Author Douglas Waller discusses “Wild” Bill
Donovan and his role in the OSS and modern American espionage, the subject of
his new book.
Speaker Biography: Douglas Waller, a former veteran correspondent for Newsweek and Time, has reported on the CIA for six years. Waller also covered the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House and Congress. Before reporting for Newsweek and Time, he served eight years as a legislative assistant on the staffs of Rep. Edward Markey and Sen. William Proxmire. He is the author of the best-sellers “The Commandos: The Inside Story of America’s Secret Soldiers,” which chronicled U.S. Special Operations Forces, with a lineage tracing back to the OSS, and “Big Red: The Three-Month Voyage of a Trident Nuclear Submarine.” He is also the author of “A Question of Loyalty: Gen. Billy Mitchell and the Court-Martial that Gripped the Nation,” the critically acclaimed biography of the World War I general.
From the Library of Congress 2011.
The History of the OSS
How the OSS came about and its development into and the Clandestine Service known as the Central Intelligence Agency as told by those who served.
John Williamson continues the story of the secret RAF Special Duties Squadron based at Tempsford during WW2
Returned Halifax at RAF Tempsford
RAF No. 138 Special Duties Squadron
138 Special Duties Squadron was responsible for dropping
agents, weapons, sabotage equipment and other stores by parachute inside occupied
Europe and flew as far as Poland and
Yugoslavia from RAF Tempsford. There was also a detachment serving the Middle East.
Silent film
Missions By Moonlight No. 161 Special Duties Squadron
Hugh Verity was a night fighter pilot during WWII until 1942
when he volunteered for RAF special duties and became involved in one of the
most extraordinary and effective operations of the secret war. Flying a
single-engine Lysander aircraft he was landing in German occupied France delivering
and collecting SOE and SIS agents. With
only the light of the moon to recognise landmarks whilst navigating hostile
terrain 161 squadron had carefully selected pilots with highly developed flying
and navigation skills.
The barn on the site of former RAF Tempsford
The Barn Tempsford Airfield 2014
The barn where agents were fitted with parachutes and issued with equipment. From this barn agents who could not face the possibility of prolonged torture were given an opportunity to take with them the ‘L Pill’ (lethal) containing cyanide. During their training they were informed the ‘L Pill’ would kill them within five seconds.
The following description was written by the History Room.
This film gives some insight into the work of the British Political Warfare Executive run by Sefton Delmer. It is perhaps more suitable for whimsical entertainment than serious study, but it is still revealing and informative, casting some light on the murky underworld of the secret services. Note to teachers: the film contains some brief nudity. Uploaded for educational purposes only.
DISCLAIMER: Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal.
As this is an American documentary most of the archive footage is American
On 20 February 1944 a B-17 bomber (Flying Fortress) which the
crew called ‘Mi Amigo’ was part of the 305th Bombardment Group, US 8th
Army Airforce based at Chelveston Airfield in Northamptonshire and ‘Mi Amigo’
was one of 700 American B-17 bombers involved in Operation Argument.
Operation Argument was an intensive one-week joint operation
with RAF bomber command to destroy high value and heavily defended aircraft factories and Luftwaffe
airfields in Alaborg Denmark and Leipzig Germany and the bombers had to run the
gauntlet of extensive anti-aircraft artillery and German fighters.
On 22 February there was heavy fog over the Luftwaffe base
in Alaborg and the target could not be
seen from the air as the B-17’s were being attacked by swarms of German
fighters during which three American aircraft were shot down and most of their crews
were killed or captured. Due to the fog
and continuous waves of German fighters the mission was aborted; the surviving
aircraft began their return to England and once they reached the North Sea, they
started jettisoning their bombs.
Mi Amigo had been extensively damaged and there were concerns one or more of its engines would seize up before reaching England, but the crew managed to dump their 4,000 lb bomb load over the sea.
The crew of Mi Amigo
According to historian Paul Allonby, Mi Amigo was several
miles from its base in England and its engines which had all been damaged were
fading quickly as its pilot Lt Kriegshauser steered his crippled B-17 out of thick
clouds and found they were over a major city in Sheffield. As he looked for a suitable field for a crash landing,
he could only see houses, roads and trees and then in the distance he saw a large
field called Encliffee Park which was a public play area with thick woods
behind it.
Lt Kriegshauser prepared his crew for a crash landing and
started his final approach when he suddenly saw a large group of children playing in the field
and immediately aborted the landing in the full knowledge his aircraft would crash
into the woods.
After crashing the wreckage of the B-17 was scattered across
the hillside, the aircraft was split into two and the front section was on fire
and the crew were dead.
Several eyewitnesses say the aircraft circled the park for
some time and it is believed the pilot sacrificed the lives of himself and his
crew to avoid a group of children in the field.
Lt Kriegshauser was posthumously awarded the US Distinguished
Flying Cross.
During the crash a large number of trees had been destroyed
and in 1969 a grove of American Oakes was planted to honour the crew of Mi
Amigo. There is also a memorial to the crew in the park and Tony Foulds who was
one of the children in the park at the time of the crash continues to personally
tend the memorial.
On 22 February 2019 after a long campaign by Tony Foulds, who is now 82 years old, British and American military aircraft took part in a flypast over Endcliffee Park in Sheffield to mark the 75th anniversary of the American crew of the bomber Mi Amigo.
Tony Foulds ar 82, who was one of the children playing in the field
Alan Malcher 