Jedburghs

Parachutists of the American OSS and the British SOE who supported the resistance in occupied Europe during the Second World War.

The CIA glossary describes the Jedburghs as elite OSS and British SOE parachutists dropped into occupied Western Europe to coordinate supply drops, support guerrillas, carry out sabotage and help the advancing Allied armies.¹

According to a 2015 CIA article, the teams consisted of two to four men: usually an American OSS officer, a British officer and a Free French soldier, sometimes a Belgian, Dutch or Canadian soldier, with a radio operator and a radio set (the “Jed Set”) for communicating with London. The first team was dropped on the night before D-Day, and in 1944 more than 90 teams went into France; teams also operated in Belgium and the Netherlands. The origin of the name remains unclear – the CIA gives several hypotheses, including the Scottish town of Jedburgh.²

One of the Jedburghs was William Colby: in August 1944, at the age of 24, he led a team into France, and from 1973 to 1976 he was Director of the CIA. Many American Jedburghs joined the CIA after the war.²