Operation Jedburgh

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Jedburgh was an operation in World War II in which men from the Office of Strategic Services and the British Special Operations Executive parachuted into Nazi occupied France to conduct sabotage and guerilla warfare, and to lead French Maquis forces against the Germans. The operation took its name, probably assigned at random from a list of pre-approved code names, from the town Jedburgh in Scotland. After about two weeks of paramilitary training at commando training bases in the Scottish highlands, the Jeds moved to Milton Hall, which was much closer to London and shadow warfare headquarters.

The Jedburgh teams comprised three men: a leader, an executive officer, and a non-commissioned radio operator. The radio was critical for communicating with Special Force Headquarters in London.

The Jedburgh teams normally parachuted in by night to meet a reception committee from a local Resistance or Maquis group. Their main function was to provide a link between the guerillas and the Allied command. They could provide liaison, advice, expertise, leadership, and -- their most powerful ability -- they could arrange airdrops of arms and ammunition.

Like all Allied forces who operated behind Nazi lines, the Jedburghs or Jeds as they called themselves, were subject to torture and execution in the event of capture, under Hitler's notorious Commando Order. Because the Jeds normally operated in uniform, to apply this order to them was a war crime, but the illegality of the order must have been small consolation to those Jedburgh members executed.

Operation Jedburgh represented the first real cooperation in Europe between SOE and the Special Operations branch of OSS. By this period in the war, SOE had insufficient resources to mount the huge operation on its own; OSS jumped at the chance to be involved since in a single swoop it got more Special Operations agents into northwestern Europe than it had had in the entire war.

Many of the surviving American Jeds went on to great responsibility in the US Army or the CIA. Examples include CIA director William Egan Colby, key CIA officer in Vietnam (Lucien Conein), Gen John Singlaub and Col Aaron Bank.

For more information, see http://www.operationjedburgh.com