Most within the OSS viewed Angleton as the right man to revamp the operation in Rome. Security and compartmentalization were lax, and his predecessor at X-2 had recommended the OSS cease operations with the San Marco men. Though betrayals were a possibility, like Kelly, Angleton felt the short- and long-term benefits of working with the group outweighed the security risks. He emphatically urged the OSS to keep the San Marco unit active, arguing that it would allow him to strengthen X-2’s relationship with the Italian Secret Intelligence Service (ISIS) of the Italian Royal Navy, which had been key in eliminating the German intelligence network and saboteurs north of Florence. Angleton had intelligence indicating the Germans were intending to plant “sleeper” or “stay behind” Italian agents in key centers in Italy upon evacuation of the areas to report on Allied troop movements and provide other actionable intelligence. Many believed Borghese, the former leader of Decima MAS, was likely overseeing some of these activities.
Angleton was convinced the San Marco commandos now working for the OSS would prove to be invaluable assets. He also believed that ISIS could be a powerful partner in eradicating the covert Axis network and participate in a myriad of other joint intelligence operations. Angleton’s and the OSS’s renewed confidence in ISIS was a tremendous boost to their relationship. This prompted an offer from the Royal Navy Intelligence Service to allow the OSS to “take over the Gamma frogmen school in Taranto, Italy,” which boasted specialized equipment and expert instructors, so the “OSS could prepare its own naval sabotage group for operation in the Pacific.” The OSS cataloged and inventoried the techniques and equipment of Decima MAS, though they were never deployed in the Pacific.
OSS records report, “It was the San Marco Battalion which eventually enabled MU to perform its most valuable work.” The portion of the battalion that had come over to the Allied side was divided into two groups: surface swimmers and underwater swimmers. Those who had been trained in the use of human torpedoes and other underwater devices were based at Taranto under the supervision of the British. However, their usefulness was limited because “lack of German targets prevented this division from engaging in sabotage activities.” As operations officer, Jack Taylor played a key role in the negotiations with the group and had a hand in setting up their training and organization under the OSS. Ward Ellen was initially tasked with commanding the surface swimmers.
Under Taylor and Ellen, men from the group immediately started contributing to the Allied war effort in Italy as the OSS peeled off select San Marco men for missions. During the Allied invasion at Anzio, a bloody amphibious landing resulting in a months-long battle that raged on the western side of Italy near Rome, one former sergeant in the San Marco Battalion infiltrated behind German lines, and as he returned through friendly fire with a “rough but accurate plan of German fortifications,” was seriously wounded by an American soldier who thought he was an enemy combatant. He refused medical treatment until he made his full report to the OSS officer. In and out of consciousness and revived with injections of plasma, the Italian operator made his report and received an American decoration for his valiant efforts.
In May, Richard Kelly was ordered to “take charge of MU activities in Italy, also to contact members of the Italian San Marco Battalion, who had been assigned to OSS.” His fellow Navy officer Ward Ellen would continue to assist Kelly in training the Italians and integrating them into MU.
MU oversaw the second group of “surface swimmers,” which was based in Naples. It included “six Italian officers and 44 enlisted men, all surface swimmers.” Although not trained in underwater combat, “they were, however, qualified to undertake infiltrations by sea for the purpose of attacking supply dumps, beach installations, etc.” For several weeks Kelly and Ellen trained this second group of Italians in demolitions and in the use of MU equipment. However, friction developed between the two men, as Ellen considered himself independent of Kelly’s command.
The Italians brought with them the latest in covert maritime tech, including swimming gear, two-man “mattresses” called tartugas (turtles) powered by silent electric motors, their own rubber swimsuits, high-speed boats, and “other assault, reconnaissance and demolitions equipment.” However, the Germans retained much of their equipment in addition to the loyalty and services of nearly half the unit’s members. One OSS operative reported, “The duke and his men saved three one-man human torpedoes, similar to the British chariot. They hid them by sinking them in a river. . . . They are there still. The duke said he would be more than pleased to raise them and turn them over to us to use as models for similar craft, that our own men could operate.”
A study of the captured equipment became of paramount interest to the Allies. Donovan ordered an inventory of the equipment and personnel that the duke had offered for Allied use.
One of the earliest studies concerned Italy’s MTM explosive craft. Essentially it was a motorized speedboat that contained five hundred pounds of TNT in the bow. “The main charge detonated either hydrostatically or on contact. The operator of the craft could set the method of detonation. . . . If the boat hits head on . . . the operator aims the boat, locks the speed and the steering gear, arms the firing mechanism, and then releases the raft attached to his body and drops off the stern,” the OSS recorded. Hopefully he would survive what was nearly a suicide mission.
PLANS WERE ALSO UNDERWAY for the OSS to bring over an entire Operational Swimmer Group, the one led by recently promoted Lieutenant Commander Arthur Choate. However, General Donovan himself rescinded the order “because of commitments which General Donovan had made in the central Pacific area and because of his own orders in this matter.” MU and Italy continued to press for an entire swimmer group, and they eventually received a couple of swimmers, Norman Wicker, whom Taylor had trained in Annapolis, and John J. Stanaway.
As additional MU officers and enlisted men continued streaming in, the entire Maritime Unit organization in Italy began to take on a more military structure. In May 1944, OSS-METO was designated the 2677th Regiment OSS (provisional). The actual regiment itself remained provisional and was not activated until July 1944. Taylor, who abhorred paperwork, relied on newly arrived MU officers to handle bureaucratic matters while he continued to go on missions. But the days of an operations officer going into the field were becoming numbered, and soon MU put in place procedures and rules to minimize the danger of officers being captured. At the same time, “Lieutenant Kelly immediately began laying the groundwork for a series of combination sabotage and intelligence missions behind the German lines, on the northern Adriatic coast of Italy,” relying on the expertise of the San Marco Battalion’s special operators.
*Until this time many countries considered this type of covert operation to be bad form. In fact, during the Battle of the Nile in 1798, when a British boatswain suggested planting explosives on an enemy ship, he was charged with “suggesting methods not compatible with the traditions of His Majesty’s Navy” and discharged from duty.
*Ian Fleming, a World War II British intelligence officer and later author of the James Bond series, immortalized the secret trapdoor of the Olterra and the exploits of Decima MAS in the film Thunderball.
16
OSSINING
THE NIGHT OF JUNE 19–20, 1944, ADRIATIC COASTAL RAILWAY, BEHIND GERMAN LINES
As quietly as possible, the six-man demolition team of Italian San Marco commandos, now under the command of Lieutenant Richard Kelly, climbed off the MAS boats and onto rubber boats. The shadowy flotilla managed to avoid a German minefield in the vicinity and slip past enemy boats patrolling the area. Beaching the boats, the team made their way to the mission’s intended target, a German rail track on which trains filled with supplies and enemy troops traveled as they hastily retreated north.
This was the third attempt to put the demolition party ashore. “Considerable [enemy] personnel” and searchlights on the beach had foiled two earlier attempts. Hiding in wait, the team heard nearby “enemy MPs blowing whistle
s and shouting at traffic” as the German military police ushered men, tanks, and trucks of the retreating army moving to another belt of fortifications known as the Gothic Line.
Finally, one heavily guarded supply train stopped on the track. Under the noses of the Germans, the special operators of the San Marco Battalion stealthily approached the target and set pressure charges to go off as the train rolled over the rails. To ensure the track was vaporized, the demolition party placed timed pencil detonators set to explode in the morning in the event the pressure detonators failed.
The six commandos and their leader returned to the beach, launched the rubber boats, and returned to the MAS transports to await the blast. Tensely, Kelly and his Italian special operators waited in silence for the German ammunition train they believed would soon arrive.
Finally, they heard the whistles of an approaching train, soon followed by deafening explosions as the bombs ripped through the steel and wood, destroying the train and a section of track. Simultaneously, the Italian MAS boats opened fire on two trucks in the vicinity, destroying them as well. Air reconnaissance revealed all German traffic was held up for more than thirty-six hours, and Kelly brought back actionable intelligence to the British Eighth Army Headquarters.
Reports indicated that the “intelligence information, which Lieutenant Kelly brought back from this first mission was considered extremely valuable by British Eighth Army Headquarters, and other operations of a similar type were given high priority.”
This was Kelly’s first mission with the San Marco Battalion, and it was dubbed “Operation Ossining I.” Only a small portion of the San Marco Battalion was now working with the OSS—about fifty of the original members. Unlike the frogmen of Decima MAS, these men were “not adept at underwater swimming and the use of one-man torpedoes, etc. Instead, they specialize[d] in sea landings of the commando type, going in to plant demotions and blow up bridges.”
The Italian special operators were noteworthy for their confidence, often bordering on arrogance. One of the operatives at the Italian base noted, “They are cocky young men, sure of themselves, most of them with no political convictions, but playing this game for the adventure, for the privilege of U.S. support, and U.S. rations, like cigarettes and food. They can be surly, and damned independent. It has been no easy job for Kelly to win the confidence of these men and their leader, but I believe he has succeeded, and while they seem a little vain because of what they have accomplished for the Allies, I think they deserve our admiration and gratitude.”
At the end of July, Kelly moved his group’s base of operations about a hundred miles north, near the city of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea. He would soon be joined by two more MU officers: Lieutenant John Chrislow of the U.S. Navy Reserve and Lieutenant George Hearn of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Hearn had joined the Marines right out of college and had served for eight months before being recruited into the OSS. He enjoyed being part of the action and thrived on assignments behind enemy lines.
In his training, Chrislow had received particularly high marks and was singled out for his leadership potential. His teachers wrote, “Handling other trainees, performance of field duties, physical stamina, initiative, intelligence, demolitions, pistol and field craft are all very satisfactory. Attention to duty in operation and code speed are all excellent. Map reading-excellent. Rifle and close combat satisfactory.” They also noted he was in “good physical condition” and thoroughly capable to be an instructor: “Quiet, sincere, cooperative, and a good mind. A good field man.”
With the help of these new officers, Kelly devised plans for a new mission dubbed “Ossining 3.” Acting on intelligence supplied by Allied intelligence sources, MU hoped “to destroy two road bridges over a small stream, approximately five kilometers south of Pesaro.” The bridges formed a key part of a German supply route, and their destruction would make it difficult to move tanks, artillery, and troops.
On the night of the raid, two Italian MAS boats transported Chrislow, who led the mission, and eleven other men from the OSS/San Marco group to the vicinity of the bridges. The twelve operatives then boarded two seven-man rubber boats and one of the electric surfboards for the final leg of the journey. Avoiding detection by “four Nazi armored cars, two tanks, several heavy vehicles and three German soldiers on foot,” the MU operators managed to plant six hundred pounds of plastic explosives on the pair of bridges, which were about ten kilometers behind enemy lines. The explosion wiped out the bridges “blocking all traffic for several days,” and all of the Americans and Italians safely made it back to their base.
Joining the new MU officers, Ward Ellen continued to command an Army rescue boat, P-583. The boat participated in numerous infiltrations and exfiltrations and helped save countless lives of downed airmen. On one mission, Ellen crossed the Adriatic with cargo for Tito’s partisans. High storms and heavy seas forced the boat to stay at port at the partisan island of Vis, which put him in the right place to take part in another vital mission. According to mission reports, “A seven hundred plane sortie [of Allied bombers] to Vienna produced seven Liberator crash landings on Vis. Four landings were on the rocks, and three were in the sea. There were 71 parachute jumps [crews bailing out].” Lieutenant Ellen rescued “some thirty downed airmen.” He then returned the downed crews to Bari.*
Reports later noted, “Although the Maritime Unit was severely handicapped due to the lateness of its arrival in the Italian and North African Theater, its work, even in a few months, was considered highly commendable by the Allied High Command. Without casualties or loss of equipment to date, it has contributed greatly to the campaign in Italy.”
IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of August 23–24, 1944, the long shadowy silhouette of the Castel Di Mezzo lighthouse loomed in the distance as one of the San Marco operatives guided his raft along the coast looking for a landfall for the Packard Mission. Twenty minutes later the recon squad of San Marco commandos returned to the MAS boat, informing the mission commander, Lieutenant Mini Enzo, that he saw a boat sailing north but found an “excellent point to land.” Enzo, a grizzled vet with years of combat experience and countless missions under his belt, ordered his team to switch positions with the recon squad. Enzo and a couple of his operatives clambered aboard the silent craft and made their way to the pinpoint.
Reaching shore, Enzo hastily disembarked, constantly on the watch for German patrols or roving Axis boats. Moving silently to avoid patrols or German observation posts on the bluffs above and in the lighthouse, the Packard team crept one hundred yards inland, where they buried equipment they couldn’t carry, including a rubber boat.
Enzo decided to hide the team until the morning before entering high-risk inhabited areas. “The region was very unfavorable for us due to the complete lack of any natural hiding-place,” he noted. The team had to traverse Highway 16, the German-controlled supply line that cut across Packard’s area of operation. Enzo explained, “[Crossing the highway] was most dangerous . . . capture would have meant death in case the Nazis or fascists stopped us.”
Fortunately, the team found a helpful farmer working the fields. After feeding the local a story about who they were, the Packard team received food and a crucial safe house away from roving German patrols. From their new base camp the team contacted the Garibaldi and Pesaro partisan units.
Enzo’s mission involved gathering information on the formidable Gothic Line, a belt of German pillboxes, minefields, and artillery emplacements that stretched across the neck of Italy. The Germans remained masters of defensive warfare, and since the Allies had landed in 1943 they had been decimated by one German fortification after another.
The intrepid San Marco operatives gathered tactical information on the entire line. Most importantly they secured a crown jewel of strategic and tactical intelligence: an Italian engineer who worked on the line along with his blueprints marking all the gun positions, minefields, and entrenchments. Knowing the information “was of the greatest importance and urgenc
y,” Enzo decided to escort the engineer back to Allied lines, leaving half the mission behind to gather additional intel.
Uncovering the buried rubber boat, Enzo and the engineer paddled back to Allied lines, where Polish MPs picked them up. The engineer and plans went back to the British Eighth Army intel section. As planned, two MAS boats picked up the rest of the Packard Mission on August 28.
When the Eighth Army attacked, they used the priceless information to save Allied lives as they broke through the Gothic Line. The British noted that the partisans contacted through the Packard Mission “were of tremendous help to the Eighth Army in their breakthrough.”
By all accounts, the Kelly Plan was succeeding.
*Not all the group’s operations were successful. On a mission known as “Ossining 4,” the boats failed to find the insertion location. And on “Ossining 5” Germans bombed the MU craft from the air while ground troops fired from shore. Still, the mission was at least partially successful because “all personnel escaped without injury,” and they succeeded in at least temporarily tying up German troops and diverting them away from the front lines.
17
SWIMMER COMMANDOS
SILENTLY THE FOUR SWIMMERS GLIDED through the darkness, intent on reaching the submarine pens they knew were close at hand. They lay on two OSS-developed teardrop-shaped rubber rafts, known as “Water Lilies” or “Flying Mattresses,” to keep a low profile and avoid German radar—as well as any curious locals who might be nearby. Silent electric motors powered by twelve-volt batteries took them within striking distance of the pens. Then the four men slid into the water, making as little noise as humanly possible.
Their assignment was to “reduce the striking power” of the German U-boats docked in Lorient-Kéroman, France, by taking them out four days before the planned Allied invasion of Normandy. Gordon Soltau, an MU swimmer who would become an all-pro receiver and kicker for the San Francisco 49ers after the war, was assigned to plant explosives on the locks, the underwater gates that guarded the sub pens. The others planted limpet mines on the subs inside. Then they began swimming for their rendezvous point on shore, leaving as silently as they arrived.
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