Intelligence and Operational Support for the Anti-Nazi Resistance
The OSS and Italian Partisans in World War II
Peter
Tompkins
The contribution of Italian anti-Fas
cist
to
where it
was
needed in the field
partisans
to
the
in World War II
neglected.
many
These
campaign in Italy has long been patriots kept as
out
than agent
signals.
as seven
German divisions
of the line.
They
two
also obtained the
full German divi sions, which led directly to the collapse of the German forces in and around Genoa, Turin, and Milan.
surrender of
During the crucial battles of Anzio in January and February 1944, for exam ple, Ultra signals warning of Hitlers
The
was
partisans
the
arms
success
These actions
pinned
down the
to
largely attributable
to
German armies and led
their
com
plete
destruction.
and
northern
Throughout Italy, partisan brigades
plans and of Field Marshal Albert Kesselrings attacks would arrive regu larly at Allied headquarters in Caserta as many as three days after the attacks had already taken place. On the other hand, extremely accurate information gathered by the partisans, often directly from Kesseirings own head
quarters, was sent via a secret OSS radio in Rome, on the air as many
as
in the
supplies parachuted to them by the British Special Operations
Executive
mountains and clandestine action groups in the cities liberared every
five times
major city before the arrival of com
bat units of Fifteenth Army Group, a mixture of American, British, French,
and Commonwealth divisions, to which was added a smattering of
taneously
attacks.
be received simul in Caserta and on the
a
day,
to
beachhead in time
to
repel
these
(SOE) and
the OSS and to the
After Romes
liberation,
to
as
Kessel
brilliance of the
Royalist
Italians.
ring
retreated
his mountain
the the
defenses The partisans success was largely attributable to the arms and supplies
Rimini known
straddling
on
inteffigence developed by members
of the Resistance.
networks
from Carrara
on
as
Apennines Tyrrhenian to
a
the Adriatic,
barrier
parachuted to them by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE)
and the OSS and the
to
the Gothic Line, intelli became a priority for Field gence Marshal Sir Harold Alexander, who
intent
on
9~
the brilliance of
was
intelligence
networks
developed
launching
an
attack
by
stant
members of the Resistance in con touch with Fifteenth Army
via
secret
against
the
these defenses. Gen. Mark
Clark, whose Fifth Army would have
Group headquarters
radios.
job
of cracking
mountain
tisans
Kesseirings strongholds, exhorted
further north
to
par
operating
Peter
Tompkins
served in the OSS
and spent five months behind German lines in Italy. He is the author of two books
activities in
on
OSS
Italy.
Intercepted German signals and the deciphering at Bletchley Park in England went far toward assuring final victory, but little credit has been given to the vast amount of detailed intelligence collected and rapidly transmitted by individual partisan spies in Italy. Strategically, Ultra may have saved the day, but tactically its information was far slower in getting
Ultra
increase their activities.
organize such operations, the OSS infiltrated individual Italian partisan agents by submarine behind the Ger man lines, landing them along the Adriatic coast at the mouth of the Po
To
River. One agent,
20-year-old
Mino
Farneti, set up a secret radio in the foothills of the Apennines, just south
95
Italian Partisans
Austria
Hungary
Yugoslavia
Corsica
(France)
Tyrrh en/an
ion/an
Sea
Mediterranean Sea
o
50
50
100 i