ISBN: 978-0-7864-2967-7
Pages: ix + 210

Acknowledgments; Foreword; Preface; Pronunciation; People and Organizations; photos; maps; Epilogue; Chapter Notes; Bibliography

   In 1999 we reviewed Albania at War, 1939-1945 by Bernd Fischer and rated it as one of the best books of the year. In 2006 we reviewed The OSS and Ho Chi Minh by Dixee Bartholomew-Feis and also rated it as one of the best books of the year. The OSS in World War II Albania seems in some ways the progeny of those two titles. In particular, in its coverage of Office of Strategic Services support for an indigenous communist insurgency against an Axis occupation force, it exhibits many parallels to the Bartholomew-Feis volume. It never quite rises to the same rarefied level of quality, but it does a good job telling the story of the OSS in Albania. What's more, Peter Lucas deserves extra praise for being the first author to disinter that forgotten history. (Even Fischer's excellent work makes no mention of the OSS.) As Lucas notes, Special Operations Executive officers in Albania were a literary-minded lot who wrote several books about the British role there. Enver Hoxha, the partisan leader who became the iron-fisted ruler of the nation and wrote his own unchallenged official version of events, dismissed the British and mostly ignored the OSS. None of the Yanks wrote a memoir (until a very recent self-published effort), so American involvement quickly faded from memory.
   In terms of focus and structure, Lucas writes much like Bartholomew-Feis. That is, he follows the successive threads of several individuals and mostly keeps his eye on events in the immediate vicinity of his protagonists. As in Vietnam, the story progresses in large measure as a series of overlapping efforts by separate individuals and groups who arrive on the scene one after the other.
   In this case, the tale begins with Dale McAdoo (codenamed Tank), leader of the first OSS mission to Albania in November 1943. In the early days, the operatives of both OSS and SOE used a coastal cave called Seaview as a base, arriving and departing by boat from Italy. While the British struggled to find a non-communist organization willing to fight the German occupation forces in Albania, the OSS began its own efforts to learn the lay of the land and set up an intelligence network capable of feeding HQ in Italy with every scrap of information about the Germans. Even in the early stages of the OSS operation, it appears intelligence-gathering functioned smoothly despite German anti-partisan operations, ongoing struggles between Albanian factions, and occasional friction between the Brits and Yanks.
   The second chapter introduces Nick Kukich, an American of Serbian descent who transferred from the Marines to the OSS. Lucas also introduces Anthony Quayle, a Shakespearean actor who became a popular motion picture star after the war. Quayle, serving with the SOE, was delivered to the base at Seaview aboard the same boat with Kukich. Quayle was to take over from the wounded British officer, Major Gerry Field, while Kukich helped expand OSS activities. This chapter also introduces Sterling Hayden, A Hollywood actor who joined the Marines and skippered boats making secret runs between Italy and the Balkan coast. Among other tensions, Quayle and Hayden later tangled over unloading of supplies and the failed evacuation of a number of former Italian soldiers who were to have been repatriated by the American actor. The Shakespearean's post-war book blamed Hayden for failing to make the pick-up, with the Italians subsequently rounded up and executed by the Germans, although the accuracy of the latter accusation remains open to interpretation.
   Kukich also got along poorly with Quayle, a relationship mirroring that between the OSS and SOE. In a dangerous environment fraught with shifting loyalties and deadly deeds, the higher-ranking British officers often tried to throw their weight around. On at least one occasion they seem to have convinced the Yanks to jettison their radios under false pretenses in order to ensure all communications went through SOE operators.
   The third chapter introduces US Army Lt Jim Hudson who arrived by boat at Seaview in March 1944. By this time McAdoo had already returned to Italy and Quayle needed to be evacuated due to malaria. Within a couple of weeks, the Germans launched an anti-partisan sweep in the coastal region around Seaview, forcing Hudson and Kukich to abandon the cave base. At the end of May both returned to Italy.
   While the British for the most part sent upper class amateur officers to Albania (or at least that's the way the Yanks perceived them), the OSS had the advantage of drawing on Albanian-born Americans and Americans born to Albanian immigrants, all of whom—unlike the Brits—spoke the local language. Among such men was Lt Tom Stefan who appears in the fourth chapter. Along with two radio operators, Stefan arrived at Seaview at the same time as Hudson, but on a separate mission. From this point, Lucas largely focuses on Stefan, including considerable biographical material on his life prior to joining the OSS.
   Stefan's mission, unlike the earlier intelligence-gathering operations, was to make direct contact with Enver Hoxha, leader of the partisans, which involved a long, difficult trek through mountainous terrain, a journey made more difficult by the same German offensive that displaced Hudson and Kukich from Seaview. Stefan's party eventually reached Hoxha, the man the OSS had decided to support. Although both the Yanks and the British would have preferred to deal with one of the other Albanian groups, Hoxha was the only one fighting the occupiers. The anti-communist Balli Kombetar collaborated with the Germans and fought the partisans while the Legaliteti refused to fight at all, hoping to conserve their strength to take over Albania at the end of the war. Unlike the OSS, the SOE continued to maintain links with all the factions, a stance that constantly angered the partisan leader. Consequently, "Hoxha disliked America, but he hated the British" is a sentiment Lucas reports repeatedly throughout the book.
   In any event, Tom Stefan was the first American to reach Hoxha's headquarters. That happened in April 1944, although Lucas doesn't provide the exact date.

   Stefan arrived at Hoxha's headquarters at Odrican in late April. Although there were several British SOE officers and men assigned to Hoxha headquarters, Stefan was the first American. Odrican was a well hidden small village of some twenty houses. The village was ringed by guards. It was where Hoxha and his staff conducted their war against the Germans. The British had been there for some time, assigned to a small house well away from the house Hoxha used as his headquarters. Hoxha appears to have given Stefan a warm welcome, at least warmer than the ever-suspicious leader of the Partisans ever gave the British. This may have been due to the fact that Stefan was the first American soldier to come to his headquarters. More than likely Hoxha probably extended his hand in friendship to Stefan because Stefan's parents were from Albania. And not only could Stefan speak Albanian, he spoke in Hoxha's own Tosk dialect. Hoxha was thirty-six years old at the time. He was six feet tall, which was taller than most Albanians. He some time ago had exchanged his Partisan makeshift outfit for the uniform of an officer. He was clean-shaven, as were most of the staff around him, and he was handsome. Stefan had just turned twenty-seven. At five feet, seven inches tall, he was shorter than Hoxha. His uniform was casual, as befitted a man who had marched for days over rugged Albanian mountain trails. On his left shoulder he wore a patch of the American flag, and it caught the attention of all the Partisans in the camp.
   Hoxha many years later would disparage Stefan in his memoirs, as he disparaged most of the people who helped him in his climb to power. But during the time that Stefan was with him as the key liaison with the OSS and the United States, Hoxha thought enough of Stefan to take him into his confidence when, of course, it suited his purpose. Stefan, throughout the time he was with Hoxha in the field, appeared to have cultivated a close but professional relationship with the Communist leader.

   Lucas devotes many pages to the quirky but relatively warm personal connection between Hoxha and Stefan as well as the constantly strained relationship between Hoxha and the western Allies. Stories of life at the rustic partisan headquarters also make interesting reading. Hoxha demanded increased supplies (the Brits retained responsibility for supplies and the Yanks dealt with intelligence) while insisting that he should have complete control over them with no strings attached. He insisted the Allies should abandon all missions to other factions. Hoxha also ordered the Americans to remove Albanian-born OSS men he deemed politically unreliable, and he only wanted US-born Albanian-Americans in his territory. At first glance this political paranoia appears completely groundless, but it turns out that an Albanian-born OSS radio operator apparently used his contacts with the Balli Kombetar in an effort to kill pro-partisan members of the team, including Nick Kukich after his return from Italy.
   In September 1944 Hoxha's partisan brigades began moving toward the capital, Tirana, for the climactic battle of the liberation of Albania. By this point, occupation units were already withdrawing from the country. Had Hoxha waited a little longer, the Germans would have departed on their own. However, his goal was not just liberation. He also wanted to rule the nation. By ordering his troops to Tirana, he set the stage for what Lucas calls "the biggest pitched battle of the war."
   The book mostly views the battle from the partisan perspective, and from that angle it was indeed a major engagement. Lucas also tends to accept the partisan claims about the ferocity of the fighting and the large numbers of enemy troops killed, captured, and dispersed into the hills where they could be hunted down. In fact, the garrison of Tirana comprised a weak force, many Germans seem to have withdrawn safely, casualties were not especially high, and most of the losses were actually caused by Allied air support called in by the OSS. Given that the wider evacuation of the southern Balkans was already underway, the fighting in Tirana was scarcely noticed in Berlin no matter how much inflated by the partisans.
   Nevertheless, it was the shining moment of triumph for Hoxha and his men, followed by a victory parade where Tom Stefan stood on the reviewing stand with the top partisan leaders. With the largest group of armed followers, with the wreath of victory, and with support—albeit grudging—from the US and UK, Hoxha became the undisputed strongman of Albania.
   Following liberation of the capital, the partisans continued to harass the Germans as they withdrew from northern Albania. Hoxha also dispatched two brigades to fight alongside Tito's men in Yugoslavia. At home, Hoxha promptly turned his attention to settling old scores with the monarchist Legaliteti and collaborationist Balli Kombetar. Reports from Tirana described the disappearance of old enemies, show trials, quick executions, and outright murder. Washington and London refused to recognize the Hoxha government, further increasing the partisan leader's paranoia about Allied intervention and strengthening his ties to the Soviets. Hoxha's relationships with the OSS men also soured.
   In particular, Hoxha turned against Stefan, the Albanian-American (now a captain) who had quickly transformed from liaison officer and confidant into a hard-drinking womanizer who spent most of his time socializing with relatively well-to-do, anti-communist circles in Tirana.

   In the days following their victory, the ANLA moved quickly to establish order in the city, putting the city and country under virtual martial law. Although Hoxha declared an amnesty for people who had sided or sympathized with the Balli Kombetar and the Germans, the "amnesty" was ignored or quickly forgotten. The ruthless Koci Xoxe, who was essentially an uneducated laborer, was named Minister of the Interior with full police powers. Hundreds of people were jailed, their homes ransacked and their property taken. Suspects were arrested on the street. There were reprisal killings and secret executions. People disappeared. While Partisan supporters celebrated the liberation of Tirana, thousands of other Albanians who had supported the opposition, or who had sat out the war, lived in fear. And well they should have. Among other things, the Partisans were anxious to find and punish the members of the Balli Kombetar who had killed some eighty Partisan supporters in the streets of Tirana on February 4, 1944. They wanted reprisals, and they got them....
   Many suspected collaborators in Tirana turned to the Americans and the British for help, claiming to have been duped by German propaganda into backing the Germans. They worked with the Germans, they said, in order to save their country from the destruction that would have followed had they opposed them. They had only the interests of Albania at heart, they said. Some of those who sought out the Allies were prominent Albanian businessmen who made money out of the war by selling goods to the Germans. But was that not to be expected? Others were landowners who had gravitated toward the Balli and the Germans because of the stability that they represented. Established old-line Albanian families, the elite of the country, with names like Toptani, Vrioni and Konitsa sought to work their way into the good graces of the Americans and the British as a means of protection. They were well-educated, well-to-do and they spoke English. They believed in democracy. They were also Balli Kombetar sympathizers who hated and feared the Communists. They threw fine parties for the Allied officers. They did not believe that the Allies would allow the Communists to take over the country, and they said so.
   Captain Stefan attended many of those parties, as did Lts. Kukich and O'Keefe. The three American officers were dashing and very popular. The three were young, unmarried and they had money. Stefan was especially well-liked. He was not only the ranking American officer in Albania, he was an Albanian-American who spoke the language. And he was charming. He was also close to Hoxha and the other Partisan leaders. He could get things done. He could pick up information. He also could pick up women, which he did. In no time at all he accumulated several attractive girlfriends. Some of these young women later paid dearly for their American friendships, including a woman friend of O'Keefe's.
   The Americans of the OSS in Tirana developed a routine as they sought to continue to gather information. They not only went to parties, but they hit the bars as well. OSS Sgt. Edward E. Nichols of Wisconsin, a radio operator who arrived in Tirana in January 1945, said, "There was little doubt in the minds of the Albanian authorities as to our mission—political intelligence. The OSS teams were welcome when the Partisans were in the hills fighting the Germans. Our teams could call for air strikes, supplies, even gold. But now they just wanted us to leave." Nichols said, "Most evenings we would make the rounds of what passed for night clubs, picking up such information as we could. We would always sign the bar checks. One of our group had the task each morning of going about town settling the bar checks that we had signed the night before."
   There came a time though when Kukich and O'Keefe, who were also not exactly known as wallflowers, decided they should cut back on attending the parties and hitting the nightclubs because the Communists frowned on Allied fraternization with Balli sympathizers. Fultz did too. Being strait-laced Communist ascetics, they also looked down on the open social contact between the Allies and Albanian women. Increasingly Albanians who fraternized with the Americans and the British were subjected to questioning by Albanian authorities.

   Tom Stefan and the remainder of the OSS team were withdrawn from Albania in September 1945 in the face of increasing official hostility. In October 1946 the last Americans departed, and Enver Hoxha sealed the borders, turning Albania into a fortress-like Stalinist state for forty-five years.
   In the closing chapters, Lucas wraps up the lives of all the characters, many of whom he interviewed for the book. In particular, he follows the remaining years of Stefan's life. The captain married his Albanian girlfriend, Lulu Vrioni, in a quickie ceremony in Tirana and smuggled her out of the country when he left. From Rome they returned to the United States, but Stefan was unable to land a permanent job with the OSS or the State Department, because until the US government recognized the Hoxha government little need existed for Albanian experts. He and Lulu lived out of a suitcase and his heavy drinking worsened. He worked briefly for the Veterans Administration, but lost his job. Lulu left him. Although no longer in the Army, he began wearing his old uniform and claimed to be working as a purchasing agent for the government. Somewhere along the line he promoted himself to major. He visited his old OSS buddies, borrowing money and passing bad checks. In 1959 he died on the street in Los Angeles, homeless and alone in a world that had completely forgotten about isolated Albania and his mission to Enver Hoxha.

   Tom Stefan was buried September 14, 1959, in the Union Cemetery in Laconia. The cemetery is located just off the center of town behind the courthouse, not far from where Stefan once lived. Taps were sounded by a bugler from the local Salvation Army Corps. His sisters attended the burial, as did a few friends from New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Lulu Vrioni did not attend. Nor did any of Stefan's comrades from the OSS. They did not know he had died.

   Lucas could have improved his book with tighter copyediting (but that's a common refrain these days, so we probably sound like a broken record). He also writes "Hoxha disliked Americans, but he hated the British"—or words to that effect—in approximately a thousand different places. While this is never a book of precise dates and exact numbers, in a couple of passages it seems as though the author might have mixed up his chronology. For example, speaking of April 1944, he refers to the German army as "retreating from the Soviet Union following the mauling it received at the Battle of Stalingrad," which sounds slightly askew given all the events on the Russian Front after the surrender of 6th Army. Describing the earlier relationship between two protagonists during the Spanish Civil War, Lucas mistakenly considers the Loyalists to be fascists. (The Nationalists were fascists; the other side, the Loyalists or Republicans, were supported by the communists.) That mistake makes a hash of his explanation of how one British officer (described as being on the side of the Loyalists) supposedly fought against an Albanian leader (described as being on the side of the Republicans) in Spain.
   Those kinds of limitations prevent The OSS in World War II Albania from rising all the way to the level of The OSS and Ho Chi Minh, but this is still a very worthy effort. Lucas has unearthed much information on this topic not previously published anywhere. It's a fascinating subject with an interesting cast of characters. Anyone who reads the book will certainly learn a great deal about Office of Strategic Services activities in Albania, and those interested in the OSS in particular will absolutely want to acquire the volume. As an added attraction, near the end of his book Lucas turns his attention to the sad story of Tom Stefan, putting a very tragic human face on the tumultuous political upheaval in Albania at the end of the war.
   Don't expect perfection, but overall this book has a great deal going for it. Recommended.
   Available from online booksellers, local bookshops, or directly from McFarland & Company, Inc.
   Thanks to McFarland for providing this review copy.