Photo By Lori Stewart | 2nd Lt. Daniel Mudrinich in Cairo, 1943, before his assignment in Burma (ARSOF photo)... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
CPT. MUDRINICH DISCHARGED AFTER GRUELING BURMA SERVICE
On Feb. 10, 1946, Cpt. Daniel Mudrinich was discharged from the U.S. Army. Having joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the summer of 1943, he had spent seventeen months toiling in the harsh conditions of Burma (now Myanmar) as an area intelligence officer and commander of Kachin Rangers.
Mudrinich enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 1942. The 22-year-old Minnesotan completed basic training at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, and then graduated from Infantry Officer Candidate School in April 1943. Assigned to the Infantry Replacement Training Center at Camp Roberts, California, 2nd Lt. Mudrinich was recruited into the OSS four months later. Drawing on his Serbian background, he was scheduled for an assignment in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. When that assignment was cancelled, he “opted to go with OSS Detachment 101 in Burma.”
Detachment 101 was established in April 1942 under the Coordinator of Information (COI), forerunner to the OSS. It was a unique organization created for special operations against Japanese forces in the China-Burma-India theater. The unit was adept at short-range penetrations and, according to Det 101 Commander Col. William R. Peers in 1944, “all operations which [conventional forces] are not prepared to undertake.” Det 101, comprised primarily of native Kachin tribal members, also launched diversionary attacks to allow conventional forces to carry out their own operations, like they did for Merrill’s Marauders during the capture of the Myitkyina airfield in mid-1944.
While Det 101 was renowned for its unconventional warfare operations, it also established networks throughout Burma to supply intelligence to Lt. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell’s multi-national Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC) in Nazira, India. The OSS units collected information about Japanese troop concentrations and movements, hostile natives, weather, supply caches, and logistics issues. Maj. Gen. Howard Davidson, commander of the Tenth U.S. Army Air Force, estimated between 60-80 percent of its aerial targeting missions were based on intelligence delivered by Det 101.
When Mudrinich arrived in Burma in February 1944, he was assigned to U.S. Navy Lt. Commander James Luce’s Operation FORWARD (later known as Area #1) in northern Burma. Luce’s command consisted of eight 154-man guerrilla companies led by OSS officers in the area between the Irrawaddy River and the Burmese-Chinese border. Mudrinich served as Luce’s intelligence officer and, after May, his executive officer. Luce recalled that, despite “a lack of personnel, rough terrain, lack of radio communications, and constant aggressive enemy action,” Mudrinich developed and executed a detailed intelligence plan and plotted all enemy data daily to keep the Kachin Rangers and NCAC fully apprised of Japanese movements and strength in their assigned area.
Mudrinich quickly developed such detailed knowledge of the terrain and enemy that, in November 1944, he was chosen to take command of the 2nd Battalion of 850 Kachin Rangers operating behind Japanese lines. He led this battalion through two months of heavy Japanese resistance, while furnishing daily intelligence for aerial targeting, damage assessments, and enemy order of battle.
Relieved of command in mid-January and ordered to Nazira for rest, Mudrinich instead requested command of a Kachin company with the 1st Battalion. He spent another month conducting ambushes against Japanese forces along the Lashio Road until his battalion commander, Cpt. Joseph Lazarsky, ordered him out of the field due to his worsening health.
Before leaving the theater, Mudrinich accomplished one additional task for Det 101. In May 1945, he was sent to investigate the fate and whereabouts of captured Kachin and American personnel who had been imprisoned by the Japanese in the notoriously inhumane Rangoon prison. After this assignment and the inactivation of Det 101 in July, Mudrinich returned to the U.S. for a short stint at OSS headquarters in Washington, D.C. On Feb. 10, 1946, having been promoted to captain, Mudrinich received his honorable discharge. He went on to complete a 30-year civilian career with the Central Intelligence Agency.
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| Date Taken: | 02.07.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.07.2025 14:49 |
| Story ID: | 490352 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 94 |
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