Oss in China

In this impressive work, Maochun Yu tells the dramatic story of the intelligence activities of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in China during World War II, drawing on recently released classified materials from the U.S. National Archives and on previously unopened Chinese documents to reveal the immense and complex challenges the agency and its director, General William Donovan, confronted in China.

First, he examines President Roosevelt's decision to dispatch emissaries to England, China, and the war-torn Mediterranean area in 1941. Then he depicts how Donovan used Koreans as surrogates in China to build an intelligence empire and explores the intricate espionage among the Americans, the British, the Chinese Nationalists, and the Chinese and Soviet Communists. Finally, Yu probes deeply into the demise of the OSS and the creation of the CIA.

This book is the first research-based narrative and analysis of America's wartime intelligence and special operations activities in the CBI and China theatres during World War II. It presents a complex and compelling story of conflicting objectives and personalities, inter-service rivalries, and crowning achievements of America's military, intelligence and political endeavors, the significance of which goes far beyond World War II and China.

About the Author
Maochun Yu is Professor of East Asia and Military History at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He is the author of The Dragon's War: Allied Operations and the Fate of China, 1937-1947 and OSS in China: Prelude to Cold War, as well as numerous articles on modern China and the military and intelligence history of World War II and the Cold War.