The United States Army Special Operations Command is a descendent of World War Two’s Office of Strategic Services. This secretive organization of specially selected men and women combined intelligence gathering and unconventional warfare functions across both European and Pacific theaters of war. The OSS was organized functionally, by branch. Like any military organization, manuals were produced.
In addition to the manuals, the OSS also produced briefing materials, used to explain the organization to policy makers. Although it doesn’t resemble any current SOF organizations, the Operational Group was the standard unit of the OSS.
As this was a joint organization long before being joint was a thing, the OSS also had a Maritime Unit with specialized equipment to carry out its unique mission.
A few years ago, their manuals were declassified and released publicly. USASOC has been gracious in sharing some of these manuals for their historical value. Operationally, you may learn a thing or two, as well. They are well worth the read.
Great find!
Today, USSOCOM (along with the CIA) carries the torch of the OSS (the USSOCOM insignia is basically the old OSS patch). The Army (and Army Air Corps), Marine Corps and Navy all contributed men and women to the OSS. The Operational Groups each had 15 men who specialized in UW, just like an SF ODA with 12 men today (Aaron Bank, the father of SF, was OSS).
Awesome. Downloaded ’em all.
Thanks for sharing this.
its stuff like this is the reason i come to ssd, thanks for posting this!
Herringbone Cloak – GI dagger by LTC Mattingly is a well researched and excellent read on the OSS, Marines of the OSS in particular. Available in full here:
http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/historydivision/Pages/Publications/Publication%20PDFs/Herringbone%20Cloak%20-%20GI%20Dagger%20Marines%20Of%20The%20OSS.pdf
I hope there are more SSDers who have some OSS reads they recommend.