando Darby, pp. 136, 145. 19. Robert D. Burhans, The First Special Service Force. A War History of the North Americans, 1942-44 (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal Press, 1947), pp. 1-5, 8-12; Robert H. Adleman and George Walton, The Devil's Brigade (Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1966), pp. 2-4, 11, 25-35. 20. Quote from Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, p. 48. 21. Burhans, The First Special Service Force, pp. 13-15, 23, 60; Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 48-50, 57, 73-84. 22. Burhans, The First Special Service Force, pp. 35-37, 45-46, 86; Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 86-91, 103-09. 23. Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 119-32, 142-45. 24. Ibid., pp. 148, 159-61; Scott R. McMichael, A Histoncal Perspective on Light Infantry, Research Survey 6 (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 1987), pp. 186-92. 25. Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Bngade, pp. 168-74, 202-04, 211-19; McMichael, A Histoncal Perspective on Light Infantry, pp. 198-201. 26. Burhans, The First Special Service Force, pp. 257, 273, 299; Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 227-30, 233, 243-44; Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Page 36 and Stephen E. Ambrose, eds., The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, 9 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970) 4: 2232n. 27. Carleton S. Coon, A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent, 1941-1943 (Ipswich, Mass.: Gambit Press, 1980), p. 96. 28. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 1: 206-07, and 2: 9, 13-15, 67; Coon, A North Africa Story, pp. 124-25; Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, pp. 25-26; MS, Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ), History of Special Operations, Mediterranean Theater, 1942-45, pp. 17-18, NARA. 29. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 1:108, and 2: 60-61, 77-78; Brown, The Hero, pp. 471-72. 30. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 77-80; Report of ICEBERG Operation, Folder 682, and Rpt, Col Russell Livermore to Commander, 2677th HQ Company Exp (Prov), 4 Jan 44, both in OSS, Algiers SO-OP-9, Entry 97, Box 40, RG 226, NARA; Brown, The Last Hero, pp. 474-80. 31. MS, AFHQ' History of Special Operations, Mediterranean, pp. 23, 25-26; Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 107-13, 115; Smith, OSS, pp. 107, 109. 32. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 115-16; MS, AFHQ, History of Special Operations, Mediterranean, pp. 26-27; Smith, OSS, pp. 116-17. 33. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 124, 127-29. Brown, The Last Hero, pp. 430-33, 439-42. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Colonel Edwin A. Walker and Darby's Rangers... CHAPTER 2 Special Operations in the Mediterranean The opening blows against Hitler's Fortress Europe came not in Western Europe but in the Mediterranean. Once the United States had entered the war, American leaders pressed for a direct cross-channel assault against the Continent. Through 1942 and much of 1943, however, they yielded to British concerns over Allied readiness for such a large step and accepted less ambitious endeavors against the "soft underbelly" of Axis-dominated Europe. The soft underbelly proved to be a hard shell as Allied armies, after driving the Germans and Italians from North Africa and Sicily, made slow progress against a tenacious German defense in the wet climate and rugged highlands of the Italian peninsula. In this theater of sandy wastes and jagged mountains bordered by the placid waters of the Mediterranean, American forces discovered both a need and a favorable environment for their first major special operations of the war. Darby's Rangers While the U.S. Army's Rangers would perform several special operations in the course of the war, they traced their origins to a provisional formation created by the chief of staff to remedy the Army's lack of combat experience during the early months of 1942. When Marshall visited Great Britain in April to urge a cross-channel invasion, he met Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the charismatic head of British Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ), and later visited COHQ's commando training center in Scotland. In Mountbatten's commando raiding program, Marshall perceived a means of providing American soldiers with at least some combat experience. At his direction Col. Lucian K. Truscott met with British lead- Page 12 ers to determine the best way of fulfilling this objective. Subsequently, Truscott recommended the formation of an American commando unit which would bear the designation Ranger. Under Truscott's concept, most personnel would join the new Ranger force on a temporary basis and then return to their parent units after several months of field operations. Marshall approved the proposals, and on 19 June 1942, Truscott officially activated the 1st Ranger Battalion in Northern Ireland.1 As commander of the battalion, Truscott selected Capt. William O. Darby. At the time Darby was serving as an aide to Maj. Gen. Russell P. Hartle, the commander of American forces in Northern Ireland. When Hartle recommended Darby for the command of the new unit, Truscott was receptive, having found the young officer to be "outstanding in appearance, possessed of a most attractive personality, . . . keen, intelligent, and filled with enthusiasm." 2 His judgment proved accurate. The 31-year-old Darby, a graduate of West Point in 1933, soon demonstrated an innate ability to gain the confidence of his superiors and the deep devotion of his men.3 Using the model of the British commandos, Darby energetically organized his new unit. Circulars, calling for volunteers, soon appeared on bulletin boards of the 34th Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Division, and other American units training in Northern Ireland. Darby and an officer from Hartle's staff personally examined and selected officers, who, in turn, interviewed the enlisted volunteers, looking especially for athletic individuals in good physical condition. The recruits, ranging in age from seventeen to thirty-five, came from every part of the United States; they included a former lion tamer and a full-blooded Sioux Indian. Although several units attempted to unload misfits and troublemakers on the new unit, most recruits joined out of a yearning for adventure and a desire to be part of an elite force. As the volunteers arrived at the battalion's camp, Darby formed them into a headquarters company and six line companies of sixty-seven men each, an organization which sacrificed firepower and administrative self-sufficiency for foot and amphibious mobility.4 The advanced commando training of the battalion lasted approximately three months. Immediately on arriving at Fort William in northern Scotland, the recruits embarked on an exhausting forced march to their camp in the shadow of Ach- Page 13 Photo: Lt. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott Jr. (U.S. Army photograph) Photo: Col. William O. Darby (U.S. Army photograph) nacarry Castle, a trek that foreshadowed a month of rigorous training. The future Rangers endured log-lifting drills, obstacle courses, and speed marches over mountains and through frigid rivers under the watchful eye of British commando instructors. In addition, they received weapons training and instruction in hand-to-hand combat, street fighting, patrols, night operations, and the handling of small boats. The training stressed realism, including the use of live ammunition. On one occasion, a Ranger alertly picked up a grenade that a commando had thrown into a boatload of trainees and hurled it over the lake before it exploded. In early August the battalion transferred to Argyle, Scotland, for training in amphibious operations with the Royal Navy and later moved to Dundee where they stayed in private homes while practicing attacks on pillboxes and coastal defenses.5 While training proceeded, fifty Rangers participated in the raid on Dieppe on 19 August 1942. Although the Allies apparently hoped that the raid would ease German pressure on the Soviets, the ostensible purpose was to test the defenses of the port and force the German Air Force to give battle. To clear the way for the main assault on the town by the 2d Canadian Page 14 Photo: Rangers train on the terrain of the 8 November assault at Arzew (U.S. Army Photograph) Page 15 Division, two British commando battalions, accompanied by American Ranger personnel, were to seize a pair of coastal batteries flanking the port. Although one of the battalions successfully landed, destroyed its assigned battery west of Dieppe, and withdrew, the flotilla carrying the second battalion was dispersed by German torpedo boats, permitting only a fraction of the force to reach shore. By accurate sniper fire, a small party of this group prevented the battery from firing on the Allied fleet, but many of their American and British comrades were captured. In the meantime, the main assault had turned into a disaster, suffering 3,400 casualties of the 5,000 engaged. While the Allied high command claimed to have learned lessons that proved invaluable to the success of the landings on Normandy two years later, the raid remains a subject of controversy.6 North Africa Dieppe proved to be the only operation undertaken by Darby's Rangers in accordance with Marshall's original concept. In late July the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, under pressure from a president anxious for action against the Germans on some front, reluctantly bowed to British arguments for an invasion of French North Africa, code named Operation TORCH. As planners examined the task of securing the initial beachheads, they perceived a need for highly trained forces that could approach the landing areas and seize key defensive positions in advance of the main force. Accordingly, Darby's battalion received a mission to occupy two forts at the entrance of Arzew harbor, clearing the way for the landing of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division of the Center Task Force (Map 1). 7 The performance of the Rangers in their first independent mission reflected their emphasis on leadership, training, and careful planning. In the early morning hours of 8 November two companies under Darby's executive officer, Maj. Herman W. Dammer, slipped through a boom blocking the entrance to the inner harbor of Arzew and stealthily approached Fort de la Pointe. After climbing over a seawall and cutting through barbed. wire, two groups of Rangers assaulted the position from opposite directions. Within fifteen minutes, they had the fort and sixty startled French prisoners. Meanwhile, Darby and the remaining four companies landed near Cap Carbon and Page 16 Map1: Darby's Rangers in Northwest Africa, November1942-March 1943 Page 17 climbed a ravine to reach Batterie du Nord, overlooking the harbor. With the support of Company D's four 81-mm. mortars, the force assaulted the position, capturing the battery and sixty more prisoners. Trying to signal his success to the waiting fleet, Darby, whose radio had been lost in the landing, shot off a series of green flares before finally establishing contact through the radio of a British forward observer party. The Rangers had achieved their first success, a triumph tempered only by the later impressment of two companies as line troops in the 1st Infantry Division's beachhead perimeter. Ranger losses were light, but the episode foreshadowed the future use of the Rangers as line infantry.8 While Allied forces occupied Northwest Africa and advanced into Tunisia, Darby kept his Rangers busy with a rigorous program of physical conditioning and training in night and amphibious operations. Rumors of possible raiding missions spread within the battalion, but, as December and January passed without any further assignments, morale rapidly declined. Many Rangers transferred to other units. As yet, the Army still had no doctrine or concept of the employment of such units on the conventional battlefield, or elsewhere, and American field commanders were more concerned about their advance into the rear of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps than in any program of seaborne commando raids.9 In early February 1943 the Allied high command finally found a mission for the Rangers. Lt. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower's theater headquarters attached the battalion to Maj. Gen. Lloyd R. Fredendall's II Corps in Tunisia. Hoping to gather intelligence and mislead the enemy regarding Allied strength and intentions, Fredendall directed the battalion to launch a series of raids against the Italo-German lines. The Rangers struck first against the Italian outpost at Sened. On the night of 10-11 February three Ranger companies marched through eight miles of rugged Tunisian terrain to a chain of hills overlooking the position. After observing the outpost by day, the Rangers, about midnight, began a four-mile approach march, advancing to successive phase lines and using colored lights to maintain formation. At 200 yards the Italians spotted their advance and opened fire, but most of the shots passed harmlessly overhead. The Rangers waited until they were fifty Page 18 yards away before launching a bayonet assault. Within twenty minutes, they had overrun the garrison, killing fifty and capturing eleven before withdrawing to friendly lines.10 The raiding program was soon cut short by developments to the north. Within days of the action at Sened, the Germans launched a counteroffensive through Kasserine Pass, roughly handling the green American units and forcing Fredendall to withdraw his exposed right flank. After serving as a rear guard for the withdrawal, the Rangers held a regimental-size front across Dernaia Pass and patrolled in anticipation of a German attack in the area. It would not be the last time that field commanders, short of troops, used the Rangers as line infantry in an emergency.11 When the II Corps, now under Maj. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr., returned to the offensive in March, the 1st Ranger Battalion played a key role in the Allied breakthrough. After spear-heading the 1st Infantry Division's advance to El Guettar, the Rangers found the Italians blocking the road at the pass of Djebel el Ank. The terrain to either side of the position appeared impassable, but Ranger patrols found a twelve-mile path through the mountains and ravines north of the pass to the Italian rear. During the night of 20-21 March, the battalion, accompanied by a heavy mortar company, followed this tortuous route, reaching a plateau overlooking the Italian position by 0600. As the sun rose, the Rangers, supported by the mortars, struck the Italians from flank and rear, while the 26th Infantry made a frontal assault. The enemy fled, leaving the pass and 200 prisoners in American hands. After patrolling and helping to repulse enemy counterattacks from a defensive position near Djobel Berda, the Rangers returned to Algeria for a rest. Shortly afterward, the Axis surrender of Tunis and Bizerte concluded the North African campaign.12 Sicily and Italy The performance of Darby's forces in North Africa and the continuing need for troops to spearhead amphibious landings led Eisenhower's headquarters to form additional Ranger units. Patton and Maj. Gen. Terry Allen, commander of the 1st Infantry Division, praised the Rangers in glowing terms, and Allied planners requested authorization from the War Department to form two more battalions for the invasion of Sicily. Page 19 Map 2: Southern Italy and Sicily, 1943-1944 Page 20 Marshall approved the expansion but again stipulated that Ranger-trained soldiers be returned to their parent units once the need for the battalions had passed. His attitude underlined the continuing status of these battalions as temporary organizations. Nevertheless, Darby and his officers enthusiastically sought out volunteers for the new formations, making stump speeches at replacement depots throughout North Africa. At Nemours, where Dammer had created a replica of the commando training depots, the recruits endured physical conditioning, weapons training, and amphibious landings under live fire.l3 In Sicily the Rangers served first as assault troops in the landing and then in various task forces in the drive across the island (Map 2). At Gela in the early morning darkness of 10 July the 1st and 4th Ranger Battalions, under Darby and Maj. Roy Murray, attacked across a mined beach to capture the town and coastal batteries. They then withstood two days of counterattacks, battling tanks with thermite grenades and a single 37-mm. gun in the streets of Gela. For all the courage of individual Rangers, naval gunfire support proved decisive in holding the town. As Allied forces expanded the beachhead, one Ranger company captured the formidable fortress town of Butera in a daring night attack, while to the west Dammer's 3d Ranger Battalion moved by foot and truck to capture the harbor of Porto Empedocle, taking over 700 prisoners. In the ensuing drive to Palermo, the 1st and 4th Ranger Battalions joined task forces guarding the flanks of the advance, and the 3d Ranger Battalion later aided the advance along the northern Sicilian coast to Messina by infiltrating through the mountains to outflank successive German delaying positions. By the fall of Messina on 17 August, marking the end of the Sicilian campaign, the Rangers were already preparing for the invasion of Italy.14 At Salerno the Rangers once again secured critical objectives during the amphibious assault, but, cut off by the rapid German response to the main landings, they were forced to hold their positions for about three weeks, a defensive mission unsuitable for such light units. Landing on a narrow, rocky beach to the left of the main beachhead early on the morning of 9 September, the Rangers quickly occupied the high ground of the Sorrentino peninsula, dominating the routes between Page 21 Photo: Soldiers of the 3d Ranger Battalion board LCIs that will take them to Anzio. Two weeks later, nearly all would be killed or captured at Cisterna (U.S. Army Photograph) Page 22 the invasion beaches and Naples. To the south the Germans contained the main landing, preventing Lt. Gen. Mark W. Clark's Fifth Army from linking up with the Ranger position. Nevertheless, Darby's three battalions, assisted by paratroopers and British commandos, held their position against repeated German attacks. Lacking enough troops to hold a continuous line, the Rangers adopted a system of mutually supporting strongpoints and relied on the terrain and naval gunfire, which they directed to harass the routes from Naples until Clark's force broke through to them on 30 September.l5 Casualties mounted when the Rangers served as line infantry in the offensive against the German Winter Line. Lacking troops on the Venafro front, Clark used the Rangers to fill gaps in Fifth Army's line from early November to mid-December. Attached to divisions, the battalions engaged in bitter mountain fighting at close quarters. Although reinforced by a cannon company of four 75-mm. guns on half-tracks, they still lacked the firepower and manpower for protracted combat. By mid-December the continuous fighting and the cold, wet weather had taken a heavy toll. In one month of action, for example, the 1st Ranger Battalion lost 350 men, including nearly 200 casualties from exposure. Moreover, the quality of the battalions declined as veterans were replaced by enthusiastic, but inadequately trained, replacements.l6 A botched infiltration mission on the Anzio beachhead in early 1944 completed the destruction of Darby's Rangers. After a nearly unopposed Allied amphibious assault on 22 January 1944, Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas, commander of the VI Corps, failed to press his advantage, and the Germans were able to contain the Allies within a narrow perimeter. Seeking to push out of this confined area, Truscott, now a major general and commander of the 3d Infantry Division, ordered the 1st and 3d Ranger Battalions to infiltrate four miles behind enemy lines to the crossroads town of Cisterna. One hour after their departure, the 4th Ranger Battalion and the rest of the division would launch a frontal assault and use the confusion created by the infiltrating Rangers to drive a deep wedge into the German defenses. American intelligence, however, had failed to notice a large German buildup opposite the American lines, and Ranger reconnaissance of the target area was poor. Page 23 When the two battalions began their infiltration on the night of 29-30 January, the enemy quickly detected them and by dawn had surrounded them with infantry and armor just outside Cisterna. In a desperate attempt to rescue the isolated units, the 4th Ranger Battalion repeatedly attacked the German lines throughout the morning but succeeded in losing half of its combat strength in the futile effort. About noon, the remnants of the 1st and 3d surrendered. Only eight men escaped to American lines.17 Left with a fragment of the Ranger force, American theater commanders decided to deactivate rather than reconstitute the damaged units. Even before Cisterna, the lack of time to train replacements had diluted the quality of the battalions. In truth, the Rangers had become little more than line infantry units, but without the firepower of the normal American infantry regiments of the time. Anticipating tough, methodical fighting for which Ranger units were unsuited, theater commanders preferred to use the remaining Rangers to alleviate the perennial shortage of replacements. Accordingly, in March Rangers with enough points for overseas service returned to the United States, while the remainder joined the 1st Special Service Force, a similar type of formation that had recently arrived in the theater. 18 The 1st Special Service Force The 1st Special Service Force traced its origins to Marshall's trip to Great Britain in early 1942, the same visit that had inspired the formation of the 1st Ranger Battalion. Between conferences on grand strategy, Mountbatten had introduced Marshall to Geoffrey Pyke, an eccentric British scientist who had developed a scheme to divert up to half-a-million German troops from the main fronts. Under Pyke's plan, commandos, using special vehicles, would conduct a series of winter raids against snowbound German garrisons of such vulnerable points as hydroelectric stations in Norway and oil refineries in Romania. Exactly how the raiding units would enter and leave the target areas remained hazy, but the concept fascinated Marshall. After returning to the United States, he gave the project a high priority despite the skepticism of War Department planners. Studebaker, an automobile manufactur- Page 24 Photo: Brig. Gen. Robert T. Frederick (U.S. Army Photograph) er, received a contract for the design and production of the vehicle later known as the Weasel. In June the Allies also agreed to form a Canadian-American force under Col. Robert T. Frederick to conduct the raids. Although as a War Department staff officer he had opposed the project, the tall, vigorous Frederick proved to be a natural leader, respected by superiors and idolized by his men.19 At Fort William Henry Harrison, an isolated post near Helena, Montana, Frederick assembled his new unit, which he named the 1st Special Service Force in an apparent attempt to disguise its true purpose. Initially, it consisted of three battalion-size units of light infantry (officially designated as regiments) and a service echelon. For American personnel, who would constitute about 60 percent of the unit, inspection teams canvassed Army units in the Southwest and on the Pacific seaboard for hardened volunteers, especially those with a background as "lumberjacks, forest rangers, hunters, north-woodsmen, game wardens, prospectors, and explorers." 20 As was the case with the Rangers, many post commanders used the recruiting drive to empty their stockades and rid themselves of malcontents, and some "volunteer" contingents even arrived at Fort Harrison under armed guard. Frederick soon weeded out unfit recruits, driving his men through an intensive Page 25 program that stressed physical conditioning, weapons training, hand-to-hand fighting, demolitions, rock climbing, and the operation of the Weasel. For training in winter warfare, the recruits lived in boxcars on the Continental Divide while receiving instruction in cross-country skiing from Norwegian instructors. The accelerated schedule allowed only six days for airborne training. Frederick wanted to have the unit ready for operations by the winter of 1942-43. 21 Unfortunately for Frederick's raiders, the Allied high command canceled their mission before they could even take the field. When Frederick visited Great Britain in September 1942, he found that support for the project had evaporated. The Royal Air Force showed little enthusiasm for the diversion of the necessary planes from its bombing campaign, and the Special Operations Executive had already laid plans for a more economic sabotage program that was preferred by Norway's government-in-exile. Mountbatten thus recommended that the project be canceled, and Frederick agreed. While his unit broadened its training to include more general infantry skills and amphibious operations, Frederick investigated other areas Page 26 Photo: Mount La Difensa (U.S. Army Photograph) where his men could use their special capabilities, including the Caucasus Mountains, New Guinea, and the North Pacific. In August 1943 the unit finally went into action for the first time, spearheading the bloodless recapture of Kiska in the Aleutians. The rapid conclusion of the campaign again left Frederick's unit without a mission. Finally, in October, General Clark, desperate for troops, secured the transfer of the 1st Special Service Force to his Fifth Army in the Mediterranean, and the combat history of the 1st Special Service Force began.22 Shortly after its arrival in late November, the 1st Special Service Force received its initial mission. Looming over Fifth Army's front, the twin peaks of Monte La Difensa and Monte La Rementanea presented formidable barriers to the Allied advance into the Liri River Valley. A German panzer grenadier division deeply entrenched along the slopes of the two masses had already thrown back repeated Allied attempts to gain control of the heights. Attached to the 36th Infantry Division, the 1st Special Service Force received orders to carry the two peaks. After a personal reconnaissance of the 3,000-foot La Difensa, Frederick decided to avoid the trail leading up the Page 27 south side and instead to launch a surprise attack via a 200-foot cliff on the opposite slope. On the night of 2-3 December 600 riflemen of the 2d Regiment moved silently up the face to a position only yards away from the German defenders on the crest. When noise from displaced stones alerted the enemy, the special servicemen assaulted the position and within two hours gained control of the crest. From there, they pushed down a saddle to capture neighboring Monte La Rementanea and to link up with British units on the other side of the valley. The fall of the twin peaks cracked the Winter Line and opened the way for the Allied advance to Cassino.23 Any euphoria that Frederick's men might have felt over their success dissipated soon after the unit reentered the fighting as line infantry in late December. Poor weather and a skillful German defense among rocks and gullies slowed the advance to a crawl and took a heavy toll of the special servicemen. Like the Ranger units, they lacked the heavier weapons needed to blast the Germans out of their positions, as well as an adequate system to replace their growing combat and non-combat casualties. After a bitter struggle, the 1st Regiment captured Monte Sammucro but lost much of its fighting power. The 3d Regiment used a surprise night assault to overwhelm the defenders of Monte Majo but then suffered heavy casualties in a three-day defense of the height against German counterattacks. In one month of service before its transfer to Anzio, the force had lost 1,400 of its 1,800 men and badly needed the qualified replacements made available by the disbandment of the Rangers.24 Deploying to the Anzio beachhead in early February 1944, the 1st Special Service Force anchored the Allied right flank along the Mussolini Canal and later spearheaded the drive on Rome. At Anzio Frederick's 1,300 troops defended 13 kilometers of the 52-kilometer-long Allied perimeter. Their position in the flat, open tableland adjoining the canal was dominated by German artillery in the heights overlooking the beachhead. Defending its sector, the unit used night patrols to locate targets for artillery, conduct raids on German outposts, and maintain control of the area between the lines. In late May Frederick's troops participated in the breakout from the beachhead and reinforced an armored task force covering the flank Page 28 of the subsequent Allied drive on Rome. Early on the morning of 4 June the first elements of the combined force entered Rome and secured the bridges over the Tiber River. The 1st Special Service Force then withdrew to Lake Albano for rest and reorganization.25 After the fall of Rome, the unit's final six months proved anticlimactic. Assigned to Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch's Seventh Army for the invasion of southern France, the force received orders to seize German batteries on the Iles d'Hyeres, three rocky land masses on the left flank of the invasion beaches. On the night of 14-15 August the special servicemen, now under the command of Col. Edwin A. Walker, used rubber boats to land on the shores of Ile de Port Cros and Ile du Levant. Within forty-eight hours, the surprised defenders on both islands had surrendered, and Walker's troops prepared to join the main army. Guarding the right flank of Patch's advance, the unit's ensuing drive along the Riviera, the so-called Champagne Campaign, seemed more like an extended route march than a battle. Only a few German rear guards offered any resistance. By early September the unit had established a static defensive position in the mountains along the Franco-Italian border, where it remained for the next three months. In early December Eisenhower's headquarters, under orders from the War Department, dissolved the unit, returning the Canadians to their own army and transferring the Americans to a separate infantry regiment assigned to Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley's 12th Army Group.26 The Office of Strategic Services in the Mediterranean In North Africa and Italy the Army ignored the role that commando-type units, such as the 1st Special Service Force, might have played in operations behind enemy lines, leaving the field to the Office of Strategic Services. Both OSS personnel and their British counterparts in the Special Operations Executive were supervised by the G-3 Division of the theater headquarters, but the Americans tended to be dominant in North Africa, while the British enjoyed greater influence in the eastern Mediterranean. Although OSS personnel initially lacked experience, resources, and the respect of skeptical staff officers in the theater, the agency soon proved its value. Prior Page 29 to TORCH, agents established contact with Allied sympathizers in North Africa and gathered intelligence vital to the invasion. To guard against a possible Axis thrust through Spanish Morocco into the Allied rear, two civilian operatives even organized warrior tribesmen of the region into a guerrilla force. At Salerno an OSS detachment provided critical tactical intelligence to Darby's Rangers during their defense of the Sorrentino peninsula. Nevertheless, OSS personnel often complained that their operations were misunderstood by field commanders, citing one colonel who expected them to "sit in foxholes and toss petard grenades and Molotov cocktails at German heavy tanks as they rolled over us." 27 Nevertheless, their activities earned the interest and approval of General Clark, who gave them vehicles, rations, and a free hand. 28 As the Allied armies expanded their foothold on the Italian peninsula during the fall of 1943, the newly arrived operational groups began to establish bases on offshore islands for raids against the German-held northern coastline. In February 1943 Eisenhower agreed to allow the OSS's Special Operations staff at Algiers to employ four to eight of these commando cells to organize and otherwise assist guerrilla forces in Italy and southern France. Shortly after the Italian surrender in September, Donovan, who was visiting Algiers at the time, ordered an operational group to accompany a French expeditionary force to Corsica, where partisans had revolted against the German garrison. Since the Germans had already decided to withdraw their troops to the Italian mainland, the operational groups and their French allies merely harassed the departing enemy. Immediately following the German evacuation, the groups established an advance base there, as well as observation posts on the nearby islands of Gorgona and Capraia. At Corsica, they were only thirty-five miles from the Italian coast.29 From their new bases, the operational groups conducted raids against German communications along the Italian coast in an attempt to divert enemy troops from the main front (Map 3). The narrow, rocky coastal plains of the Italian peninsula were crossed by numerous roads and railways, which the Germans used as lines of supply. Night after night, operational groups crawled ashore to attack the most vulnerable points and reconnoiter enemy installations. Observers at Gorgona Page 30 Map 3: Northern Italy, 1943-1945 Page 31 directed air strikes against oil tanks in the harbor at Livorno before German raids finally forced evacuation of the island. But not all OG missions ended successfully. In March 1944 a fifteen-man force, code named GINNY, landed south of La Spezia with orders to dynamite a railway tunnel on the main supply line for the front south of Rome. Local inhabitants discovered the party's poorly concealed rubber boats and alerted the Germans, who found the party hiding in a barn. Although in uniform at the time, the captured OG members were summarily executed in accordance with Adolph Hitler's orders to liquidate all commandos.30 After transferring its bases to the Italian mainland in the late summer of 1944, the Office of Strategic Services placed a greater emphasis on partisan warfare. Up to that time, the lack of airlift and other resources and the confused political situation resulting from the sudden collapse of Italy in the fall of 1943 had hindered OSS efforts to establish contact with the resistance in northern Italy. In mid-1944, however, the Americans began to drop supplies and operatives into the region on a much larger scale. At that time, nine operational groups parachuted into the area to discover an indigenous resistance movement already in place, but desperately in need of equipment and supplies. As supply drops and word of Allied successes swelled their strength, the partisans subsequently took the offensive, harassing German forces withdrawing to the Gothic Line during the summer and fall of 1944. With winter, the decline in air resupply due to poor flying weather enabled the Germans to strike back against the guerrillas, who faded into the mountains. Their retreat proved only temporary, for by the spring of 1945 seventy-five OSS teams were equipping and training the resistance bands in preparation for the final Allied effort in Italy.31 When the Allied offensive crossed the Po River in late April 1945, partisans, supported by operational groups, rose in revolt throughout northern Italy. Assisted by these American operatives, partisans cut key routes from Lake Como to the Brenner Pass, while south of Piacenza and Parma OG teams organized successful roadblocks on key transport routes and harassed German columns and troop concentrations. Guerrilla roadblocks aided the 92d Infantry Division in its capture of Page 32 Pontremoli, and in Genoa 15,000 partisans, directed by operational groups, prevented the destruction of the port facilities and took some 3,000 prisoners. In all, Italian partisans killed or wounded over 3,000 Axis troops, captured 81,000 others, and prevented the destruction of key facilities in the Genoa, Milan, Venice, and Modena areas.32 Although British SOE agents dominated operations in the eastern Mediterranean, the Office of Strategic Services still played an important role there. Seeking to pin down German forces far from the OVERLORD invasion, American operatives agreed to provide arms to Communist and socialist guerrillas in Greece as early as October 1943 in return for their subordination to the authority of the theater commander. While the partisans increased their activities, operational groups began to infiltrate into Greece early in 1944 to conduct a series of raids against German road and rail communications in Macedonia, Thessaly, and the Peloponnesus. With the aid of Communist guerrillas, an SO party in May demolished two bridges on the Orient Express line, temporarily interrupting the supply of Turkish chrome to Germany. Extensive OSS operations in Greece continued up to the German withdrawal, ending only in December with the outbreak of a local, but bitter, civil war between the various resistance groups. Off the coast of Yugoslavia, operational groups helped defend the island of Vis, a key base for the supply of Communist partisans under Josip Broz Tito, and joined British commandos in raids along the Dalmatian coast, remaining in the field up to the German departure from Yugoslavia in July 1944. 33 In the initial assault against Axis-dominated Europe, U.S. forces could thus claim many significant achievements in the field of special operations. At Arzew, El Guettar, Gela, Salerno, Monte La Difensa, Anzio, and the Iles d'Hyeres, the Ranger battalions and 1st Special Service Force had performed missions critical to the success of conventional forces, while in the interior OSS commandos had raided German communications and provided direct support to partisans in northern Italy and the Balkans. The ability of these forces to take advantage of the rough terrain and extended coastlines characteristic of the theater proved to be a major factor in their success. Nevertheless, for the most part, the conventional Allied campaign in the Mediterranean proceeded as if special operations never exist- Page 33 ed. The relative insignificance of such activities reflected both American inexperience and a chronic shortage of materiel and manpower resources. But the basic cause was the absence of any doctrine of special operations. Field commanders, uncertain about the proper employment of the Ranger battalions and the 1st Special Service Force, depleted their strength in line operations and eventually disbanded them rather than employ them in a systematic program of raids that would have used their special capabilities. Moreover, the partisan efforts in Italy and the Balkans had only a nuisance value and were rarely tied into the operations of conventional Allied combat units. Thus, despite some isolated successes, special operations made only a limited contribution to the hard-earned success of Allied arms in the Mediterranean. Notes 1. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., Command Missions: A Personal Story (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1954), pp. 22-25, 37-40; Memo, Truscott for Brig Gen Charles L. Bolte, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army Forces British Isles (USAFBI), 26 May 42, Box 10, Folder 3, Lucian K. Truscott, Jr., Papers, George C. Marshall Research Library, Lexington, Va.; Cable, Marshall to USFOR, 27 May 42, Section IA, Ranger File, U.S. Army, Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 Operations, Records Section, Decimal File, March 1950-1951, 322 Ranger, Record Group (RG) 319, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Washington, D.C. 2. Quote from Michael J. King, William Orlando Darby: A Military Biography (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1981), p. 32. 3. Ibid., pp. 1-3, 9, 16, 177. Testimonies of Darby's leadership ability abound: see James J. Altieri, The Spearheaders (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), pp. 31-32; William O. Darby and William H. Baumer, Darby's Rangers: We Led the Way (San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1980), pp. 1-2. 4. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 25-27, 83; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 15-22, 66-67; Memo, Col I.B. Summers, Adj Gen, USAFBI, for Hartle, 13 Jun 42, Theodore J. Conway Papers, U.S. Army Military History Institute, (USAMHI), Carlisle, Pa. 5; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 38-41, 80-81; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 27-49; Instructions and Key to Programme of Work for USA Rangers, 1st to 31st July 1942, and Darby's Progress Report to Truscott, 17 Jul 42, both in Sgt Harry Perlmutter Ranger Battalions of World War II Collection, Ranger Battalions: Historical Background Information on Ranger Battalions and Tables of Organization and Equipment (hereafter cited as Perlmutter Collection), Roll 8, John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center Library, Fort Bragg, N.C. 6. Rpt, Darby to Adj Gen, 11 Jan 43, and Capt Roy Murray's report on Dieppe, 26 Aug 42, both in U.S. Army, Adj Gen's Office, World War II Operations Reports, 1940-1948, Infantry (hereafter cited as WWII Ops Reports), INBN 1-0, RG 407, Washington National Records Center (WNRC), Suitland, Md. From the extensive literature on Dieppe, note especially Lord Lovat, March Past. A Memoir (New York: Homes & Meier, 1978), pp. 237-78; Peter Young, Commando (New York: Ballantine, 1969), pp. 128-53. 7. Maurice Matloff, ea., American Military History, Army Historical Series, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, Government Printing Office, 1973), p. 444; AFHQ Outline Plan, TORCH, 20 Sep 42, U.S. Army Staff, Plans and Operations Division, ABC Decimal File, 1942-48, 381 (7-25-42), Sec. I to 4, RG 319, NARA; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 10-13; King, William Orlando Darby, p. 44. 8. Darby's report of action at Arzew, I Jan 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 8-10, 17-23; Altieri, The Spearheaders, p. 137. 9. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 53-55; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 146-53, 169-91; Michael J. King, Rangers: Selected Combat Operations of World War II, Leavenworth Papers 11 (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 1985), p. 14. 10. Leilyn M. Young, "Rangers in a Night Operation," Military Review 24 July 1944): 64-69; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 56-60; Darby's report of Sened, 5 Mar 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC. Page 35 11. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 60-65; Darby's report for the period 14-28 Feb 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC. 12. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 67-77; Darby's report of El Guettar, 9 Apr 43, in WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC; King, Wilham Orlando Darby, p. 62; King, Rangers, pp. 15-22. 13. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 78, 83-84; King, Wilham Orlando Darby, pp. 68, 75-76; Msg. Algiers to War Department, 18 Apr 43, U.S. War Department, Operations Division, War Department Message File: Incoming Top Secret, April 1-30, 1943, RG 165, NARA; Cable, Marshall to Eisenhower, 19 Apr 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC; Altieri, The Spearheaders, pp. 241, 246-47. 14. Darby's report of action at Gela, Sicily, 5 Aug 43, U.S. War Department, Operations Division, OPD 381 ETO, Section V, Cases 108-137, Case 108, RG 165, NARA; Rpt, Dammer to Adj Gen, 31 Jul 43, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 3-0.3, RG 407, WNRC; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 85-99, 104-09; King, Wilham Orlando Darby, p. 88; King, Rangers, pp. 23-28. 15. Darby's report of Salerno, 15 Nov 43, INBN 1-0, and Dammer's report, 25 Nov 1943, INBN 3-0.3, both in WWII Ops Reports, RG 407, WNRC; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 113-22; Alexander M. Worth, Jr., "Supporting Weapons and High Ground: The Rangers at Salerno," Infantry Journal 56 (May 1945): 33-34. 16. Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 128-40; King, William Orlando Darby, pp. 103, 106, 121, 129-30, 137, 145, 185; Darby's report of offensive against Winter Line, 29 Mar 44, WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0, RG 407, WNRC. 17. See reports on Cisterna in WWII Ops Reports, INBN 1-0.3 and INBN 3-0.3, RG 407, WNRC; King, William Orlando Darby, pp. 136, 145; King, Rangers, pp. 29-40; Darby and Baumer, Darby's Rangers, pp. 148-55, 159-69; Truscott, Command Missions, p p. 312- 14. 18. Memo, Lt Gen Jacob Devers, Commanding General, North African Theater of Operations, for War Department, 25 Feb 44; Memo, Devers for War Department, 13 Mar 44; and Memo, Maj Gen Thomas T. Handy, Asst Chief of Staff, for FREEDOM, 28 Feb 44. All in U.S. War Department, Operations Division, OPD 320.2 Africa, Cases 584-616, RG 165, NARA; King, William Orlando Darby, pp. 136, 145. 19. Robert D. Burhans, The First Special Service Force. A War History of the North Americans, 1942-44 (Washington, D.C.: Infantry Journal Press, 1947), pp. 1-5, 8-12; Robert H. Adleman and George Walton, The Devil's Brigade (Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1966), pp. 2-4, 11, 25-35. 20. Quote from Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, p. 48. 21. Burhans, The First Special Service Force, pp. 13-15, 23, 60; Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 48-50, 57, 73-84. 22. Burhans, The First Special Service Force, pp. 35-37, 45-46, 86; Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 86-91, 103-09. 23. Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 119-32, 142-45. 24. Ibid., pp. 148, 159-61; Scott R. McMichael, A Histoncal Perspective on Light Infantry, Research Survey 6 (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 1987), pp. 186-92. 25. Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Bngade, pp. 168-74, 202-04, 211-19; McMichael, A Histoncal Perspective on Light Infantry, pp. 198-201. 26. Burhans, The First Special Service Force, pp. 257, 273, 299; Adleman and Walton, The Devil's Brigade, pp. 227-30, 233, 243-44; Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., Page 36 and Stephen E. Ambrose, eds., The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, 9 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970) 4: 2232n. 27. Carleton S. Coon, A North Africa Story: The Anthropologist as OSS Agent, 1941-1943 (Ipswich, Mass.: Gambit Press, 1980), p. 96. 28. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 1: 206-07, and 2: 9, 13-15, 67; Coon, A North Africa Story, pp. 124-25; Paddock, U.S. Army Special Warfare, pp. 25-26; MS, Allied Force Headquarters (AFHQ), History of Special Operations, Mediterranean Theater, 1942-45, pp. 17-18, NARA. 29. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 1:108, and 2: 60-61, 77-78; Brown, The Hero, pp. 471-72. 30. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 77-80; Report of ICEBERG Operation, Folder 682, and Rpt, Col Russell Livermore to Commander, 2677th HQ Company Exp (Prov), 4 Jan 44, both in OSS, Algiers SO-OP-9, Entry 97, Box 40, RG 226, NARA; Brown, The Last Hero, pp. 474-80. 31. MS, AFHQ' History of Special Operations, Mediterranean, pp. 23, 25-26; Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 107-13, 115; Smith, OSS, pp. 107, 109. 32. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 115-16; MS, AFHQ, History of Special Operations, Mediterranean, pp. 26-27; Smith, OSS, pp. 116-17. 33. Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2: 124, 127-29. Brown, The Last Hero, pp. 430-33, 439-42. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Nine Spies from Harvard: Hal Vaughan on FDR’s 12 Apostles 7:00 PM A year and a half before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ’04 bypassed his own State Department and secretly sent 12 young spies into North Africa. The network they established paved the way for the eventual Allied invasion and victory in North Africa. These 12 spies included nine from Harvard: Gordon H. Brown ’23; Franklin O. Canfield ’32; Carleton S. Coon ’25, G’28; Frederic F. Culbert (’10-’11), David W. King (’12-’14); Kenneth W. Pendar ’30, John E. Utter ’25, Ridgway B. Knight B’31, and Harry A. Woodruff (class unknown). Using unpublished memoirs and recently declassified documents, Hal Vaughan tells the story of these men, the women they loved, and the clandestine adventures, full of treachery and intrigue, that led to the success of Operation Torch. Hal Vaughan is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer and a journalist who has worked for ABC News, the New York Daily News, and Voice of America. He admits to having helped CIA operatives to penetrate Soviet and Chinese targets while serving in the Foreign Service in Pakistan and as a U.S. diplomatic spokesman to international conferences. Spence Porter, Program Committee For reservations contact Programs at 212-827-1202 or at programs@hcny.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Wait until you hear this one. Carleton S. Coon trained as a linguist and an anthropologist and later with the OSS, worked with both Ulius Amoss the Cairo OSS Station Chief and Robert Emmett Johnson. Coon was very heavily involved with both Wickliffe Preston Draper and The Pioneer Fund as a White Supremacist, Race Hygienist and Eugenics proponent as was Draper of course. http://comm.colorado.edu/jjackson/research/coon.pdf And Wickliffe P. Draper was involved with both Dr. Has J. Eysenck who worked on MKULTRA projects, and the MKULTRA based H. Smith Richardson Foundation through The Pioneer Fund and his links to THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, Anastse Vonsiatsky. Quod Est Demonstratum. NOW DO YOU BELIEVE THAT RICHARD CONDON IN THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE KNEW ABOUT DRAPER AND VONSIATSKY AND MACARTHUR AND WILLOUGHBY AND THURMOND AND MORRIS AND ANGLETON AND FELLERS? Even George Michael Evica in A Certain Arrogance references former Korean Prisoners of War who had been brainwashed during their imprisonment. And talks about what Dulles and Wisner did to conceal them. Do a Google for Draper Asselar Man or Draper Tuaregs and see what you get. Condon wrote about the Tuaregs in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, too... and Draper, playing amateur anthropologist went along for a fossil dig and now claims to have discovered Asselar Man. In fact all he did was measure some Tuareg facial features, gathering Coon style racial metrics which was very popular at the time. You guys are not getting this are you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Carleton S. Coon, took over the ISI assassination operations of Col. Ulius Amoss in Baltimore and ran Robert Emmett Johnson until Coon died in 1981. At that point these assassination teams were passed on to Ray S. Cline of the World Anti-Communist League and the package included Robert Emmett Johnson as well. "You stay in your village and I will stay in mine. If your sheep eat our grass we will kill you, or we may kill you anyhow to get all the grass for our own sheep. Anyone who tries to make us change our ways is a witch and we will kill him. Keep out of our village." — Carleton Coon - The Story of Man, 1954, page 376 On the occasion of voicing opposition to Brown vs. Board of Education - 1954 the Earl Warren Court decision. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bevilaqua Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share Posted November 11, 2007 Proclamation of Freedom by Carleton Coon, Gordon Browne and Randolph Gusus To the Riffs and Berbers (Moroccan tribes) The proclamation was written first in English by Carleton Coon, Gordon Browne and Randolph Mohammed Gusus for William J. Donovan and subsequently delivered to FDR. Coon and Browne "had reworded 'the English in a more Arabic-sounding way, and Randolph Mohammed Gusus would sing out an Arabic poetical version and then write it down. Every time God was mentioned in the original text, Gusus named Him six times, and 'the result was a piece of poetry that might have come out of the Koran.' " (Wild Bill Donovan, The Last Hero, Anthony Cave Brown, p. 252-253) Franklin D. Roosevelt, Operation Torch, Nov. 8, 1942 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Davidic Chiasmus -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Word of the Lord. Praise be unto the only God. In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. B. New Things - The Lord's Covenant. O ye Moslems. O ye beloved sons of the Moghreb. May the blessings of God be upon you. This is a great day for you and for us, for all of the sons of Adam who love freedom. Behold. D. The Lord's Servant. We the American Holy Warriors have arrived. Our numbers are as the leaves on the forest trees and as the grains of sand in the sea. We have come here to fight the great Jihad of Freedom. C. The World. We have come to set you free. We have sailed across the great sea in many ships, on many beaches we are landing, and our fighters swarm across the sands and into the city streets, and into the wide country side, and along the highways. Light fires on the hilltops; shout from your housetops, and from the high places, and say the sound of the drum be heard in the land, and the ululation of the women, and the voices of small children. Assemble along the highways to welcome your brothers. We have come to set you free. E. Preservation. Speak with the fighting men and you will find them pleasing to the eye and gladdening to the heart. F. The Suffering Servant. We are not as some other Christians whom ye have known, and who trample you under foot. E. Salvation. Our soldiers consider you as their brothers, for we have been reared in the way of free men. Our soldiers have been told about your country and about their Moslem brothers and they will treat you with respect and with a friendly spirit in the eyes of God. D. The Lord's Davidic Servant. Look in their eyes and smiling faces, for they are Holy Warriors happy in their holy work. Greet us therefore as brothers as we will greet you, and help us [fight the great Jihad of Freedom.] C. Overcoming the World. If we are thirsty, show us the way to water. If we lose our way, lead us back to our camping places. [if needs be,] Show us the paths over the mountains if needs be, and if you see our enemies, the Germans or Italians, making trouble for us, kill them with knives or with stones or with any weapon that you may have set your hands upon. B. Fulfillment. Help us as we have come to help you, and rich will be the reward unto you as all who love justice and righteousness and freedom. Pray for our success in battle, and help us, and God will help us both. Lo. The day of freedom hath come. May God grant his blessing upon you and upon us. A. Salvation Song. [Ellipsis] _____ - Roosevelt. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to Davidic Chiasmus Home Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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