OSS Officers Watch as Viet Minh Practice Throwing Grenades
8/17/1945
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The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a predecessor of the modern CIA, was a U.S. intelligence-gathering agency during World War II. The OSS enlisted Ho Chi Minh to broadcast radio reports on weather and Japanese troop movements to U.S. intelligence operatives stationed in China. Later, his Viet Minh (a national independence coalition dominated by communists) guerrillas joined forces with an OSS team.
The OSS team supplied a group of 200 Viet Minh guerrillas with American weapons and training. These fighters, many of them barefoot, impressed the Americans by how quickly they learned to fire the American M-1 rifle and M-1 carbine and to use mortars, grenades, bazookas and machine guns.
The OSS team supplied a group of 200 Viet Minh guerrillas with American weapons and training. These fighters, many of them barefoot, impressed the Americans by how quickly they learned to fire the American M-1 rifle and M-1 carbine and to use mortars, grenades, bazookas and machine guns.
This primary source comes from the Records of the Office of Strategic Services.
Full Citation: Soldiers Practice Grenade Training, Deer Team; 8/17/1945; Kunming-SO-OP-10-Deer; Field Station Files, 1943 - 1945; Records of the Office of Strategic Services, Record Group 226; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. [Online Version, https://docsteach.org/documents/document/oss-watch-viet-minh-practice-grenades, March 28, 2023]Rights: Public Domain, Free of Known Copyright Restrictions. Learn more on our privacy and legal page.
