From baseball players to children’s authors to TV chefs to Jazz artists, numerous people went undercover to help fight World War II. This article sheds light on six amazing popular people who served as spies during World War II. Don’t be surprised to find that you know a couple of them.
1. Julia Child
Julia Mcwilliam, in 1942, served as a civilian volunteer in the Aircraft Warning Service, in charge of tracking shipping along Californian coasts and preventing enemy attacks. She applied to join the Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service but was rejected as too tall with her 6’3 height.
However, she got a job with the OSS as a research assistant to William Donovan. In 1943, she began to serve in the Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section, helping to develop ways for stranded pilots in remote locations to survive.
From 1944 until 1945, she got assignments in Sri Lanka and China, where she was responsible for top secret documents. During this time, she met Paul Child, who was also an OSS officer. They fell in love and got married.
She published her book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” which launched her career in 1961.
2. Roald Dahl
Before he became the children’s bestselling author, Roald Dahl was a member of a British spy ring. In 1939, he joined the Royal Air Force and trained as a fighter pilot. He was active in numerous combat missions before he sustained injuries while crash landing in a desert that ended his flying missions.
In 1942, he joined the British embassy in Washington, D.C. as an air attaché and in this role, he joined the British Security Connection, a spy network in charge of persuading the United Kingdom to participate in the war against Germany.
3. Morris “Moe” Berg
In 1942, after the United States joined World War II, Morris, the baseball star, joined an agency in charge of stopping enemy propaganda.
He became an OSS officer in 1943, where he worked to gain information in Europe on Nazi efforts at making an atomic bomb.
He also had the mission of killing Werner Heisenberg, the German physicist that the American government assumed to be in charge of making the atomic bomb. Morris felt that the Nazis couldn’t build the atomic bomb and spared the life of Werner Heisenberg.
4. Josephine Baker
Josephine McDonald was born poor and, in her early teens, got married. She toured the United States with troupes and eventually became famous in Paris in 1925.
She was popularly called Black Venus, and she became a celebrity, acting in movies and singing songs. She served as an operative for the French resistance in the war.
She travelled freely around Europe as a performer, hiding Jewish refugees, weapons and information written in invisible ink on her sheet music.
5. Graham Greene
Graham Greene was an established author when he joined the British secret intelligence service in 1941 as a spy.
He spent over a year in Sierra Leone, searching ships leaving Germany for smuggled diamonds and documents. After this, he returned to London and served alongside Harold “Kim” Philby.
His service in the war provided him with materials to write some of his best-selling works.
6. Arthur Goldberg
Arthur Goldberg worked in the OSS, developing an intelligence network with anti-Nazi European groups. He took a break from law school to join the army.
The OSS was disbanded after the war, and he returned back to his law school. He became an attorney and was appointed U.S. secretary of labour in 1961 by President John Kennedy.
In 1962, he was a supreme court Justice.
