News / Military
Donovan created the forerunner of the CIA and Special Forces. He was one of nearly two dozen commando Medal of Honor recipients or family members honored by U.S. Special Operations Command.
By Howard Altman / Tampa Bay Times / February 4, 2019
PHOTO: David Donovan, center, receives a plaque from Army Gen. Raymond A. “Tony” Thomas III, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, and Command Sgt. Maj. Patrick McCauley honoring William Donovan, who created and led the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA and Special Operations Forces. (Photo by Michael Bottoms, SOCom communications office)
As David Donovan walked to the podium at the Palma Ceia Country Club to shake hands with the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, I wondered what it was like to grow up with a grandfather as famous as William Donovan.
Known colloquially as “Wild Bill”, a moniker he apparently abhorred, William Donovan was a World War I hero and Medal of Honor recipient. But he is best known as the founder and director of the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of both the CIA and the military’s Special Operations Forces.
To say that he is a legend in the world of spies and commandos is an understatement.
There were nearly two dozen SOF Medal of Honor recipients or their family members presented with plaques commemorating entrance into SOCom’s Commando Hall of Honor at MacDill Air Force Base that night. So many amazing stories about gallantry and intrepidity in the face of overwhelming odds. But as a World War II history buff, when David Donovan stepped up to accept a plaque honoring of his grandfather, I wondered what it was like to have someone like Maj. Gen. William Donovan in his family tree.
It turns out that Donovan would only learn the real depth of his grandfather’s legacy after William Donovan died Feb. 8, 1959 at the age of 76.
Which he learned about on his own secret mission of sorts — as a 10-year-old behind the wheel of a car.
“I remember we had a long driveway and my grandmother used to let me practice driving by myself,” said Donovan, 69 and living in Seattle. “I would drive up and down and listen to the radio. When I came to the end of my driveway, they announced that my grandfather had just died.”
Before that moment, Donovan only had vague inklings of his grandfather’s importance.
First of all, Donovan’s grandfather frequently traveled and was rarely around. But beyond that, William Donovan’s work with the OSS was still secret.
“I was too young to have understood it anyway,” said Donovan. “I do remember, up in the attic, he had an enormous chest. I used to like to go in there and see what was going on.”
Among other things, the chest contained William Donovan’s treasured Enfield rifle from World War I. There were more clues. Donovan’s father, himself a World War II veteran, had a closet with boxes full of medals earned by William Donovan.
Still, his grandfather “was mostly a man of mystery,” Donovan said.
It would not be until his grandfather’s funeral at Arlington National Cemetery that Donovan said he got a fuller sense of who the man really was.
“When I went to his funeral, it dawned on me just how important he was,” said Donovan. “Just to have the horse-drawn caisson, the 21- gun salute, and the Vice President (Richard Nixon) and different dignitaries there, I still remember it almost like it was yesterday.”
But even when Donovan did his own time in uniform, serving in the Navy aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War, his grandfather’s exploits were still largely unknown because of lingering secrecy issues.
Few knew how a highly decorated World War I veteran and former Assistant U.S. Attorney General turned senior partner in a Wall Street law firm convinced President Franklin Roosevelt to create what would become the OSS despite strong bureaucratic infighting and opposition. At its peak in 1944, the Donovan-led OSS would have 13,000 men and women, most fighting behind enemy lines, working with resistance forces, gathering intelligence and sewing confusion and disarray through propaganda and sabotage.
David Donovan said that despite his heritage, he largely learned about his grandfather’s legacy like the rest of his — through books and movies.
“Even his own son didn’t know all the things going on with him,” Donovan said of his father. “Again, the whole attitude was, ‘loose lips sink ships.’”
But as he sees what his grandfather helped create — a central intelligence agency, Army Special Forces and SOCom writ large, David Donovan is in awe.
“To see what it has become, the point of the spear for American power, is quite astonishing,” he said.
•••
The Pentagon announced one new death in ongoing operations since my last column.
Staff Sgt. Joshua Z. Beale, 32, of Carrollton, Virginia, died Jan. 22, 2019, as a result of injuries sustained from enemy small arms fire during combat operations in Tarin Kowt, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan. Beale was assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
There have been 2,347 U.S. troop deaths in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan; 63 U.S. troop deaths and one civilian Department of Defense employee death in support of the follow–up, Operation Freedom’s Sentinel; 58 troop deaths and four civilian deaths in support of Operation Inherent Resolve; one troop death in support of Operation Odyssey Lightning, the fight against Islamic State in Libya; one troop death in support of Operation Joint Guardian, one death classified as other contingency operations in the global war on terrorism; one death in Operation Octave Shield and six deaths in ongoing operations in Africa where, if they have a title, officials will not divulge it.
Wayback image
