Medal of Honor

Story

BEFORE THE CIA THERE WAS THE OSS The Office of Strategic Services was officially established in June 1942 under the direction of General "Wild Bill" Donovan. If ever the romantic notion of being a spy really excited you, it was probably at the OSS. Young men and women, often recruited right out of college, entered the world of wartime cloak and dagger intelligence. It was an exciting and dangerous time, and as the war expanded, so did the mission of the OSS. Sabotage, search and rescue, and subversion were part of the organization's daily work. Then a young Air Transport Corps lieutenant stepped on the scene and changed the OSS forever. On June 5, 1944 - the night before the D-Day invasion - the Allied command launched the largest airdrop of troops in history up to that time. It was a complete disaster. Most of the planes missed their targets, were shot down, or crashed because of bad weather. One pilot, however, got the regiment he was carrying to the correct drop zone before his C-47 transport was brought down by enemy fire. It was Jimmy Patterson, an unassuming twenty-four-year-old from Carthage, MO. Patterson heroically protected his wounded crew from a roving German patrol and single-handedly took out half a dozen Wehrmacht personnel before help arrived. For his actions, he was nominated for the Congressional Medal of Honor - the nation's highest military honor. Just days before he was sent back to the U.S. for a War Bonds tour, however, Patterson disappeared from his sickbed. Medal of Honor tells the story of what happened next.