First SEALs (28 page)

At one point, Scuchek confided to Taylor that she believed the Germans would execute her and the other Russian operatives at the last minute before Russia invaded Austria. But she was not afraid. “I have no fear, I am a Communist,” she explained.

Later, due to damage to the prison, Taylor and radio operator prisoners were moved to a villa formerly owned by the head of an Austrian-American rubber company. The villa sat on a park, and the prisoners were herded through the picturesque area during the daily air raids. “It was the first time I'd seen the sun in five months, and the ‘special' prisoner food was far superior to anything previous, although meager.” Taylor was even taken out to saw firewood and prune trees in the park when he was well enough to work.

But his stay in the relatively posh surroundings didn't last. After only a week in the villa, a guard awakened Taylor in the night and told him to get ready to leave.
This is the end
, Taylor thought to himself.

21

DECIMA MAS
STRIKES BACK

THE NIGHT OF NOVEMBER 18–19, 1944, LIVORNO, ITALY

The sound of a cough that emanated from somewhere in the darkness suddenly broke the silence of the calm, starless night, immediately attracting the attention of Able Seaman P. R. Thompson. It was just after one in the morning, and Thompson was throwing out an anti-limpeteer charge in the harbor at Livorno,
*
Italy, where dozens of Allied ships were moored. Steel nets and other obstructions had failed to stop enemy frogmen, so the Allies had resorted to the use of miniature depth charges that created shock waves powerful enough to shred human tissue, muscle, and bones. Thompson and the other three men on duty at the lighthouse at Diga Di Marzocco took turns trudging out along the stone breakwater and dropping the explosives every five to twenty-five minutes, at random intervals, to make underwater swimming perilous for the enemy.

Thompson's head turned in the direction of the cough, and he noticed a dark shape beneath the surface of the water. He threw his charge. The shadow moved. The seaman charged back to the lighthouse and quickly informed the other two guards that he thought
there were
limpeteers in the bay. Rushing back along the rocky breakwater with their loaded rifles, the three men opened fire on the amorphous shape now clinging to the rocks. Almost immediately a trio of Italian frogmen climbed up onto the breakwater.

“Put your hands up!” ordered the Americans.

The Italians obeyed, but they began walking along the rocks.

“Halt!” the men shouted.

Two complied, but one frogman clad in a dark green rubber suit continued walking. Thompson and the others fired a warning shot near his feet, and he came to a sudden stop. The Americans searched the three men for weapons, found only their knives, and hauled them back to their post for interrogation.

The frogmen were clad in multiple layers for protection against the elements. Closest to their skin they had a set of woolen clothes for warmth. Next came a rubber suit and rubber shoes. On top of that were dark blue coveralls. On their heads “all three wore dark green felt skull caps of the Balaclava helmet type, with dark green camouflage netting attached.” They had blackened their faces with paint, and each wore a set of flippers and an underwater breathing apparatus. They also had weighted belts with two hanging clamps, and they carried fifty thousand lire each.

After inventorying their belongings and noting their rank badges, U.S. Navy personnel began interrogating the three men. Initially “all three prisoners made clumsy attempts to mislead and deceive.” But a quick look at their dog tags revealed their names: Sub-lieutenant Bruno Oswaldo Malacarne, Petty Officer Marcello Bertoncin, and Sailor Edmondo Sorgetti. All three were members of the part of the
Decima MAS
who, along with their leader, Borghese, had joined the German cause rather than the Allies when Italy switched sides in the war. The Black Prince and his Gamma men were back in action.

For six days, the Navy interrogators questioned the trio. Thanks to intelligence provided by the
Decima MAS
men now working with the OSS, the interrogators had files on all three, which helped coerce the truth out of the frogmen. By talking to each of the men
separately, the Navy was eventually able to piece together a story that “in the opinion of interrogators, approximates the truth.”

The OSS learned that planning for the
Decima MAS
mission had begun in October when an Italian reconnaissance plane took photographs of the port at Livorno. On November 8, their German handlers gave the Gamma operatives a final briefing and they left the city of Valdagno the next morning by truck. On November 10, they reported for duty at the German Navy base in Varignano, a village on Italy's northeastern coast. They intended to set out on the mission immediately, but bad weather delayed them until November 18. That evening they set out in a small, high-speed motor-boat, eventually stopping about two or three kilometers northwest of the entrance to the port at Livorno.

Around 10:30 p.m., the three men slipped into the frigid water, each “towing two bilge keel bombs of a new type” as well as civilian clothing, identity cards, money, and other effects that would enable them to survive and establish a base in Italy. They planned to attach the limpets to at least two Allied ships. Sometime during the long swim one of the frogmen tore his rubber suit, and he “was suffering from muscular convulsions” due to hypothermia by the time they approached the breakwater. They paused there for a rest, when Thompson spotted them. As soon as the Americans began firing on the frogmen, they dropped their limpet mines and other gear and surrendered.

The interrogation also revealed a future planned human torpedo attack on shipping at Livorno. In response to this intelligence, the Allies set up “artificial moonlight,” created with “a series of searchlight beams in a cone.”

C
OMPANY
D
'S NEWLY MINTED
executive officer, Ted Morde, was present at the interrogations of the Italian frogmen.

In an agency filled with colorful characters, Lieutenant Ted Morde stood out as one of the most vibrant. Before joining the
MU, he had been a radio announcer and journalist, but the most notorious episode in his past, by far, was his work as an archaeological explorer. In 1940, Morde led an expedition to Honduras in search of “The Lost City of the Monkey God.” Five months later he returned to the United States, claiming to have found the site. He brought back thousands of artifacts in support of his claim and also published a record of his adventure in
The American Weekly
. The headline proclaimed, “
Explorer Theodore Morde finds in Honduras jungles a vanished civilization's prehistoric metropolis where sacrifices were made to the gigantic idol of an ape—and describes the weird ‘Dance of the Dead Monkeys' still practiced by natives in whom runs the olden blood.” Morde wrote, “I am convinced that we have found the site of the legendary Lost City of the Monkey God, the ancient capital of the vanished Chorotegans—of a civilization older perhaps than those of the Mayas and Aztecs—tales of which have lured explorers for years deep into the jungles of Honduras.” He went on to explain local customs and legends in graphic detail before concluding, “That we can hardly wait for the weeks to pass before we can reenter the City of the Monkey God and begin to uncover the wealth—archaeological and perhaps other kinds as well—goes without saying.”

However, Morde never made a return expedition, nor did he ever tell anyone else where to find the lost city. When the war broke out, he joined the OSS and was detailed to the Cairo headquarters. Morde eventually worked on a high-profile mission in Turkey where he met the German ambassador to Turkey, Franz Von Papen. During World War I, the United States had expelled Von Papen for allegedly sabotaging rail lines. Back in Germany he rose in politics to become chancellor.

In 1944, Morde became executive officer of the Maritime Unit in Italy and began serving as its eyes and ears on the ground, reporting on the activities of the
Decima MAS
units for Commander Woolley and Marine Major Alfred Lichtman, who was then serving
as Area Operations Officer for the MU. Morde had a very favorable opinion of Richard Kelly's unit, which had been renamed “MU of Company D.” In a letter to Major Lichtman, Morde wrote, “
Frankly I am pretty proud of OSS in this theater. It is my opinion that some day long after the war, when permission is given to present the facts about OSS accomplishments to the public, or for the judgement [
sic
] of historians, there will be utter amazement that OSS has been able to accomplish so many magnificent deeds for the good of the cause. We have over here a group of men who live, eat and breathe this war.”

D
ESPITE THE THWARTED ATTACK
on Livorno and the capture of key
Decima MAS
operatives, enemy underwater sabotage in the harbor continued. On several occasions the German-controlled Italian swimmers of
Decima MAS
attempted limpet attacks against MU and other Allied craft in the area. Another Company D officer wrote, “
Mines go off almost every day, and shooting takes place at reconnaissance planes . . . air raids are expected anytime, and limpeteers swim in, as they have twice in the last three weeks, to blow up the harbor.” The Allies would need to be on high alert to prevent future underwater sabotage missions.

In addition to defending against attacks from the Axis frogmen, MU of Company D continued to launch missions into northern Italy. On October 10, 1944, they received a shipment of “
ten Lambertsen Diving Units Model #10, complete with extra type B oxygen cylinder to each unit” and some extra soda lime absorbent material to aid in these efforts. The MU continued to entertain the thought of converting the San Marco commandos into underwater swimmers like their brethren Gamma men in
Decima MAS
; but the war came to an end before it could happen.

T
HROUGHOUT THE FALL AND WINTER
of 1944, the MU conducted numerous clandestine missions, such as the Lupo (“Wolf”) Mission. On December 16, 1944, in the dead of night, Ward Ellen transported three Italian OSS-trained agents to a point just north of the Po River. The three operatives then paddled a small rubber boat to the desolate beach. Once ashore, a “
boatman” who was supposed to guide them to a pinpoint and reception committee of partisans “disappeared.” After hiding all day, the men got back in their boat and rowed, unguided, to locate the rendezvous location. Keeping about three hundred yards from the shore, they fruitlessly searched until exhaustion set in. They beached the craft, and “forgetting to be careful,” they succumbed to sleep in the unprotected sandy dunes near the Po.