espionage Archives

Under Van Deman, the Military Intelligence Section had wide powers of intelligence collection and investigation.

espionage

Famous Military Spies: Ralph Van Deman

By Peter Kross

In the long history of American military intelligence, the names that come to mind most often are those of Nathan Hale, Benedict Arnold, Herbert Yardley, and William Donovan. Read more

The Duke of Windsor, fourth from right, accompanies the Viscount Gort and a contingent of British Army officers during an inspection of troops in France early in World War II.

espionage

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor: A Dark Royal Secret?

By Peter Kross

One of the most interesting yet little known aspects of World War II was the role played by the Duke of Windsor, previously King Edward VIII of England, and his covert relationship with Adolf Hitler’s Germany. Read more

Union intelligence chief Colonel George Henry Sharpe is pictured with his staff at Brandy Station in June 1863. Left to right are Sharpe, John C. Babcock, an unidentified man, and John McEntee.

espionage

Civil War Intelligence

By Arnold Blumberg

The Union officer saw it quite clearly across the Rappahannock River: a hand-painted sign held up by a Rebel soldier that read, “Burnside and his pontoons stuck in the mud. Read more

espionage

William “Wild Bill” Donovan: America’s Spymaster in WWII

By Peter Kross

On July 14, 1940, William Donovan stood on the pier fronting New York harbor and waited to board the Pan Am flying boat named the Lisbon Clipper for a flight that would take him to Portugal and then to London, his ultimate destination. Read more

espionage

The FCC’s RID and Japan’s Surrender

By Susan L. Brinson

George Sterling received a teletype message from the War Department just after 5:15 am on August 15, 1945. Read more

Italian traveler Marco Polo, shown in this medieval painting leading his 13th-century caravan across Asia, crossed paths briefly with the much-dreaded Assassins. Unlike many, Polo lived to tell about it.

espionage

Blood in the Sand: Shiite Assassins

By Mark S. Longo

Their name has been synonymous with murder for almost a thousand years, but few people know the full truth about the enigmatic organization known as the Assassins. Read more

espionage

WWII Secrets: The Mysterious Inga Arvad

By Peter Kross

Shortly before Pearl Harbor, an attractive Danish journalist arrived in the United States to pursue a writing career. Read more

The island of Guernsey is oddly patrolled by two British bobbies and a German sentry. The Channel Islands were the only British territory to endure occupation by the Nazis during World War II.

espionage

Secret Agent Man: The Story of Eddie Chapman

By Peter Kross

Nations have often pressed unsavory characters and criminals into service during wartime, rationalizing that such action is in the best interest of the country during extraordinary times. Read more

espionage

Rose O’Neal Greenhow: The Spy Who Won Bull Run

By David Alan Johnson

“But for you, there would have been no Battle of Bull Run.” When Confederate President Jefferson Davis made that blanket statement in the summer of 1862, he was not addressing Pierre G.T. Read more

espionage

Hans Scholl

By Kevin Seabrooke

For anyone in Germany who openly opposed Adolf Hitler or the policies of the Nazi party there were three likely outcomes—prison, concentration camp, or execution. Read more

Some of the thousands of prisoners taken during the spring offensive of the Allied Fifth Army in Italy in 1945 gaze from behind a temporary enclosure of barbed wire. These were some of the lucky ones, as German casualties mounted during the last days of the war. (All photos: National Archives)

espionage

In the Shadow of Sunrise: The Secret Surrender of Italy

By Dennis Whitehead

On the morning of Friday, April 13, 1945, three men gathered at a table in L’Espadon of the Ritz Paris over a breakfast of coffee and croissants. Read more

espionage

The OSS and the Fourth Dimension of Warfare

By Bob Bergin

Major General John K. Singlaub was a young airborne lieutenant when he took up an offer from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to become engaged in “hazardous duty behind enemy lines.” Read more

German soldiers operate an Enigma machine, sending classified information encoded through a system of rotor settings that were believed to be virtually impossible to crack. However, Allied cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park were reading top secret German communications for some time during World War II.

espionage

The Miracle of Bletchley Park

By Hervie Haufler

Great Britain’s military intelligence leaders learned from their experience in World War I that the kinds of minds capable of breaking codes are a rare commodity and are often not likely to blossom in a military atmosphere. Read more

President Kennedy with Premier Khrushchev at the height of the Cold War.

espionage

Cold War Intelligence

By John D. Gresham

Everyone who has ever read a spy novel knows the basic plot line. A scientist has developed a formula, or intelligence operative has obtained secret plans or a roll or film. Read more

espionage

How Did Benito Mussolini Die? The Story Behind Il Duce’s Last Moments.

By Wil Deac

It was shortly before seven o’clock on the rain-drenched morning of April 27, 1945, the day before the death of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Read more

A contingent of U.S. Marine Corps intelligence personnel and native scouts shove their canoes off from the coast watchers’ station at Segi, New Guinea, on a routine patrol.

espionage

Coast Watchers in the Solomons

by John Brown

Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, coast watcher Cornelius Page, a plantation manager on Tabar Island 20 miles north of New Ireland in the South Pacific, reported by teleradio that Japanese planes were making reconnaissance flights over New Ireland and New Britain. Read more

espionage

WWII Nazi Spies: ‘Cicero’

by Kelly Bell

On the evening of October 29, 1943, a middle-aged man, innocuous in appearance but for his deep-set, penetrating eyes, appeared at the German embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara. Read more

espionage

The Battle of Lepanto: “The Best Day’s Work in Centuries”

By William J. McPeak

For Europe, there was great news from Malta in August 1565. The Ottoman Turks had lifted their siege and made for home. Read more

A propaganda poster depicts a polish officer being executed in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk.

espionage

The Soviet Secret Police & the Katyn Forest Massacre

By Richard Rule

On September 17, 1939, in the wake of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, the Soviet Red Army crossed the Polish frontier from the east. Read more

espionage

WWII Spies: Oreste Pinto

By Robert Whiter

Two men were seated on either side of a paper-strewn table inside an office of MI5, the British intelligence service, in the Royal Victoria Patriotic School at Clapham, London, shortly after the fall of France in the spring of 1940. Read more

From Around the Network

Operation Lorraine: French Launch Offensive to Regain Territory in Vietnam

Game Features: When Killing Adolf Hitler is the Ultimate Endgame

Hancock the Superb: Winfield Scott Hancock & the Battle of Gettysburg

The Duke of Wellington’s Preparations for the Battle of Waterloo