Office of Strategic Services (1942-45)

When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, U.S. intelligence operations were splintered among nearly a dozen federal agencies.

With the onset of World War II, the OSS's secret operations—espionage, counter-intelligence, disinformation, and guerrilla leadership—expanded.

The decision to establish its first U.S. training camps at Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland, and Prince William Forest Park, Virginia, had been based on their’ rural, isolated location yet comparative proximity to the nation’s capital.

During the recruiting process, the Office of Strategic Services was looking for a combination of intelligence, imagination, courage and, if necessary, ruthlessness. Most of the young recruits, that volunteered for possible hazardous duty, craved the excitement and challenge of a special overseas assignment.

Creating the training process was a big challenge. To prepare spies, saboteurs, guerrilla leaders, radio operators, psychological warfare specialists and commando teams for their clandestine missions, the Office of Strategic Services had to obtain instructors, prepare a curriculum, develop courses, and devise practical exercises.

In war it is the results that count, and the saboteurs and guerrilla leaders in Special Operations and the Operational Groups, the spies in Secret Intelligence, and the radio operators in Communications did produce some impressive results.

Although the most publicized achievements of the OSS occurred in Europe and North Africa, Donovan’s organization also contributed to the war against Japan in the Far East.

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was an intelligence gathering service from 1942-1945. Its espionage and sabotage operations were pioneered by an eclectic team that combined some of America's brightest minds with burglars and con men. Their work in World War II contributed to Allied victory. When the OSS was disbanded after the war in 1945, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) rose from its ashes.

The OSS may have won its battles in the field, but it lost its final campaign—in Washington. It was better prepared to fight armed enemies overseas than bureaucratic enemies in the nation’s capital.

Before there was the CIA, there was the OSS. The places where they trained for their dangerous mission are now national parks.