Retired Major General John Singlaub vividly recalls the day he helped liberate nearly 400 Allied prisoners during World War II. They'd been held for months, beaten and starved by their Japanese captors, and were close to execution when Singlaub and his team freed them.
"It was a great way to end a war," Singlaub says.
Singlaub was one of many veterans of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) who gathered on Thursday night to share stories of wartime heroism, espionage and covert operations.
The predecessor of the CIA and US Special Forces, the OSS marked the US' first government-wide coordination of strategic intelligence activities.
President Franklin Roosevelt established the OSS on June 13, 1942, just months after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor and the US' entry into World War II. OSS members gathered intelligence against the enemy by working with resistance groups in occupied foreign territories. The OSS also intercepted Axis communications and engaged in psychological warfare against the enemy.
Singlaub said the spirit of the OSS was one of cooperation for the greater good. The team he led to liberate prisoners of war from Hainan Island, off the coast of China, consisted of two interpreters, one Chinese and the other Japanese.
"Countries, boundaries, nationalities -- didn't make any difference," he said.
RSS