The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was an intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning.
Operation Torch was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing American armed forces the opportunity to begin their fight against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on a limited scale. It was the first mass involvement of US troops in the European–North African Theatre and saw the first large-scale airborne assault carried out by the United States.
The Armée de l'Air is the name used for the French Air Force in its native language since it was made independent of the Army in 1933. This article deals exclusively with the history of the French air force from its earliest beginnings until its destruction after the occupation of France. French naval aviation, the Aéronautique Navale is covered elsewhere.
Didier Masson was a pioneering French aviator. He was born in Asnières, France. He died and was buried in Mérida, Yucatan, Mexico. Among his adventures was his life as a pioneering barnstormer, being the second flier in history to bomb a surface warship, as well as combat service in the Lafayette Escadrille with Edwin C. Parsons and Charles Nungesser. In one of the more unusual aerial victories of history, Masson shot down an enemy plane after his own plane's motor quit running. Later in life, he was a manager for pioneer Pan American World Airways, as well as a French consular officer.
Pierre Le Gloan was a French flying ace of World War II. Unique in the annals of wartime flying, he scored victories against German, Italian and British forces. Flying in the French and Vichy French air forces, his career has led some to call him the only pilot to become a flying ace on both sides of the war. He was killed in a landing accident in September 1943.
The Mediterranean Theater of Operations, United States Army (MTOUSA), originally called the North African Theater of Operations, United States Army (NATOUSA), was a military formation of the United States Army that supervised all U.S. Army forces which fought in North Africa and Italy during World War II.
Gervais Raoul Victor Lufbery was a French and American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I. Because he served in both the French Air Force, and later the United States Army Air Service in World War I, he is sometimes listed alternately as a French ace or as an American ace. Officially, all but one of his 17 combat victories came while flying in French units.
Blida Airport is an airport in Blida, Algeria. It undertook a repavement project in 2012.
Oran Tafaraoui Airport is a joint civil/military airport in Oran Province, Algeria.
Operation Flagpole was part of the run-up to Operation Torch, the planned Allied invasion of North Africa during World War II. It involved arranging for and carrying out a top-secret high-level meeting between U.S. General Mark W. Clark, representing the Allies, and Général Charles E. Mast, the leader of a group of pro-Allied Vichy France officers in French North Africa, to secure their cooperation with the invasion.
George "Guv" S. Musulin was a Serbian-American army officer of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) who in 1950 became a CIA operative.
The Research and Analysis Branch(R&A) was a branch of the Office of Strategic Services. (OSS) Established in the OCOI with the appointment of James Phinney Baxter III as the first Director of Research and Analysis, July 31, 1941, the branch became operational within the Office of the Coordinator of Information on August 27, 1941. With OSS General Order 1 on October 17, 1942, R&A was absorbed into the new structure of the OSS. On January 4, 1943, with the restructuring of the OSS in OSS General Order 9, R&A was placed under the leadership of the Deputy Director of the Intelligence Service.
The Escadron de Chasse 2/4 Lafayette is a squadron of the French Air and Space Force. It is currently stationed at BA 113 Saint-Dizier – Robinson Air Base, and is equipped with the Dassault Rafale C. The squadron has a long history dating back to the First World War, and has seen service in the Second World War, the French Indochina War and Algeria. It is now a nuclear strike squadron.
During World War II, Morocco, which was then occupied by France, was controlled by Vichy France from 1940 to 1942 after the occupation of France by Nazi Germany. However, after the North African campaign, Morocco was under Allied control and thus was active in Allied operations until the end of the war.
Adelaide Hawkins was a cryptologist at the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Cold War Era.
US Naval Bases in North Africa were sea ports and air base used in North Africa during World War II by the United States Navy. The ports and air bases supplied the troops of the Allies armies in the flight against German and Italian forces in the North African campaign and Western Desert campaign. Later the bases supported the invasion of Italy. The ports and airfields were used after their surrender in Operation Torch. Amphibious Training Bases (ATB) were built in Algeria and Tunisia to prepare for the upcoming invasions. Seabees, United States Naval Construction Battalions, did most of the repair work, new construction, and maintaining work at the bases.
George Hunter White remains one of the most controversial federal agents in American history, and highly debated subject within law enforcement circles. A lifelong Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) investigator, undercover operative, spymaster, World War II hero, one of the men responsible for the capture of Lucky Luciano, known for killing suspects, and known to have consumed most of the drugs he was chasing. While working for the famous Commissioner of the FBN, Harry J. Anslinger, White travelled all across the world hunting drug dealers and crime lords. He notoriously hated jazz, believed it to have a corrupting influence on the youth, and arrested Billie Holiday. During World War II, he trained undercover Allied operatives for the Office of Strategic Services on the fundamentals of counterespionage before they were deployed on operations in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He was also a federal observer to the controversial narcotics experiments by the Central Intelligence Agency as part of MK-ULTRA and Midnight Climax.
Millard Preston Goodfellow, who often went by the name "Preston Goodfellow," was an American soldier, spy, diplomat, journalist, war correspondent, and newspaper publisher. A veteran of World War I, Goodfellow became a leading figure at the Office of the Coordinator of Information and the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.
Robert A. Solberg (Solborg) was a soldier and spy during World War I and World War II, becoming a key figure in the development of the Office of the Coordinator of Information and the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Richard Melville "Bill" Brooker was a British soldier, spy, instructor, and commando during World War II, and integral to the Allied effort in defeating the Axis. He was a member of Churchill's Special Operations Executive (SOE), and Commandant of Camp X, where he trained the men and women who would become the leaders of the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI), which became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He is considered one of the fathers of modern American central intelligence, and gained the admiration of William J. Donovan and Allen Dulles, and even is mentioned as being a great instructor of spies in the memoirs of Kim Philby.
