OSS Items

How difficult is it to find OSS (Office of Strategic Service) items, 1942-45 ? My father was a Marine first Lieutenant , then Captain attached to the OSS in the Mediterranean Theater.

 

Weapons and gadgets

OSS T13 Beano Grenade and compass hidden in a button, CIA Museum
The OSS espionage and sabotage operations produced a steady demand for highly specialized equipment.[8] General Donovan invited experts, organized workshops, and funded labs that later formed the core of the Research & Development Branch. Boston chemist Stanley P. Lovell became its first head, and Donovan humorously called him his "Professor Moriarty".[18]:101 Throughout the war years, the OSS Research & Development successfully adapted Allied weapons and espionage equipment, and produced its own line of novel spy tools and gadgets, including silenced pistols, lightweight sub-machine guns, "Beano" grenades that exploded upon impact, explosives disguised as lumps of coal ("Black Joe") or bags of Chinese flour ("Aunt Jemima"), acetone time delay fuses for limpet mines, compasses hidden in uniform buttons, playing cards that concealed maps, a 16mm Kodak camera in the shape of a matchbox, tasteless poison tablets ("K" and "L" pills), and cigarettes laced with tetrahydrocannabinol acetate (an extract of Indian hemp) to induce uncontrollable chattiness.[18][19][20]

The OSS also developed innovative communication equipment such as wiretap gadgets, electronic beacons for locating agents, and the "Joan-Eleanor" portable radio system that made it possible for operatives on the ground to establish secure contact with a plane that was preparing to land or drop cargo. The OSS Research & Development also printed fake German and Japanese-issued identification cards, and various passes, ration cards, and counterfeit money.[21]

On August 28, 1943, Stanley Lovell was asked to make a presentation in front of a not very friendly audience of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, since the U.S. top brass were largely skeptical of all OSS plans beyond collecting military intelligence and were ready to split the OSS between the Army and the Navy.[22]:5–7 While explaining the purpose and mission of his department and introducing various gadgets and tools, he reportedly casually dropped into a waste basket a Hedy, a panic-inducing explosive device in the shape of a firecracker, which shortly produced a loud shrieking sound followed by a deafening boom. The presentation was interrupted and did not resume since everyone in the room fled. In reality, the Hedy, jokingly named after Hollywood movie star Hedy Lamarr for her ability to distract men, later saved the lives of some trapped OSS operatives.[23]:184–185

Not all projects worked. Some ideas were odd, such as a failed attempt to use insects to spread anthrax in Spain.[24]:150–151 Stanley Lovell was later quoted saying, "It was my policy to consider any method whatever that might aid the war, however unorthodox or untried".[25]

In 1939, a young physician named Christian J. Lambertsen developed an oxygen rebreather set (the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit) and demonstrated it to the OSS—after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy—in a pool at a hotel in Washington D.C., in 1942.[26][27] The OSS not only bought into the concept, they hired Lambertsen to lead the program and build up the dive element for the organization.[27] His responsibilities included training and developing methods of combining self-contained diving and swimmer delivery including the Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit for the OSS "Operational Swimmer Group".[26][28] Growing involvement of the OSS with coastal infiltration and water-based sabotage eventually led to creation of the OSS Maritime Unit.


I'm going to say......VERY difficult !
And maybe even more difficult to prove....even if you found something !!

 

Since this was a spy outfit, I doubt you'll find much of their labeled material around. No one wanted to say "Hey I'm a foreign spy." even on their own soil. Other than paperwork, odds are there isn't much to find.

A friend of mine, long dead of old age, was Army Intelligence during WWII. I didn't know he'd been an Intelligence Officer in Washington until his obituary. People in intelligence work didn't talk about it during or after, or for the most park keep bits of leftovers laying around openly. I know another gentleman who worked for another US intelligence service much later on; he's been retired for over a decade and still doesn't talk about it, even though he was mostly a computer geek.

 

A friend somehow met one of the members of a shop that developed and produced OSS/CIA toys. He showed me some “rocks” and “twigs” with tiny radio transmitters inside, that he bought from the retiree, who had taken some samples home. You’ll “never” see such items on the open market.

 

I wish my father had kept some of the things he may have used while in the OSS and his medals - he was an officer and did several behind the lines operations in Yugoslavia as a commando and earned several decorations, including the Silver Star. I know the Defense Department will re-issue his medals to family.