World War II: OSS Tragedy in Slovakia

This is a dramatic account of the DAWES mission which the Office of Strategic Services ran in Slovakia in the fall of 1944. As the Slovak National Uprising raged, the Americans were caught in the middle. Forced to flee the rebel capital, the Americans evaded German patrols in the Prasiva Range in severe winter conditions. The day after Christmas, a German patrol surprised the main American Party and captured most of the personnel. Heinrich Himmler in Berlin ordered the prisoners sent to Mauthausen concentration camp where they were brutalized and then shot. Maria Gulovich, a Slovak school teacher who had joined the mission, luckily survived. General Bill Donovan brought her to the U.S. after the war and she became the first woman ever decorated at West Point.