Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Special Operations Branch, London, and Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Secret Intelligence Branch, London

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the approximate US counterpart of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and Special Operations Executive (SOE), with which it co-operated throughout World War Two and its immediate aftermath. The OSS was created by Presidential Military Order on 13 Jun 1942 and it functioned as the principal US intelligence organisation in all operational theatres. Its primary function was to obtain information about enemy nations and to sabotage their war potential and morale. From 1940-1942, the US had no central intelligence agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and dissemination of information bearing on national security, these services having been dispersed amongst the armed services and regional desks in the US State Department. In Jul 1941 Maj Gen William Joseph Donovan was appointed by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the civilian post of Co-ordinator of Information (COI) and was instructed to consolidate a regular channel of global strategic information. Under Donovan's leadership, the COI claimed the functions of information gathering, propaganda, espionage, subversion, and post-war planning. The overt propaganda functions of the COI were eventually severed and the COI was re-organised as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1942. The OSS was instructed by the President to collect and analyse such strategic information as might be required to plan and operate special military services in theatres of operation directed by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The headquarters of the OSS were in Washington, but is also maintained overseas outposts which engaged in information gathering and liaison operations with Allied intelligence services, most notably Special Operations Executive (SOE). Chief among the overseas units was the London Outpost, established at the end of 1941 to facilitate co-operation between the Allied intelligence services, and to serve as a base of operations for Allied intelligence, espionage and operational activities in Europe. The Special Operations (SO) Branch, OSS, London, was charged with conducting sabotage operations, support and supply of resistance groups, and guerrilla warfare in enemy-occupied territories. The 'London Group' of SOE was its British counterpart. On 10 Jan 1944, the SO Branch and the London Group were integrated into Special Forces Headquarters, under which they were charged with carrying on their operations. Thus, from Jan-Sep 1944, 93 Jedburgh teams, consisting of one British SOE soldier, one American OSS soldier, and one officer native to the country in which the team would operate, were parachuted into occupied Western Europe to supply resistance movements and co-ordinate operations. The purpose of the Secret Intelligence (SI) Branch, OSS, London, was to collect and analyse strategic intelligence as was required by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. The OSS was terminated by Executive Order 9620 on 20 Sep 1945, its functions later assumed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).