Interrogators and interpreters who work not far from the battlefield, questioning captured prisoners and translating enemy documents, play a valuable role in any war. It isn't enough to speak the language; a good intelligence agent also has to know the military hierarchy of the enemy and its strategy style to make sense of insider information.
Featured Story: Alexander Standish
"Very often I actually knew what a German division was going to do before the German commander of that division knew it."
(Audio Interview, 21:04)
At the not-so-tender age of 42, businessman Alexander Standish joined the war effort, recruited by the Army Air Corps to interview pilots just returned from missions for intelligence information. After an uneventful stint in New York City on anti-submarine command, Standish was assigned to London, where D-Day preparations were underway. Nearby, in Bletchley Park, British intelligence was cracking the Enigma code used by the Germans. Standish followed General Omar Bradley across Europe, relaying to him the latest inside information.