By Kevin Seabrooke

Handsome, daring, and intrinsically heroic, Marine Corps Col. Peter J. Ortiz seems more like a figure created in Hollywood than a real-life operative. Parachuting into occupied France twice, Ortiz organized and led local Maquis resistance fighters, sabotaging Axis supply lines ahead of the Allied liberation. Awarded the Croix de Guerre three times and the Navy Cross twice, he once walked into a French café filled with German officers, had a few drinks, toasted Hitler, then revealed his Marine uniform under his coat, pulled his .45, and forced his companions to toast Roosevelt as well before walking out to stunned silence.

The Phantom: The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill (Bob Drury and Tom Clavin, St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY, Oct. 6, 2026 $30 HC)