eBook - ePub
Ritchie Boy Secrets
How a Force of Immigrants and Refugees Helped Win World War II
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eBook - ePub
Ritchie Boy Secrets
How a Force of Immigrants and Refugees Helped Win World War II
About this book
In June 1942, the U.S. Army began recruiting immigrants, the children of immigrants, refugees, and others with language skills and knowledge of enemy lands and cultures for a special military intelligence group being trained in the mountains of northern Maryland and sent into Europe and the Pacific. Ultimately, 15,000 men and some women received this specialized training and went on to make vital contributions to victory in World War II. This is their story, which Beverley Driver Eddy tells thoroughly and colorfully, drawing heavily on interviews with surviving Ritchie Boys.
The army recruited not just those fluent in German, French, Italian, and Polish (approximately a fifth were Jewish refugees from Europe), but also Arabic, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Turkish, and other languages—as well as some 200 Native Americans and 200 WACs. They were trained in photo interpretation, terrain analysis, POW interrogation, counterintelligence, espionage, signal intelligence (including pigeons), mapmaking, intelligence gathering, and close combat.
Many landed in France on D-Day. Many more fanned out across Europe and around the world completing their missions, often in cooperation with the OSS and Counterintelligence Corps, sometimes on the front lines, often behind the lines. The Ritchie Boys’ intelligence proved vital during the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge. They helped craft the print and radio propaganda that wore down German homefront morale. If caught, they could have been executed as spies. After the war they translated and interrogated at the Nuremberg trials. One participated in using war criminal Klaus Barbie as an anti-communist agent. Meanwhile, Ritchie Boys in the Pacific Theater of Operations collected intelligence in Burma and China, directed bombing raids in New Guinea and the Philippines, and fought on Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
This is a different kind of World War II story, and Eddy tells it with conviction, supported by years of research and interviews.
The army recruited not just those fluent in German, French, Italian, and Polish (approximately a fifth were Jewish refugees from Europe), but also Arabic, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Turkish, and other languages—as well as some 200 Native Americans and 200 WACs. They were trained in photo interpretation, terrain analysis, POW interrogation, counterintelligence, espionage, signal intelligence (including pigeons), mapmaking, intelligence gathering, and close combat.
Many landed in France on D-Day. Many more fanned out across Europe and around the world completing their missions, often in cooperation with the OSS and Counterintelligence Corps, sometimes on the front lines, often behind the lines. The Ritchie Boys’ intelligence proved vital during the liberation of Paris and the Battle of the Bulge. They helped craft the print and radio propaganda that wore down German homefront morale. If caught, they could have been executed as spies. After the war they translated and interrogated at the Nuremberg trials. One participated in using war criminal Klaus Barbie as an anti-communist agent. Meanwhile, Ritchie Boys in the Pacific Theater of Operations collected intelligence in Burma and China, directed bombing raids in New Guinea and the Philippines, and fought on Okinawa and Iwo Jima.
This is a different kind of World War II story, and Eddy tells it with conviction, supported by years of research and interviews.
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Yes, you can access Ritchie Boy Secrets by Beverley Driver Eddy in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & World War II. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Foreword by Guy Stern
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Building Camp Ritchie
- Chapter 2: The First Class
- Chapter 3: The Men at Ritchie
- Chapter 4: The Composite School Unit
- Chapter 5: Interrogation of Prisoners of War (IPW)
- Chapter 6: Aerial Intelligence and Photo Interpretation
- Chapter 7: Order of Battle and the Military Intelligence Research Section (MIRS)
- Chapter 8: Field Maneuvers and Close Combat Training
- Chapter 9: Instructional Units
- Chapter 10: The Camp Ritchie WACs
- Chapter 11: Interactions with Civilians
- Chapter 12: The First Mobile Radio Broadcasting Company
- Chapter 13: The Counterintelligence Corps and the Office of Strategic Services
- Chapter 14: Camp Sharpe
- Chapter 15: The Nisei (PACMIRS and MITUs)
- Chapter 16: The German “Hillbillies”
- Chapter 17: Ritchie Boys in Europe
- Chapter 18: Ritchie Boys in the Pacific
- Chapter 19: Postwar Activities in Europe
- Chapter 20: Postwar Activities in the Pacific
- Chapter 21: Ritchie Remembrances
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index of Names