A photo showing German U-boat pens along the French coast. The Maritime Unit planned a daring combat swimmer operation to disable the pens prior to D-Day.
Various SS officers who ran the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where Jack Taylor was a prisoner. They committed numerous atrocities, which came to light during the Nuremberg Trials.
A Mauthausen inmate who met his death (one of many) on the electrified barbed wire that surrounded the camp. Mauthausen was the epicenter for a string of labor camps in Austria that could house tens of thousands prisoners at a time. Experts estimate several hundred thousand men, women, and children died in the camps.
The crematorium at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where the SS burned the dead bodies of tens of thousands of inmates. Jack Taylor and other inmates were forced at gunpoint by vicious German guards to build the ovens, brick by brick.
A member of the Maritime Unit receiving Airborne training. Many of the unit’s members were parachute-qualified, unlike the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams (UDTs). Maritime Unit operatives, much like modern SEALs, combined special operations with intelligence gathering.
A Maritime Unit submarine-launched operation in the southeast Pacific. Maritime Unit swimmers also conducted critical reconnaissance and demolitions that enabled the Navy to land on key islands in the later stages of World War II.
AIR
18
THE DUPONT MISSION
BY THE SUMMER OF 1944, the Allies had Italy contained and continued the long bloody advance up the mountainous spine of the country. The OSS’s focus shifted farther north to the Third Reich itself. The fledgling intelligence agency had successfully utilized many Italian recruits in their campaign to take that country, and now they hoped to do the same in Austria.
The Allies tapped Oxford-educated OSS Major John B. McCulloch, stationed at the base in Bari, to head up the search for Austrians who could be persuaded to support the Allied cause. Wealthy and affable, McCulloch spoke three foreign languages, including German, which served him well in his role as a recruiter. He was particularly good at disguising interrogation as small talk, ferreting out valuable intelligence, and helping to identify prisoners interested in changing sides.
When McCulloch and those who worked with him identified potential recruits, they sent the “Deserter-Volunteers,” or DVs, to a pair of villas in Bari. There the would-be operatives received American GI uniforms and began training, for their new careers as spies. One incident drove home the perilous nature of their new occupations. During training, the parachute belonging to one of the Austrians got tangled up as he was jumping from the plane. He perished, pummeled to death when the wind battered him against the fuselage of the plane.
It was from this group of DVs that McCulloch would select the men for the Dupont Mission, a daring parachute drop into the heart of German-held Austria. It would be OSS’s deepest parachute penetration into the Third Reich. The operatives would collect intelligence on the Austrian city of Wiener Neustadt. Located about twenty-five miles south of Vienna, the city was a major transportation hub and key stop on the German supply lines as well as the home of an airplane factory. In addition, the Allies had heard rumors that the Reich was constructing a belt of defensive fortifications known as the Southwest Wall in the region.
Obsessed with being in the heart of the action, Taylor once again left his operations officer’s position and volunteered to lead the Dupont Mission into Austria. After spending weeks behind the lines in Albania, surviving an experience that would kill most men, Taylor convinced McCulloch he should lead the mission. It wasn’t an easy sell: despite being one of the OSS’s most experienced operators, he spoke almost no German. Therefore, it was essential that he have comrades who were not only fluent in the language but also well acquainted with the region and its culture.
The first DV selected to accompany Taylor went by the all-too-Anglified name of Underwood. A sandy-haired, blue-eyed Austrian, he had been drafted into the Reich’s Army in the winter of 1942. Coming from an intensely anti-Nazi family, he had one goal: to desert at the first possible opportunity. In January of 1944 he finally saw his chance. Newly assigned to the infantry, he arrived at the Italian front and asked for permission to scout the American lines. With permission granted, he left camp and summarily tossed his weapon into the underbrush. After an hour and a half walk, he arrived at a group of green tents that he knew housed U.S. soldiers. Cautiously, he walked up to one and drew back the flap. The four sleeping GIs inside barely stirred. He crept over to one of the men and gave his blanket a tug. “I am an Austrian,” Underwood announced in English. “I want to help you.”
The OSS first assigned Underwood to its propaganda section, Morale and Operations (MO). Under their direction he wrote German leaflets full of misinformation. Occasionally he would slip into a German uniform and infiltrate enemy lines. There he would attempt (often successfully) to convince the men that their German officers had ordered them to surrender. But McCulloch snatched up Underwood for the Dupont Mission, offering him the chance to do more serious damage to the Germans.
Underwood felt something bordering on hero-worship for Taylor, who would lead the mission. The taciturn American with a drive to be part of the action seemed an inspirational figure to the younger Austrian, the only deserter-volunteer selected for the mission who spoke English. But Underwood had less fondness for the other two men McCulloch selected for the mission: another Austrian, code-named “Perkins,” and a former member of the Luftwaffe, code-named “Grant.” With only a grammar school education that ended when he was fourteen, Perkins, a stonemason, was of a lower social class than Underwood, a distinction that was intensely important in the European society of the time. Underwood’s father had been a personal friend of the Austrian chancellor, and he felt that working with both of the other Austrians, Perkins in particular, was beneath him. However, the uncouth Perkins did have some attributes that made him well-suited for Dupont. The dark-haired, stocky twenty-three-year-old had been a paratrooper, a skill that would be valuable on the mission, and he came from the village of Saint Margarethen, which was very close to the drop zone and provided him with invaluable contacts.
The final member of the team, Grant, was from Prague and had Czech ancestry. Grant said he had been a medical student before being conscripted into the German air force, but he later demonstrated a willingness to stretch the truth that led some, including Underwood, to question his story. Underwood disliked the blond-haired, gray-eyed man, but Grant seemed to get along well with most other people. The former officer claimed to have been married and that his father had been the director of a glass factory. He loved to talk, but he also gained a reputation for severe mood swings. His predilection for womanizing would cause trouble for the team later on.
The team didn’t get along well. Due to the language barriers, they couldn’t even communicate well. But despite their tensions, they would be forced to cooperate, as they would be virtually alone, deep in the heart of enemy-held territory. For the rest of the summer Taylor and his team prepared for their mission.
Taylor went on a training blitz, learning many of the same sorts of skills that would be necessary for the future SEALs. His first stop: parachute training at the Royal Air Force (RAF) facility located at the Rabat David Airport in Haifa, Palestine. The RAF put Taylor through the paces—fourteen days of intense training divided into three parts: physical conditioning, synthetic training (tumbling, exits from a grounded plane, including being dragged across the ground in a parachute harness), and, finally, actual parachute jumps. Taylor would make eight practice jumps to become airborne qualified by the Brits. Unlike American paratroopers, who exited the side door of transport planes, Taylor dropped through a hole in the belly of a British bomber, an exercise that foreshadowed Dupont’s actual parachute drop into Austria only a few weeks away.
Next Taylor went though Lysander training. Renowned for its ability to land in a fifty-yard field, the Westland Lysander single-engine aircraft
was ideal for covert operations. It dropped and picked up Allied agents throughout occupied Europe. Taylor learned how to fly the plane and quickly get in and out of the aircraft. Shortly after Lysander training, he went through Container School, where he learned to pack and parachute-drop the type of containers that would bring Dupont’s gear and equipment into Austria.
The final leg of Taylor’s training regime in Haifa included a “refresher course” known as ME-102. Here Taylor practiced with silenced pistols, blew up bridges, and sharpened his skills at sowing mayhem behind German lines. Based on the intense training and his past experience, Jack Taylor felt ready.
19
“I WAS PROMISED THIS MISSION, AND I WANT IT”
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1944, THE SKIES OVER AUSTRIA
The sudden flash of the red jump light inside the fuselage caught Jack Taylor’s attention. It was 10:15 p.m., and in fifteen minutes he would be parachuting into the middle of Nazi-held Austria with no support other than his three companions. For the past several hours the drone of the “Liberator” bomber had made conversation nearly impossible, and Taylor became absorbed in studying the maps of the area where he would be gathering intelligence. One of the Polish crewmen pulled away the piece of plywood covering the jump hole, and the four-man team of the Dupont Mission got their first glimpse of the terrain below. For the most part they could see nothing but fog, water, and the seemingly impenetrable black of the moonless night.
The pilot descended sharply to four hundred feet, the minimum height required to make a safe jump. Over the intercom came the call for action stations. The jumpers rose to their feet. Their commander, Major John McCulloch, who was aboard the flight despite the fact that it violated regulations, shook each of their hands in turn and wished them good luck. This practice, intended to inspire and support the operatives, emulated Donovan’s hands-on leadership, but today these actions might be considered reckless: if a senior officer with detailed knowledge were to fall into enemy hands, it could compromise American operations.
Suddenly the light in the back of the plane switched from red to green, signaling their arrival over the drop zone. Taylor positioned himself over the edge of the hole and fell into the darkness.
TAYLOR WOULD HAVE PREFERRED to make the jump another night. Friday the thirteenth seemed an inauspicious day to launch one of the most dangerous intelligence-gathering operations of the war. But the mission had already been postponed in September because of weather, and the positions of enemy searchlights and flak guns made it necessary to fly in on a night with no moon. Rather than wait another month, Taylor’s superiors ordered them to proceed.
At the American intelligence base in Bari, operatives and military personnel had been placing bets on whether the men of the Dupont Mission would survive. Odds were ten to one they would not.
Dupont called for one American and three Austrian operatives to parachute deep into the heart of Austria. The drop zone was “a flat cultivated strip about two miles long by one-half mile wide on the northeast fringe of the city near Neusiedler See (40 km south of Vienna near the Hungarian border). The area was sparsely settled and bordered on marshy land with tall reeds which would serve as excellent cover.” After landing in the marshes on the edge of the lake the men would make their way to the city, where Taylor and his team were to gather intelligence about Nazi operations in the area, gauge the local level of support or resistance to the Germans, and radio back their findings.
Because Dupont placed Taylor and his men so far behind enemy lines, it was considered extremely dangerous, even foolhardy. Some questioned Taylor’s inclusion on the mission, noting that he spoke almost no German, and the mission included nothing in the way of maritime operations other than parachuting near a lake. Taylor, however, didn’t believe the language barrier would be a problem, and he thought it was important to include an American officer to inspire the local Nazi resistance, so he fought to stay on the team. His stalwart determination and willpower won the day. Taylor simply stated, “I was promised this mission, and I want it.”
NORTHERN ITALY AND AUSTRIA AREA OF OPERATIONS
The other three team members had all been born in the area around Vienna. Although adamantly opposed to the Nazis, all were forced to serve the Third Reich. After capture by the Allies they readily switched sides. In his report Taylor noted all three men “were in their early twenties, single, in excellent physical and mental condition and eager to participate. There was no question of their integrity.”
Perkins came from the town of Saint Margarethen, about fifty kilometers south of Vienna, and the team hoped they could set up a base in his parents’ home. Grant, a former butcher’s apprentice and something of a ladies’ man, assured them that the team could also find safe harbor in the homes owned by the family of the butcher’s daughter, with whom he was very well acquainted. (In the coming days, Grant’s womanizing would have a profound effect on the mission.) The operative also believed the butcher, named Buchleitner, “could be depended upon to help in an emergency.” The third Austrian, Underwood, came from Vienna, an area that was too dangerous for the team to enter, but he also had local knowledge that could prove helpful.
Due to the dangerous nature of the mission, the flight plan and drop procedures would be “entirely abnormal.” Taylor explained, “Of necessity, it had to be a ‘blind’ drop, i.e. without [a] ground reception committee or pattern lights, and with absolutely no circling. Three containers, two containing duplicate radio equipment, were to be dropped in salvo followed immediately by the four bodies.” However, shortly after takeoff Taylor was stunned to learn that the Polish pilot was expecting to do a “normal drop” with lots of circling. Taylor explained the mission plan to the pilot, stressing that there should be absolutely no circling so as to minimize their detection by the enemy.
WITH THE WIND IN HIS FACE, Taylor fell through the cold night air and struggled with the risers attached to his parachute canopy. “I pulled down on my risers to check a bad oscillation,” remembered Taylor. With the lines finally untangled, he looked down to see the ground rushing toward him. “I . . . saw to my horror that I would land on the roof of a house not more than twenty feet below. As I was slipping in that direction, I released the risers in order to drop straight down and barely missed the eaves, landing instead a few feet away from the house in the front yard.” Mistakenly believing the building to be a radio station, Taylor fled the yard.
The call of a marsh bird sounded in the distance. Knowing it to be the team’s prearranged signal, Taylor followed the call and met up with the other agents. They quickly buried their parachutes and jump suits and began searching for the containers with their supplies and the all-important radio that would be their lifeline to the outside world. Though the Polish pilot spoke excellent English, he failed to heed Taylor’s instructions. “To our amazement and chagrin, our plane returned and flew directly overhead in line with our previous run,” Taylor remembered. But they quickly turned their attention back to the ground and within thirty minutes found the first of the dropped containers, the one holding supplies but no radio. They stowed it behind some reeds when, suddenly, the drone of an airplane engine broke the silence of the night. The team found themselves in grave peril. Taylor recalled, “To our utter horror, ou[r] plane returned again, passing low directly overhead. This was practically signing our death certificates as the German radar was so very accurate that circling over any area by a lone plane at night was bound to create suspicion and lead to an investigation.” Searchlights and antiaircraft fire arced across the inky black sky as the Germans attempted to shoot down the plane. Finally the bomber left the drop zone and headed back toward Italy.
Angry over the pilot’s inability to follow his orders, a distracted Taylor suffered another mishap. “I stepped in a hole in the marsh wrenching my knee badly, which made walking on uneven ground very painful, but we continued searching throughout the night and in desperation even into the dawn. From a hillock, we ventured to look out over
the lake and marsh but could find no trace of the other two containers.”
The loss of the other containers had cascading consequences that threatened the success of the mission and placed the agents’ lives in jeopardy. Without a radio they could not report back their findings or be resupplied or extracted from Austria. The Dupont team was trapped behind enemy lines with little hope of accomplishing their mission. They continued to search through the night before finally giving in to exhaustion. For several days the four men remained in the area, desperately hoping the plane would return again and finally drop the containers with the radios. They remained hidden from enemy eyes, but not from the wildlife. Taylor awoke, startled, to find “a medium-sized marsh snake lying alongside my sleeping bag.”
On the third day, the team abandoned all hope that the plane would return to drop a radio. The men set out on the day-long journey to the town where Buchleitner the butcher lived. However, after only a few minutes Underwood became severely ill. He struggled along for a mile before admitting he could not continue. Determined to gather the intelligence and fulfill their mission, the rest of the team left him behind with food and water. They “continued past Nougledel where thousands of foreign (slave) workers were being herded for work on the Southeast Wall, a line of defense utilizing, in this area, the natural water barriers of Neusiedler See and the Leithe Geb.”
At 2:30 in the morning on October 17, Taylor, Perkins, and Grant arrived at the Buchleitner home. Although they fiercely opposed the Nazis, the butcher’s family had some trepidation about allowing the OSS operatives to stay in their home. They fed the men and showed them to some beds. But only an hour later they woke the team, requesting that they leave. German troops were arriving in the village, and the family feared what would happen if they were found harboring spies. Taylor recalled, “As it was nearly dawn and we had no place to go, we begged to stay and were allowed to hide in the hayloft.”
First SEALs Page 14