Trial by Fire: London and the Proving Grounds of North Africa and Burma, 1942–43

Abstract

The dissolution of the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI) and its replacement by the more focused Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on 13 June 1942² gave Bill Donovan the means to secure his organization’s place in the highly competitive wartime bureaucracy in Washington through direct support of military operations in the field. The new OSS had shed its controversial ‘foreign information activities,’ which had rendered COI so vulnerable to criticism and competition in Washington and London. It was now under the authority of the newly established US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), for which it was to ‘a. Collect and analyze such strategic information as may be required, [and] b. Plan and operate such special services as may be directed by the [JCS].’³ These ‘special services’ included ‘sabotage, espionage in enemy-[controlled] territory, organization and conduct of guerrilla warfare … counter-espionage … contact with underground [and] foreign nationality groups, [and] intelligence functions.’⁴

Recognition of the individual value of the various components of OSS … was not sufficient. The organization was predicated upon their combined effect in support of military strategy and operations. This was a concept, however valid in theory, that could only be proved in action, i.e., in the field. Throughout the summer and fall of 1942, the test was in the making.¹ (OSS War Report)