The Holohan Murder Case - Mission Chrysler

Mission Chrysler

On September 27, 1944, four US soldiers; mission commander Major William V. Holohan, First Lieutenant Giannino, Second Lieutenant Aldo Icardi, and radio operator Carl G. LoDolce, along with three Italian agents parachuted into northern Italy near Coiromonte, a frazione of Armeno in the province of Novara. Holohan was a 40-year-old lawyer who had a peacetime reserve commission in the Cavalry. Twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant Icardi was the only mission member able to speak the dialect of the region. Lieutenant Giannino could speak Italian and LoDolce spoke Sicilian. Holohan was entrusted with about $16,000 worth of U.S. dollars, gold Louis d'ors, Swiss francs, and Italian lire to fund mission activities. Holohan insisted that his men wear their uniforms in accordance with OSS directives, to avoid being executed as spies if captured.

The situation in northern Italy, 600 miles (1,000 km) from the Allied armies, was particularly complex. There were four major anti-Fascist groups; Socialists, Action Party, Christian Democrat, and Communist, plus smaller groups under commanders with imprecise allegiances. Originally, Mission Chrysler was to establish a show of authority and liaison in the area in anticipation of an early Axis capitulation. When this did not happen, the mission was changed to assist the partisan units with arms and supplies.

German forces went after the Chrysler men, who had several narrow escapes from anti-partisan sweeps. At one point, the German's pinpointed the OSS transmitter to within 100 yards, but partisans intercepted three Germans and a Swiss interpreter with direction-finding gear. In December, an independent partisan leader called Cinquanta betrayed the Chrysler men to the Germans. Cinquanta was later assassinated.