POW ship departs Tokyo Bay; Nazi Party declared illegal; Viet Minh troops riot against French
September 20, 2015-September 26, 2015
Location: Government Documents
By Executive Order President Truman closes the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the intelligence agency that operated behind enemy lines during the war. The precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that will form in 1947, OSS operations and missions are the stuff of legend.Their activities included everything from intelligence analysis to propaganda and guerilla warfare. For example, the OSS had assisted communist Viet Minh insurgents in their struggle against Japanese forces in Vietnam. As common in history, alliances are overturned a few years later. With the EO, functions of the OSS are now transferred to the State and War Departments.
Some OSS records have been declassified relatively recently and are available in the National Archives: Records of the Office of Strategic Services 1940-1946. The OSS trained in national parks; see OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II. NARA published in 1992 The Secrets War (previously in our collection but lost in the 2004 flood), available via Hathi Trust Digital Library. Finally there is the Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II, published by GPO available on line, which contains a chapter on the operations of the OSS (and which also includes a more readable version of the Executive Order).
Newsmap. Monday, 1 October, 1945: week of 18 September to 25 September
Front: New discharge scores are given for enlisted men, WACS, and officers. Also includes excerpts from a transcript of General Marshall's extemporaneous remarks on demobilization during an appearance before Members of Congress on 20 September [1945]. Photographs: General of the Army Marshall and General Handy confer at their recent meeting with Senate and House members, [soldiers and civilians]. Verso: Text gives important facts about service life insurance.
- View this map in print in the Map Collection reading room, ground floor of UHM Hamilton Library, the week of 20 September 2015
- View this map online through the University of North Texas Digital Library (http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc852/)
Notes: Newsmaps were color posters issued by the U.S. Army and the Government Printing Office (GPO) on Mondays during the World War II. They combine maps, images, and news from the previous week’s war effort.
