Operation Underworld
How the Mafia and U.S. Government Teamed Up to Win World War II
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
For the first time ever the full story of how Charles “Lucky” Luciano—the U.S. Mafia boss who put the “organized” into organized crime—was recruited by U.S. Naval Intelligence in 1944 to aid the Allied war effort in the U.S. invasion of Sicily that was a turning point in WWII.
In 1942, fears were growing that New York Harbor was vulnerable to sabotage. If the waterfront was infested with German and Italian agents, the U.S. Navy needed a secret plan just as insidious to secure it.
Naval intelligence officer, Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden had the solution: recruit as his own spies, members of La Cosa Nostra. Pier to pier, no one terrified the longshoremen, stevedores, shopkeepers, and boat captains along the harbor better than the Mafia gangs of New York, who controlled the docks in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Haffenden was prepared to make a deal with the devil—the man who put “organized” into organized crime. Even from his cell in Dannemora State Prison, former Public Enemy #1, Charles “Lucky” Luciano still had tremendous power. Luciano was willing to wield it for Uncle Sam in exchange for a fullpardon. Haffenden, though, wanted something in return—Luciano’s contacts in Italy to track the Nazis’ movements. The victorious U.S. invasion of Sicily in July 1943 might have turned out differently without Luciano’s help.
Operation Underworld is a tale of espionage and crime like no other, the unbelievable, first-ever account of the Allied war effort’s clandestine—and improbably—coalition between the Mafia and the U.S. Government to help the Allies win World War II.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Black (Dave Beck: A Teamster's Life) spotlights in this colorful history the collaboration between the U.S. military and the Italian mob during WWII. Motivated by the sinking of the SS Normandie on the Hudson River in February 1942 and the torpedoing of 31 U.S. ships by German U-boats that same month, U.S. naval intelligence commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden enlisted the help of Joseph "Socks" Lanza, a member of the Luciano crime family who ran the Fulton Fish Market, in placing undercover agents in the Port of New York. At the urging of Lanza, Haffenden eventually recruited Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who still held "tremendous power" over the New York underworld from prison, into the operation. Though the threat of sabotage on New York's docks "decreased dramatically," Haffenden's aggressive actions, including breaking into foreign consulates and a push to get Luciano pardoned so he could join the Allied invasion of Sicily, made him enemies within naval intelligence. When word of Operation Underworld leaked in 1945, the Navy destroyed classified documents and threatened Haffenden with a court-martial if he spoke out. A winning mix of true crime, espionage, and military history, this WWII tale thrills.
