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The operational elements of United States Army Special Forces are direct descendants of the units of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services, or OSS, that were infiltrated into metropolitan France during World War II. The OSS units were tasked to organize, train, supply and direct the Maquis of the Forces Francaises de Interieur, or FFI, in support of Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy in June 1944; and Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France, in August 1944.
This is not to imply that Army SF is not a direct descendant of the OSS units employed in other areas of the world that were active in the development, support and direction of the indigenous resistance to Axis occupation. However, the organization and the mission of the operational detachments of the original 10th SF Group bear a remarkable resemblance to the organization and activities of the OSS Operational Group, or OG, that became Company B, 2671st Special Reconnaissance Battalion, Separate (Provisional) in August 1944.
The OGs were Major General William Donovan's idea. As Lieutenant Colonel Serge Obolensky1 explained when he introduced Major Alfred T Cox to a group of newly assigned officers who would form the "French" OGs, the concept was to use American soldiers who had language skills and were trained in commando-type tactics.
The soldiers would not only provide training and material support for the resistance, they would also form the nucleus for local resistance forces who would attack enemy facilities and lines of communication deep behind the lines. Much of the training that Major Cox and others developed for the OGs was based on the experience of British commandos. It placed a heavy emphasis on physical training, demolitions, special weapons and the hit-and-run offensive operational techniques of guerrillas.
Al Cox, an Infantry officer, was a strong and agile athlete who had played three major sports while studying civil engineering at Lehigh University. During his senior year, he had been named captain of the football team and co-captain of the baseball team. He was elected president of his class during his junior and senior years, and he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.2
The OSS had recruited Cox when he was an instructor of guerrilla warfare at the Infantry School at Fort Benning,...