ŽÁČEK, Pavel: Target area: Slovakia. Preparation and deployment of OSS/MEDTO operational teams in September and October 1944

Still a relatively unknown chapter from the end of World War II, it remains the background of the intelligence operations of the US (Office of Strategic Services, OSS) covered by Brig. Gen. William J. Donovan, prepared and executed on the territory of pre-war Czechoslovakia and wartime Slovak Republic. During June 1944, the Central European Section (SICE) was formed at the Italian base in Bari, part of the OSS Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MEDTO), to take over intelligence activities targeting Austria, Germany, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, headed by Maj. Howard M. Chapin. Operational teams, prepared in July and August 1944 by the Czechoslovakian Desk under the command of Otto H. Jakes to be deployed to Slovakia were based on the project of Capt. Edward V. Baranski, codenamed FALCON, the aim of which was to obtain military and political intelligence and to coordinate the deployment of arms and ammunition for the resistance. First, a suggestion was approved to deploy a HOUSEBOAT operations team, consisting of John Schwartz and Charles Heller, with an intelligence mission in Slovakia. The drop site was selected in the Žarnovica area of central Slovakia. Although the two paratroopers were on alert three times, twice in the aircraft, they failed to be dropped. At the end of August 1944, on the day of the outbreak of the uprising in Slovakia, SICE in Bari was visited by the head of the Czechoslovak section of the OSS/London, Capt. Charles Katek, whose main task was to finalize plans for the penetration of Slovakia in cooperation with the Czechoslovak SICE. At the beginning of September 1944, OSS/MEDTO Deputy Director Brig. Gen. John L. Magruder and First Assistant Director Col. G. Edward Buxton Jr. with whom the necessary arrangements and requirements for the anticipated dispatch of intelligence teams to the various Balkan capitals (City Teams) were discussed. Two days later a meeting of the Planning and Operations Committee was held in their presence. After the return of the OSS teams from Romania, and the rescue of the downed American airmen, it was recommended to form the operations teams for Slovakia (HOUSEBOAT, DAWES), consisting of the following members: naval lieutenant J. Holt Green (SO), former commander of the RAKEOFF team in Montenegro, J. Schwartz (SI), radio operator Ch. Heller (SO) and Sergeant Joseph Horvath (SO). With the help of Czechoslovak military intelligence in London, a landing of American aircraft at Tri Duby airfield near Zvolen was tentatively arranged with the rebel command for the period 15.-17. September 1944.