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| The Women Whose Secret Work Helped Win World War II | The Women Whose Secret Work Helped Win World War II |
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| Before the Central Intelligence Agency, there was the Office of Strategic Services — a clandestine espionage organization of almost 13,000 Americans who, from 1942 to 1945, gathered intelligence for President Roosevelt and wreaked havoc against the Axis powers in every World War II theater. While an ideal O.S.S. recruit was famously described as “a Ph.D. who can win a bar fight,” the staff were diverse in their backgrounds. They came in as academics, military personnel, scientists, athletes, filmmakers, farmers and even some convicts; they served as spies, cartographers, forgers and propagandists. They broke code, planted false information to mislead the Germans and parachuted into enemy territory to blow up bridges and rail lines. One third of them were women. | Before the Central Intelligence Agency, there was the Office of Strategic Services — a clandestine espionage organization of almost 13,000 Americans who, from 1942 to 1945, gathered intelligence for President Roosevelt and wreaked havoc against the Axis powers in every World War II theater. While an ideal O.S.S. recruit was famously described as “a Ph.D. who can win a bar fight,” the staff were diverse in their backgrounds. They came in as academics, military personnel, scientists, athletes, filmmakers, farmers and even some convicts; they served as spies, cartographers, forgers and propagandists. They broke code, planted false information to mislead the Germans and parachuted into enemy territory to blow up bridges and rail lines. One third of them were women. |
| Their ranks included Marlene Dietrich, the actress, and Margaret Mead, a pioneering anthropologist. Julia McWilliams, later known by her married name, Julia Child, cooked up shark repellent. Jane Wallis Burrell went on to become one of the first C.I.A. operatives killed in the line of duty. Thousands of others broke barriers and demolished stereotypes without ever seeking recognition. | Their ranks included Marlene Dietrich, the actress, and Margaret Mead, a pioneering anthropologist. Julia McWilliams, later known by her married name, Julia Child, cooked up shark repellent. Jane Wallis Burrell went on to become one of the first C.I.A. operatives killed in the line of duty. Thousands of others broke barriers and demolished stereotypes without ever seeking recognition. |
| [For more stories about the experiences and costs of war, sign up for the weekly At War newsletter.] | [For more stories about the experiences and costs of war, sign up for the weekly At War newsletter.] |
| Marion A. Frieswyk, now 97, was the C.I.A.’s first female intelligence cartographer and is the last surviving member of the original O.S.S. mapping division. Virginia Stuart, also 97, worked for the O.S.S. Secret Intelligence branch in Washington, Italy, Egypt and China. These are their stories from 75 years ago, being shared publicly for the first time. | Marion A. Frieswyk, now 97, was the C.I.A.’s first female intelligence cartographer and is the last surviving member of the original O.S.S. mapping division. Virginia Stuart, also 97, worked for the O.S.S. Secret Intelligence branch in Washington, Italy, Egypt and China. These are their stories from 75 years ago, being shared publicly for the first time. |
| In November 1943, armed with a bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College, I joined a group of women sworn to secrecy. Before I entered “Q” Building — an unremarkable structure along the Potomac River, where the Kennedy Center stands today — all I knew about the Office of Strategic Services was that it was doing classified war work and it had a job for me. | In November 1943, armed with a bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College, I joined a group of women sworn to secrecy. Before I entered “Q” Building — an unremarkable structure along the Potomac River, where the Kennedy Center stands today — all I knew about the Office of Strategic Services was that it was doing classified war work and it had a job for me. |
| I grew up sailing in Rhode Island and reading about the famous adventurer Capt. Irving Johnson. I dreamed of joining him as a mate on one of his 18-month voyages around the world. But the world was at war, as were most young American men I knew. My older sister, Edith, who had studied chemistry, joined the Navy and I applied to do the same — only to find that they weren’t so interested in liberal arts majors. My father suggested I call his friend working on “some government thing” in Washington, in case he knew of any leads. He did, and following a series of interviews where discretion and diligence seemed to matter more than a long résumé, I met my new supervisors, Margaret Griggs and Evie Barnes, along with a war widow, and a fellow recent college graduate, Jean Wallace. (I wouldn’t learn until later that Jean happened to be the daughter of Vice President Henry Wallace.) Everyone had a specific job to do, and Evie and Margaret set the tone: Work hard, find a way to get the job done and don’t talk about it, ever. | I grew up sailing in Rhode Island and reading about the famous adventurer Capt. Irving Johnson. I dreamed of joining him as a mate on one of his 18-month voyages around the world. But the world was at war, as were most young American men I knew. My older sister, Edith, who had studied chemistry, joined the Navy and I applied to do the same — only to find that they weren’t so interested in liberal arts majors. My father suggested I call his friend working on “some government thing” in Washington, in case he knew of any leads. He did, and following a series of interviews where discretion and diligence seemed to matter more than a long résumé, I met my new supervisors, Margaret Griggs and Evie Barnes, along with a war widow, and a fellow recent college graduate, Jean Wallace. (I wouldn’t learn until later that Jean happened to be the daughter of Vice President Henry Wallace.) Everyone had a specific job to do, and Evie and Margaret set the tone: Work hard, find a way to get the job done and don’t talk about it, ever. |
| The women who managed the registry of the O.S.S. Secret Intelligence branch were like air traffic controllers for classified reports and documents pouring in from O.S.S. field agents across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. We sweated through our blouses opening, logging and moving along every parcel that secure couriers delivered to our door. We were fueled by cold Cokes from the cafeteria and the understanding of the urgent nature of the reports we were receiving — intelligence on German troop movements, secret radios, plans for penetration and weapons requests from O.S.S. agents behind enemy lines. The amount of communications to be sorted and processed grew at a staggering rate, to match the intensity and scale of the global conflict. We didn’t stop to ask whether something was a woman’s job or a man’s job. We did the best we could with what we had, sending most documents along to the indexing unit, another group staffed entirely by women. Much of the material was top secret. Documents marked “eyes alone” triggered a different protocol — a swift jog to a designated colonel in his office. It was a strange relationship — men and women whom we only knew by code name were relying on us. Delays or breaches could blow their cover, with the most disastrous consequences. | The women who managed the registry of the O.S.S. Secret Intelligence branch were like air traffic controllers for classified reports and documents pouring in from O.S.S. field agents across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. We sweated through our blouses opening, logging and moving along every parcel that secure couriers delivered to our door. We were fueled by cold Cokes from the cafeteria and the understanding of the urgent nature of the reports we were receiving — intelligence on German troop movements, secret radios, plans for penetration and weapons requests from O.S.S. agents behind enemy lines. The amount of communications to be sorted and processed grew at a staggering rate, to match the intensity and scale of the global conflict. We didn’t stop to ask whether something was a woman’s job or a man’s job. We did the best we could with what we had, sending most documents along to the indexing unit, another group staffed entirely by women. Much of the material was top secret. Documents marked “eyes alone” triggered a different protocol — a swift jog to a designated colonel in his office. It was a strange relationship — men and women whom we only knew by code name were relying on us. Delays or breaches could blow their cover, with the most disastrous consequences. |
| When I learned that the O.S.S. was sending women overseas, I told my supervisor, “Whenever and wherever there’s an opportunity, I’ll go.” She put my name on the list, and after eight months in the registry in Washington, I got the good news: they had a spot for me in Cairo. | When I learned that the O.S.S. was sending women overseas, I told my supervisor, “Whenever and wherever there’s an opportunity, I’ll go.” She put my name on the list, and after eight months in the registry in Washington, I got the good news: they had a spot for me in Cairo. |
| In the summer of 1944, three weeks before my 23rd birthday, I boarded a Navy ship at Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia. There were two other O.S.S. women with me. We wore long-sleeve dresses, khaki, so we would blend in with the 5,000 troops on our ship, which was also carrying some Red Cross workers and correspondents. We knew not to tell anyone about our work. If asked, we’d just say, “I work for the government” and change the subject. We came ashore in Naples, and I was pressed into service at the O.S.S. stations there and in Bari for a few weeks before the commanding officer in Cairo got wind of it and summoned me over. | In the summer of 1944, three weeks before my 23rd birthday, I boarded a Navy ship at Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia. There were two other O.S.S. women with me. We wore long-sleeve dresses, khaki, so we would blend in with the 5,000 troops on our ship, which was also carrying some Red Cross workers and correspondents. We knew not to tell anyone about our work. If asked, we’d just say, “I work for the government” and change the subject. We came ashore in Naples, and I was pressed into service at the O.S.S. stations there and in Bari for a few weeks before the commanding officer in Cairo got wind of it and summoned me over. |
| Flying over North Africa on an Army plane, I peered down through the ashy sky and studied stretches of tank tracks — the sandy footprints of the gruesome desert warfare. The war had since moved out of North Africa and into Greece and Italy, though Egypt remained O.S.S. headquarters for Middle East operations. Nothing could have prepared me to see Cairo for the first time. On the ground, I stared out the window of the military truck trying to absorb the variety of costume, cultures and modes of transport, from overcrowded trolleys to jeeps to horse-drawn carriages. The veranda of Shepheard’s Hotel was a daily convention of British, French, Turkish, Yugoslav and Italian officers gathering military, political and economic intelligence. Conversations in dozens of languages mingled with the cacophony of trucks, scooters and mules. Cairo was the crossroads of the world — a kaleidoscope that was always changing. | Flying over North Africa on an Army plane, I peered down through the ashy sky and studied stretches of tank tracks — the sandy footprints of the gruesome desert warfare. The war had since moved out of North Africa and into Greece and Italy, though Egypt remained O.S.S. headquarters for Middle East operations. Nothing could have prepared me to see Cairo for the first time. On the ground, I stared out the window of the military truck trying to absorb the variety of costume, cultures and modes of transport, from overcrowded trolleys to jeeps to horse-drawn carriages. The veranda of Shepheard’s Hotel was a daily convention of British, French, Turkish, Yugoslav and Italian officers gathering military, political and economic intelligence. Conversations in dozens of languages mingled with the cacophony of trucks, scooters and mules. Cairo was the crossroads of the world — a kaleidoscope that was always changing. |
| The O.S.S. field station was a converted villa with a code room in the basement. On the third floor, I found a square room piled with international newspapers and back issues of Life magazine interspersed with a hodgepodge of dispatches gathered from personnel in the region. It was a different registry from the one I’d known in Washington, but with the help of an enlisted Army soldier assigned to me and the procedures I’d learned from Evie in Washington, we got a system in place. Men and women came in and out all day, stopping by when they had a question or were looking for reference materials or secret reports. | The O.S.S. field station was a converted villa with a code room in the basement. On the third floor, I found a square room piled with international newspapers and back issues of Life magazine interspersed with a hodgepodge of dispatches gathered from personnel in the region. It was a different registry from the one I’d known in Washington, but with the help of an enlisted Army soldier assigned to me and the procedures I’d learned from Evie in Washington, we got a system in place. Men and women came in and out all day, stopping by when they had a question or were looking for reference materials or secret reports. |
| A year later, I flew over the hump to land in Kunming, China, for my next assignment. Within a week, the news reached us: America had dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. It was cataclysmic, but we couldn’t get any details at first. Who the hell knew what “nuclear” was? As word of Hiroshima flashed across the world, O.S.S. commandos parachuted behind the lines in Manchuria to liberate the Japanese prisoner of war camps. With surrender imminent, most of the foreigners posted in China were eager to get home. I’d just arrived, so I decided to stay. At a Chinese victory party, I met Gil, a British-Australian colonel in the Chinese Nationalist Army. He was working with the O.S.S. to coordinate guerrilla attacks on the Japanese. In September President Truman issued an executive order terminating the O.S.S., but we still had rooms full of sensitive documents to transport or destroy. I was reassigned to Shanghai. By the time my family received my cable about our wedding plans, Gil and I had already married, on a rainy Saturday, at Shanghai’s Holy Trinity Cathedral. | A year later, I flew over the hump to land in Kunming, China, for my next assignment. Within a week, the news reached us: America had dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan. It was cataclysmic, but we couldn’t get any details at first. Who the hell knew what “nuclear” was? As word of Hiroshima flashed across the world, O.S.S. commandos parachuted behind the lines in Manchuria to liberate the Japanese prisoner of war camps. With surrender imminent, most of the foreigners posted in China were eager to get home. I’d just arrived, so I decided to stay. At a Chinese victory party, I met Gil, a British-Australian colonel in the Chinese Nationalist Army. He was working with the O.S.S. to coordinate guerrilla attacks on the Japanese. In September President Truman issued an executive order terminating the O.S.S., but we still had rooms full of sensitive documents to transport or destroy. I was reassigned to Shanghai. By the time my family received my cable about our wedding plans, Gil and I had already married, on a rainy Saturday, at Shanghai’s Holy Trinity Cathedral. |
| So began many more years of adventures, from living in the Philippines and in the mountains of Honduras, three hours down an unpaved road, to producing and anchoring a daily television news program for women in Rhode Island. Handling information has been the common thread of my career, but my priority in life has been to raise children who are comfortable wherever they are and as whoever they are in the world. Gil fell ill and died in 1973, much too soon. He was the most fascinating and attractive man I’d ever met. Still is. | So began many more years of adventures, from living in the Philippines and in the mountains of Honduras, three hours down an unpaved road, to producing and anchoring a daily television news program for women in Rhode Island. Handling information has been the common thread of my career, but my priority in life has been to raise children who are comfortable wherever they are and as whoever they are in the world. Gil fell ill and died in 1973, much too soon. He was the most fascinating and attractive man I’d ever met. Still is. |
| I recently stopped traveling. My four kids, nine grandkids and eight great-grandchildren are off having their own adventures in Thailand, Mexico and France, in Hawaii, Montana and Alabama. They email me photographs, and my Providence apartment is a bit of a bed-and-breakfast for them. I never did sail around the world — not in one go, anyway. But my eldest granddaughter, Lisa, did that for me. Twice. | I recently stopped traveling. My four kids, nine grandkids and eight great-grandchildren are off having their own adventures in Thailand, Mexico and France, in Hawaii, Montana and Alabama. They email me photographs, and my Providence apartment is a bit of a bed-and-breakfast for them. I never did sail around the world — not in one go, anyway. But my eldest granddaughter, Lisa, did that for me. Twice. |
| Inside a brightly lit sculptor’s studio, we stirred buckets of milky white goop. It was after midnight in early 1943. The war was going full blast across the Atlantic as our team of about six government cartographers buzzed around our makeshift office, an artist’s workshop three floors above the stage of the shuttered Ford’s Theater in Washington. We were racing to complete our assignment: a three-dimensional topographic map illustrating the rugged terrain of Sicily. The Joint Chiefs of Staff would soon be meeting to discuss plans for an invasion, and this was to be their visual aide. | Inside a brightly lit sculptor’s studio, we stirred buckets of milky white goop. It was after midnight in early 1943. The war was going full blast across the Atlantic as our team of about six government cartographers buzzed around our makeshift office, an artist’s workshop three floors above the stage of the shuttered Ford’s Theater in Washington. We were racing to complete our assignment: a three-dimensional topographic map illustrating the rugged terrain of Sicily. The Joint Chiefs of Staff would soon be meeting to discuss plans for an invasion, and this was to be their visual aide. |
| I was a 21-year-old country girl with a knack for numbers. I had planned to teach elementary school in upstate New York, a few hours north of the town where I grew up. My parents had lost our pea farm in the Depression, and my mother worked as a cook in a fraternity house at Colgate University. Girls from some families in town went to finishing school, but that wasn’t for me. I always had my nose in a book, and I graduated from Potsdam State Teachers College in 1942. | I was a 21-year-old country girl with a knack for numbers. I had planned to teach elementary school in upstate New York, a few hours north of the town where I grew up. My parents had lost our pea farm in the Depression, and my mother worked as a cook in a fraternity house at Colgate University. Girls from some families in town went to finishing school, but that wasn’t for me. I always had my nose in a book, and I graduated from Potsdam State Teachers College in 1942. |
| Pearl Harbor had changed everything. Americans began mobilizing by the millions. My geography professor, who had been paying me 15 cents an hour to compute averages, encouraged me to apply to a summer graduate school course at Clark University that trained civilian geographers for war-service jobs. I moved to Worcester, Mass., and spent six weeks learning economic geography, weather and all sorts of related skills that might benefit the government. Of the 30 men and women in the program, a lanky, soft-spoken New Englander named Henry and I were the two recruited to a new cartography unit within the Office of Strategic Services. O.S.S. was known around Washington as “Oh So Secret.” All I knew was that I’d be doing war work for the government alongside some big brains in the geography community and that the annual salary was $1,800 — which was just a fortune to me. I said yes quicker than I could find D.C. on a map. | Pearl Harbor had changed everything. Americans began mobilizing by the millions. My geography professor, who had been paying me 15 cents an hour to compute averages, encouraged me to apply to a summer graduate school course at Clark University that trained civilian geographers for war-service jobs. I moved to Worcester, Mass., and spent six weeks learning economic geography, weather and all sorts of related skills that might benefit the government. Of the 30 men and women in the program, a lanky, soft-spoken New Englander named Henry and I were the two recruited to a new cartography unit within the Office of Strategic Services. O.S.S. was known around Washington as “Oh So Secret.” All I knew was that I’d be doing war work for the government alongside some big brains in the geography community and that the annual salary was $1,800 — which was just a fortune to me. I said yes quicker than I could find D.C. on a map. |
| These were the early days of customized mapping. O.S.S. was sending civilians around the world to procure existing maps, while geographic researchers churned out analysis and draftsmen drew up the prototypes for production. We were making maps that were going to help inform military strategy. We had practiced the multistep process of creating topographic models at Clark, but Sicily was our first time using the technique for the O.S.S. We had spent weeks covering sheets of cardboard with maps of the island’s terrain — flowing lines marking the land area at each progressive altitude above sea level. Then we used the jig saw to cut along the contour lines, shaping a separate sheet of cardboard for each layer of elevation. When we had all the cutouts ready, we stacked them up, puzzled them exactly into place, shellacked the cardboard — and we had our mold. It was time to empty buckets of liquid plaster into the upside-down mold. Later, after giving it several days to dry, we’d turn the hardened cast right-side-up and move on to sanding and painting the model. | These were the early days of customized mapping. O.S.S. was sending civilians around the world to procure existing maps, while geographic researchers churned out analysis and draftsmen drew up the prototypes for production. We were making maps that were going to help inform military strategy. We had practiced the multistep process of creating topographic models at Clark, but Sicily was our first time using the technique for the O.S.S. We had spent weeks covering sheets of cardboard with maps of the island’s terrain — flowing lines marking the land area at each progressive altitude above sea level. Then we used the jig saw to cut along the contour lines, shaping a separate sheet of cardboard for each layer of elevation. When we had all the cutouts ready, we stacked them up, puzzled them exactly into place, shellacked the cardboard — and we had our mold. It was time to empty buckets of liquid plaster into the upside-down mold. Later, after giving it several days to dry, we’d turn the hardened cast right-side-up and move on to sanding and painting the model. |
| Around 3 a.m., just as we were about to break for the night, someone checked on the mold. “Wait,” he called out. “This ain’t going to work.” The plaster wasn’t setting properly; we’d poured the wrong mixture. So what were we going to do? We didn’t want to lose all the work we had done. We had to get rid of that plaster. But there was no place to pour it out — we were up on the third-floor balcony of Ford’s Theater! So somebody piped up with a bright idea: “Let’s just dump it over the railing.” | |
| Henry and our colleague Jim went right over to the theater’s balcony, looking out toward the box where President Lincoln had been assassinated. They hoisted our work in progress up to the railing, sending heaps of plaster splattering down into the jungle of broken-up theater chairs below. Then we scooped. A tangle of hands mopped the cardboard with rags, paper towels, tissues and fingernails. It was crazy, but it worked. We never did tell anybody about what happened that night. Whoever showed up years later to restore the theater must have wondered about the shapeless mounds of plaster on the floor. | Henry and our colleague Jim went right over to the theater’s balcony, looking out toward the box where President Lincoln had been assassinated. They hoisted our work in progress up to the railing, sending heaps of plaster splattering down into the jungle of broken-up theater chairs below. Then we scooped. A tangle of hands mopped the cardboard with rags, paper towels, tissues and fingernails. It was crazy, but it worked. We never did tell anybody about what happened that night. Whoever showed up years later to restore the theater must have wondered about the shapeless mounds of plaster on the floor. |
| That 3-by-2-foot, 40-pound depiction of an island in the Mediterranean Sea became the Joint Chiefs’ first custom-made topographic model. In July, General Eisenhower sent 150,000 troops, 3,000 ships and 4,000 planes into Sicily, seizing the island from Italian and German forces in a bloody five-week campaign. Our growing team continued filling mapping requests from military leaders and policymakers, though we moved out of the theater and bounced around other temporary quarters. We worked in the National Archives and the Yards and Docks building by the Pentagon — anywhere that could accommodate us and our mapping equipment. | That 3-by-2-foot, 40-pound depiction of an island in the Mediterranean Sea became the Joint Chiefs’ first custom-made topographic model. In July, General Eisenhower sent 150,000 troops, 3,000 ships and 4,000 planes into Sicily, seizing the island from Italian and German forces in a bloody five-week campaign. Our growing team continued filling mapping requests from military leaders and policymakers, though we moved out of the theater and bounced around other temporary quarters. We worked in the National Archives and the Yards and Docks building by the Pentagon — anywhere that could accommodate us and our mapping equipment. |
| Our mapmaking bureau also turned out to be a matrimonial bureau. It’s a stretch to say Henry and I started “going out” because it was war and we were working constantly. But we made a good team. In April 1943, we married in the parlor of Henry’s rooming house. I wore a dark suit — the same one I wore to the office when we weren’t handling ink and plaster. Our guests were 40 O.S.S. friends. Our families didn’t have the money to travel. Henry gave me a simple gold band, and I gave him my high school class ring, which he wore as a wedding ring for 64 years. | Our mapmaking bureau also turned out to be a matrimonial bureau. It’s a stretch to say Henry and I started “going out” because it was war and we were working constantly. But we made a good team. In April 1943, we married in the parlor of Henry’s rooming house. I wore a dark suit — the same one I wore to the office when we weren’t handling ink and plaster. Our guests were 40 O.S.S. friends. Our families didn’t have the money to travel. Henry gave me a simple gold band, and I gave him my high school class ring, which he wore as a wedding ring for 64 years. |
| I remember there being about two men for every woman in the mapping division, though I can’t recall a time when your gender mattered more than your ability to contribute. When President Truman dissolved the O.S.S. in 1945, we were transferred to the State Department. In 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency was formed, and it was housed in the former O.S.S. headquarters. We moved back in and carried on mapping. | I remember there being about two men for every woman in the mapping division, though I can’t recall a time when your gender mattered more than your ability to contribute. When President Truman dissolved the O.S.S. in 1945, we were transferred to the State Department. In 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency was formed, and it was housed in the former O.S.S. headquarters. We moved back in and carried on mapping. |
| I left the C.I.A. in 1952 so Henry could do a rotation in London. When the agency moved to its headquarters to Langley, Va., someone decorated the hallways with O.S.S. maps. Then, for Henry’s 25th anniversary, his supervisor sent him home with our Sicily model. We squeezed the rather odd gift into our Volkswagen Bug. The kids named it “Etna” after Europe’s tallest active volcano, Sicily’s Mount Etna. | I left the C.I.A. in 1952 so Henry could do a rotation in London. When the agency moved to its headquarters to Langley, Va., someone decorated the hallways with O.S.S. maps. Then, for Henry’s 25th anniversary, his supervisor sent him home with our Sicily model. We squeezed the rather odd gift into our Volkswagen Bug. The kids named it “Etna” after Europe’s tallest active volcano, Sicily’s Mount Etna. |
| In the final weeks of Henry’s life, he moved into a nursing home and I moved out of the house in Maryland we’d built in 1950. As my daughter Sandra helped me pack, we rolled up the TV room rug and discovered a collection of declassified C.I.A. maps that Henry had stashed there. Sandra gasped. I smiled. Cartographers know that maps stay nice and flat underneath carpets. It was a reminder of the lifetime we spent together, and of how it all began. | In the final weeks of Henry’s life, he moved into a nursing home and I moved out of the house in Maryland we’d built in 1950. As my daughter Sandra helped me pack, we rolled up the TV room rug and discovered a collection of declassified C.I.A. maps that Henry had stashed there. Sandra gasped. I smiled. Cartographers know that maps stay nice and flat underneath carpets. It was a reminder of the lifetime we spent together, and of how it all began. |