{"id":146846,"date":"2023-09-04T07:00:41","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=146846"},"modified":"2023-09-03T15:38:38","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T19:38:38","slug":"back-to-the-40s-last-oss-oger-tabbed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=146846","title":{"rendered":"Back to the ’40s, last OSS OG’er tabbed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

“Let’s go back to the 50’s, when it was hip to be hep to be cool to be popular, to be teenaged and going steady” – NGDB. OK, I lied – we’re headed to the ’40s.<\/p>\n

Jeff LPH turned me on to the “Jedburgh Teams”, of whom I had never heard. The Jedburgh teams were small international teams ideally consisting of an American OSS Special Operations agent, a UK Special Operations Executive (SOE), and one or two others, usually French Maquis.\u00a0 They were dropped into occupied France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to harass and interfere with German troops immediately before and after D-Day.<\/p>\n

The Americans, neophytes in this type of warfare, leaned heavily on their British counterparts\u2019 experience. The results were the teams not only copied the British in the manner that they were selected, trained, and utilized, but they matched the Brits\u2019 operational success as well.<\/p>\n

These Special Operations teams were at the forefront of the Allied advances in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands and supported conventional troops by coordinating parachute drops of supplies and weapons, guide local resistance fighters on hit-and-run raids and ambushes as well as sabotage.<\/p>\n

The Jedburgh teams received extensive foreign language instruction, as well as training in airborne and amphibious operations, skiing, mountain climbing, Morse code, small arms, land navigation, hand-to-hand combat, explosives, and espionage tactics. Each Jedburgh team carried a communications radio, the Type B, Mark 2 commonly referred to as a \u201cJed Set,\u201d which encased in a suitcase and later two small containers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This is BEFORE “more portable PRC radios… two suitcases? .<\/p>\n

Ninety-three Jedburgh teams parachuted into France to help with the Normandy invasion, the first, the night before D-Day and later into Southern France for the follow-on invasion there in August 1944. Six more jumped into Holland prior to the large airborne invasion in September. Among those Jedburgh team members were Aaron Bank, considered the Father of the US Army Special Forces, and William Colby the future head of the CIA.<\/p>\n

SOFRep<\/a><\/p>\n

Very few people were selected. A post-war accounting put the number at 276 of which 83 were Americans. There were also 90 British and 103 French troops. The most typical team size was three, but all teams were required to have at least a commander and a radio operator. WeAreTheMighty.com<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A roster of team members is at http:\/\/801492.org\/Agents\/AllJedburghs.html<\/p>\n

After the war the OSS was disbanded. Its functions were later assumed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. Army Special Forces (or Green Berets).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

SF History<\/a><\/p>\n

Per the CIA, Jedburgh is a Scots town from which raiders plagued the English in the 1100s – it’s south of Edinburgh.<\/p>\n

\"\"
T4 Johnson, top right<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Friday, Ellsworth Johnson, age 100, was presented with a Special Forces tab and Green Beret at his nursing home in Zeeland, MI. Mr. Johnson, formerly a Tech$ medic, is believed to be the last survivor of the OSS\u00a0 Operational Groups, who even predate the Jedburghs.<\/p>\n

Army special operations leaders presented a Special Forces tab and the iconic green beret Friday morning to a man believed to be the last living member of their World War II Office of Strategic Services\u2019 Operations Group predecessors, known as OGs.<\/p>\n

Technician 4th Grade Ellsworth \u201cAl\u201d Johnson, now 100, was a medic who parachuted into France and China with the OGs. The ceremony took place in Zeeland, Michigan, where Johnson resides today in a nursing home. Army Special Operations Command\u2019s deputy commander, Maj. Gen. Patrick Roberson, and 1st Special Forces Command leader Brig. Gen. Gil Ferguson presented the tab and beret.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe laid the groundwork for what we are today,\u201d Roberson said during the ceremony, which the veteran\u2019s family attended. \u201cEverything that he did in 1944 \u2014 we model ourselves on in our training and the operations that we conduct. [It\u2019s our] origin story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each OSS OG was roughly 34 soldiers \u2014 a four-man command element and two 15-soldier sections that could operate independently. These groups provided a blueprint for future units, according to historical research by Army special operations officials, who noted that today\u2019s Special Forces A-teams resemble the WWII-era OG sections.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

TimeBomb2000<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Johnson said he volunteered for hazardous duty because he wanted to not be a “bedpan jockey.”<\/p>\n

On Johnson\u2019s first mission, his unit, OG Patrick, successfully captured a dam in Central France after jumping behind German lines in August 1944, according to historical reports. They achieved this by linking up with the French Resistance and successfully convincing the dam\u2019s German garrison to abandon its post.<\/p>\n

After his unit\u2019s success in France, Johnson and many of his peers volunteered to jump into China in July 1945 with Chinese paratroopers of the 2nd Chinese Commando that they\u2019d trained. They led an assault on a Japanese garrison that inflicted significant casualties on the enemy but failed to take the town. A medical history report said Johnson successfully stabilized and evacuated wounded troops, including two Americans, while waiting for a doctor to arrive.<\/p>\n

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, Johnson and his fellow OSS troops made their way out of Asia and back to America, where he was discharged from the service. He went on to have a successful career in the cosmetics industry, according to an Army report.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am thinking this makes him the oldest man ever to be tabbed? Respect, sir.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Let’s go back to the 50’s, when it was hip to be hep to be cool … Back to the ’40s, last OSS OG’er tabbed<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[359,478,121,649],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-army","category-none","category-war-stories","category-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146846"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146851,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146846\/revisions\/146851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}