Aldo Icardi: American Master Spy; A True Story

By Lt. Aldo Icardi

Aldo Icardi (1921-2011) was a U.S. Army second lieutenant during World War II who was sent as a specially-trained soldier by the U.S. Army’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on a special mission into enemy-occupied territory in Italy to organize resistance movements. During this mission, which was code-named “Chrysler,” its commander Major John William V. Holohan disappeared, and Lt. Icardi, along with radio operator Carl G. LoDolce and three Italians, was charged with his murder. The Italians, who spent three years in jail, were later acquitted, and Icardi and LoDolce were convicted in absentia of murder and sentenced to life and 17 years respectively, but neither man could be extradited back to Italy, so did not serve time. In 1955, Icardi was indicted by a federal grand jury for perjury, but was acquitted in 1956. The Italian Communist commander Vincenzo Moscatelli later admitted that he was responsible for Major Holohan’s death and that Icardi had nothing to do with it.

With this book, which was first published in 1954, Aldo Icardi seeks to set the record straight on all the newspaper stories that circulated in the wake of the killing, and ever since.

A gripping true-life story.

“This book is the true story, as well as I know it, of what actually happened to Major Holohan. It is my defense against the charges of murder. And it is the story of the most dangerous and exciting eight months I have ever lived.”—Aldo Icardi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcole Publishing
• Release date: Jul 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781787208049

Lt. Aldo Icardi

Aldo Lorenzo Icardi (March 1, 1921 - November 9, 2011) was a former U.S. Army second lieutenant during World War II and later practicing Florida lawyer. Born in 1921, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Giovane and Agnese Icardi, he grew up in the Mt. Washington neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He attended South Hills High School and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a B.A. and Pitt’s Law School. He married his childhood sweetheart, Eleanor Thompson, in 1943. During WWII, Aldo served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and parachuted behind enemy lines in Northern Italy in September 1944 where he provided intelligence and support to the Italian Partisans until the liberation of Europe in 1945. He wrote of his experiences in the book, American Master Spy (1954). He was awarded the Legion of Merit by the U.S. government and the Silver Medal, the second highest military honor, by the Italian government. After the war, the Icardis moved to Lima, Peru where Aldo studied and received a second law degree in International law. In 1954, they moved to McMurray, PA where they raised their five children. He worked at the Italian Sons & Daughters of America (ISDA) for many years and was active in the Washington County Democratic Party. In 1969, he moved his family to Maitland, Florida. He was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1972 and he practiced law until his retirement at 80 years old. He passed away in Birmingham, Alabama in 2011, aged 90.

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Text originally published in 1954 under the same title.

© Arcole Publishing 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

ALDO ICARDI

American Master Spy

A true story

by

Aldo Icardi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my loved ones, Eleanor, my wife, and my mother and father whose faith, courage and patience in hours of adversity made my ordeal supportable and inspired this work.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

If all you know about the renowned Holohan Case is what you read in the newspapers, you know me—Aldo Icardi—as the OSS killer...the spy who murdered Major William V. Holohan, while serving with him in 1944 on a secret OSS mission 200 miles behind enemy lines. However, the newspaper stories were not true.

This book is the true story, as well as I know it, of what actually happened to Major Holohan. It is my defense against the charges of murder. And it is the story of the most dangerous and exciting eight months I have ever lived.

Until August 15, 1951, I would not have considered writing this book. Although I was a master-spy in Northern Italy during World War II, and experienced many wild adventures there, I, like every other man who served in OSS, had been sworn to secrecy about what I did and how I did it.

However, on August 15, 1951, our own Defense Department told the world how the United States conducts secret espionage operations. I was free to tell my story then; and I had to tell it, because the Defense Department falsely accused me of a cold-blooded murder.

According to the Defense Department, I had Major Holohan poisoned, then shot twice through the head, stuffed into a sleeping bag, and dumped into Lake Orta in the mountains of Northern Italy. The reasons given for my suddenly turning mad killer are: (1) that I hated Major Holohan because I wanted to be leader of the mission; (2) that I wanted to rob Major Holohan of $100,000 in gold; (3) that I am a Communist and Major Holohan refused to arm Communist Italian guerilla bands.

None of this story is true. I did not hate Major Holohan—I did not even know him very well, because we had only been together two and a half months when he disappeared. He did not carry $100,000 or any amount near that. I am not a Communist and have never been sympathetic toward Communists. Major Holohan did not refuse to arm Communists guerillas. I did not murder the Major or have anything to do with his murder. I do not know that he actually was murdered—no one has ever proved that he was!

Nevertheless, the United States Government—not a court of law you understand, but a department of the executive branch of our government—says that I am guilty of murder. Since the United States Government says so, most people believe it. So I must answer the charges.

This book contains facts which you have never had an opportunity to read before. In it, I tell you which of the government charges are false, and how they can be proved false. I tell you how the things I say can be proved. After reading this book and getting all the details of this bizarre story, you must decide for yourself whether or not I am guilty.

Remember though that your decision will not count. Although no jury has ever heard this case, Icardi has already been labeled murderer: in newspapers, in magazines, on radio and TV. I can’t fight that. I know that it is almost impossible to clear my name. That’s unimportant. What is important, to you and to me both, is the way supposedly responsible Government Officials have ignored basic American rights and laws in this bizarre case; how these same men tried to have an American soldier extradited to Italy to stand trial for a crime two Italians say he committed against another American soldier, while the United States was at war with Italy; how these men in our government capriciously released vital American military secrets with no legitimate purpose in sight. I hope that these facts will make you as angry as they have made me, and that you will close this book determined that it will never happen again in America.

I hope that, in addition to getting angry, you enjoy this book. To document my case, I have had to include much of the drama and intrigue that I encountered 200 miles behind enemy lines. I tell you how it feels to be dangling on the end of a parachute on a dark moonless night a couple thousand feet above your sworn enemy. I tell you how I had to forge identification cards, travel passes, and other papers so that I could move about Northern Italy as an American spy without being captured. I tell you how we tried to hide radio transmitters from the enemy, how they found us on several occasions, and how we escaped. Finally, I tell you about the mad wild frenzy in Northern Italy during the few weeks before the end of the war.

I hope that you find my escapades entertaining, and believable. I assure you, they all happened.

PART ONE—Major Holohan Disappears

ONE

I hurriedly stuffed my army clothes into an overnight bag: hat, shoes, uniform, lieutenant’s bars, everything. I checked the bag in a pay locker at the railroad station in Washington, D. C., and hurried to a taxi.

The driver made good time through the teeming rush-hour traffic and dropped me off at the Dodge Hotel just a few minutes after six. People were bustling in and out of the hotel, the doorman was flagging cab after cab; but I hardly noticed. I kept peering up the street, trying to spy a Buick sedan. Every second seemed to drag.

At five minutes past six, a big black Buick pulled up to the curb exactly according to instructions. A tall, heavy-set man got out of the back seat. He wore a dark blue suit and a black Homburg hat. He had a red rose in his lapel. This was the man I was waiting for.

He left the door of the car open, walked over to me, and said, Did George make the train?

I answered, Yes. I am Bill. The big man nodded toward the car. I climbed in and he got in after me.

We drove in silence for several hours, through Washington, into the suburbs, and out over rolling Maryland hills. No one said a word. The big man with the red rose sat looking out the window. The driver never turned his head.

Somewhere in Maryland, we pulled on to a winding driveway that led to a large country estate. I was ushered in to a reception room on the first floor. This room was thirty or forty feet long and about twenty-five feet wide. Three great windows occupied most of the right hand wall. Rows of folding chairs filled about half of the floor area. There was another door at the opposite end of the room. Small groups of civilians—about fifteen men in all—were scattered about the room.

At this point, I still didn’t know what I was doing here. I had volunteered for an assignment that was described only as secret and dangerous. I was to tell no one about it. I was itching to know what I was getting into, and I decided to find out if I could. I was walking over to one of the groups to join the conversation, when a smartly uniformed Major entered the far door and strode over to a platform in front of the chairs.

Will you all be seated, please? he said. The small groups broke up quickly, and the buzz of conversation subsided. The Major cleared his throat. Gentlemen, he said. Welcome to OSS!

So this was it! Espionage! I was shocked and bewildered. The Major continued, You are here to be trained in espionage work. We will try to teach you everything an OSS agent must know to survive. That includes demolition, personal hand-to-hand combat, how to use weapons, how to kill.

Each of you has been assigned a cover name. Now build a cover story around it; develop a false background, but a sensible explanation of who you are, where you are from, what you do for a living. In your conversations, keep your cover story consistent and work at making it believable. While you are creating your cover story, try to break down the cover story of your companions. Analyze their conversation, pick out the inconsistencies, eavesdrop on telephone conversations, read their mail, pick their pockets, rummage through their luggage and clothes drawers. This is no place for panty-waists. This is war! And this is spying. You have to learn to be sneaky, foul, and treacherous. No holds are barred. At the end of this course we shall have a night of reckoning. Then you will be asked to tell what you have learned about your classmates, and they will tell what they have learned about you.

The Major went on to outline the complete course of study. As he talked, I became more and more conscious of the vast implications of my assignment; and, when he had finished his remarks, I went to him and asked exactly what sort of duty I could expect.

The idea of becoming a spy had never occurred to me; and I wasn’t sure I was prepared for the job. I figured that I must have been chosen because I knew the Italian language, but I didn’t feel that I knew it well enough for espionage. Frankly, I was scared, and I told the Major so. He seemed amused at my concern, but assured me that selection for this school did not necessarily mean that I would go into the field and work as a spy. Many of us apparently were taking this training in preparation for related OSS jobs. We might end up as administrators, translators, supply officers, or doing any number of other tasks that must be done in any military organization. At that time, I wouldn’t have believed that later on I would actually volunteer for duty behind enemy lines, and that spying and constant danger would become an accepted, almost daily routine. I did not even suspect those future events, and the Major’s reassurances quieted my fears.

Intensive study and work began the next morning. We had to learn to send and receive at least 12 words per minute in International Telegraph Code, so that if we were on a mission and lost our radio operator, we could at least communicate with headquarters. We also learned the philosophy and theory of codes and ciphers; we learned that any code could be broken, but that it takes time, and usually the information is worthless by the time an enemy breaks a code.

We learned how to break into a house: how to pick locks, how to enter through windows quietly, how to jimmy doors, and how to blow safes.

We learned how to handle dynamite and plastic explosives; how to destroy buildings, bridges, railroad tracks, ammunition dumps, gasoline deposits. We learned about special explosives which could be put into an automobile gas tank easily; we learned how to handle a new magnetic weapon which could be placed against the side of a ship to blow it up; we learned about an electric-eye mechanism which was placed on a railroad car so that, when a train entered a tunnel, the dynamite attached to the mechanism would explode and jam the tunnel with the broken wreckage of the train.

We learned to use and to draw maps. We learned to travel with only a small compass, and by the stars, to travel across broken country away from the main roads without getting lost. We learned how to identify landmarks and targets so that our intelligence would be of military value.

We studied hand to hand combat from an expert: the fabulous Major Fairburn, who had been Chief of Police of the Shanghai Police Department for many years. He taught us to fight with a knife and with a gun. He taught us to kill with our bare hands, to kill swiftly, quietly, and efficiently, without danger to ourselves. He designed a special training course, scattered with hidden booby traps, which we had to go through. We had to meet and overcome mock dangers that in actual field work could mean death if we did the wrong thing.

We learned all about weapons—what types were available where the war was being fought; how to take them apart and put them together; how to repair them; and how to use them.

Finally we learned battle order. Battle order covers every facet of the organization and composition of a country’s armed forces. We learned how many regiments of a given kind made a panzer (armored) division, how many battalions of field artillery were included in a German infantry division, how many vehicles and the kind that were included in each unit, how many men comprised a regiment, division, and army, how they were armed, how they were supplied, and how they could be moved. We learned to identify the enemy’s organic units by shoulder insignia, by unit direction markers, by organizational numbers on vehicles and equipment. We learned everything we could possibly cram in our heads about the enemy military organization so that, out in the field in actual espionage work, we could accurately report the movement and location of specific enemy formations. Information like this is the most important kind of intelligence; it has crucial significance to commanders at the battle front. When a general knows what units are in front of him in the line, and what units are coming up to the line or leaving the line, he can plan his battles to take advantage of every enemy weakness, to avoid every enemy strength. We spent days and days on battle order at OSS school.

The course wound up with a crucial practical examination that, for me, was a tame preview of things to come. Each student prepared false social security and draft cards, driver’s license, identification cards, and other documents that supported his cover story. Then he went to Baltimore, got a job in a defense plant, and stole as many military secrets as he could.

I applied for a job as an armed guard at the Maryland Drydock Co. I showed up at the employment window at about nine o’clock in the morning with my forged identification and my phony name and background. They had some laboring jobs available and one opening for an armed guard. The latter sounded like a good job for a spy, so I told the man I was an expert marksman and had experience as a guard in a tank plant in Detroit. He said, Good! We can probably use you. We’re not usually lucky enough to get experienced people for jobs like that. Fill out this application.

An interviewer spent almost an hour with me filling out a ten page questionnaire. The mass of details they wanted might have scared a spy away, but it was obvious that before they could check all the data on that form, the war would be over. The interviewer moved quickly to make an appointment for a physical examination for me. He said that I could go to work on the four o’clock shift that afternoon, if I hurried to the doctor’s office before eleven o’clock. I was anxious, so I hurried to the doctor’s office. I had been told to be back at the employment office at two o’clock. I was there. They bustled me into a photographic studio and mugged me. Then they took me to another building where my finger prints were taken. I had gone through the security mill in less than half a day, but my security had not been checked. All they had was the information necessary to check my security.

At four o’clock I started guarding this shipyard. Eight hours later I walked out the gate with the .38 caliber revolver, the badge, and the cap that I had been issued, as well as a whole pocketful of important military secrets.

My job was on the inside of the plant, and I was free to circulate everywhere. The superintendent’s office seemed like the best place to start spying. I learned his name and dreamed up a phony message for him to explain my presence in his office if I should be questioned. I stuffed this in an envelope, put his name on the outside, and headed for his office.

No one was in his office when I got there. But the door was open, so I walked in. I didn’t have to look far for what I wanted. There, spread out on his desk, was a detailed layout of the whole shipyard. It contained the location, the stage of work, and the scheduled completion date of every ship in the drydock. I sat down at the desk, took some of the superintendent’s stationery and copied down this information. With this safely tucked in my shoes, I returned to my job.

Later on, I struck up a conversation with a welding foreman at a water fountain. There, in front of a huge poster warning about the danger of loose talk, he told me about a passenger liner that was being converted in this yard for military use. It was scheduled to leave Norfolk a week later to take several thousand marines to the Pacific. About six other workmen corroborated this story—it was general information and a favorite topic of conversation. Before I left the yard at midnight, I had learned every detail about that ship.

I returned to OSS school bubbling with pride in my accomplishments. Then I learned that my classmates were just as successful as I had been. Every one learned facts which the enemy would have given his eye teeth to know. Fortunately, none of us was an enemy agent. We were all loyal Americans merely practicing the deadly business of spying, and all our loot was harmlessly burned.

The practical experience in spying was not the end of our exam. We had been promised that the last night of our training would be open house, and that we should bring back all the liquor we wanted from Baltimore. We were to drink heavily at this farewell party, then try to penetrate each other’s cover stories, to learn the truth if we could about the names and backgrounds of our classmates. The object was to find out if we would talk too much while we were drinking and expose ourselves. A loose tongue could wreck the best and most careful operator.

About half way through the evening festivities, our commanding officer started around to talk to each of us. He wanted to know what we had learned about the others, whether anyone had said or done something that in combat might give him away to the enemy.

This was a rugged test for me. It was unnatural for me to be prying into other people’s business. And it was unnatural for me to drink so much. At college a few beers had always been my limit; but for this test I drank rum and Coke. I was well intoxicated by the time the Major came to my end of the table. However, no one had yet been able to uncover my exact identity, nor my background, nor what section of the country I actually came from. For a few moments I was quite proud of myself. Then the rum and Coke struck! I was suddenly a very very sick man, and dashed for the John. Everything that was in my stomach roared up. I was miserable; but I tried to return to the party. I couldn’t. I went to my room and collapsed in deep sleep. I recall awakening, sometime later, for just a moment. I heard my roommates talking; one said, Ike really conked out didn’t he? But at least he didn’t talk. I sank back to sleep, satisfied that I had passed on the final test.

TWO

North Africa was hot, dirty, and dull. When I arrived there, sometime in November, 1943, OSS was in the throes of reorganization. The build-up and planning for the first major OSS job, the Sicilian invasion, had taken place in Algiers. With the successful invasion of the Italian mainland at Salerno, the bulk of Italian OSS operations with its personnel moved out of Algiers and into the Royal Palace at Caserta near Naples. There was just a skeleton force of OSS in Algiers when I arrived there: this was to be built, worked, and molded into the effective spearhead of the Southern France invasion which would take place eight months later in July, 1944. I was scheduled to develop and participate in part of that operation; but these plans for me changed very soon.

At this time, I was in what was known as SO, Special Operations, which was one of three major divisions into which the entire OSS organization was divided.

One of these three divisions was called OG, or Operational Groups. An Operational Group usually consisted of about thirty men who were experts in weapons, demolition work, and guerilla warfare. They were usually dropped in U.S. military uniform hundreds of miles behind enemy lines for the purpose of arming and organizing partisan bands of guerilla fighters.

SI, or Secret Intelligence, was a second major division of OSS. This was the real espionage group, as most people think of espionage. Men in this division infiltrated enemy territory for the purpose of collecting and sending back to headquarters strategically important information that our military commanders could use in planning battles.

I belonged to a third group, called Special Operations. SO units consisted of no more than five men who were specialists in demolition and sabotage work. They were dropped a short distance behind enemy lines for the purpose of destroying radio stations, communications lines, gasoline deposits, ammunition dumps, bridges, and other military targets. We were strictly soldiers; we were always to dress in full military uniform, do our job, then hide and wait for our combat forces to overrun our hiding place.

A Special Operations group existed at Algiers on paper; but, actually, there were only a few of us there with that specialty and no definite program had been set up for us. After seeing the sights of Algiers, and taking time out to learn how to parachute successfully from an airplane—just for something to do more than any other reason, I quickly became bored with life and myself. In that condition I jumped at the chance, at the end of 1943, to act as interpreter for an Italian general who was traveling to Naples and Bari. Bari was headquarters for General Badoglio and King Victor Emmanuel III, who had surrendered to the Allies in the fall of 1943. During this trip from Algiers to Naples the leaders of Italian OSS operations learned of my ability to speak Italian. Since knowing the native tongue of an area is an obvious advantage in intelligence—in fact, almost a prerequisite—I was offered a transfer from French Special Operations to Italian Secret Intelligence. It looked like a chance to become active regularly, so I accepted.

For the next few months, I bounced around Southern Italy on various SI assignments. My only permanent job was to supervise a group of discontented anti-Fascists who had been accepted as potential espionage agents for OSS. We learned, too late, that they had no espionage capabilities. But we had to keep them under our control. They knew how OSS operated, and the enemy would have paid anything or done anything necessary to get this information.

It was my job to keep these misfit anti-Fascists busy at a camp in Fasano. In addition to this thankless task, I had more pleasant duty: that was helping to teach the arts of espionage to more useful Italians who had some potential value as intelligence agents. These men infiltrated the front lines and many times sent back extremely valuable information which helped our war effort.

I left Fasano in May of 1944, and spent three months on intelligence assignments near the front lines. I first learned of Mangosteen Mission in August of 1944, when my commanding officer, Major Max Corvo, told me that I would probably be a part of that mission. About the middle of the month I was ordered to Siena, and from there flew to Brindisi, which at that time was Headquarters for OSS Secret Intelligence activities in Italy.

A flight from Siena to Brindisi usually was not an especially long or dangerous one; but I was jittery all the way on this particular trip. Although C-47s had a reputation for reliability, just the week before a C-47 had crashed in the mountains on this very same run. Consequently, I was more concerned with getting to Brindisi safely, than getting acquainted with the two strangers who were also passengers. They apparently felt the same way, because we talked very little.

I do remember one of my traveling companions vividly: a very tall, slim man, easily six-feet-three or-four, erect and alert. He was an older man than I; a sprinkling of gray hair showed at the temples below his cap; his face was tan and weather-beaten. As we roared along, he scanned the countryside below, as though he was intensely interested in its geography. Occasionally, he would walk forward to the cockpit and talk with the pilots. He was a captain.

I learned in Brindisi that he was Captain William V. Holohan, commanding officer of Mangosteen Mission. In a few weeks, he and I would be parachuting behind the lines together, running from the Germans together, and hiding together. In three months, he would disappear and I would never see him again.

THREE

The Italian campaign had gone through a difficult period after Sicily. The near disastrous Salerno landings had been followed by the bloody and costly fighting at Monte Cassino, and then came the impasse at Anzio. The frustrations of the winter of 1943-1944 were suddenly relieved by our hard won victory at Velletri which opened the door to Rome. We were in Rome on the fourth of June, and the German was running. Allied troops charged up the Italian boot throughout June and July, encountering almost no resistance. In late July and early August there had been some fighting at Siena and then Poggibonsi, but these were obviously delaying actions.

To the Allied Command in Italy it looked as though the spirit of the German Army in Italy was broken. The enemy had suffered serious casualties, and the Italian campaign appeared to be drawing to a close quickly. With the success of the Normandy landings, and the Patton breakthrough in France, it was possible that Hitler might pull out of Italy.

The Allied commanders thought, If the Germans make a quick evacuation from Northern Italy, what will happen in the Po Valley? That region was the key to post-war Italian recovery. There was heavy industry there, abundant farm land, and the bulk of the Italian population: in short, the sinews and muscles of the industrial capacity that had made Italy a modern economic and industrial power.

In the Po Valley, too, were the seeds of political turmoil. Active political partisans, armed and organized, had learned the strength in their military units. The remnants of the Fascist empire were still formidable in numbers and comparatively well-armed, ready to start a blood bath which might pale the Spanish Civil War.

Finally, there were the Germans, who might retreat in the wake of a scorched-earth action like the one so successfully executed in Russia.

Allied commanders could easily foresee a civil and factional conflict developing in the Po Valley which could destroy the factories and power plants, ruin the communication system, and create political chaos. This would present any Allied occupation with greater problems and a larger financial drain than even the prosecution of the war had presented.

The German occupation had caused the rival Italian political partisans to join forces in a common fight to evict the trespasser from Italian soil. The Socialists, Christian Democrats, Liberals, Actionists, Communists and Republicans had banded into a National Committee of Liberation which exercised at least nominal control over the partisan guerilla formations in Northern Italy. If the Germans abandoned Italy, this amalgamating force would disappear; and, before the Allies arrived on the scene to keep order and discipline, terrific damage might be inflicted by a factional war among the bickering political parties.

Although both Americans and British had many espionage teams operating in the Po Valley these teams were completely staffed with Italian natives. Consequently, there were no official Allied representatives in enemy territory equipped to take charge and control the explosive situation should such a problem develop. Mangosteen Mission was conceived to do this job. We were to effect a direct liaison between the Allied 15th Army Group under General Alexander and the leaders of the National Committee of Liberation for Northern Italy which was headquartered in Milano. Mangosteen Mission was to parachute into an area very close to Milano, make contact with the National Committee of Liberation, then remain under cover until the Germans began evacuating Northern Italy. At that time the Mission would move into Milano, and set up its radio in direct contact with Allied Headquarters. We would relay orders and instructions to the partisan leaders for the orderly and peaceful occupation and control of territory beyond the operations of the Allied Forces, until our armies were able to reach those areas and occupy them. That was the one and only purpose of Mangosteen Mission.

Awaiting Captain Holohan and me in Brindisi were three other men designated to participate in Mangosteen Mission. These men were First Lieutenant Victor Giannino, Technical Sergeant Arthur Ciarmicola, and Staff Sergeant Carl Lo Dolce.

Giannino, Ciarmicola, and Carl Lo Dolce belonged to OG, the guerilla warfare section of OSS, and had originally been assigned a mission of their own, called Chrysler Mission. Their objective had been to contact partisan formations, appraise partisan armament needs, request supplies, and supervise guerilla actions in harassing the enemy. Chrysler Mission had made twelve dry runs over Northern Italy before I arrived in Brindisi. They had returned each time because they could not locate their reception party. These frustrating experiences were a few of many nerve-wracking events that influenced Carl Lo Dolce’s later actions.

Chrysler Mission was still in Allied territory at the time Mangosteen Mission was developed; it was merged with Mangosteen in order to fill this new operation with immediately available and experienced personnel. The entire complement met in Brindisi during the first week of September, 1944.

Captain Holohan, our commanding officer, had come to Italy in August, when his old friend, Major William Suhling, took over command of all Italian OSS operations. Suhling specifically asked Holohan to be his executive officer. Holohan accepted gladly; but he was anxious for a more active assignment. When a field grade officer was needed to lead Mangosteen Mission, General William Donovan, who personally participated in the planning of Mangosteen Mission, agreed to let Holohan lead the mission. The fact that Holohan was not yet a field grade officer was not a major obstacle, since his promotion had already been recommended. Besides, it was not unusual to upgrade a field agent in order to give him the prestige and respect concomitant with higher rank. A further reason for naming Holohan the commander was the highly delicate nature