Donovan's Devils

by Albert Lulushi

  * * *

  Anton Dostler was buried near the place of execution in Aversa, Naples. His remains were later moved to the German War Cemetery in Pomezia near Rome, where they are to this day.

  The fifteen men of the ill-fated Ginny mission were buried at the US military cemetery in Florence, Italy. Eight of them were later brought to the United States by their families. They were all awarded the Bronze Star for gallantry in combat operations in 1946. In 1990, the town of Ameglia, located between La Spezia and Punta Bianca in Italy, placed a plaque in the main town square commemorating the members of the Ginny mission. They also placed bronze markers at Punta Bianca where the team had been executed and at La Ferrara where they were buried. A group of OSS OG veterans led by Albert Materazzi traveled to Italy in 2004 and on March 26 led commemoration ceremonies on the sixtieth anniversary of the execution of the Ginny team.

  After the execution of Anton Dostler, the wave of death sentences against former German officers abated. General von Falkenhorst who applied the Führerbefehl numerous times in Norway stood trial in front of a British-Norwegian military court in Brunswick, Germany. He was found guilty of war crimes on seven counts and sentenced to death in August 1946. The sentence was commuted to twenty years’ imprisonment in November 1946. Due to ill health, von Falkenhorst was released as an act of clemency in 1953. He died in 1968.5

  In 1947, Marshal Kesselring faced his own trial in Venice in front of a British military tribunal for his role in the Ardeatine Caves massacres in Italy on March 24, 1944. His possible role in ordering the execution of the fifteen American OGs around the same time went unnoticed. The court’s initial sentence of death was commuted to life in prison by the reviewing judge. Eventually Kesselring was allowed to leave prison on health grounds and died in 1960.6

  CHAPTER 16

  No Justice for Major Holohan

  Major Holohan had a brother in Brooklyn, New York, with whom he had maintained a close relationship since childhood. His name was Joseph E. Holahan, a spelling of the last name different from Major Holohan’s due to a confusion in school records that dated back the days of elementary school. Before Major Holohan had left for the Mangosteen-Chrysler mission behind the lines in Italy, he had written his brother to let him know that he may not hear from him for a while. He had also asked that if anything happened to him, and “if there is anything left of me” to bring his body home and bury him with their parents at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Pleasantville, New York. That was the last time Holahan heard from his brother.

  When the Army declared Major Holohan “Missing in Action” in February 1945, his brother began contacting and writing to everyone who might have known Holohan overseas. In December 1945, the War Department notified Holahan that it had listed his brother officially as “Killed in Action.” That did not stop Holahan from continuing his search for his brother’s whereabouts. “There was something that kept gnawing at me,” he said later. “I could not put my finger on it but I knew, somehow, that I had not heard the truth about my brother.”1

  Unbeknown to Holahan, the Army’s Criminal Investigating Division (CID) had continued to look into the mystery of Hoholan’s disappearance. In 1947, they had gone to the area in Lake Orta where the mission had operated and interviewed local Italians who had been in contact with the mission. A strange document had appeared in their search showing that Aldo Icardi had invested a sum of money in return for a share of ownership into a woodworking business that Aminta Migliari and his father operated.

  In August 1947, Icardi was attending law school at the University of Pittsburgh when an agent of the CID contacted him to ask questions about this transaction. Icardi wrote that the agent questioned him at the CID offices for two hours. At the end, he asked Icardi if he was willing to take a lie detector test. Icardi agreed and returned in a week for the examination. Icardi described a tense session that lasted the entire day during which the CID investigators repeatedly asked questions about the disappearance of Major Holohan. Then, they asked him to come back the next day for more questioning. After three hours of additional questions the next morning, the CID investigators told Icardi the case was closed and he would not hear about it again.2 The CID report summarizing the outcome of the two sessions indicated that the polygraph tests showed a lot of agitation around questions related to the financial transaction that Icardi had concluded with Migliari but did not indicate that Icardi was lying about the whereabouts of Major Holohan.3

  Icardi went on with his law studies, graduating in June 1948, then passing the Pennsylvania Bar Exam on March 1949. Two weeks later, he left for Lima, Peru, with his family to study international law.

  * * *

  When the CID investigation failed to discover any new leads, the War Department turned the Holohan case over to the Italian authorities, which continued their investigation in secret. A breakthrough came in early 1949, when Lieutenant Elio Albieri took over command of the local Carabinieri post in Lake Orta. Albieri was young and energetic and he quickly zoomed into Aminta Migliari, the local man who had monopolized the relationship between the Italian partisans and the OSS mission from the time they had parachuted in and until the disappearance of Major Holohan. Beginning in February 1949, Migliari began talking and told Albieri about tensions between Holohan and Icardi.

  Migliari pointed Albieri toward Gualtiero Tozzini and Giuseppe Manini, the two local men he had provided to escort the American mission in those days. Albieri called both of them for questioning. Initially, they told conflicting stories about the ambush of December 6, 1944. It was a clue for Albieri that they were not telling the truth. He reported the new leads developed in the case to his superior command, which notified the American consul in Milan and the American military command in Trieste. Henry Manfredi, on the staff of the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division in Trieste, arrived in Lake Orta to participate in the Italian investigation.

  After continued interrogations, Manini and Tozzini opened up and told Albieri and Manfredi a horrid story of betrayal and murder that pointed to Icardi as the mastermind of a plot to eliminate Holohan and Lo Dolce as the one who had pulled the trigger. The two Italians said they had no choice but to assist the two Americans in killing their superior officer and getting rid of his body. They had feared that they might suffer the same fate if they did not.4

  Based on the testimony of Manini and Tozzini, the Italian authorities had a story for the disappearance of Holohan, although not a clear motive for why Icardi and Lo Dolce had killed their commander. Albieri and Manfredi focused next on finding the body of Holohan. At the beginning of June 1950, they hired local bargemen with makeshift hooks to comb, they combed the bottom of the lake in the area where Manini and Tozzini said they had dumped the body. The depth of the lake varied between sixty and one hundred twenty feet and the efforts proved fruitless for several days, but persistence paid off. In the afternoon of June 15, 1950, the Carabinieri fished a backpack out of the lake. A thunderstorm rolled in from the mountains and forced them to suspend the search for the day. But they returned to the same spot the next morning and, after one hour of searching, brought to the surface first pieces of a sleeping bag and then a corpse.

  Albieri took the remains to the morgue of the cemetery in the nearby village of San Maurizio d’Opaglio where the local doctor performed an initial inspection of the body. Parts of it were in an advanced state of decomposition. The right hand was missing, perhaps severed when they had pulled the body from the lake. On the left wrist, the doctor noticed a wristwatch that had stopped at 10:35. It was easy to notice that at least two bullets had hit the head. The first one had made an entry hole in the left temple with an exit hole in the opposite side of the skull. The second one had hit in the back, at the base of the skull.5

  * * *

  With the new developments from Italy, CID investigators in the United States began looking at the case again. Icardi was still in Peru at the time, but Lo Dolce was in Rochester, New York, working for a lock manufacturing compa
ny there and attending the Rochester Institute of Technology under the GI Bill of Rights. At the end of July 1950, two investigators visited Lo Dolce at his workplace and interviewed him over two sessions. They described the events surrounding Major Holohan’s disappearance that had surfaced from the Italian investigation and pressed Lo Dolce to confess to his role in the murder of his commanding officer. Lo Dolce refused and cut short the second interview by asking the agents to leave. They did so, but returned the next day, August 3, 1950, in the morning, accompanied by the chief of detectives of the Rochester Police Department. They took Lo Dolce to the police headquarters for questioning and spent several hours trying to get him to admit to his involvement in the case.

  Lo Dolce, who had come out of the war in a particularly fragile physical and mental state, was under additional stress at the time. His brother had been killed in Korea a few weeks earlier, his wife was in the hospital having just given birth to their youngest baby, and he suffered from back pain due to injuries he had received during the mission in Italy. According to Icardi, the interrogators took advantage of the hardship Lo Dolce was under by repeatedly telling him what he was supposed to have done and pressing him to confess everything. After three hours of continuous interrogation, they pushed him to take a lie detector test. “Under those conditions,” Icardi said, “it’s not surprising that the machine indicated agitation.”6

  The interrogation resumed with vigor afterward. In the end, Lo Dolce wrote in his own hand and signed an eight-page statement in which he corroborated the story that Manini and Tozzini had told in Italy. Lo Dolce wrote that Holohan and Icardi had never been friendly and an air of friction and tension had developed between them. Icardi and Lo Dolce began to feel that the major was hampering them from performing a useful service. Rather than sending messages to the headquarters with information about the strength and movements of Germans and Fascist troops that could save the lives of hundreds of American soldiers, the mission was preoccupied mainly with reporting about Italian politics. Lo Dolce wrote:

  It all (the plan to rid ourselves of Major Holohan) began in a joking way. For instance, at times when the major had been overly authoritative with one of our partisan attendants and left the room, someone would say in a joking way, “Should I send him to Switzerland without his shoes?” which means to kill someone. Somehow, from being just a saying the thing became serious. Icardi suggested that we give the major something that would make him sick for a while so that we could get the underground to send him to Allied territory via Switzerland, but no one took him seriously.

  On the 6th of December 1944, one of our Italian attendants, Manin, brought something that looked like sugar in a piece of paper and said that it was poison and could be used to kill the major. By this time, the major was held in an intense aversion by myself, Icardi, Manin, and Pupo, and means of getting rid of him had been discussed. It may have been a means of getting off steam—the fear caused by being in the general situation may have made us want to direct it against something tangible, and wild and impossible plans had been discussed and discarded. On the 6th of December, 1944, things suddenly seemed to become serious. Manin said he had tried the poison on a cat and that it had died instantly. Icardi said we would have to use the poison right away—that night.

  Manin and Pupo prepared a meal of soup and rice and Manin placed some of the poison in the soup. The major was called to dinner, and we all set down to eat. When the major had taken a few spoonfuls of the soup he remarked that it burned. Icardi said, “Yes, it’s hot.” Manin and Pupo were silent (to the best of my memory) throughout the meal. I felt sick and could not bring myself to look up during the meal, forcing myself to eat. I think the major ate all his soup and then suddenly rose and left the room. Manin remarked that he probably went upstairs to vomit.

  The major came back. I don’t remember whether he ate rice—soon after he came down he said he didn’t feel well and was going to bed. When he had left, Manin remarked that I had been extremely pale during the meal and that the major surely knew something was wrong. Icardi and I sat in front of the fireplace and wondered what was going to happen. Icardi said something like, “If he lives through this, he will send a message to headquarters, so we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t live.”

  He asked Manin and Pupo if they would shoot the major and they said they absolutely refused, so Icardi said it had to be me or him. I don’t remember clearly my movements from then on. I remember Icardi tossed a coin and I called and lost. Manin gave me a gun, his Beretta. We walked in. The major sat up and said either “What is it?” “Who is it?” or “What’s the matter?” I walked to the side of his bed and fired two shots.

  Icardi, Manin, and Pupo rushed in. Icardi opened the major’s haversack and removed some money in bills which were rolled up. I’m not sure exactly what was taken because I stood there dazed and weak and couldn’t think well. Manin, Pupo, and Icardi picked up the major. He was heavy and Manin told me to help but I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. The major was carried to the boat, which Manin had waiting on the lake. I took my radio equipment and followed them and placed it in the boat. Icardi and I waited on the shore while Manin and Pupo rowed him out to deeper water and dropped his weighted body.

  When they returned, Icardi told the partisans to go get the rest of our stuff. I don’t remember whether they had two trips back to the house or one, or whether Icardi told Manin to go fire some rounds into the house then, or whether Manin did this in accordance with a pre-arranged plan. Manin went back and when he started firing, we fired too, so that people would think that we were being ambushed. A hand grenade that had belonged to the major was set off, but I don’t remember who threw it. After the firing, Pupo and I left for Villa Maria, while Icardi and Manin left for the town of Pella by water.7

  One would think that with Lo Dolce’s confession in hand, the CID investigators would move quickly to bring closure to the case. Instead, nothing happened. They told Lo Dolce that he was “cleared.”8 The Rochester police told Lo Dolce’s employer, Sargent & Greenleaf, “Lo Dolce was absolutely innocent of any irregularity of any nature whatsoever, and that everything in regard to this case was clear and above question.”9 The government investigators had no further contacts with Lo Dolce. They did not contact Icardi about these latest developments in Peru, where he lived until April 1951, or after his return to the United States.

  * * *

  The American public knew very little about this story until August 1951. Some Italian American newspapers that followed the Italian press had reported on the developments of the Italian investigation, but the story did not go beyond their niche audience. This all changed in the summer of 1951. Michael Stern, European correspondent for Fawcet Publications and True, The Men’s Magazine, picked up threads of the story in Rome. He interviewed a number of sources in the Lake Orta area and prepared an account of the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Holohan.

  The story portrayed Icardi as the mastermind of the crime and Lo Dolce as the material executor. Stern identified politics and greed as the two motives for the slaying of Major Holohan. Icardi, according to the story, had advocated for dropping of supplies to the Communists, while Holohan wanted to support the Christian Democrats in the area. Once Icardi eliminated Holohan, Stern wrote, dozens of supply missions had been flown to the partisans in the area, most of which went into the hands of the Garibaldi units. Besides political motivations, Stern charged that Icardi had killed Holohan to appropriate $100,000 worth of mission funds that he carried on him.

  Stern’s story was included in the September issue of True magazine. The publisher sent advance copies of the issue to subscribers in early August. One such copy arrived at the Pentagon on August 9, 1951. Less than a week later, on August 15, 1951, the Department of Defense issued a press release recounting a chilling cloak-and-dagger story of two American servicemen who had murdered their commanding officer behind enemy lines in a struggle to arm Communist partisans in Italy. The Pentagon’s
press release borrowed heavily from the True magazine story, including factual errors that Stern had reported and which the Army could have easily verified. Such errors included the amount of funds that Holohan had carried for the mission and the number of drops before and after his disappearance. Ken W. Purdy, editor of the magazine, accused the Defense Department of copying the story from his magazine and issuing it as its own press release to preempt the impact that its publication would have. At the same time, he charged the Department with suppressing the story from reaching the public. “Government officials have long known who killed Major Holohan and by every device at their command have tried to keep the story from reaching the public,” Purdy said.10

  For the next few days, the story made the headlines around the country. The most shocking twist was that neither Icardi nor Lo Dolce could be prosecuted under United States civil or military law. Since the crime had occurred overseas, it was outside the jurisdiction of American civilian courts, which can prosecute only crimes perpetrated in US territories. It was also outside the purview of the military justice system because both Icardi and Lo Dolce had been honorably discharged from service in 1945. According to military laws in effect when the crime was alleged to have occurred and until 1951, the jurisdiction of the United States military authorities over servicemen terminated when they separated from the military. The Supreme Court had ruled that servicemen, even though separated from the service for as little as one day, could not be court-martialed for a crime committed while on active duty. The new Uniform Code of Military Justice, which had become effective in May 1951, had plugged this loophole in the old law, but it was not retroactive. Thus, the only legal recourse against Icardi and Lo Dolce seemed to be their extradition to Italy to face charges there.11 The Pentagon cited this inability to take legal action as the main reason why they had not gone public with the story sooner, even though they had obtained a confession from Lo Dolce over a year ago.