“Wild Bill” Donovan: SOF Pioneer
William J. Donovan is the only American to have received the nation’s four highest awards: the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal.

By: USSOCOM History and Research Office - Tom Neven - 5/14/2018

Maj. Gen. William J. Donovan when he headed the Office of Strategic Services. Courtesy CIA photo

Maj. Gen. William J. Donovan when he headed the Office of Strategic Services. Courtesy CIA photo.

"Wild Bill" Donovan

William J. Donovan, the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II and one of the forefathers of today’s special operations forces, was born on New Year’s Day in 1883 in Buffalo, New York. After college and law school he entered private practice, where he prospered as a Wall Street lawyer.

In search of a way to serve his country, Donovan joined the New York National Guard’s 69th “Fighting Irish” Regiment as a captain in 1912. During World War I, the 69th was redesignated the 165th Regiment of the U.S. Army and was incorporated into the “Rainbow” Division, so named because of the cross-country makeup of its ranks. Then-Lieutenant Colonel Donovan was troubled by the poor training and lack of physical conditioning of his troops, so one day he ran them in full packs on a three-mile obstacle course over walls, under barbed wire, through icy streams and up and down hills. At the end the men collapsed, gasping for air. “What the hell’s the matter with you?” Donovan demanded. “I haven’t lost my breath!” At age 35, he had carried the same load. The voice of an anonymous soldier in the back responded, “But hell, we aren’t as wild as you are, Bill.” From that day on, the nickname “Wild Bill” stuck. Donovan publically expressed annoyance at the name because it ran counter to the cool, careful image he wanted to cultivate, but his wife, Ruth, said that deep down he loved it.

On Feb. 28, 1918, Donovan and his battalion entered the fighting for the first time. He had wondered how he would react the first time he came under fire and discovered he had “no fear of being able to stand up under it,” he wrote to Ruth, thrilled at the danger of combat like a “youngster at Halloween.” Growing “easily accustomed” to standing up under fire, Donovan eschewed being a “dugout commander” and led his troops from the front.

On the morning of Oct. 14, 1918, during the Meuse-Argonne Campaign, Donovan would earn the Medal of Honor. His unit was being decimated by enfilade fire from his right, and Donovan’s advance stalled, with horrifying casualties. Donovan rallied his troops and exposed himself to enemy fire as he moved from position to position. He was wounded in the leg by machine-gun bullets but refused to be evacuated and continued with his unit until it withdrew to a less exposed position. Donovan would be wounded three times during the war and is the only American to have received the nation’s four highest awards: the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal, and the National Security Medal. He also received the French Croix de Guerre.

After the war, Donovan wanted to become more involved with the government. He served on many different federal commissions and delegations. He also unsuccessfully campaigned for lieutenant governor and governor of New York in 1922 and 1932, respectively. His business also took him frequently abroad, and Donovan’s extensive travel experience brought him to the attention of President Franklin Roosevelt, who asked him to visit England as an unofficial envoy in November 1940 to interview British officials and determine if they could withstand Nazi Germany. Through his meetings with Colonel Stewart Menzies, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, as well as King George VI, Winston Churchill, and other British government and military leaders, Donovan realized that the United States needed a centralized means of collecting foreign intelligence. Donovan returned to Washington and shared what he had learned with President Roosevelt.

On July 11, 1941, President Roosevelt established the Office of the Coordination of Information (COI) and named Donovan as its director. The COI was tasked with coordinating information collected abroad for the president. After the United States became involved in World War II, the COI became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in June 1942, with Donovan, now a major general, in charge. Based on the lessons he learned from the British, Donovan was the impetus behind the creation of a military psychological warfare capability, which included both psychological and unconventional warfare. Donovan hoped that by employing a military psychological warfare capability in conjunction with conventional forces, the carnage of World War I trench warfare could be prevented.

Donovan’s concept of psychological warfare was all-encompassing, including the elements of what would later be called “special operations” (with the exception of counterinsurgency). The first stage would be “intelligence penetration” with the results, processed by the OSS’s Research and Analysis Branch, available for strategic planning and propaganda. Donovan called propaganda the “arrow of initial penetration” and believed that it would be the first phase in operations against an enemy. The next phase would be special operations in the form of sabotage and subversion, followed by commando raids, guerrilla actions, and behind-the-lines resistance movements. All of this represented the softening-up process prior to invasion by conventional units. Donovan’s visionary dream was to unify these functions in support of conventional unit operations, thereby forging a “new instrument of war.” By war’s end, the OSS had evolved into the first truly unified special operations command.

William J. Donovan briefing a plan during World War II. Courtesy CIA photo.

William J. Donovan briefing a plan during World War II. Courtesy CIA photo.

William J. Donovan as a major in France in 1918. Courtesy CIA photo.

William J. Donovan as a major in France in 1918. Courtesy CIA photo.

The importance of OSS lies not only in its role in hastening military victory, but also in the development of the concept of unorthodox warfare, which alone constitutes a major contribution.

—Maj. Gen. William J. Donovan in his preface to the OSS War Report

The OSS conducted operations around the world. Jedburgh teams parachuted into France and Holland in support of the D-day invasion, where they made contact with resistance groups, set up training and security programs, established intelligence networks, and engaged in hit-and-run tactics. The Operational Groups or OGs were small formations of specially trained U.S. Army soldiers, many recruited from ethnic communities in America, who fought in uniform and had no obvious connection to the OSS (so they would be less likely to be shot as spies if captured). Designated the 2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion, Separate (Provisional) in 1944, the OGs fought in France, Italy, Greece, and Yugoslavia, usually alongside partisan formations. In Burma, OSS’s Detachment 101 came perhaps the closest to realizing Donovan’s original vision of strategic support to regular combat operations. Det 101 developed relationships with native Kachin guides and agents, and when Allied troops invaded Burma in 1944, Det 101 teams advanced well ahead of the combat formations, gathering intelligence, sowing rumors, sabotaging key installations, rescuing downed Allied fliers, and snuffing out isolated Japanese positions.

Toward the end of the war, Donovan tried to persuade both President Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman to make the OSS a permanent civilian centralized intelligence agency, but his efforts were unsuccessful. The OSS was dissolved in September 1945, but Donovan continued to advocate for the formation of a centralized intelligence agency. His persistence paid off when President Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which established the Central Intelligence Agency. Its first civilian director was a former OSS man, Allen Dulles.

Donovan retired from active duty and returned to his work as a lawyer. His first job after the war was serving as an aide to the U.S. chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. He died at the age of 76 on February 8, 1959 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

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