William Colby: The Early Years

By Dr. Dennis Casey
HQ AIA History Office
Kelly Air Force Base, Texas

Where do spies come from? What circumstances must exist to turn out extraordinarily talented individuals adept at surviving clandestine and secret operations often considerable distances behind enemy lines?

The answer resides somewhere between anywhere and everywhere.

A spy is born

Born on Jan. 4, 1920, in St. Paul, Minn., William Colby, a future director of the Central Intelligence Agency, grew to his teens as an Army brat.

His father, Elbridge Colby, became a lieutenant shortly after his son’s birth, returning to the U.S. Army after seeing service in World War I.

Like so many military families, Lt. Colby and his wartime bride, Margaret Mary Eagan Colby, along with their son, moved frequently.

Before his sixteenth birthday, young William had experienced substantial foreign travel and could count residences from the Canal Zone to Tientsin, China, and United States addresses from Minnesota to Georgia and to Vermont.

Following graduation from high school at age 16, William at first decided to pursue a career in the military like so many other military children. He was too young to apply to West Point so he attended Princeton University. When he applied the following year to the Academy, the admissions panel turned him down because of nearsightedness.

For the next three years, William continued his studies at Princeton and joined Army ROTC where he achieved prominence as a cadet captain.

During the summer of his junior year at Princeton, Colby spent the summer in France. He became fluent in French and developed a great affection for the French people and particularly the family he lived with in the Loire Valley. Colby graduated from Princeton the year France fell.

He remained convinced that in just months the United States would enter the war against Hitler and fascism.

His desire to fight for his country had to be delayed until he reached his 21st birthday and could then be commissioned as an officer.

In the Army now

Once in the Army as a second lieutenant, Colby soon found himself attending jump school at Fort Benning, Ga., in the fall of 1942. A broken ankle acquired on his second jump delayed his quest for combat duty.

In March 1943, he received an assignment as a staff officer in a combat outfit belonging to the parachute field artillery. Fearing that the war would pass him by, Colby took an unexpected opportunity and volunteered for the Office of Strategic Services.

The organization had been created two years earlier by President Franklin Roosevelt and placed under the direction of the noted attorney William Donovan, later called Wild Bill Donovan.

It would not be long before Colby entered intense training for upcoming missions to Nazi-occupied Europe.

After sailing to Europe aboard the British liner "Queen Elizabeth," Colby and some 50 other parachute officers joined an international gathering consisting of Americans, British, Dutch, and Belgian soldiers destined to carry out OSS missions.

Training over, ready for mission

Following intense training at the hands of British commandos and intelligence personnel at Milton Hall, the group received orders to carry out military operations behind German lines. Colby’s group consisted of himself, Lt. Jacques Favel and Sgt. Louis Giry, both from the French Army.

During the second week in August, Colby’s team of three climbed aboard a liberator bomber named "Slick Chick" and took off from England bound for France.

Their mission: locate a leader of the French resistance named Henry Frager and arrange for the delivery of arms and munitions.

Afterwards, they were to work with the French resistance and keep German troops away from the right flank of Gen. George Patton’s Third Army.

This they would do by blowing up bridges, ambushing patrols, destroying enemy communications and transportation and doing what they could to disrupt and harass German troops.

Troubles began almost immediately. Instead of landing in a secluded pasture where members of the resistance awaited them, they landed on the outskirts of Montergis near a German barracks.

Their equipment had been scattered all over the town and their noisy arrival had been reported. Leaving their equipment behind, the team fled into the French countryside and hid in a ditch near a farm road to prevent discovery. The following day they located a resistance cell led by Roger Bardet.

Final phase

Within days, arrangements had been made for the airdrop of rifles, munitions, machine guns, and several mortars and bazookas.

Once armed, the final phases of the resistance began in this region of France. With Colby’s help and sometimes his direction, the resistance forces kicked off their campaign against the Germans.

Enemy convoys, troop trains, supply depots, barracks and outposts all came under attack. As Patton’s army advanced into German-held areas, Colby’s team and others helped protect it from a German counterattack by blowing up bridges over the Loire River.

The team carried out relentless attacks of German positions. By the second week of September, the German forces had been forced out of the Yonne region of France. Colby and his team had achieved their objective in record time.

For Favel and Giry, the war was over. Favel returned to the United States to operate a cotton farm in Louisiana and Giry went to Indochina where he was killed in 1945. For Colby, another assignment awaited.

On March 24, 1945, Colby departed Harrington Air Base along with eight black Liberators.

Their destination was the woods near Trondheim, Norway. Their mission bore the name Operation "Rype."

Colby along with a team of Norwegian resistance fighters had been given the task of blowing up the Grana Bridge, some 100 miles from the landing point.

As the bridge was heavily defended and Colby did not have enough men or munitions to dispose of their objective, he selected another one at Tangen.

Following their successful mission, Colby and assistants blew up railroad sections and eluded numerous German patrols.

Surrender negotiated

Finally Colby, despite repeated requests to London to expand his sabotage operations, was told to hold further attacks in abeyance. Delicate surrender terms were being negotiated with the Germans.

On May 11, 1945, Colby and his group did the unlikely. They oversaw the surrender of German Army units in the Trondheim region of Norway.

Successful in pacifying Norway, Colby’s part in World War II ended in his mind when he saw the giant sign in New York harbor which read, "Welcome Home - well done."