The Phantom
The Untold Story of the American Marine the Nazis Could Not Kill
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- Vorbestellbar
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- Erwartet am 6. Okt. 2026
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- CHF 16.00
Beschreibung des Verlags
Soldier, spy, scout, saboteur, and French Resistance leader in the heart of Nazi-occupied Europe--the untold story of Marine legend Pete Ortiz.
Major Pierre “Pete” Ortiz was a Manhattan-born and Paris-educated polymath fluent in five languages. An adventuresome French Foreign Legion veteran specifically recruited by "Wild" Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services (the precursor to both the CIA and U.S. Special Forces) upon his enlistment in the Marines, Ortiz was the officer “Wild Bill” instinctively knew he needed and could rely on to complete a string of clandestine missions.
While recuperating from gunshot wounds received during a behind-the-lines excursion into enemy-held North Africa, Ortiz delivered his After-Action Report directly to Donovan in Washington. After reading it, “Wild Bill” scrawled across the top of the report: “Please re-employ this man as soon as possible.” Ortiz’s handlers heeded Donovan’s request. Within a year Ortiz was surreptitiously parachuted into the Haute Savoie region of Occupied France, where he made contact with the resistance fighters who called themselves Maquisards.
By the time he retired as a United States Marine Corps colonel, he received two Navy Crosses for extraordinary heroism in World War II. He was one of the very few U.S. Marines to serve in combat in Europe during World War II, and one of the most decorated Marine officers of the war.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Feats of daring-do abound in this rollicking WWII chronicle. Historians Drury and Clavin (coauthors of Throne of Grace) recap the exploits of U.S. marine turned OSS spy Pete Ortiz. Even leaving aside his youthful gig as a lion tamer, Ortiz's résumé is the stuff of several Hollywood thrillers; early in the war, he fought in the French Foreign Legion, had a ship torpedoed out from under him, was captured, and escaped to lead camel-riding commandos against Rommel's Afrika Korps. That's just the prelude to the main act: in 1944, Ortiz parachuted into occupied France to organize Resistance units—so successfully and elusively that his enemies dubbed him Das Fantom. The task required many a mission impossible, from blowing up troop trains to hanging out in swank cafés, posing as a dissolute Parisian fashion designer while plying Wehrmacht officers with champagne and worming intelligence out of them. (Ortiz could also turn ornery in these settings, Drury and Clavin report, as when he entered a bar dressed brazenly in his Marine uniform, leveled his Colt .45 at a table of Nazis and forced them to drink to the health of President Roosevelt.) Ortiz's story writes itself, but Drury and Clavin deftly assist with rich historical background and punchy prose. The result is a cinematic saga of a real-life hero who puts James Bond to shame.
