My OSS Guilty Pleasure Reading

 “A judicious mixture of rumor and deception, with truth as bait, to foster disunity and confusion.”

— William J. Donovan

Every so often I return to read a beloved novel, something to help distract me from the woes of this existence and provide some level of entertainment and, in some cases, further enlightenment. I return to Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in A Strange Land occasionally, despite its obsolete and often biased views of “future” society and other issues. I’ve read aloud J.RR. Tolkien’s The Hobbit numerous times to my son when he was of bedtime-story age. I make the pilgrimage of reading A Canticle for Leibowitz when the world seems teetering on (or careening over) the brink of madness. But I’ve never before mentioned my guilty pleasure, a series of novels about the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II: W.E.B. Griffin’s Men at War series. Given the stresses of the holiday season combined with <waves hand> everything else, well, it seemed about time to revisit the young heroes of the novels and lose myself in their rollicking if not terribly historically accurate escapades.

OSS Director William "Wild Bill" Donovan

I’ve read the entire seven-book series over the years, though the first four novels remain my favorites, originally written in the 1980s; the later novels, penned with the author’s son in the early 2000s, wander off to play with history (as anyone familiar with Operation Mincemeat would know) and dabble in character arcs superficially. That said, the first four novels, starting with The Last Heroes, still engage me despite my familiarity with the stories. They’re not high literature, but a fun ride through America’s early involvement in World War II from the perspective of the OSS (and its predecessor, the Office of the Coordinator of Information, or COI). I sometimes joke they’re really “OSS 90210” considering how much they focus on the young characters, their conflicts within WWII history, and their relationships with each other. Between conducting all-too-briefly-covered missions they dally in a series of hook-ups and romantic side trips. It’s pure WWII espionage escapism, despite a few historical inaccuracies; now and then I need that kind of diversion.

I can’t recall when I first read The Last Heroes, but it was years ago. It spoke to my interests in WWII and espionage. I’ve read a good deal of non-fiction about those subjects, but the Men at War series remains the only fiction I’ve found on the subject that satisfied me. The only other Griffin series I read was the Honor Bound series also set during WWII in Argentina, but incorporating a host of period characters and references. Although I’ve kept all the books in the series, I haven’t felt compelled to re-read them too often as they’re not quite as satisfying as Men at War.

I should note two honorable mentions of WWII espionage fiction I particularly enjoy and occasionally re-read: Robert Harris’ Enigma, focusing on decrypting German intercepts (and made into an intense film starring one of my favorite actresses, Kate Winslet) and Daniel Silva’s The Unlikely Spy, a cat-and-mouse story of counterintelligence agents trying to stop deep-cover German operatives operating in Britain.

I’ve occasionally dabbled in espionage roleplaying games. In my high school days I naturally tried TSR’s Top Secret and later Victory Games’ James Bond 007: Role-Playing in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, though neither one covered WWII espionage action. At one point while at West End Games I considered proposing a WWII espionage game, but a colleague convinced me that, in the mid-1990s, spy games had no market (he was wrong, as Spycraft and several other games proved). I’ve since dallied with the idea of doing a WWII “superspy” roleplaying game, combining James Bond-style action with historical elements for an over-the-top cinematic game experience. The closest I came was a very streamlined Secret Wars WWII game — based mostly on the Men at War fiction bolstered by my own research — that saw limited play with my gaming group in the early 2000s...and little else. (Only the two-page briefing glossary remains online...I doubt I posted the “rules” as they were, adapted from an extremely streamlined game system I’d admired.) I’m aware of a few WWII spy roleplaying games out today, but haven’t really had the means or interest to check them out. I think this remains one area where my knowledge of the grim realities of history outweigh my urge to “play” in that era and genre.

I’ve dabbled with a few board games with WWII espionage/resistance themes notably Jake Staine’s Maquis and David Thompson and Dave Neale’s War Story: Occupied France, both of which beckon me to bring to the game table again. For more resources on gaming clandestine WWII operations, check out my piece on “Immersive Experiences at the Spy Museum,” One might even argue the Star Wars: Andor series provides some inspiration for resistance adventures to adapt to a WWII setting.

WWII espionage, resistance, and special operations occupy an exciting genre in our entertainment culture. The fiction mentioned above, the games, and certainly films like Where Eagles Dare and other similar fare feed off historical interest; the real-life undertakings of those involved in such operations continue to come to light as official documents become declassified and historians bring their stories back into the public eye. They remind us what ordinary people, fueled by courage and determination, could accomplish in fighting against oppression and occupation.

“The democracies will avoid disaster, and possibly total destruction, only by maintaining their defenses. Among the increasingly intricate arsenals across the world, intelligence is an essential weapon, perhaps the most important.”

— William Stephenson