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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
JOHN BROSS RECEIVES ARMY AIR FORCES COMMISSION
In April 1942, John A. Bross was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Forces. Although he remained in military service only three years, leaving it as a colonel in April 1945, he played a role in the Jedburgh project during World War II and went on to serve another thirty-eight years in a series of high-level civilian intelligence positions.
Born in 1911 in Chicago, John Bross graduated Harvard University in 1933 and Harvard Law School three years later. Until 1942, he practiced law in Manhattan. He had enlisted in the New York State Guard in 1941 and received a reserve commission in 1942. He was then called to active duty in the Army Air Forces and was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Lieutenant Bross entered Camp X, a secret training center established by the British Intelligence Service on the Canadian bank of Lake Ontario in late 1941. Camp X trained American and Canadian military personnel in British Special Operations Executive (SOE) techniques for operations behind enemy lines. Upon completion of his training, Bross was airborne qualified and an expert in hand-to-hand combat and sabotage.
By January 1943, Bross and fellow lawyers and officers Capt. Franklin O. Canfield and Capt. Paul van der Stricht had been assigned to England as some of the first American apprentices in the SOE. These three officers eventually formed the nucleus of Lt. Col. Charles S. Vanderblue’s OSS Special Operations (SO) Branch in London. Captain Canfield was named planning officer for the SO Branch; Bross became his assistant on 23 July 1943.
From the time they arrived in London, the three Americans were involved in the early planning process for the Allied Jedburgh project in which special operations paratroopers entered German-occupied territory to coordinate friendly resistance movements and conduct guerrilla operations against Axis forces. Bross’ first task was to determine the supply requirements for the teams. In August 1943, he recommended a separate OSS Supply Branch be established to equip both resistance forces and Jedburgh teams. When his recommendation was approved, Bross led the new Supply Branch until a permanent chief could be named in November.
Bross then turned his attention to helping plan and supervise some of the ninety Jedburgh operations that took place in Western Europe beginning on 5 June 1944. He also participated in the planning of the HAMMER mission, the first agent team that penetrated Berlin in March and April 1945. Two German-native agents parachuted into Germany, took a train to the city, and collected valuable targeting information on military and industrial facilities and overall conditions and morale of the German populace. Bross reportedly spearheaded the use of the A-26 aircraft, rather than the slower B-24 bombers, to ensure the teams could be inserted and that the aircraft vacated the area before German air defenses could react.
In November 1944, Bross became executive officer for the OSS Detachment, European Theater of Operations, until his discharge from military service, with the rank of colonel, in April 1945. He returned to London as chief of OSS Missions to the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Norway for the next eight months. For his service, he received the Legion of Merit, a Bronze Star medal for his parachute drop into German-occupied France, the Order of the British Empire, and the King Christian X Medal of Liberation.
After returning to the United States, Bross rejoined his law practice in New York and, in 1949, acted as assistant general counsel to the U.S. High Commissioner in Germany. Beginning in 1951, he occupied several civilian positions in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), culminating with nearly nine years as deputy to the director of central intelligence (DCI) for national intelligence program evaluation. Bross retired from the CIA in 1971 but served as a special advisor to the DCI in the early 1980s. Colonel Bross was inducted into the MI Hall of Fame in 1990. He passed away on 16 October that same year.
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| Date Taken: | 04.05.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 04.05.2024 17:47 |
| Story ID: | 467950 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 155 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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