| Training Area F, The Congressional Country Club |
The most grand and unconventional of the Office of Strategic Services training sites was the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland, designated as Training Area F. In sharp contrast to the rustic national park camps, the Club featured manicured fairways, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts, and a palatial clubhouse. Established in the 1920’s with Herbert Hoover as its founding president, the club fell into financial ruin during the Great Depression. By 1943, it was facing foreclosure.
Seizing the opportunity, Colonel William J. Donovan offered to lease the property on behalf of the Office of Strategic Services for the duration of the war, at a monthly rate sufficient to cover the club’s mortgage. The War Department further guaranteed that the estate would be restored to its former condition after the war. The club’s close proximity to Washington, less than 30 kilometres away, also made it an ideal location for visits by high-level officials and a showcase for Donovan’s more original ideas, such as the training of ethnic Operational Groups.
Area F was dramatically transformed for the war effort. Tents lined the once-prestigious entrance road. The lush golf course was carved into obstacle courses, assault lanes, and firing ranges. The elegant clubhouse was refitted into classrooms and a mess hall. Here, Donovan implemented one of his boldest concepts: to recruit from America’s multiethnic population combat teams capable of operating behind enemy lines in their ancestral homelands. These men, often first- or second-generation Americans, spoke the local language, understood the culture, and could blend into occupied territory with far greater ease than traditional soldiers.
By 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff formally endorsed not only the expansion of Special Operations teams but also Donovan’s proposal for larger, language-capable Operational Groups units. While both Special Operations and Operational Groups personnel required high physical and psychological standards, suitable for parachute insertions, sabotage, and independent action, there were key differences. Special Operations operatives typically worked in small teams of two or three, often focusing on single acts of subversion or intelligence gathering. One of the most well-known examples of Special Operations operations was the multinational Jedburgh teams, groups of three composed of an American or Briton, a French officer, and a radio operator, trained in Great Britain and dropped into occupied France in support of D-Day.
Operational Groups, by contrast, were larger, uniformed military units composed of 34-man sections or 15-man half-sections, including officers, weapons experts, demolitions specialists, medics, and shortwave radio operators. These groups were capable of extended combat and sustained guerrilla operations. Operational Groups units were formed for operations in France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Norway, and began their training at Area F.
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The Operational Groups training curriculum was directed by a cadre of bold, young airborne officers under Lieutenant Colonel Serge Obolensky, a 51-year-old Russian émigré, socialite, and veteran of World War I and the Russian Civil War. Obolensky had trained with Special Operations units and understood the nature of guerrilla warfare.
The Preliminary Operational Groups Course at Area F lasted six weeks and focused on building self-confidence, technical proficiency, and mental resilience. The course included:
- 22 hours of map reading, sketching, and compass work
- 20 hours of scouting and patrolling
- 14 hours of physical training
- 7 hours of camouflage and fieldcraft
- 4 hours of close combat and knife fighting
- 6 hours on the obstacle course
- 4 hours on the .45 calibre pistol
- 4 hours on the submachine gun
- 57 hours on tactics, including compass runs and day/night field problems
- 7 hours of training films
- 2 hours on hygiene and camp sanitation
- 4 hours on topics such as enemy organisation, communications, security, and current events
This totalled 152 hours of preliminary instruction.
Following the initial phase, Operational Groups trainees moved to Area B or Area A for advanced instruction, which added:
- 8 hours of additional physical training
- 22 hours of demolitions
- 40 hours of weapons instruction, including time on the M1 rifle, carbine, Browning Automatic Rifle, Colt .45 pistol, Thompson and Marlin submachine guns, British Sten gun, light and heavy machine guns, M1 and anti-tank rocket launchers, and 60 mm and 81 mm mortars
- Additional practice with hand grenades and anti-tank devices
Recruits also received:
- 4 hours on the care of clothing and equipment
- 4 more hours on hygiene and sanitation
- 8 hours of training films
- Ground training for parachute jumps, which took place either at Fort Benning, Georgia, or at OSS/SOE jump schools overseas
This final phase brought the total training time to 250 hours for each Operational Groups soldier.
The size of Operational Groups varied by theatre. The Norwegian group comprised roughly 100 men, while the French Operational Groups numbered over 400. In total, there may have been up to 2,000 Office of Strategic Services Operational Group members, alongside approximately 1,600 Special Operations personnel sent behind enemy lines. Despite their small numbers, equivalent to a single army brigade, the extensive sabotage and disruption caused by Donovan’s so-called “glorious amateurs” and their allied resistance contacts left a disproportionately large impact on Axis operations across Europe.