Brandy: Portrait Of An Intelligence Officer
Copyright © 2007 Chuck Render and Frank M. Brandstetter
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(Table of Contents at end of book)
Note from the Author
My conscience compels me to acknowledge the influence five fine gentlemen had upon my life and upon the contents of this book. My father, Ferenc Brandstetter, saw to it that I was educated as he was with strict military discipline and the Maria Theresian sense of pride, integrity, justice, and dignity beginning when I was a small child. General Matthew B. Ridgway ingrained his philosophy that loyalty is paramount and if you disagree, you speak up, but you salute and carry out your orders as long as you are in uniform. My father-in-law, Hartley Fiske Peart, taught me the power of politics and commitment to ensure that this country is led only by those who are honorable and able. Bishop M. Joseph Green strengthened my religious faith. Don Carlos Trouyet was my partner, not only in business ventures, but in providing for those who desperately needed help to survive, thus strengthening both the United States of America and Mexico.
Dominic J. Monetta was the one who urged me to put my stories onto the pages, and he worked diligently for more than ten years to assemble my papers and documents and to see that it was done. Peter B. Lane and Richard L. Himmel have been of immeasurable help, storing and retrieving my collection at the University of North Texas. Finally, Armand E. “Rock” Reiser and Charles R. “Chuck” Render were the ones who ultimately made it happen, and I am deeply indebted to Chuck for the many months and miles he devoted to this project. Mission accomplished, Chuck. Well done.
Colonel Frank M. Brandstetter, U.S. Army Retired
Introduction
Brandy: A Portrait of an Intelligence Officer is the life story of Frank M. Brandstetter, a man who gathered “the dots” and their connections for more than a half century. Frank M. “Brandy” Brandstetter was born into Polish-Austrian nobility and immigrated to the United States when he was a teenager. As a U.S. Army volunteer, his command of multiple languages made him perfect for an intelligence career. After graduating from the U.S. Army Intelligence School at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, he was trained by the British MI in the London Cage before he jumped with the famed 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment (Band of Brothers) on D-Day and led his IPW (Interrogation of Prisoners of War) team into World War II. He served as General Matthew B. Ridgway’s trusted aide with the XVIII Airborne Corps until the end of the war and then with General Ridgway when they were assigned to the Mediterranean Theater of Operations and the fledgling, original, five-nation United Nations Organization. After his release from active duty, Brandy continued his 40 years in uniform as a U.S. Army Reservist feeding intelligence information to his “big brothers” in the Office of the Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) in the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the FBI, and the CIA.
As a civilian, Brandy earned his way up the ladders of responsibility and wealth through his investments in the hotel business and real estate development. This would take him to exotic and informative places from coast to coast in the United States, then to Jamaica, to Cuba, and to Acapulco, Mexico where he remained. Although his positions in the hotel business would serve as perfect “fronts” for a spy, they were legitimate. At his San Souci Hotel in Ocho Rios, he entertained and listened to learned travelers and British MI officers. Brandy was manager of the Havana Hilton when Castro came to power in Cuba in 1959 and set up his command headquarters in the Conrad Hilton Suite where they participated in the televised Jack Paar interview. Brandy assisted a Frenchman named Philippe de Vosjoli in escaping Cuba. Their mutual trust and friendship would lead to another escape years later when Philippe defected from his job as a spy with the French SDECE because the KGB had infiltrated the de Gaulle government. Brandy provided Philippe and his wife a safe house at the Las Brisas Hotel he was running in Acapulco. The Las Brisas also became a safe house for Raya Kiselnikova, a Russian decoder at the KGB-infiltrated Soviet Embassy in Mexico City. Both Raya and Philippe would provide priceless information through Brandy’s pipelines and connections, and there were many others. Brandy’s adventures would take him completely around the world to China, Greece, Cyprus, Morocco, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, Yugoslavia, and many other intriguing places at times when security threats were fomenting.
Mexico has its own deep-rooted problems, but somehow the motivating influences and conflicting interests have been obscured by partisan political rhetoric. There’s been a lot of finger pointing and laying of blame for years, but little published first-hand observations and knowledge from somebody who has been there and successfully worked with some of the “good guys” in Mexico for nearly a half century. Brandy is such a guy—the same guy who hosted Admiral Burkhalter and 29 agency representatives on the president’s U.S. Task Force on Border Control at his home in Acapulco more than twenty years ago.
Finally, we’ve all heard about “connecting the dots” and the apparent failure of our Intelligence Community in recent years. Indeed, some of the critiques and explanations we have seen broadcast were from the very culprits who destroyed our capabilities—the “Massacre of the 800” that gouged out of the eyes and plugged the ears of the intelligence community—all in the name of misguided morality, self-serving interpretations of the Constitution, or some other nonsense. Brandy’s stories describe the art of intelligence gathering and networks. He spent millions of his own money gathering information because he knew it was critically important to the security of his country and nobody else was there to do it. The deceptive dots sometimes led to what would prove to be surprises when the whole picture was revealed. This book tells some unpublished facts that enlightened decision-makers and future decision-makers need to know so they can understand the effects of our past follies, avoid making these mistakes again, and maybe repair the damage.
Contents of this book “passed inspection” by some of our key critics—guys who were also there in history and lived to tell about it. Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach offered a “few trivialities” which were treated as imperatives. Mr. DeLoach was formerly Herbert Hoover’s FBI Deputy Director. His Royal Majesty King Juan Carlos of Spain had no suggested changes to the Spanish Connection and sent his thanks for the opportunity to review it. Tom Polgar, a member of the OSS during World War II who continued as a career CIA officer, allowed his first-hand knowledge of unpublished history to fill out the background behind some of Brandy’s mysteries. This, and many of the other stories from Brandy’s incredible life have been suppressed for security reasons—until now.
Forward
During the Second World War, I was only a small lad in rural Southern Illinois, but I remember many things on the “home front” including those small flags with the stars that were proudly displayed in the front windows of the homes where loved family members were away in combat. I also remember the pall that descended over the neighborhood like a dark cloud when one of those flags was taken down and replaced by a black one that told all who passed by of the grief within the home whose soldier had perished. The generations to follow were expected to remember and to carry on the honorable traditions of those who had suffered and died for their freedom.
After more than a half century, long after I had taught in public schools and universities, had completed my doctorate, and had retired after 40 years in the military, I was awakened to the fact that I actually knew embarrassingly little about our nation’s history, the peoples, and their dedication and sacrifices. This awakening began several years ago when I was privileged to become acquainted with Colonel Frank “Brandy” Brandstetter, a highly decorated intelligence officer who had survived that world war, had continued to serve for decades on call as an Army Reservist, and then persisted in this service to his country even after his mandatory retirement from the military in 1972. Brandy showed me the contents of a document he had carried to Field Marshal Walter Model in the Ruhr Pocket in April of 1945. General Matthew B. Ridgway had written personally to Model appealing to his sense of responsibility, and had compared the Field Marshal’s situation to Robert E. Lee’s in April of 1865. He spoke of “honorable” capitulation, but according to my own naiveté, this was a strange thing to say to a man who had been portrayed as the epitome of the hated Nazi officer. How could Field Marshal Model be an honorable man when his army had served a nation that had tried to establish Aryan supremacy and to exterminate or enslave all others?
My questions led us to examine the moral imperatives by which a soldier could determine if his actions were correct or if he should refuse to participate—to serve the cause or to rebel—the distinction between a patriot or a traitor. I learned that Philippe de Vosjoli, the French Freedom Fighter, had been faced with this agonizing question twenty years after the end of World War Two when he chose to resign from his position in French Intelligence and to leave the country he had loved and fought for. Philippe had learned that his government—even his own SDECE—had been infiltrated by his arch enemies the Communists. Brandy was there to take him in, and the United States would soon learn how deeply it had also been infiltrated. Raya Kiselnikova, a young woman who served in the Russian embassy in Mexico City, was forced to make a similar painful decision when the KGB was in the process of turning Mexico into another Cuba. Brandy took her under his protective wing. These were but two of the many historical incidents that had escaped my attention. I would soon learn of dozens of others including some that had also escaped the attention of noted and respected scholars and historians.
This book is not just a biography of an individual. This is a portrait of a life against the backdrop of history. A biography of an intelligence officer would tell only a portion of the story—the many escapades when the man traveled the world over, formed his trusted ties, and collected valuable human intelligence (HUMINT). What happened after his reports were submitted was not within the realm of a data collector’s responsibility, so the resulting policy decisions and planning would appear in somebody else’s biography. Merely recounting these stories through the intelligence officer’s eyes would present the man’s life in a vacuum, void of the world situation around him. This portrait will show history in the making over a period of more than ninety years and the motivations and human factors in the background.
My journey since we started the project has been not only fascinating but could best be described as “mind blowing.” During the project, I often paused to remember that I was working with real live people who were there in history and were telling me unpublished facts few if any other people in the world know—people and stories rapidly disappearing from the earth. Brandy was anxious to reveal details as he knew them—the whole story—so the next generations would better understand their histories and legacies and never forget. I am anxious to share my findings with the older generations who somehow missed them as I did.
Chuck Render, Ed.D. Colonel, USAF (ret.)
Chapter 1
Forging the Character of a Citizen
Drag-Sas Hubicki
Baroness Maria Louisa Drag-Sas Hubicki was the daughter of Polish-Austrian nobility. She left her exquisite family villa overlooking the city of Pozsony to marry Ferenc Brandstetter, a warrior in the Hungarian Hussar Cavalry. Ferenc was with his wife in the city of Nagyszeben in Transylvania on March 26, 1912, when she delivered their first-born, a son they would christen in the Catholic tradition with their family names: Maryan Franciscus Otto Josephus Wladyslaw Brandstetter Drag-Sas Hubicki.
When Maryan Franciscus was two years old, Archduke Franz Ferdinand von Habsburg, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated by a Serbian nationalist while visiting Sarajevo. This ultimately led to the start of the First World War. Ferenc was sent to fight the Tsarists on the Eastern Front, and Maria Louisa volunteered as a nurse in Germany. Maryan Franciscus stayed behind in the care of a nanny who insisted on speaking French, which the child learned as his primary language. Two years later Maryan Franciscus was transferred to a boarding school run by the Sisters of Charity for a small group of officers’ children who had been temporarily orphaned by the war. The Catholic sisters ran a tight, tough, militaristic schedule that awakened the children at four o’clock in the morning, sent them to mass before breakfast, and immediately started their classes.
The First World War ended with the Armistice on November 11, 1918. By that time, Maria Louisa and Ferenc had celebrated the arrival of their second child, a daughter. Maria Louisa returned to her devastated homeland and retrieved Maryan from the nuns. She tried desperately to survive in their immense family home, but the struggle was like nothing they had ever experienced. The tiny daughter was not growing and developing as she should.
Maryan remembers an odd, little man with the long sideburns who was wearing a distinctive black hat and black suit and leading a horse-drawn, two-wheeled cart. The man often brought milk in large, ceramic crocks with the round, wooden stoppers. Maryan could not understand everything his mother and the man said as the man bartered, but he remembers the tinkling sound of silver knives, forks, and spoons when his mother unrolled a soft, purple cloth and displayed heirlooms from generations of the Drag-Sas Hubicki family. When the transaction was concluded, Maryan watched the man in black roll the silverware in the soft cloth and carefully hide it in the loose straw beneath the milk crocks in his cart. The young boy watched the man un-tether the horse and lead it toward the gate, but his attention was suddenly directed elsewhere—back to the hallway where his mother sat with a small crock of milk on her lap.
Maria Louisa Drag-Sas Hubicki continued her struggle to save her young daughter by sacrificing everything of value to buy precious milk to make the child’s bones develop. Maryan’s little sister would no longer cry. Her cries would fade away with faded memories, but another sound he heard that day would stay with him forever. He would never in his long life forget the sound of his mother weeping.
Maria Louisa lost the advantages of her noble status, and her family wealth disappeared in the turmoil when her homeland sank into anarchy. Maryan and his younger sister could hardly understand the political instability of the world, but they were deeply moved by the violence they witnessed when uncontrolled Communist mobs and returning Russian soldiers raped and pillaged. Those, whose hands were smooth, such as the priests and nuns, became Bourgeois enemies of the state and were executed. Maryan witnessed what no young child should ever see — innocent victims stretched by their necks with wires so the public could see them. It made a lasting impression upon him. At the age of seven, he had already developed utter contempt for Communists that he would remember the rest of his life.
Young Maryan Franciscus would soon be confronted with many other things he could not understand. Ferenc and Maria Louisa divorced in 1919 forcing the seven-year-old boy to make a choice. Prospects of a close family relationship had been dashed forever, and the youngster chose to remain with his father, the heroic, wounded, Hungarian officer he admired and respected. His younger sister, Marie, remained with their mother, Maria Louisa.
A peace treaty between the Allied nations and the defeated Hungarians was signed at Trianon on June 4, 1920. Its protocols forbid the Habsburgs from occupying the throne and exiled the emperor, Karl Habsburg-Lothringen I. Hungarians were forbidden from training or maintaining a standing army. No longer in uniform, Ferenc became the operator of a newspaper owned by the small landowners’ party. Freedom of the press was limited under an early and crude form of Communism where the government distrusted the former military officers and kept them under constant surveillance. Ferenc’s job was precarious and his duties were demanding so he placed his son in residential schools and summer camps in Austria, limiting their personal contacts to occasional visits. A dialect of High German became Maryan’s day-to-day language.
Formal Schooling
Maryan Franciscus Brandstetter
In 1921, young Maryan Franciscus was enrolled in the Maria Theresa academy, a school established to teach the next generations to carry on their allegiance to God and country. This was the traditional schooling for sons of military officers, but the school’s very existence was counter to what the new ruling government had in mind. After a year there, Maryan Franciscus and the sons of other military officers were forced to halt their military education according to government decree and to experience hard labor to which the aristocracy was unaccustomed. These young men were forced to learn the languages and customs of the working class Communist families.
Maryan was placed in the custody of what he described as a burly Czech coal miner who came home each day with every exposed inch of his body covered in pitch black. The exhausted head of the household bathed before sitting at the head of the dinner table and beginning the meal with a prayer. This was a trying time for Maryan since he was forced to learn yet another language to add to his abilities in French, German, and Hungarian, but the family treated him well, and he became friends with the miner’s son. They shared an austere living space in the attic and attended school together near Pribram, not far from Prague.
As soon as he could, Ferenc Brandstetter placed his son in an Untergymnasium, a middle school in Freistadt, Austria. After that, he transferred Maryan to a school in Cegled, Hungary that specialized in preparing boys and young men for military school. Clearly, Ferenc planned for his son to be an officer in the Hungarian Army as he had been, and as his ancestors had been for generations. Twelve-year-old Maryan Franciscus left the Untergymnasium in 1924 and entered the military academy, the Hunyadi Matyas Magyar Kiralyi Realiskola, at Köszeg in Hungary, near the Austrian border. Hungary had been forced to refrain from operating military training schools under the Trianon Treaty, but the school at Köszeg quietly defied this agreement. Training under the watchful eyes of former German officers in civilian attire was strenuous. The officers pressed the young men relentlessly to develop obedience, good study habits, muscular development, endurance, and stamina—physical, mental and emotional.
The New World
Ferenc Brandstetter was declared an enemy of the state and was arrested in 1926 because of his connection with the rebel rural land owners in Hungary and his part ownership of a local newspaper supporting the renegades. Fortunately, he had useful connections with one of his former classmates, General Gömbos, who had become Minister of War. His friendship was strong enough to avoid being shot. Instead, General Gömbos arranged for Ferenc to obtain a diplomatic visa and leave the country for the United States of America, ostensibly to study animal husbandry and farming in Wisconsin. Ferenc was also directed to locate and arrange for the purchase of horses for the Hungarian Army.
Maryan Franciscus Brandstetter remained in the academy at Köszeg for almost four years, but did not graduate. His father sent him a round-trip ticket, and he immediately sailed for New York carrying a visitor’s passport and thirty dollars in pocket money. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean aboard the SS Majestic steamship, and his father met him on the docks on July 28, 1928. A taxicab ride took them through an astounding city.
Maryan followed Ferenc into a small apartment, not knowing what to expect. He knew that his father had been in the United States for four years, and that he undoubtedly would have made some friends there. He expected to be introduced to a business associate, but his attention was immediately fixed upon a young woman who reluctantly stepped from the kitchen and stopped just inside the room. She stood there in expectation. A maid, Maryan surmised. My father has a pretty maid, and she’s about my age. Maybe he’s found me an American girlfriend. He stared at the girl from top to bottom, and her face became flushed.
Ferenc introduced the young woman as his wife, pulled her in a close embrace, and added that she was Maryan’s new mother.
Maryan was shocked. He did not know what to say. He stood stoically and studied the young woman before turning to stare at his father, eye-to-eye. Maryan firmly rejected the idea that such a creature would replace his real mother, Maria Louisa, whom he still dearly loved.
Ferenc released the young woman, stepped squarely in front of his son, and demanded that Maryan accept her — that the young woman was indeed his new mother. When Maryan exclaimed that he would never do that, Ferenc was livid. He slapped his son soundly, stunning him for a moment. Maryan suppressed the immediate impulse to strike back, and denied his father the satisfaction of watching him rub his stinging cheek.
Ferenc had always commanded, and had received, his son’s respect as an exemplar of duty, honor, and faithful service to God, family, and their fatherland. These same aspirations had been instilled into Maryan throughout his schooling. His respect for his father was suddenly dashed. Ferenc’s bride was a young girl only a few years older than the teenager himself. Maryan had never been able to comprehend his parent’s divorce, and he had never experienced a family unit, but he loved his mother dearly and the idea that she would be replaced by a young girl was absolutely unacceptable. He grabbed his bag and they parted in anger.
Sixteen-year-old Maryan was suddenly alone on the sidewalks of New York, on his own in a strange country where he could not speak the native language. He had no personal contacts and no marketable work experience. He had learned Hungarian, Romanian, Austrian, Czechoslovakian, and German customs and languages, but what he was seeing was entirely new and different. He had a return steamship ticket, and he could use it, but he was troubled. He had been taught that it was his duty to loyally serve his country, but he had watched his beloved homeland fall under the control of an oppressive leadership whose precepts and practices he abhorred. His parents had seemingly disregarded the moral imperatives they had taught him and they had separated. His father had bonded into a new union that made Maryan question: duty, honor, service, and loyalty to whom, to what, and to where? Where could he go? What should he do? He must choose.
Then the thought occurred to him. He was free to choose. Free! There was something enchanting about that word. Free! There were no strict nuns or priests to accost him and strike him with rods. There were no gruff former German officers to force compliance and to deride him for any sign of weakness. He had no schedule. There was a feeling of liberation on the streets of New York that appealed to him. This freedom was compelling. He would try it. He chose to stay.
Street Schooling
This strange new world was filled with immigrants of many nationalities, so the language barrier was soon penetrated when Maryan found a Slovak-speaking widow who ran her own boarding house. He encountered many like himself. Some were more naïve, but many were streetwise and welcomed newcomers like brothers. He began at the bottom like everybody else who had come over on a boat. His first job was in one of the infamous sweatshops owned and operated by a Jewish family that had been forced to flee Czarist persecution in St. Petersburg, Russia. Most of his fellow workers were Poles, Hungarians, and Slovaks. They were immigrant men and women who were mostly older than he was and many appeared to be emotionally beaten. They toiled in the almost unbearable heat for six full days each week, and felt fortunate to have the opportunity because there were many on the streets outside who could immediately replace them.
There were few other opportunities for those who could not speak English, so Maryan enrolled in night school where he struggled to learn the language. He soon became acquainted with a small circle of friends in the Hungarian community. By Christmas of 1928, he decided to abandon what he considered to be a dead-end job and moved on to a cleaner position as a soda jerk at a local pharmacy. By a strange turn of fate, Captain Curt Meisner, a German Air Ace who had been stationed in Sassnitz, Sweden while Ferenc Brandstetter had been there with his family, recognized the young man he had known as a child called “Muky Pasha.” Meisner had been employed along with dozens of Russian exiles by Igor Sikorsky, whose fledgling aircraft manufacturing plant was only a short distance from where Maryan was living and working. In early 1929, Maryan became an apprentice aircraft mechanic on a track to become a skilled professional. He worked long hours as assistant riveter and he remained in that job for a year until Sikorsky was bought out by Wright and the plant was moved.
Maryan landed his first job in the hotel business in 1930—a start that led to his ultimate civilian occupation as hotelier. He began at the bottom again as a roll boy with a high, puffy, white, chef’s hat, passing hot rolls from table to table in the restaurant. By 1933, he had climbed slowly through the ranks to become dining room captain at the Paradise Show Boat in Troy, New York during the fall season and took another step up, though a temporary one, working under a Hungarian maitre d’hotel at the famous kosher Laurel-in-the-Pines Hotel in Lakewood, New Jersey. He was assistant captain at the door for the 1934 New Year’s holiday. His excellent language skills had been attractive, but the job at Laurel-in-the-Pines was short-lived, and Maryan was back in New York looking for work again along with thousands of others in the mid-depression winter of 1934. Like thousands of others, Maryan moved from scarce job to scarce job as businesses struggled with the weak economy and many closed. In the Carlyle Hotel he served as a busboy collecting dirty dishes, then moved a step higher as the comie who traveled back and forth from the kitchen carrying the heavy trays with hot food. Maryan worked well in this system where the waiters were regarded as chef du rang (literally, chefs of rank) reporting to the table captain who reported to the maitre d’hotel. This highly structured organization with clear lines of responsibility and uniforms and ranks had a natural feel to a young man who had been schooled in military academies with the sons of military officers. His fluency in five languages set him apart from the rest and got him into places few others could go. He made face-to-face contact with some of the world’s most prominent businessmen, industrialists, and government officials, and those who traveled with them. Maryan enjoyed their company and he became popular with those he met and served.
In 1937, Maryan was on duty and standing in the lobby of the St. Moritz Hotel just across from Central Park in New York City when he recognized one of the former guests he knew to be an agent of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. The man was there to inform Maryan that the name Maryan Franciscus Brandstetter was not found in the new social security system during an FBI investigation in preparation for J. Edgar Hoover’s visit. A further investigation into the files of the Immigration and Naturalization Service indicated that Maryan was in the country illegally. An astonished Maryan produced his visa which had been issued in 1928, but it had indeed expired many years ago. He was subject to deportation back to his native country.
Maryan argued that since his father had become an American citizen, his son should automatically be awarded citizenship, but Maryan had been seventeen years old when his father had filed his papers—too old to be considered a part of his family.
The agent suggested that Maryan might find an eligible, young American girl, marry her, and claim citizenship as the husband of an American National, just as Ferenc had done. Maryan recalled the bitter exchange with his father, and now it all began to make sense. Was Ferenc using that girl? Probably. He didn’t know.
Maryan was still officially a citizen of Hungary, but he could not return there because he had dropped out of the military academy at Köszeg when he left for America. He had been sixteen years old then and did not sign up for the draft when he was seventeen. Since the draft was compulsory for all Hungarians, Maryan could go to prison if he returned to his native land. Or worse, he could be drafted into Hitler’s Nazi army.
The FBI agent warned Maryan that he would have only ninety days after receiving the deportation order. Luckily, the annual quota of for Hungarian immigrants not been filled since 1924, but Maryan would be required to apply for a visa at an embassy somewhere outside the country. He could remain there for a short time, get his new visa, and then cross the border back into the United States where he could apply for citizenship.
Maryan left the country without delay, traveled to Montreal and checked into the Hotel Mount Royal for three weeks of relaxation and celebration. After returning to the United States on October 1, 1937, he began the application process he should have started many years before.
Fatherlands
Hitler reasoned that war was necessary because the German Fatherland needed “Lebensraum,” vital living space. Since he considered the people living to the east of Germany to be subhuman, he determined that they were to become servants to the Aryan master race. Jews were simply to be eliminated. On March 12, 1938, the Germans moved against Austria and began increasing pressure on Czechoslovakia. During the following spring of 1939, the Germans marched in and seized control of the whole country. When Hitler handed out huge monetary gifts to his generals, some invested in real estate, including the purchases of large estates in Poland and other Eastern territories. Estates that had been the homes of Maryan’s Drag-Sas Hubicki ancestors were among those taken by the Nazis.
Maryan’s contacts through the St. Moritz revealed an opening at the Roney Plaza in Miami which would be a step up professionally, so Maryan made the long trip southward by train and went to work for hotel manager Eddie Jouffret who had been a cavalry captain in the French Army during World War One. Maryan worked there for two seasons before making the trip northward again to enter into a new venture—one that would find him as a part owner and not merely on someone else’s payroll. In May of 1939, Maryan and his former roommate William “Willy” Palmer formed the Champlain Corporation which assumed the lease of the failing Bluff Point Hotel on the beautiful Lake Champlain near Plattsburg, New York. They reopened it as the Hotel Champlain and drew many influential and famous customers down from Montreal and up from New York, including columnist Walter Winchell who mentioned their business in syndicated newspapers—international advertisement that money could not buy.
Lieutenant General Hugh A. Drum, chief of staff to General “Blackjack” Pershing, held a formal military dining out which was featured in Life magazine. Conversations around the tables that evening were in French, Italian, and German. Lieutenant General Friedrich von Boetticher, the German military attaché, and Colonel Vincenzo Coppola, Italian military attaché might have felt alone in their own world when they spoke to each other in their native languages, but they were not. Maryan understood every word and was fascinated when he heard General Boetticher claim boldly that the Americans would present no threat when the war began. Boetticher and Coppola chuckled at the idea that the Americans were drilling with wooden rifles and dummy tanks. Maryan was troubled and confused as he poured their wines and listened, but the world would soon learn what they were talking about.
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, without a declaration of war. Two days later, France and Britain declared war on Germany. A second world war had begun. Thousands of miles away, business at the Lake Champlain Hotel in Plattsburgh, New York became an early casualty of the war in Maryan’s former fatherlands. By the summer of 1940, the German blitz of London had begun and daily radio reports were ominous. Reservations were cancelled and the rooms were left vacant. Maryan’s livelihood was in jeopardy, so he and Willy Palmer salvaged as much of their investment as they could and closed down their business.
Maryan returned to New York and renewed a friendship and partnership with Dr. Eugene Hegy at the St. Moritz Hotel. As the war in Europe escalated, U.S. Navy sailors and officers in full uniform frequently visited the hotel and told Maryan many tales to lure him in, but naval service was counter to his family tradition, so he rejected the idea.
New Fatherland — New Name
Maryan Brandstetter proudly volunteered and was inducted into the U.S. Army on January 15, 1941 as a “Buck Private.” He was not drafted, as millions were when the Selective Service law came into effect later. By that time, he already had his uniforms and was waiting for his official reporting date.
Within a short time after Maryan enlisted, Dr. Hegy crossed the St. Moritz Hotel lobby to where Maryan was sitting and told him there was a visitor who had chosen to remain outside on the street—a visitor who claimed to be Maryan’s father. Maryan shook his head. He hadn’t seen his father in years and doubted that Ferenc could have located him.
Ferenc Brandstetter was indeed waiting on the street outside the St. Moritz Hotel and got straight to the point, demanding to know for certain if Maryan had joined a foreign army. Maryan confirmed that he had joined the United States Army and asked how his father had learned of this, but Ferenc had other things on his mind that day. He called his son a Dumkopf—an idiot—and warned that Germany was bound to win.
Maryan argued that the United States was not a foreign country, that the United States of America was Maryan’s fatherland now, and asked his father if the same country was not Ferenc’s fatherland—the fatherland he had married into.
Ferenc did not have a suitable answer, and he was fuming angrily when he growled that Maryan’s bones would rot on the steppes of Russia. Ferenc then left abruptly without another word, and the two men would never see each other again.
Dr. Hegy was watching from just inside the door to the St. Moritz and stood aside when Maryan approached with his head down, staring ahead like he was in a daze. There was a place on military records identifying somebody to contact in case of an emergency. Since his father did not seem to be a part of Maryan’s life, he needed a name and address to put there. Dr. Hegy agreed to serve in that capacity and Maryan was most grateful.
Maryan reported to Fort Dix, New Jersey for processing along with hundreds of others, most of whom were considerably younger. He and the others were proudly wearing the ill-fitting, light tan uniform of Army Private soldiers, but Maryan was not yet a legal U.S. citizen. That was unfinished business he felt compelled to attend to, so in March of 1941, he waited his turn in a long line of like-minded individuals until he finally appeared before an overworked and impatient Federal Judge Knox who sat high above him like a god wearing a long black robe and exuding authority. The obviously stern judge looked down at the nervous spectacle in his Army uniform and asked Maryan to state his full name.
Ordinarily, this would have been an easy question to answer, but suddenly this bright young man was befuddled. He had been known for years as Maryan Franciscus Brandstetter, but his christened name, his legal name in Hungary, was so complicated that he stammered when he tried to remember: Maryan Franciscus Otto Josephus Wladyslaw Brandstetter Drag-Sas Hubicki.
The judge shook his head and advised Maryan that people didn’t use all those names in America. He looked down at the papers before him and began to write. He rejected the first name Maryan because people would think he was a girl. Since Franciscus means Frank in English, that would be his official first name. His middle name would be spelled M-A-R-Y-A-N to distinguish Frank from the women. Since his father’s last name was Brandstetter, that would also be the legal last name of his son. Judge Knox wrote the full name Frank Maryan Brandstetter on the forms and instructed the young man: “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.” The formal oath followed and was repeated with a thick German accent.
Within a few minutes, the United States had another devoted citizen, Frank Maryan Brandstetter.
Chapter 2
World War Two
“… I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; … so help me God.”
Private Frank M. Brandstetter was immediately shipped out to Fort Benning, Georgia, the home of the 68th Light Tank Regiment in General George S. Patton’s new 2nd Armored Division. His initial test scores proved that he was obviously bright, so the personnel officer grabbed him from the ranks and assigned him a Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) of clerk-typist where he could be of most benefit to the personnel officer. This was not at all what the young private had in mind for a military career and he tried everything he could short of insubordination to get assigned to the tanks he was admiring across the post. He volunteered for a compromise position as one of the so-called “Green Hornet” motorcycle dispatch carriers. Given the choice, this was a much more appealing assignment than sitting in an administrative office somewhere pressing on typewriter keys. Besides, he was still working for the personnel officer who knew how to promote his men in record time.
The U.S. Army was ill-prepared to handle the large influx of inductees, so the War Department released all volunteers over 27 years old to make room for the mass of new, younger, recruits. At 29 years of age, “Buck Sergeant” Brandstetter fell into this category, so he was mustered off of active duty and assigned to Company C of the 7th Regiment in the New York Army National Guard. That return to civilian life would be a short one, however. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States declared war. Sergeant Frank Brandstetter had three stripes on the sleeve of his Army uniform when he was recalled to active duty and returned to Fort Dix on January 15, 1942 to be immediately shipped out. This time, his assignments were more appropriate, he thought. He was assigned to the newly created 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion in the 3rd Armored Division at Camp Polk, Louisiana, but not as a typist nor as a motorcycle courier. He was assigned to the Battalion Intelligence section, the S-2 section. His intensive training under a tough sergeant-major involved the use of high explosives in very realistic anti-tank warfare. These tactics were under the guidance of battle-hardened British officers who taught their students to survive under live fire, battlefield conditions.
A bright, serious, mature soldier with a thick accent and a command of several languages was noticeably different from the typical recruit off of the American streets and farms. Wiser use of these unique abilities might have been in the officer career fields where such a man could lead and teach using his rich background in the very parts of the world where the war was about to be fought. This possibility did not escape the attention of Colonel Yeoman, the commander of the 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, so he suggested, gently at first, that Technical Sergeant Brandstetter should apply for Officers Candidate School (OCS). When the gentle suggestion was summarily dismissed, Colonel Yeoman ordered Brandstetter to apply and made sure he appeared before the selection board of five officers.
2nd Lieutenant Brandstetter
Frank Brandstetter graduated from Officers Candidate School as a Cavalry 2nd Lieutenant in December of 1942, and immediately volunteered for parachute training, but was denied because, at age 30, he was considered to be too old. He was assigned instead to the automotive maintenance department of a tank destroyer school. After only two months on the job, he was awakened in the middle of the night by an FBI agent and told to report to Camp Ritchie, Maryland to be trained as an intelligence officer. His security background investigation had revealed his multilingual abilities—particularly his ability to speak, read, and write the German language. He graduated from the Military Intelligence Training Center (MITC) early in October of 1943, was awarded the appropriate Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) of 9300, and was assigned there as an instructor of German tactics.
Soon after, he was ordered by his commander, Colonel C. Y. Banfill, to observe the 2nd Army’s war games maneuvers in the field in Tennessee, and to assess the way 2nd Army’s G-2 Intelligence officers functioned. Brandstetter studied the unit training manuals during his long ride southwest to Camp Campbell which straddled the Kentucky-Tennessee border. Platoon leadership exercises were on the list. He counted the days on his fingers using the dates on the training narrative as reference. Two weeks. Something called “Cav Rcn Platoon Combat Firing Proficiency Tests” were to take place for four days. Camp Campbell had a large firing range over many acres. Then another item caught his eye. “Infiltration (Day and Night)” stood out just above a line that read “Required Tests, Combat in Cities.” Camp Campbell was an enormous place, but there were no cities there. That training must be conducted off post, he surmised, and he was correct.
Soon after Brandstetter arrived at Camp Campbell, he was seated in a jeep that was a part of a convoy across northern Tennessee to the vicinity of a small city named Gallatin. The unit he was observing would pitch their tents and bivouac in the fields and woods not far from the city in preparation for their training exercise with the local population. Military Intelligence Teams were supposed to seek out and gather pertinent data and information about the enemy—in this case, the residents of Gallatin, Tennessee. IPW teams were supposed to interrogate enemy prisoners, and Order of Battle teams were supposed to redact their findings into objectives and battlefield tactics. None of the residents were captured as enemy prisoners, of course, so that item on the syllabus was conveniently ignored. The IPW team was able to capture a significant supply of barbecued meat and an assortment of sauces which they would not include in their reports. The local exercise “enemies” were more than happy to surrender these delicacies in exchange for some local currency.
This phase of the exercise continued for several days until the unit folded its tents, formed the convoy, and traveled across Tennessee to another small town named Leeville, where they repeated their so-called training in capturing and consuming local products like country fried catfish. Their training narrative report was “highlighted by a tactical crossing of the Cumberland River, establishment and defense of a bridgehead, combat command in withdrawal, and assault of a fortified area”—the sleepy farm village of Leeville, Tennessee.
Brandstetter’s report to the assembled generals and senior officers at the after-action conference was truthful but embarrassing to those in charge. Their so-called integrated Intelligence in the field was a sham. In return for stating the obvious facts, the second lieutenant was immediately transferred far enough away that his words would not likely threaten them again. Brandstetter thanked his commanding officer for shipping him out.
Broadway
Orders assigning Brandstetter to Broadway, England listed his rank as 1st Lieutenant. They were dated 19 October 1943 and his official duty was listed as “Interrogator, enemy PW,” (IPW) as were the other officers and NCOs who had graduated from the school at Camp Ritchie. Broadway, England was a small town northwest of Oxford in the beautiful and historical Cotswold countryside—peaceful and antiquated and formal and 90 miles from besieged London. Lieutenant Brandstetter found himself relegated to duties much like a hotel manager, finding and assigning billeting for the visiting U.S. officers and NCOs. He stayed in the Lygon Arms, an inn that had been built in 1532 and had retained its splendor and antiquities.
Although the Field Intelligence Detachment (FID) replacements who were transferred over from the states were using real enemy prisoners as part of their training, the most important captives were shipped elsewhere. Each class of trainees was exposed to the same set of prisoners who had long since learned to handle the situation on their own terms. As a result, the interrogations were repetitious, asking the same questions and listening to the same useless answers.
Brandstetter searched for an alternative, and fate worked in his favor. The British Colonel Victor Jones had been severely wounded in the African campaign and had been shipped back to his home at Broadway where he mingled with and encouraged his American counterparts. Accepting Brandstetter’s invitation, Colonel Jones met him at the Lygon Arms for tea. Through this connection, Brandstetter was able to become socially acquainted with Lord Ismay, a man of status and influence. Through Ismay’s connections, he became officially assigned for temporary duty to the London Cage, a group of four buildings near Hyde Park. His temporary commander was the British Lieutenant Colonel A. P. Scotland of British Military Intelligence (MI).
A massive MI Headquarters facility had been constructed by breaking through common walls in the basements and connecting the buildings into a complex complete with an officer’s dining hall and classrooms. There was a single, well-guarded entrance from the outside, and the most secret of all British Intelligence operatives resided there. Some of these men would become known worldwide as the Phantoms after the invasion at Normandy. Although this was not their official title, Field Marshal Montgomery would find it appropriate to characterize their operations, and the name would stick.
All of the most important POWs were brought to London for special handling—German admirals, generals, scientists, engineers, and Nazi Party officials—and they were placed in another row of buildings across the park from Colonel Scotland’s MI-19 section. Those buildings had also been adapted by removing some of the adjacent walls and installing cages. It was here that Brandstetter would be introduced to the British MI methods.
British Intelligence agents were world travelers. Special Air Services (SAS) units would be dispatched wherever the trouble was, sometimes jumping from planes in the dead of night into hostile territory to learn from a close-up, personal experience. They would operate on both sides of the battle lines. The difference in doctrines and tactics between the British SAS, who parachuted into the battles, and those of their “ground pounding” American counterparts in the Cotswalds was embarrassingly clear.
Brandstetter learned that General Ridgway had created the 101st Airborne Division by splitting the officer cadres of the 82nd. Ridgway had sent Major General William C. Lee to England to take charge of developing and training the new division. These were no longer experimental units. The 82nd had been tested in battle, and the United States had learned of the value of airborne forces, but there was nothing in the U.S. Army yet that was anything like the tried and true British SAS units, or their Phantoms. Brandstetter recognized the absolute necessity of these missing pieces, but he knew that his commander at Broadway would not approve of any sweeping changes, so he did not ask for permission. He borrowed a jeep and drove to the 101st headquarters at Swindon, England. When he arrived there, he requested a conference with General Lee, and permission was granted. The lowly lieutenant was led through a magnificent, castle-like dwelling and into a massive and ornate study where he found the general slouched in a high-backed chair with his shiny jump boots propped on top of a wooden table. Those distinctive boots had become a status symbol.
“My idea, sir,” Lieutenant Brandstetter began. He searched for just the right words. “There should be parachute trained intelligence teams that jump with the combat regiments and go to work immediately on the front lines. We need to go through jump school—my men and me.”
The general shook his head and told Brandstetter that once he was assigned to the military intelligence career field, he was stuck in intelligence for the duration.
Brandstetter argued that airborne divisions should have their own field interrogation units, like the British, because the American Army was wasting time—maybe wasting lives—bringing those POWs all the way back to England, questioning them, and then waiting again for the information to be passed through channels back down to the troops on the battlefield. Those in the field could be blundering into anything, and their lives could be saved if that information was available to them before the dangers occurred.
General Lee sat motionless, staring directly at the shiny, new 1st Lieutenant bars, a tell-tale sign of a recent promotion, but Brandstetter was older than a typical lieutenant and his demeanor was more mature. The general thought about this for a moment or two, but it seemed much longer to Brandstetter.
“Sir, we speak German. We can read their maps and documents, and we can find where their fire power and supplies are.” Brandstetter recalled the bitter clash he’d had with the senior officers in his own intelligence unit, and he was beginning to fear that General Lee shared their opinions, but he didn’t.
“I need to know what equipment they’re going to need in country and how they operate, who they report to, what kinds of information they get their hands on, and what it can do for us. You understand me?” the general said sternly.
“Yes, sir,” Brandstetter said with sudden confidence. “Teams have two officers and four senior noncoms traveling in two jeeps. We’re all self-contained. We need to screen the prisoners before they go the rear holding areas—before they have a chance to collaborate with each other. IPWs will report to the regimental commanders’ S-2, or to the division G-2, whichever works best. Trained FID specialists will interview the prisoners, interpret their captured maps and photographs, and put it all together with details from the German order of battle. The commanders in the field will be the first to know if anything is coming down on their heads, then we’ll pass the information on up the chain.”
General Lee leaned back and thought for a moment. Brandstetter was not certain if he’d struck out until the general nodded faintly and said, “Bob Sink, ... Colonel Robert Sink is commander of the 506th Parachute Regiment, and he’s going to make the jump with his men when the time comes. Sink is sending a class through primary jump school in two weeks. How many slots you want?”
“Six, sir.”
The First Long Step
Climbing the narrow, removable steps up into the C-47 “tail dragger” was the second of many surprises that challenged Brandstetter during the next several days. Getting up onto the transport’s slanting cargo compartment with parachutes strapped to his body was an awkward, unnatural body maneuver. The first surprise had been when none of the other commissioned officers in his FID unit had volunteered. So, as the highest ranking member of the team, he was to be the “stick leader”—the last in and the first out followed by his five IPW Non-Commissioned Officer volunteers who would exit from the same doorway. It would be a lot easier getting out than getting in, he hoped.
Take-off was uneventful for anybody who had flown in a military transport. Engine thrust jostled everybody toward the rear of the airplane when the brakes were released, and muscles tensed involuntarily as the plane rocked across the grassy surface. As soon as the wheels lifted off, and the engines were throttled back from take-off power to a cruise setting, everything seemed to be at a tentative peace again—for the moment—but every soul on board was filled with expectation. Twenty minutes to the drop zone. Brandstetter looked over the youthful faces of his volunteers. He was proud of every one of them. They were “gung-ho” young men and they had spirit and a sense of values and responsibility. They were true patriots—all of them.
Ten minute warning. Time passed slowly. “Six minutes,” the jumpmaster yelled finally and held six fingers upward before raising his hands like a choir director. Every man in the stick released his seat belt, dutifully stood up and faced the rear of the aircraft. On cue, each jumper fastened his static line around the heavy cable near the top of the cargo compartment and locked it. Each man complied with the check-list items by the numbers, tugging at the restraints on the next man in the stick, visually checking for anything out of order, and then slapping the next man’s shoulder to reassure him that everything was ready.
“Ready,” Brandstetter thought. “What am I doing here? Hell, if I was a Navy Lieutenant mess officer in New York, I could be at the club with the rest of those jokers.”
The jumpmaster held one finger aloft for all to see. “One minute!” he yelled, trying to make his voice heard over the sound of the engines. He grasped Brandstetter’s arm and firmly led him to the open doorway in the side of the airplane.
A quick glance down below showed the peaceful English countryside with grazing sheep and cattle. That was all well and good, but his attention was immediately focused inside the aircraft where he pressed his hands against the sides of the doorway to steady himself as the plane bounced in the unstable air. What if he fell out clumsily? What would his men think of that? He was supposed to be their example—their fearless leader—and he had to do it right. He looked back over the rest of the stick, and the men were all looking back at him. He nodded to reassure them, but they didn’t move. Perhaps they were questioning his judgment.
“Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six!” the jumpmaster yelled rhythmically as he backed away and continued his countdown. Brandstetter leaned through the opened doorway and waited for the green light and the bell. When the bell sounded, he didn’t hesitate. He didn’t know why. Perhaps it was just training. He didn’t know, but he felt the slip stream jerk him away and he fell for a second before he was jerked backward and upright when the static line ripped open his chute pack and the wrinkled, white, silk streamed out. It rippled only for another moment or two as Brandstetter looked upward at it instinctively. Then the white, silk canopy suddenly opened like a giant mushroom, jerking his body violently and forcing his chin downward onto his chest. Suddenly, all was quiet and peaceful as he swayed gently in his suspended harness and drifted downward.
Far above him, the C-47 continued away as the rest of the stick jumped out into the slip-stream with arms and legs protruding at odd angles. Some of the men were sideways and others were almost upside down when their static lines pulled their chutes open and the men’s bodies jerked upright and then swayed momentarily before settling into their final smooth descent.
The parachute ride down toward the smoke pot on the drop zone took less than a minute, but it seemed like an eternity as Brandstetter tried to recall everything he’d been taught in the safety and comfort of the classroom. “Don’t lock your knees,” he thought and grasped the lines above his head. The ground had seemed to be far, far away only moments earlier. Now, it was coming up at him like an enormous wall that was about to slam into his body. He pressed his knees together and prepared for the jolt, and it was there an instant later. His body crumbled under his weight and he fell onto his side as the chute pulled him along. Brandstetter did not remember what happened next. Perhaps he acted according to instinct, or perhaps his training had become an integral part of his autonomic system, but he did it right. He pulled the lines and dumped the air out of the chute. “I’m okay,” he assured himself, and then he suddenly remembered. What about the rest?