Peter Ortiz’s path to becoming the most battle-decorated member of America’s first spy agency was unlike any other: merchant seaman, dude ranch manager, race car driver, lion tamer, Hollywood stuntman. As a teenager, he ran away to join the French Foreign Legion, fighting in the Sahara before being badly wounded and captured by the Germans in 1940. He escaped repeatedly, once by assuming a dead soldier’s identity on a hospital train. After docking in the US the day after Pearl Harbor, Ortiz enlisted in the Marines. Fluent in French, Arabic, German, and Spanish, he was recruited by the OSS for secret operations behind enemy lines. In 1944, Ortiz parachuted into occupied France — twice. Deep in enemy territory, he armed and trained the Maquis, blew up Nazi infrastructure, and aided downed Allied airmen. Rotating his many covers, he infiltrated Nazi gatherings while becoming one of the Gestapo’s most wanted. A rare Marine in the European Theater, he received two Navy Crosses. Ortiz’s story, an untold corner of World War II history, is one of extraordinary courage, resistance, and self-sacrifice.
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