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ZINN THE PATRIOT I am very anxious to be of some service in this area and this is the best way of me contributing something I believe will be of real value. —Frederick Zinn letter to General Harmon, May 21, 1942 In June of 1942 I proposed to an AAF conference that a certain standard procedure be followed with respect to AAF missing. —Frederick Zinn letter to General Miller G. White, July 23, 1943 The war in Europe was, for the most part, shunned by the United States. Many Americans simply did not want to become embroiled in a war that was seen as yet another European affair. Not everyone was on the isolationist bandwagon. This was especially true of those men that had fought for France during the Great War. The former members of the Foreign Legion and Lafayette Flying Corps saw the war as something that could not be ignored. While most hoped that America would not be drawn into the ‹ght, many saw it as a matter of “when” rather than “if.” Fred Zinn’s longtime friend Paul Rockwell embodied this spirit. Rockwell had remained close to French aviation, ›ying during some of the ‹ghting in Morocco in 1925 despite the injuries he carried from the trenches of the Great War. When the storm clouds of war gathered in Europe, Rockwell went to France to meet with the French in hopes of rekindling the Lafayette Escadrille. With the German invasion in May of 1940, Rockwell was able to ›ee France before being captured but also before his idea could take hold. The United States was not ignorant of the pull that destiny had on the war. It formed a very basic intelligence service, the of‹ce of the Coordinator of Information (COI), which was designed to be its eyes and ears in Europe, gathering information that might help the United States when war ‹nally came. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 142 8 the United States became ‹rmly committed to the war effort. The COI became the root of a more powerful and effective intelligence service, the Of‹ce of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS was the brainchild of William Joseph “Wild Bill” Donovan, a recipient of the Medal of Honor during the Great War. Donovan was something of a rogue, putting together an intelligence service long before the United States realized it needed one. The OSS was the precursor to every spying and intelligence agency that ever emerged in the United States. It was often referred to as “Oh So Secret” and developed a reputation for being a wild card in terms of operations and military affairs. Donovan staffed the OSS with highly intelligent leaders, people that had proven themselves successful on Wall Street or in government. Most were veterans of the ‹ghting in the Great War. A number of them were veterans of the French Foreign Legion.1 One of his earliest operatives in the OSS was the stocky former legionnaire , David King, Fred Zinn’s longtime friend. David King had developed a personal relationship with Donovan between the wars and was selected by Donovan to head up subversive activities in French Morocco in May of 1941. King was a natural for the role; he spoke French, was sympathetic to a free France, and had been decorated several times by the French government for his actions in World War I. His of‹cial instructions were to lead subversive activities, and it was an assignment at which he excelled. He was reenlisted as a lieutenant colonel in the army but was attached solely to the OSS in occupied North Africa. King mapped the coastal and beach defenses that the Germans had established. He established relations with the French underground, smuggling weapons and ammunition to it. He directed several French underground raids on German supply bases. The wily lieutenant colonel managed to establish a radio network to monitor German defense movements, which would prove crucial during the American-led Operation Torch invasion of North Africa. King’s exploits would have been astounding for a man half his age. For a daring adventurer in his ‹fties, they were even more remarkable. Leveraging his contacts in Morocco, King managed to get a covert microphone installed in the German Armistice Commission conference room. The room was used to plan overall German strategy in Morocco and provided a wealth of intelligence information. During the Allied invasion of France, it was King’s network of operatives that was able to zinn...

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