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Bradley Hart

American Special Operations, as we know them today, began during World War II. Elite special units like Seal Team Six, Delta Force, The Green Berets, did not exist before the war. But William Donovan's OSS pioneered this space, a new kind of unconventional warfare. These units, influenced by British special operations tactics, would drop behind enemy lines, often in the middle of the night. Combining intelligence work with guerilla warfare, they would systematically work to shape a conflict from the shadows. OSS Detachment 101 was one of the first examples of this kind of unconventional warfare. In 1942, Detachment 101 was deployed to the Far East, into the jungles of Burma, a country Japan had invaded and occupied. Their commander was a man named Carl Eifler. Known as the Deadliest Colonel, Eifler was an imposing figure. One witness described seeing him quote, "Digging a bullet out of his leg with a spoon handle." Eifler later said quote, "I broke every law of God and man, but I never did anything for personal gain. You can't fight a lawful war." Detachment 101 fought alongside a group called Merrill's Marauders, and they would work in tandem to support the local resistance against the Japanese. This was dangerous work. Robert Libbman, a member of Merrill's Marauders, spoke to The National WWII Museum. He describes numerous violent episodes in the jungles of Burma.

Robert Libbman

I was dealing with a bunch of really tough apples. These guys from the Marauders had all seen action in Guadalcanal. They were not pussycats, to say the least. As soldiers, they were probably the best. As people, they were probably some of the worst. They were tough, they were mean. But it was scary as hell, because in the jungle, it is so dark you can put your hand in front of your face at night and you can't see your hand. Once I got it, the first time I was ever in combat, you cannot believe. We had no heavy equipment, and it was all very secret. They didn't want to tell us where we were going or what we were doing. The interesting thing was that we were going through a section of Burma and India that was marked on the map as unexplored. It's an awful lot of hell that you can't believe. That was my first firefight. And the first order I ever heard was, "Fix bayonet." And that scares the bejesus out of everybody. It was a terrible feeling. I mean, the jungle has a way of killing people.

Bradley Hart

Detachment 101 would fight alongside 10,000 locals in Burma, known as the Kachin people. OSS agent Samuel Spector was part of Detachment 101. He also gave an interview to The National WWII Museum.

Samuel Spector

One time, our company of Kachins was moving down the Burma Road and we were chasing the Japanese. The main mission was probably to try and destroy the Japanese. If they were there, we shot at them. If they stayed there, either they were killed or we were killed. And if they had the advantage, we took off. You were glad to survive. And I don't think any of us worried about surviving, just wanting to.

Bradley Hart

We are joined again by Nicholas Reynolds and Jeffrey Rogg. So, this is when we start to see the United States using covert action in a big way in World War II. Jeff, how did we get here?

Jeff Rogg

When you're on the back foot, you wanna go on the offensive, and you look for ways to start hurting the enemy. And intel is a great way to do it. It gives you, when you're unprepared, advantages to prepare yourself quickly. It helps keep your adversary off guard. It helps you protect yourself. This is the counterintelligence piece. And so, this is something that Donovan realized and advocated. He went to Britain in 1940 twice, and witnessed British intelligence and SOE preparations, commando raids. And he wants to implement this, you know, as soon as possible. Both for personal reasons, it's just Donovan, he's a soldier at heart. And you know, I think all of us are fascinated with covert action. I mean, this is something that just seems cool. And so, it's not a hard sell necessarily. And believe it or not, and we'll talk about it, the big intelligence organizations that existed at the time, Army Intelligence, Navy Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, by this point, they didn't have the capacity to do it. They also didn't wanna do it. And so, it's opportunistic too to say, "Hey, I've got a great idea to get in the action." And you know, that's where Donovan and the COI, becoming the OSS, are at in that '40, '41, '42 period, '41, '42 as the COI transitions to the OSS.

Bradley Hart

Nick, what's at stake here?

Nick Reynolds

So, I would elaborate a little bit on what Jeff just said and say that what we're talking about, sort of the elements of the Secret War, those are initially the weapons of the weak, right? Because we are on our back foot, as Jeff says. The British are not just on one back foot, they're on two back feet, and moving backwards after Hitler has come to dominate the European continent. And so, information. It's very clear in the case of Midway, information is crucial. It leverages the small amount of assets that you have left after Pearl Harbor, and enables this stunning victory. It doesn't ensure the stunning victory. It sets it up at Midway. So there's the information part, and then, there's the active part, the special operations, the classic covert action. If we don't get into this game initially, I won't say. Could we have lost the war? We could have had greater setbacks. And then, further on it becomes not just a defensive weapon, but an offensive weapon.

Bradley Hart

Let's talk first about China, Burma, India. So, even before OSS is officially created, we have the creation of what's called Detachment 101. What is Detachment 101, and what are they up to?

Jeff Rogg

Detachment 101, it was formed when it was still COI, coordinator of information. This is where Preston Goodfellow, who took over for Robert Solberg for Special Operations, was looking for someone. And Vinegar Joe Stillwell, who was the American commander, didn't always work that well with the Brits in the China Burma, India Theater, and had been kicked out of Burma, kind of like MacArthur promised to return to the Philippines, Vinegar Joe promised to return to Burma. Stillwell recommends Carl Eifler. And Eifler, you know, this guy, he's a hard charger like Donovan, he goes out on infils and actually gets a head injury, and probably TBI on an amphibious insertion infiltration that he was involved in, gets in a couple plane crashes and is still a pilot. But, you know, he's kind of representative of the guy that you want leading this not ragtag, but daring commando outfit. There's a reason why they're in the China, Burma, India theater. You know, this isn't the main theater of operations, and it's because both Douglas MacArthur and Chester Nimitz don't like the OSS, and this is before they were OSS, but they don't like Donovan, they don't like the COI, they definitely don't like the OSS. And so, they're not gonna allow them in their campaigns. And so, for the main Pacific campaign with MacArthur and Nimitz and the island hopping, OSS is involved in that.

Bradley Hart

This is partially a personal thing with MacArthur and Donovan, isn't it?

Jeff Rogg

This is partially personal. This is where, again, it's like Hoover and Donovan. Donovan made personal enemies. I think when you have a strong personality and you're in the DC political game, that's kind of the nature of the beast. And your organizations and the people in them have to suffer for it. That being said, though, I don't think that the OSS suffered in China, Burma, India. I actually think that I still use it today as a great case study of irregular warfare, and the contribution that intelligence and special operations can make, even though it's not part of the main effort in a large campaign. What the OSS did in China, Burma, India and Det 101 is, I mean they did almost every type of mission you can imagine. Now, we think about the low altitude parachute jumps. They developed their own radio that could work in the wet, mountainous jungle environments of Southeast Asia.

Bradley Hart

So we have the detachments operating in Southeast Asia. We have sort of the main OSS organization based outta DC with these sort of divisions all over the areas that's allowed to operate. How is it divided organizationally, and what are the types of things that OSS is doing writ large?

Jeff Rogg

Sure. So OSS, again, was just as COI, Donovan's plan for a one stop shop for all things intelligence. So, they had the secret intelligence, they had special operations, so they did human intelligence and espionage, special operations, so commando raids. They did sabotage, morale and propaganda. So morale operations. They also had a maritime unit, which you know, is sort of antecedent of today's navy seals. And they developed, for instance, underwater breathing devices. There was an R&D department, so, the R&D was led by a guy named Stanley Lovell. And Donovan referred to him as his Professor Moriarty, who was Sherlock Holmes' enemy. But the R&D developed exactly what you associate with espionage and trade craft. So like small explosives that you can hide, concealed suppressed weapons, poisons.

Bradley Hart

Very James Bond type stuff.

Jeff Rogg

Very James Bond type stuff. Before James Bond. There were also other Dets. So there was a 203, there was a 404. Some operated in China where, for instance, I think it was 203 that developed a fake Japanese postage stamp. And you know, to add insult to injury, they use those fake stamps to hurt the Japanese economy, because you send a lot of mail even when you're at war, and it's a fake stamp, so it's not worth anything. So, it's sort of destabilizing your currency. And then, they would use those stamps to mail propaganda letters to the families of soldiers. But when you think about intelligence and special operations, I'm only saying it wasn't just action. It wasn't just action behind enemy lines. What the Detachments, 'cause we should refer to more of them than just Detachment 101, what they also did was they pinned down large numbers of Japanese troops by harassment. And that's good, because one less Japanese troop on an island fighting a suicidal war, which we know that was one of the brutal, brutal campaigns of the Pacific Islands. It's a war-helping, a war-aiding, not necessarily a war-winning effort.

Bradley Hart

Let's just go back quickly to Carl Eifler. We mentioned him a few minutes ago, but Nick, he's really a legendary character here.

Nick Reynolds

Carl Eifler is intelligent, forceful, some would say brutal. He himself after the war said that it's lucky that the allies won, because otherwise he would've been a war criminal. 101, it reminds me a little bit of the old story about the British Empire in the days of sail. A captain going to a distant station, let's say the China station from England, his orders would be, "Do the king's business." That's it. Do the king's business. Get there, figure out what to do, and do it. And that's kind of the set of orders that Eifler had when he went out to China. And he takes people that he knew in the US Army mostly, a lot of them reservists or active duty people who work with the reserves, and puts them into his little detachment. They fly. I've actually seen the orders that they used, and they fly around the world to get to China, a really circuitous route, you know? And then, he's basically writing the book himself on special ops. He goes on special ops himself, right? He doesn't just drop people off, and doesn't just send people out and say, "Go do special ops." He accompanies them when they insert. And there's a notable incident when he's taking a crew out, and he's gonna insert them through the surf and using British basically equivalent of PT boats. And he gets caught in the surf. He's helping them land, and he bangs his head on rocks in the surf and is pretty seriously injured, makes it back to the boats just in time. He's delayed, but his enormous physical strength, he's well over 200 pounds, in addition to being well over six foot, he's got physical consequences and mental consequences. And Donovan flies out to see how he's doing, right? He's heard these stories about Eifler, some of them from Duncan Lee who was one of Donovan's aides, a lawyer and a Soviet spy. That's a great sidebar story. But those two are oil and water. And Duncan Lee goes back to Washington and tells Donovan that Eifler is losing it. And so, Donovan goes out to see for himself, and in a breathtaking lapse of judgment, allows Eifler to fly him into Japanese occupied territory where there's a small forward operating base run by Eifler's people. And they go in this biplane, there's a picture of them getting ready to get on the biplane, and it's clear that the biplane is gonna strain. Donovan was overweight, and Eifler was a big guy. You could argue whether or not he's overweight, but he's a big, heavy guy and the plane just barely makes it there and back. And so, you know, those of us who love order are scratching our heads going like, "Is this the best use of time of the director of OSS in a war?" So ultimately, Eifler is relieved and sent back to the States. Duncan Lee was right. Eifler should not have been in command out there. And Eifler comes to Washington, goes up to Navy Hill, and he finds Duncan Lee, who's a little guy, and he picks him up by the lapels and slams him against the wall and says, "If you do that to me again, you are not gonna live to talk about it," and walks out of the room. So, that's pretty much the end of Eifler's war, but it's a dramatic beginning to special ops. The Det 101 under Eifler has its high points and low points. But Eifler's real accomplishment is laying the groundwork there. And then, you see Det 101 progressing to the point where it's more closely integrated with conventional forces. And the two working together, conventional and unconventional, complement each other. And so, that's the real plus there, once the OSS guys start supporting the conventional ops. The OSS standalone operations, the forward operating bases behind the lines, it makes for good stories, but the real war-winning effect comes when they marry up regular and irregular forces.

Bradley Hart

Now, we have some fantastic oral histories in our collection here at The National WWII Museum from Detachment 101 veterans. From listening to some of these, and some of the accounts I've read, this is pretty tough terrain number one. This is a brutal form of combat that I think, even by the standards of World War II, would be surprising to a lot of people, because I think in the American imagination, we kind of associate this with later conflicts that take place in Southeast Asia that we're involved with.

Jeff Rogg

So, this is where, if we can compare special operations and intelligence support to conventional military operations, you can hear me talking a contemporary national security, academic intelligence and special operations support to conventional military operations. But that's what we talk about, even to this day. And at the time, you know, in Europe, it was not really well coordinated. You know, the long range desert groups and the SAS, and then certainly SOE and Jedburghs contributed, but they often weren't part of a cohesive military plan. It was partially because the conventional operations, the officers who ran them, didn't like the OSS. We mentioned this with Nimitz and MacArthur, that wasn't actually as big a issue. Vinegar Joe Stillwell, who promised to return to Burma, he was okay and wanted the OSS operating in the CBI, the China, Burma, India Theater. The OSS also operated with the Chinese, the nationalists and the communists. And this is at a time when the future of Chinese Civil War. The stakes were probably fairly high. The key was that there were raids done on Japanese troops. There were raids done on Japanese airfields. The airfield at Machina, for instance, was a big target for Vinegar Joe, because what had happened when the Japanese had kicked Vinegar Joe out of Burma is they basically cut out the supply routes to the Chinese nationalists. And you know, when you talk about auxiliary and allied forces, the Chinese nationalists were a huge force that could do incredible damage to the Japanese if they were supplied. But when the Japanese took Burma, that cut off the supplies, and the only resupply route was the very inefficient, very dangerous hump run, which my neighbor in Florida actually was part of in the Second World War, where they had to fly supplies over mountains in Asia to units. And so, you know, what the OSS and the SOE, the Brits did and different elements was they recruited natives. They arm them, equip them, train them. And so, when we talk about the birth of modern special forces, for instance, with recruitment training, they recruited trained natives and supplied them to fight the Japanese. And by accounts, they killed thousands of Japanese. They took out tons of Japanese ammunition. It was a distraction that bled Japan, at a time when Japanese were fighting to the death, in Pacific Islands, for instance. You talk about like, saving lives in one theater at risk in another; it probably saved American lives, as much as MacArthur and Nimitz would've hated to admit it. Having Japan bled out in the China, Burma, India Theater at relatively somewhat high cost, there was a high attrition rate. A lot of Americans, a lot of the casualties were due to illness. They just weren't provided with mosquito nets, which is a pretty basic thing. It's a war-aiding effort from the OSS, and probably an area that maybe unfortunately gets overlooked in favor of Jedburgh stories in Europe.

Bradley Hart

Far from the jungles of Burma, spies and double agents are busy working all sides of World War II. One of the more colorful examples is a man named Duško Popov. To the Germans, Popov was known as Agent Ivan, but to the British, he was known as Agent Tricycle. To uncover this story, I'm joined now by Mary Kathryn Barbier, professor of history at Mississippi State University, and the author of the book, Spies, Lies and Citizenship: the Hunt for Nazi Criminals.

Mary Kathryn Barbier

His name was Duško Popov, codename Tricycle. He was a Yugoslav playboy, and he did like to play and spend his money and hang out with the girls, was approached by the Germans while he was in Yugoslavia. And he agreed to work for the Germans, never really intending to work for the Germans. And so, when he was able to arrange it with the British, he signed on as a double agent, set up a spy ring with the German agents who made it to the UK and either volunteered to be double agents or were turned. They had to demonstrate their credibility, that they weren't under control by the Brits. And so, they would communicate real information that the Germans could confirm to establish that credibility. And over time, then it became a mix of real information and false to then primarily false. He was pretty successful in England with the small group that he had. The Germans were so pleased with this activity that they wanted him to set up a spy ring in the United States. He came to the United States. The British communicated this with the Americans. The idea was to have a controlled spy ring in which they made sure that the information being sent to the Germans was what they wanted to be later to facilitate the deception plan, that sort of thing. But Hoover didn't play ball. Hoover was only interested in what German spies Tricycle could expose so that they could be arrested. He didn't want to have a similar thing. He wasn't interested at all. And so, he gave Tricycle a very cold reception and had him cooling his jets doing nothing, and he wasn't too happy with that. And so, he rented an apartment on Park Avenue. He also rented a flashy convertible and started hitting the social scene with one attractive woman after another, and also running up debt. And he ran through the funds that the Germans had sent him. He requested more money. They sent him more money. He worked his way through that. And the thing I really can't quite figure out is that the FBI loaned him money and by the time he left, I think he had racked up like over $86,000 worth of debt. I mean, he just blew through the money.

Bradley Hart

Millions of dollars today.

Mary Kathryn Barbier

Yeah. And he got so bored at one point that he decided to go on vacation with one of the girlfriends and went down to Florida. They drove down to Florida, had their fun in the sun, and were on their way back when they got stopped by the FBI and arrested under the Man Act, which said that you're not supposed to bring a woman who's not your wife across state lines. So, he just kind of cooled his jets and decided he had enough of it. He snuck out of the US, got in touch with his German handler, said, "I'm on my way back to England. It certainly didn't work." And so, he just went back to England and picked up where he left off. He took over his network of spies again, worked with the Brits for the rest of the war.

Bradley Hart

It's a great story. And Popov continues as an agent, I think, through the war, doesn't he?

Mary Kathryn Barbier

Yes.

Bradley Hart

The Germans never detect that he's actually playing both sides.

Mary Kathryn Barbier

No, no. But unlike one of the other double agents, I don't think he gets the Iron Cross.

Bradley Hart

Nick and Jeff, thanks again for joining me. So at this point, we're in the 1942, '43 period. The US has gone from almost nothing in terms of an intel apparatus to having OSS, but as the war is progressing, how do we stack up against our adversaries, Germany and Japan, and how do we even stack up against our allies?

Nick Reynolds

So, that's a great question, and one that I am excited to answer. The beginning of the war, we are really on the little end of the scale, both in terms of codebreaking, so SigInt, and in terms of other kinds of intelligence, especially human intelligence and the kinds of skills that we see developed and deployed in OSS. By the end of the war, we're in way better shape. Codebreaking has become an industrial enterprise. You almost feel sorry for the Germans and the Japanese, because we are breaking so much of their traffic. It's almost impossible for them to communicate with their commanders securely. But they don't know that. So that is a huge, huge advantage. Meantime, OSS has mustered out of nothing, really. I mean, before June, 1941, there's nothing like OSS. OSS is created out of Donovan's mind and his Rolodex and his will, and then a number of good people come together. And so, by the end of the war, you have processes that work not perfectly, but well enough. And OSS is getting out special operators, parachuting people behind the lines, creating opportunities to gather information and influence events. There are saboteurs who blow things up. There are attempts to penetrate the German atomic program. There are more studies than you want actually of very many aspects of the war created by OSS. So, the wartime potential of American intelligence is largely fulfilled over the course of the war. There are two further ways of looking at this, and one is by comparing American capabilities with those of allies and adversaries. The Brits are ahead of us at the beginning of the war. They have gone further in developing their codebreaking, their intel. Hmm. Well, it's there. They've got the people, they have let themselves be seriously embarrassed, but they pick themselves up and get on with it. And then, of course there's SOE that we've talked about, which pairs with OSS, and together they have a very respectable record of paramilitary operations, especially in France from January, 1944 to the total liberation of France. So, what about the bad guys? What about the other side? The Germans have the Abwehr, which actually means, defensive connotations, in German. And the Abwehr is the human intelligence mechanism of the Third Reich. There's also various SS organizations of differing quality. Some of them basically secret police. So, you could be a secret policeman in Germany, ferreting out people who are hostile to Hitler. And then, you can use the same skills when you are in occupied France, finding people who are members of the resistance. So, a brutal organization, but fairly effective. I mean, the resistance gets a run for its money in France. The Germans do a fairly good job of keeping it suppressed. But at the end of the day, the Germans are nowhere near as good at intelligence as the Americans or the British, especially the Americans and the British together. And part of this, I say, is the effect of an alliance, right? The Americans and the British, they form a uniquely powerful alliance. And it's almost free exchange of information, talent, resources at the end of the day, that is far more powerful than what the Germans can deploy, even though they have a lot of skills, they have a lot of expertise. But they just don't trust anybody else. Do the Germans have anything like a peer collaborator? The answer's no. Do they trust each other? The answer's no. And so, you see this very clearly in the U-boat war where the British and the Americans come up with one way after another of targeting U-boats. So, you get breaks into German naval communications, right? And that's led by the British, and then you get radio direction finding. And so, there are 21 stations around the north and South Atlantic. So, when a U-boat surfaces and sends a transmission, even if it's just 30 seconds, there are three or four beams, the submarines geolocate it. And then, the Americans especially have these little task forces, carriers, jeep carriers, small carriers, destroyers, anti-submarine ships. And so, they put these guys in the air, and you go to the last known location of the submarine, the Germans lose on the order of 760 submarines over the course of World War II. And it's because of this really powerful collaboration between the intel guys and the operators and the two allies. And the Germans just don't know what to do to counter this. They wrap themselves up in theories, and none of these theories makes any sense. And in fact, they don't do the one thing that might've helped them, which would've been not to communicate. And so in the end, you know, this is, I think, a powerful example of how the American British Alliance contributes in the intel field to defeating the threat.

Bradley Hart

What about Japan?

Nick Reynolds

Ah, so Japan. I've spent a little bit of time trying to track down what were the capabilities of the Japanese. Japanese Navy, as far as I can tell, not so bad. There's a couple of books that point out some of their activities, especially on the west coast of the United States. Not a massive operation, but you know, onesies here and there, people who can get close to sailors, who can go to bars, who can rent apartments overlooking the harbor.

Bradley Hart

And these are almost all consular officials, as I recall.

Nick Reynolds

Consular officials who might have been navy officers either undercover or naval attaches, and they sort of run little spy rings. Charlie Chaplin's Japanese butler is a famous case. There was another case of a British man who is co-opted by the Japanese, and goes to the United States to spy on America. And so technically, he's not guilty of treason in the UK. There's a book out, the Beverly Hills Spy-

Bradley Hart

Yeah, Frederick Rutland is his name.

Nick Reynolds

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So, Rutland's an interesting case, and the Japanese are running ops, and they're not unproductive. I mean, they had a pretty good handle on what was in the harbor at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. But I think where they fall down is they don't really have allies either, right? They also fall down. I think they're stove piped. There are no mechanisms to connect the various stove pipes. And their communications, their technology is second rate compared to ours. And so in the end, Japanese intel gets a B minus or maybe a C, while American intel starts out maybe a B plus, and then goes to A, or even A plus.

Jeff Rogg

There's one more that we didn't talk about too: the Soviets.

Nick Reynolds

Oh yeah. Thank you.

Jeff Rogg

That became problematic for the OSS.

Bradley Hart

An ally turning into an adversary.

Jeff Rogg

That's right. And the knowledge even before the Second World War. I mean, this was a tense alliance in the very beginning. And this is where, you can tell I always go back to what the American public knows or doesn't know. Well, one of the issues with the OSS, and I sort of credit Donovan with this: we talk about intelligence should be non-partisan or non-political. And so, Donovan brought in people who had well-known communist sympathies, and in fact, one of them, his personal aide, Duncan Lee, ends up being a Soviet spy. And the problem is that other intelligence organizations, army intelligence, and absolutely J Edgar Hoover and the FBI hate the fact that Donovan is, you know, allowing people who they perceive to be socialist subversives into the OSS. And this becomes, you know, a potent weapon against the OSS in these inner circle arguments about the future of it. And the argument is, "Well, we know we're gonna have to fight the Soviets, and the OSS is compromised by Soviets." The OSS, I should mention though, when you read some of their reports, they did reports that showed, sort of like Churchill famously saying, "I'm making this alliance with Stalin because of convenience." That was Donovan's perception too. I mean, Donovan knew, and the OSS knew the Soviets were going to be the next major adversary, intelligence challenge, national security challenge. And they wrote reports even about the Soviet Union towards the end of the war. So, they were aware of it. The problem is that alliance of convenience and working, even to some extent, with Soviet intelligence, certainly being penetrated by Soviet intelligence is not gonna be a selling point at the end of the war. One more story that's interesting. I think you wrote about it too, Nick. So, the OSS actually buys, and I think they got it through one of the Scandinavian countries, Soviet codes. And this is, as Nick pointed out, SigInt into sort of where it's at. And I mean, if you get your adversary's codes, this is an enormous intelligence coup. Well, this didn't sit well with, I think it was Stettinius. I think he was-

Nick Reynolds

Secretary of State.

Jeff Rogg

State at the time. He had replaced Cordell Hall. And so, Stettinius basically says, you can't make this up, "Give it back. Tell the Soviets you bought their codes and give it back." So, the OSS got the Soviet codes. Now, who knows what Soviet spies within OSS would've found out anyways, but this is bad news. Giving them back, and FDR does make the OSS let the Soviets know. "Sorry, we took your codes." So, that was something that I think we have to remember this really awkward position of where the Soviets are with the OSS, with the OSS fighting for its future existence. And it didn't position them very well.

Bradley Hart

The final word in this episode belongs to veteran Robert Libbman from the special operations team, Merrill's Marauders. In an interview with The National WWII Museum, he voiced concern that Americans today don't fully appreciate the sacrifice made by the WWII generation. Here's Libbman in his own words.

Robert Libbman

I think there's a lot of people who say, "Thank you for your service," but I gotta tell you, I don't think they remember anything. I don't know. I wish that it would resonate with the people, but I don't think it does.

Bradley Hart

Robert Libbman passed away in 2021. He was 97 years old. Join us next time as the largest amphibious operation to date is in the planning stages. It will not yet be on the beaches of Normandy, nor in Italy, but in North Africa. Code-named Operation Torch, it will be one of the biggest tests yet for the intelligence apparatus Bill Donovan is building. Be sure to subscribe to "The Secret WWII," wherever you get your podcasts to get our latest episodes when they come out. And check out our website for additional resources for each episode, reading lists featuring the work of our experts, and links to videos and oral histories from the collections here at The National WWII Museum.