Project Eagle

The Top-Secret OSS Operation That Sent Polish Spies behind Enemy Lines in World War II

By: John S. Micgiel

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Hardcover | 18 September 2024

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Hardcover
256 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
15.9 x 23.7 x 2.1

Hardcover

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After the Battle of the Bulge—which had begun with a German attack that American intelligence failed to anticipate—the Office of Strategic Service (OSS), forerunner of the CIA, revamped its intelligence operations in Europe. Confronted with staff shortages and needing native language speakers, the OSS decided to enlist the cooperation of volunteers from occupied countries for intelligence-gathering operations. As part of Project Eagle, Polish soldiers were recruited and trained to go behind the lines of the Third Reich. Polish Eagles tells this fascinating World War II story of intelligence and espionage that until now has been hidden away in the archives of the OSS.

The OSS had worked with Polish exiles throughout the war, but Project Eagle would mark a new and dramatic chapter in their cooperation. In early 1945, American intelligence recruited thirty-two Poles—a unique group of men who had been forcibly conscripted into the German Wehrmacht, were captured in France and Italy, and were pulled from Allied prisoner of war camps. They were then trained in intelligence gathering as well as espionage to assist the Allies in their invasion of Germany. Not long after—in March 1945—they parachuted behind enemy lines, equipped only with falsified documents and radios. For six weeks, up until Germany's surrender, the Polish spy teams roved Germany, assisting ground commanders and providing counterintelligence assistance.

Industry Reviews

John Micgiel's fascinating work reconstructs the quite-unknown adventure of the Poles who had been forced to serve in German ranks during World War II but, eventually, were able to join the Western Allies for intelligence work behind German lines, "Operation Eagle." Obviously, this is an adventure that recounts Polish patriotism and the Allies' frequent negligence. Complex, detailed, and only made comprehensible by extraordinary efforts, Micgiel has accomplished this unprecedented analysis by consulting a great array of primary materials: archives in four countries, a vast collection of multi-lingual materials, and exhaustive mining of the internet. We knew virtually nothing of this complex act of Polish Romanticism; now we have it in detail. --Mieczyslaw B. Biskupski Ph.D., Central Connecticut State University, Endowed Chair in Polish History Project Eagle tells the previously unknown history of a group of forty brave and dedicated Polish agents who were parachuted into Nazi Germany during the last weeks of World War II to gather information to aid the Allied advance. The book advances our understanding of wartime intelligence goals and methods and of the history of the American OSS in particular. It demonstrates again the crucial role that Polish military formations played in the ultimate victory in Europe. And it tells the stories of the individual Polish participants made possible only by Micgiel's skillful and thoroughgoing archival research. --Norman M. Naimark, Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of Eastern European Studies, Stanford University

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