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Greek / American Operational Group Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
Memoirs of World War 2

Greece
 
Examples of the Greek/USOG Missions Behind the Lines

National Achives Documents

Orientation to the Documents

A few examples of the warfare of each of the Greek United States Operational Groups (Greek/USOG) in Greece will be presented with reference to documents in the National Archives. The photographs are from other sources.

The documents are some of the top secret records which were not available for study, not even to us, until the CIA released them to the public circa 1987.

Just a few are presented in the next pages, just to give a glimpse into the operations. There were many missions by our groups. The many missions were similar to the ones related in these pages.

The Six Groups of the Greek/USOG

You may recall from earlier in these memoirs that the Greek/USOG was founded in 1943, comprised of volunteers for hazardous duty with the OSS. The men had trained together in the Greek Battalion in Camp Carson, Colorado, with a few more weeks of additional training in OSS camps in Maryland.

The six groups of our unit split up in Egypt, January 1944. Three of our groups then operated in Yugoslavia while the other three went directly into Greece. After five months of combat by some in Yugoslavia, our six groups were reunited now in Greece where each group was operating autonomously.

Now, all six of our Greek-American groups of the Greek/USOG were operating behind enemy lines in Greece, disrupting Axis garrisons, convoys, and trains.

We did not discover the great extent of the damage these small groups inflicted on the Germans and Bulgarians in Greece (or on the Germans in Yugoslavia) until after our records were opened by the CIA circa 1987. Unfortunately, our records remained top secret until then.


Roster of Officers and Men who Entered Greece, 1944

  • In the following document, we can count the names of 12 officers and 130 enlisted men of the Greek Operational groups who entered Greece in 1944.
    • Originally, 16 officers and 169 enlisted men of the Greek/USOG volunteers into the OSS had landed in Egypt, January 23, 1944, according to the report titled Headquarters, Third Contingent, Unit B, Operational Group, filed in the National Archives.
    • Subsequently, a lesser number entered Greece because of casualties in Yugoslavia, illnesses, assignments to headquarters personnel, and transfers to other units.
  • ** The document includes names of members of the Yugoslavian operational groups, who also entered Greece. They have been marked here with ** double-asterisks, added into the quoted list to present a clearer tally of the members of the Greek Operational groups. The majority of these enlisted men of the Yugoslavian/USOG were Greek-Americans, just as the majority of the men in the Greek/USOG were Greek-Americans.

Note

  • National Archives, Roster of Officers and Men who Entered Greece, 1944, Greek U.S. Operational Groups, Operations in Greece 1944, pp. 188-192 (report filed at OSS Headquarters, 1944).
     
    Compare, National Archives, ibid., pp. 1, 11-12 , which is report filed at OSS Headquarters, 24 December 1944, quoted and annotated at the end of this chapter.

    The other document tallies, but does not name, 15 officers and 159 enlisted men as troops who were in Greece continuously from 23 April to November, 1944.

    The monument to be erected in Greece in honor of the Greek/USOGs will display the number of Greek/USOGs who landed in Egypt January 23, 1944, and who intended to serve in Greece.

  • ** The double-asterisks have been added into the quoted list in order to identify members of the Yugoslavian Operational groups ~ to differentiate them from the members of the Greek Operational groups ~ and to present a clearer tally of the members of the Greek Operational groups.


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