William “Wild Bill” Donovan
On March 18, 1941, an accident took place in the crowded streets of New York’s Times Square. Normally an accident like this would not make news. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was America’s first strategic intelligence organization. President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized its establishment on June 13, 1942, six months after World War II began, to collect and analyze strategic intelligence and to conduct special services, including subversion, sabotage, and psychological warfare. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
A small group of Americans, operating behind the Japanese lines in Burma from 1942 until mid-1945, played a major role in neutralizing a large enemy force. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
Adolf Hitler loved children. Before the war consumed all his energies he entertained children at his holiday home on the “mountain” all the time. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
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
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
In 1920, a young, handsome Jewish boy from New Jersey took the train from Grand Central Station to Princeton, New Jersey, where he would enroll that fall. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
On February 1, 1943, a group called the U.S. Army Signal Intelligence Service, the forerunner of the modern-day National Security Agency (NSA), began a project to intercept and analyze diplomatic signal traffic sent by an ally of the United States: the Soviet Union. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
With such award-winning films as Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, The Grapes of Wrath, The Long Voyage Home, and How Green Was My Valley behind him, John Ford was one of Hollywood’s most respected directors by the time World War II broke out in 1939. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
The Bug was in deep trouble. On a top-secret flight over occupied Norway, this ancient, war-weary C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft became the helpless target of German antiaircraft guns, all firing desperately to bring down the transport and its precious cargo. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
Ian Fleming’s biography would certainly include creating the famous British spy James Bond, but the author also led a secret life of his own. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
By the autumn of 1944, most of Nazi-occupied Europe had been liberated by Allied forces. The conquering armies now faced the invasion of the German homeland. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
On the night of August 19, 1943, a lone British Handley Page Halifax bomber flew over Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
In espionage fiction, there are three types of spies. The first is the suave, dapper James Bond, 007, license to kill, a hit with the ladies. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
One of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s longtime interests was the hidden world of espionage. In the months before the United States entered World War II, the commander-in-chief was dabbling in the covert world of intelligence-gathering, using a number of trusted personal friends as his own private eyes and ears around the globe. Read more
William “Wild Bill” Donovan
In the latter part of 1944, the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, mounted a plan called Operation Chrysler in Italy to “act as a liaison with partisan commanders, attempt to guide and control developments in northern Italy, and create a unified partisan command under the direction of the supreme allied commander.” Read more
