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OSS Medical Intelligence in the Mediterranean Theater:
A Brief History
by JONATHAN D. CLEMENTE -- abstract

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Medical Services Branch was formally established under General Order No.9, Supplement 30, issued 26 January 1944. The fundamental responsibility of the Medical Services Branch was to "provide medical care for Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and unvouchered funds personnel of OSS." The Branch was also responsible for "requisitioning all medical personnel, equipment and supplies necessary for providing medical services for all authorized OSS activities; training medical personnel," and determining "the medical needs of resistance groups and in the procurement and distribution of suitable medical supplies for those groups." OSS medical personnel were in an unusual position to extend their activities beyond routine care by procuring medical and political intelligence, not readily attainable elsewhere.

The OSS Medical Intelligence Program in the Mediterranean theater (MEDTO), organized and directed by OSS Theater Surgeon Lt. Col. Walter Carpenter was, perhaps the greatest achievement of the branch in that theater. Carpenter’s medical intelligence program would become a model for the entire OSS Medical Service Branch. The medical intelligence procured by OSS was widely disseminated within the Theater and was of value not only in the hostilities period, but also in the post-hostilities period when various relief agencies were in need of vital data concerning health conditions in newly liberated territories.

The overall medical program in MEDTO exemplifies the scope and nature of OSS medical activities in all other theaters, and was the embodiment of the "global" medical service that General William Donovan and OSS Chief Surgeon, Col Sylvester Missal, had envisioned.