Summary of Patrick K. O'Donnell's The Brenner Assignment

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The author proposed to drop a man by parachute on the open country between Pocol and the Falzarego Pass, and drop enough Army mountain rations and personal equipment to sustain him indefinitely in the peaks if necessary.

#2 Roderick Stephen Goodspeed Hall, born in Peking, China, in 1915, came from a privileged background. He attended Harvard University, and after a couple of semesters, he dropped out and went to Italy for the 1937-38 winter on a ski trip.

#3 The OSS was America’s first central intelligence organization. It was created in the summer of 1941. Before the OSS was created, multiple government departments gathered information in reports sent arbitrarily up the chain of command in the hope that the most crucial information would reach the White House.

#4 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose Wall Street lawyer William J. Donovan to lead the new agency, the OSS. He was a highly decorated hero of World War I, and he developed an integrated combined arms approach of shadow-war techniques.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822545892

IRB Media

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Book preview

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The author proposed to drop a man by parachute on the open country between Pocol and the Falzarego Pass, and drop enough Army mountain rations and personal equipment to sustain him indefinitely in the peaks if necessary.

#2

Roderick Stephen Goodspeed Hall, born in Peking, China, in 1915, came from a privileged background. He attended Harvard University, and after a couple of semesters, he dropped out and went to Italy for the 1937-38 winter on a ski trip.

#3

The OSS was America’s first central intelligence organization. It was created in the summer of 1941. Before the OSS was created, multiple government departments gathered information in reports sent arbitrarily up the chain of command in the hope that the most crucial information would reach the White House.

#4

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose Wall Street lawyer William J. Donovan to lead the new agency, the OSS. He was a highly decorated hero of World War I, and he developed an integrated combined arms approach of shadow-war techniques.

#5

The OSS trained operatives, spies, and saboteurs. Hall’s training included sabotage and organization of guerrilla movements. The OSS stripped recruits of their personal belongings and issued them olive drab one-piece uniforms.

#6

Trainees went through Fairbairn’s House of Horrors, a darkened labyrinth of popup targets, to learn how to handle a pistol in close combat. They also learned gutter fighting, which was diabolical.

#7

After finishing basic sabotage school, Hall and Lukitsch were let loose on the local Washington, D. C. , area to execute mock sabotage missions as if they were enemy agents. They were graduation party guests of honor at the opulent Statler Hotel.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Paratroopers were trained at Fort Benning’s Jump School, led by instructor Howard Chappell. Chappell was one of America’s first paratroopers, and he commanded the giant gatekeepers. He was a sight to see: his blond hair slicked back and glistening,