She was in Paris when war broke out, and became a volunteer ambulance driver. A chance encounter with a British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent while on a train to Spain following France´s defeat led her to London, where she was recruited by the SOE, who dispatched her to Lyon in unoccupied Vichy France. Thanks to America´s neutrality, she was initially able to openly work, using as a cover that of a newspaper reporter. When America entered the war, she went underground and operated clandestinely for another 14 months.

She was so successful that she became the Gestapo’s top target in France; they called her “the most dangerous of all Allied spies.” Only after American troops landed in French North Africa and the Nazis occupied the rest of France did she leave, making a dangerous trek over the Pyrenees mountains into Spain on foot, a grueling experience because of her wooden leg.

Though the handwriting was on the wall, the OSS lingered on for months because it was the only agency that had documents and staff needed by the American delegation for the war crimes trials in Nuremberg. Finally, on Thursday, Sept. 20, 1945, President Truman signed the executive order abolishing the OSS and dividing its functions between the War and State departments.

Once back in London, she learned of the OSS and offered her services to the new agency, along with a request to return to France. Despite her notoriety and an all-out effort by the Gestapo, she was never captured. In addition to her radio dispatches, she trained resistance fighters, and her team was responsible for numerous acts of sabotage following D-day, including the killing of at least 150 German soldiers and the capturing of 500 more.

Donovan personally decorated her with the Distinguished Service Cross, making her the first civilian woman to be so honored. She joined the CIA in 1951, working as an intelligence analyst. She retired in 1966, and died on July 8, 1982, aged 76.

Even the military, as distrustful as it was, found Donovan’s organization to be a useful dumping ground for its misfits and other members whose initiative sat uncomfortably with commanders.

One example of the latter was Charles Parkin, Jr., who had served as a lieutenant and demolitions expert in the Army during World War I. Upon America´s entry into World War II, he reenlisted. His transfer occurred during training at the Army´s Engineering School at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. National Guard units were assigned security duty over bridges in the area. Noting how lax they were in their duty, he decided one night to shake things up. Despite an admonition from his commanding officer to leave well enough alone, Parkin went ahead with his unauthorized exercise to “blow up” a bridge. That evening, he took half of his platoon in assault boats up the Occoquan River to a railroad bridge. Rain was falling, and to further distract the guards, Parkin walked up and chatted with the National Guardsmen, who saw nothing unusual in an Army lieutenant visiting them. After a few minutes he left, his men having set their dummy charges.

The next day he wrote a report of his action and rationale for it. The report rocketed up the ladder to the base commander, who was horrified at the prospect of a public relations disaster in which the Army was “fighting” the National Guard. Next thing he knew, Parkin found himself transferred to COI, where he became a demolitions instructor. He later served in the China-Burma-India Theater with the OSS. He retired from the Army with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

An even more extraordinary individual was Peter J. Ortiz, one of almost 300 Marines to serve in the OSS. At war’s end, he was the most highly decorated member of the OSS, having earned two Navy Crosses, the Legion of Merit with “V” device, and two Purple Hearts, among other decorations. His exploits during the war combined aspects of actor Errol Flynn, fellow Marine Chesty Puller, and fictional spy James Bond.

The son of an American mother and French-Spanish father, Ortiz´s military career began at age 19 with enlistment in the French Foreign Legion in 1932. Discharged in 1937 with the rank of sergeant and having received the Croix de Guerre with two palms as well as other decorations from the French government, he went to Hollywood and became a technical adviser on war films.

When France entered the war in 1939, he reenlisted in the Foreign Legion and was commissioned a lieutenant. Captured in 1940, he eventually escaped his POW camp and returned to the United States. He attempted to enlist in the Army Air Corps, but, impatient with bureaucratic delays, volunteered for the Marines, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant.

Because of his language skills and experience in French North Africa, he was promoted to captain and transferred to Algiers, officially as assistant naval attaché and Marine Corps observer. That was a cover, for in reality, he was now a member of the OSS. Ortiz participated in the Tunisian campaign, fighting in the Battle of Kasserine Pass and conducting several deep penetration reconnaissance missions. Severely wounded in the last of these, he was airlifted back to Washington, D.C. During his recovery, he wrote a report of his experiences in North Africa that landed on Donovan´s desk. After reading it, Donovan wrote across the top of the first page, “Very interesting, please re-employ this man as soon as possible.”

Upon recovery, he received Jedburgh training, and in January 1944, together with his team, was parachuted into the Haute-Savoie department in the French Alps in Operation Union, to assess, supply, and train maquis resistance units and help evacuate downed Allied pilots and aircrews.

Wearing his Marine Corps uniform and all his medals (notable for his numerous French decorations) in part to boost maquis morale, he led them on numerous sabotage missions, gaining a reputation for derring-do along the way. His most spectacular incident was something straight out of Hollywood, and has been retold in several different versions. As the story goes, a group of German officers were at a village bar drinking and cursing Ortiz, President Roosevelt, the Marine Corps, the Allies, and other enemies. Unknown to them, Ortiz was at a nearby table dressed in mufti. He paid his bill, returned to his safe house, changed into his uniform, holstered his pistol, put on his trench coat, and returned to the bar. There he doffed his coat, aimed his pistol at the astonished German officers, and ordered them to drink toasts to Roosevelt and the Marine Corps before backing his way out the door.