Washington, d. C. Is just over half an hour. Patrick odonnell is a military historian who has written eight previous books beyond valor operatives spies and saboteurs the brenner assignment, they dared return we were one, selected for the marine commandants reading list, give me tomorrow, and dog company. His most recent is first seals. His numerous awards include the colby award and the John Walker Laub were. He provides historical consultation for dreamworks band of brothers and for document is produced by bbc, the History Channel and fox news. He served as a combat historian in a marine rifle platoon during the battle of fallujah. Is into that as an expert speaker on world war ii to sabotage special operations and counterinsurgency on the modern battlefield. Over the past 20 years, he has interviewed more than 4000, now 5000 veterans who fought in americas wars from world war i to afghanistan, and specializes in unearthing Untold Stories that read like novels. Please welcome patrick odonnell. [applause] well, its really a pleasure and honor to be here. This is the beginning of a book tour for first seals which just came out this week. As jim said ive been come identity 5000 world war ii veterans. I spent an entire lifetime studying world war ii. And the story im going to tell you tonight, or today, is an untold story and probably the most interesting story that ive ever come across in the 44 years that ive been here on this earth. The story begins right here in washington, d. C. Only a few blocks away at the shore motel. Its november 17 1942 and the hotel is no ago only been there since 1933. Its kind of the host for president s and callous and Everything Else but that night in 1942 the doors of the pool were barred by armed guards and they tested something that was unique. They tested the first reprieve precursor to scuba and the beginning of the navy seals begin in that pool only a few blocks away from this location right now. That date its an eclectic group, a motley crew kind of individuals that form the first steals. Theyre part of the oss. That evening a dentist from hollywood, california, named jack taylor straps on a rebreather. This first scuba gear and he starts to go in to the pool and he is extraordinarily individual. He travels halfway around the world by himself sales jobs flies planes and even prior to thethe war he dug his way out of the goldmine after being very to life. This is not your average dentist. And joining him is young medical student named christian u. S. Distinctly from university of pennsylvania, cant even tell his been what hes doing but he is developing the first scuba gear, the rebreather. They tested in the pool and its a success. Joining them is sort of an unusual person, the british Liaison Officer in washington, d. C. He was the First World War i veteran. Usable to take an idea and turn it into reality. Is exactly what they do. Its a race against time. In 1942 the United States does not special Operation Forces prevent intelligence agencies. Everything was kind of based on cold war i mean the spanishamerican war mentality. This is a timely gentlemen didnt read gentlemens mail. Special operations didnt exist but was kind of all born in many ways in the mind of one individual who had a vision, general william, wild bill donovan. He was appointed the chief is something called the oss at that time, coordinator of information your this is a time when american intelligence was still fight. It didnt come nothing went to the president. State department had some activities for intelligence gathering, the army, et cetera but the coordinator for information was to sort of collect vat and put it into one package for the president. Didnt completely work that way but the oss was dynamic and pioneering and they found renaissance man. And thats what this book is about. First seals is about renaissance man that did some extra things overnight. They had to build the first navy seals, and the entire Washington Area that you are part of right now was turned into a spot and special ops training and. For instance Congressional Country Club the fairways, explosives, combat knife fighting et cetera was conducted of their ivy oss, special operations groups. This group was called the maritime unit but they could never let a spy base at the time so they had to make it overnight. Whats quite interesting is in a place called carey j. D. Which right now is a bunch of weeds and theres a few remains the buildings et cetera, is strictly across from quantico, virginia, and thats what they begin training these guys. There was no money at all. Itthey just had an idea, a vision. So there wasnt a settlement of able so what did they do . They rented a rotting cabin crews for 50 a month and then made it a submarine, and they conducted they used the rebreather in the muddy waters of the potomac and thats where theyre training begin. And these guys it was unbelievable the capabilities that they develop, the equipment, for instance, the first miniature submarines, the Sleeping Beauty, they created these devices overnight. As time went on they had to develop all of this equipment and not only the Sleeping Beauty come about but they also developed parachute operations, et cetera, combining seaborne operations with airborne operations. No one during world war ii was combine all these things together. These sort of extraordinary individuals that were spurred on by something several months earlier that occurred. In alexandria harbor in December December 1941, 6 battalions writing human submersibles, human torpedoes effectively, destroyed two british battleships. They sunk them and they changed the entire balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean overnight. Is asymmetric warfare cratered an underwater arms race with all the world powers trying to catch up to the italians. The only group i was equipped to handle this at the time was the oss. And donovan assigned woolley, taylor and a Smaller Group of men to sort of solve this problem. They work with area d comes into effect and its from their bad things sort of jail. The entire Washington Area as i mentioned is a training ground, and taylor is not a chairborne officer. Officer. Is a man of action wants to go overseas. In early 1943 he gets assigned he demands to be assigned to a base in alexandria, egypt. He is one man that goes overseas by himself and has a set of effectively an entire area d and thats what he does without hes a lowly captain at the time, but the commentators always commandeers all the small boats called khakis which then infiltrate the entire eastern editor in the its an extraordinary story. This is kind of the timeframe of guns that never wrote, if youve seen that movie where the germans at the time ballet the Eastern Mediterranean. The british are operating in a shoestring along with the americans and the occupied several islands and coasts are the germans counterattack parachute operation at the take over these islands. Its quite interesting. Taylor infiltrates inside the islands delivering critical supply and also rescuing men and through, i spent probably about 10 years researching this story, 10,000 documents. And inside those documents are extraordinary stories. On the island, tater delivers supplies and he coordinates with the archbishop is a British Intelligence agent. Theres an incredible story of this book is rich with characters, interesting characters that are all unique. And one of those people, for instance, is Sterling Hayden that taylor interacts with famous movie actor but if youve ever seen dr. Strangelove for instance, this is general jack ripper. And taylor in world war ii is an amazing individual. He changes his name to John Hamilton to sort of cloak his identity to some degree but everybody kind of like when you go to egypt they are like you look kind of like a famous football player. Well, yeah. Anyways, hes in alexandria and he meets standard who describes this oddly, chilling guy. But taylor and hayden work together, along with another guy who i spent many of the men in this book are Close Friends of mine. Theres only one living now that ive interviewed. But one of those individuals was a guy by the name of lloyd smith. And lloyd smith lives right here in mclean, virginia. After the war lloyd was an accountant. But lloyd launched one of the most extraordinary spy missions with hayden and taylor in world war ii. After the escapades in alexandria, the war shifted to italy, and taylor in these men wanted to be part of the action. One of the First Missions that they had was to rescue 25 nurses that crash landed behind enemy lines in a sea 47. In albania. And helping at the time was occupied by the germans. Who is also a civil war. The multiple insurgencies going on and somehow these guys had to get these nurses out, and they sent in lloyd taylor. On site lloyd smith, who is this unassuming guy and ill never forget he pulled out this 357 them when interviewed him and he put on the table and he said this was haydens that i want in a poker game before the mission, and thats what i was armed with when i went in behind the lunch. Thats what this College Wrestler from pennsylvania with hardly any understanding of the culture of albania did with a. 357 magnum, he navigated hundreds of miles and found those nurses and brought them back, and hayden and it was there to transport them back on a boat that could be made for a movie but it was like it was called the yankee and those of old fishing boat that they repurposed, camouflage and they put a 50 calendar for a. 50 caliber machine gun on and they brought the nurses out with one exception. They left by behind, and ill never forget the story. Lloyd told me that after the mission was a success, he was tapped on the shoulder by none other than william wild bill donovan after the mission and said lloyd, congratulations for bringing out the nurses. Now you are going back. And thats exactly what he had to do. They had to redo the entire mission and find those other five nurses. Thats whats extraordinary about donovan. He was a man of action. He had participated in most of the amphibious assaults of world war ii, including dday. And smith goes back and they find the nurses and they bring them back. Thats sort of those are some of the missions that are quite extraordinary. But as this is going on the oss, maritime unit, is mushrooming from these handful of men that are chosen from the navy, the marine corps coast guard, the merchant marine, and theyre formed into teams of underwater combat operatives. These are combat swimmers, and theyre using the alloy you that is develop their at the Shoreham Hotel and goes through a series of phases. The oss picks the best swimmers in america. And many of them come from california. Many of these guys are surfers, believe it or not, National Champion swimmers. Samore olympic caliber swimmers, but they form into several teams. And the teams are unique. For instance for decades before Seal Team Six conducts red cell exercise these guys infiltrate gitmo football the events complete active. They go through all the nets, they go through all the underwater obstacles, the mind consider. They are fully armed and the base is fully armed and theyre not made aware of the maritime unit is going to infiltrate successfully, but they do. Those are some of the things that are sort of developing and these teams are then sent overseas. For instance, they conduct the First Submarine base sealed light exercise on board a submarine called the bird fish with a do a reconnaissance of a small japanese island thats occupied by several of the maritime unit men are killed in action. These missions can go forward. Many of them are forgotten stories. I mean i combed the archives and found missions in burma, so macho, for instance, sumatra to the oss was and is a politically correct after. When they needed agents and operatives can they would find a way to get them. For instance the native sumatra is that when these waters outside of sumatra were sometimes basically shanghaied into service and then they were trained as agents. Several of those missions, these men were put back behind the lines, and in an unsung story of the war many of them lost their lives and have never received recognition. But that leads to sort of the next mission that i would like to talk about where these these are volunteers, if you will, the oss needs to find people deserter volunteers for austria, and jack taylor is obsessed with being kind of lines, and anticonducts at the time the deepest penetration into the third reich. A mission called the Dupont Mission. And dupont is made up of three of these deserter volunteers. The oss goes through the camps of italy to come out their mock soldiers that have fought in the german army but had allied linked to many of them were communist or socialist. These been recruited to become agents in the oss. And taylor formed a team of three of these individuals, and they are put together and they drop on friday the 13th sort of an ominous day for many ways for this nation because they are dropped out by a polish group that drops and over the drops on in austria, and their mission is to gather intelligence on sort of the local german manufacturing, just manufacturing, et cetera in the area as was something called the southwest wall, which the germans were building in austria. And hear taylor and his team drop in to gather intelligence. And from the start sort of everything goes wrong. The nation radio is the lifeline. If you dont have a radio behind the lines in nazi germany, youre as good as dead. And sadly the radio they think drop into a lake. So these men were behind the lines in the most dangerous part of the world at the time nazi germany, without a lifeline. And somehow they maneuvered and worked their way around in safe houses that were that the team members at the time of the Dupont Mission had relatives in the area and they stayed within these safe houses. The dupont team these deserter volunteers, were very sort of an eclectic group a mixed bag in many ways. One guy was a philanderer, for instance this pension for womanizing with the local german population. And in the end that is what tips off the gestapo to the dupont team, is they moved around for over two months behind the lines and they can of the really good intelligence, but they are just unable to transmit it back. And the gestapo surrounds a barn that the men are staying in and they come in with pistols and a jab in the ribs of the team evers and ask you to his and they say he is a captain, and then they start to beat him. And as this is kind of going on immediately theres an interesting dynamic also occurring. As ive mentioned earlier this unit, which the italian navy is one of their most successful units, they think is facing two british battleships in alexandria. They conduct a number of operations that are highly successful. They sink a large portion of allied tonnage of ships. Italy in early 43 changes sides and the oss is out of the box and dynamic thinkers. They say why not take these assets and bring them into the fold . Thats exactly what they did with an element called san marco battalion. And these men, taylor was initially part of organizing and but also negotiating this they conduct special Operations Missions behind the lines and they conduct these missions by gathering intelligence as well. Its fascinating, they capture highvalue targets to conduct some assassinations, and one of the greatest coups was that italy at the time was made up of belt of german fortifications. They captured or the action brought back an italian engineer that had designed the gothic line, and then you every single bunker, machine gun nests, mortar position our artillery position and consider. They brought the engineer back with all the plans and this led to one of the breakthroughs that the british army had in that sector. But they conducted countless missions, blowing up trains and railroad tracks, et cetera. All of these things are sort of happening at the same time as taylor is now captured by the gestapo. And its, you know, i mentioned that jack taylor survived taking out of the goldmine, but its here that jack taylor has kind of the ultimate survivors story. Hes put into a concentration camp as an american and somehow has to survive. And they cant itself is savage. Theres no food. Men have to beat each other just for a crumb of bread. Taylor is assigned to build the crematorium in the camp. This is where the bodies were dumped and burned. And some of brick by brick, hes under the point of a gun he builds the crematorium and he slowly builds this thing because he knows any day he is going to be dead, as soon as he is done with the. And the germans insist that its done quicker, quicker. And they speed up the clock and practically everyday jack taylor is on a death list, which is a list of any of the inmates in the camp that are going to be executed by the germans. And the savagery is unbelievable. They have a quarry, for instance, with our hundreds of steps, and the inmates are sadistically force to court on their backs massive stones up and down the steps. And the germans for fun effectively through these individuals off the steps, something they call paratrooper but if individual survives they throw them off again. They are viciously assaulted and tortured. Docs, et cetera. They are forced to stand outside in the cold for 24 hours at a time and somehow jack taylor survived this entire camp. And i think the most extraordinary thing in this story is the day jack taylors plan, they plan to execute jack taylor the next day, and it is may 1945 and an armored division, and allied Armor Division crashes through the front gates, and they find this ragged, and this was a man who was initially 185 pounds, is now down to probably 120 pounds. Hes been as they come through the gates he holds up his dog tags and goes god bless america, as they crashed through the gates. If you want to see something really extraordinary, Google Jack Taylor plus fashion and theres a grainy old film with this exact incident. In taylors own words. And as this is all unfolding and he says after that he says im jack took him on a naval officer from hollywood, california, this is my first time in the movies. As 1945 goes on the war is coming to a close and the maritime unit of the oss these first seals are mothballed along with the rest of the organization. All of the technology, a lot of it is put on shelves the Sleeping Beauty, the rebreather is warehoused. Kind of think of the Indiana Jones seemed with a large warehouse. Most of the secret is put in one of those large warehouses. Only a few years after that its resurrected, if they bring back doctor lamberson and to bring back john booth one of the individuals on this book. One of the extraordinary friends that i had many of these men were Close Friends of mine. John, for instance, every year we traveled from rhode island to key west, florida and he would stop at my house in virginia and spend two weeks there. Mike dodd up with known as uncle john. And uncle john at 90 years old with died in key west, swim out to miles and obtained lobsters and bring them back and that was his dinner. He would also take his cia pension and save it for cigars and boost at the local dav and hit on hotties at age 91. But this is these men were living life up until the end. And they are renaissance men. I mean another character that i didnt even making in this book was a guy by the name of ted moore was an archaeologist who found the lost temple of the monkey god. This is a true story. In honduras. And he couldve been a character from Indiana Jones easily. And he is with taylor and hayden in italy and even conducts his own mission in china. But the story of the maritime unit is an interesting one, and for me it was really an honor to be able to sort of tell some of the stories as my friends and the men that i found in the lost files of the national archives. So with that, i would like to take your questions. Yes, sir . I want to thank you very much. Thank you very much for your great presentation today. Its wonderful to your your recounting of these stories. Chris simonsen was a personal friend of mine for many years. What led you to have an interest in this discipline more so than anything else, please . For me in the interest in World War Ii History began when i was about four. I started collecting a series of magazines called the history of the Second World War and every year, every week i would go up with my father and that the newsstand we would buy a new edition. There were 138 parts or whatever. It was the entire history of the war, and that was sort of the genesis of the. And then i would begin, then i started anything the men themselves. As i mentioned its been about 5000 interviews. And all those interviews have been with special operators from world war ii primarily as well as modernday special operatives operatives. Special forces, special Operations Forces everything from the marine raiders to the rangers of dog company, for instance, to the First Special service force. But for me the most Interesting Group that ive ever interviewed were the men and women of the oss. Because they had maintained their vows of silence. They were a very, very difficult group to interview, and it was through years of research. I have written four books on the oss. The first one thing opportunity spies and saboteurs but thanks to one thing the brenner assigned. And now first seals. And those individuals entrusted me with their story, and that is the thing that i think runs across all of my books is that trust, and thats not something that is easily obtained either you know, with the marines that i was with at fallujah, for instance who trusted me with their stories to the oss veterans. I was a very seminal event in my life. That last week we went to Camp Pendleton and i had met them that i had not seen in 10 years. I was a very powerful experience. We hiked up this long ridgeline into six miles there and back and we were memorialized. The 57 men killed in action in falluja and the battalion i was good and then there was also then you had taken their lives. The Memorial Service was not about the dead. It was about the living. There is a great story npr did yesterday, as a matter of fact which is about the platoon i was then in falluja. [applause] i have lots several. I have had two of my books made into films. One the return, which is a true story behind ingrourious basterds and its a film that they made. And then theres been several documentaries for the History Channel your her instance, there is a great game in falluja where they reenacted the ambush i was involved in. I was almost killed by chechen. They interviewed the man and they reenacted the entire ambush. One of my favorite books is called give me tomorrow, which is on the korean war. The same unit that we were in falluja, but in korea. When i came back from Camp Pendleton, was created by these old senior marines he said to me combat historian. Poor George Company 31. And then they said we held a key hill in the chosen reservoir in the chinese regimen. That is amazing. A Small Company of 180 men. Maybe 2500 strong maybe more. How did they do that . Come to our reunion. So for me its all kind of like the story seem to find me. Its always serendipitous. Like i say, i have a work in 15 years. It has been all of my passion being able to sort of tell the recorded stories of world war ii veterans veterans of today. Thank you very much. [applause] one final question. I thought is a terrific documentary. Can you talk about the battle and let our Army Soldiers and marines are up against in terms of the jihads is you were there and so forth. We had several guys who were it not. This story that jim is talking about isnt a book called we were one. I have written 10 books. That is probably the most special but im a personal book in many ways because i was fair. Falluja was very much like singapore in the sense that the positions we had to a counter where bunkered. The enemy was determined in some cases suicidal. They were there to kill americans. What we found on the ground all over the places these surrenders that were filled actually they were not filled to their liquid adrenaline the skies were shooting themselves up with. You can picture a pcp user somebody that is fearless and also can sustain a large amount of damage. We saw insurgents that had sustained 14 gunshot wound to their body that went right through them and they continue to fight. Entire buildings were collapsed on individuals than they continue to fight under the rubble. It was a very it was a battle that changed many of our lives. I will just say that in many ways there are many lessons that can be learned from falluja on the current day and terms not necessarily of itself but afterwards that the awakening. In many ways that is the key to success. Its moving forward. Thank you