OSS (Office of Strategic Services) Field, Training, & Doctrine Handbooks, Treatments and Manuals

OSS (Office of Strategic Services) Field, Training, & Doctrine Handbooks, Treatments and Manuals

The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) is often called America's first intelligence agency. Founded during World War II, The Office of Strategic Services, better known by its acronym OSS, was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The OSS was formed to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines. The Agency defined itself as, "The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) is an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff charged with collecting and analyzing strategic information and secret intelligence required for military operations, and with planning and executing programs of physical sabotage and morale subversion against the enemy to support military operations."

This collection includes a total of 3,275 pages. All computer recognizable text, transcriptions, reproduced printed text, and description sheets in the collection are searchable.

OSS Field, Training, & Doctrine Manuals 2,153 pages in 29 OSS publications. Highlights include:

Simple Sabotage Manual 1944-01-17 Field Manual - Strategic Services (Provisional) (1944) - The purpose of this manual is to characterize simple sabotage, to outline its possible effects, and to present suggestions for inciting and executing it.

Abstract: Sabotage varies from highly technical coup de main acts that require detailed planning and the use of specially trained operatives, to innumerable simple acts which the ordinary individual citizen-saboteur can perform. This paper is primarily concerned with the latter type. Simple sabotage does not require specially prepared tools or equipment; it is executed by an ordinary citizen who may or may not act individually and without the necessity for active connection with an organized group; and it is carried out in such a way as to involve a minimum danger of injury, detection, and reprisal.


Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Weapons Instructions & Ordnance Catalog - A 111-page OSS illustrated manual covering personal weapons, harassing agents, incendiaries, automotive attack, explosives, firing devices, and accessories. The document was produced by the Special Weapons and Devices Research and Development Branch Office of Strategic Services, Washington D.C. in June 1944

A Selected Who's Who in Vichy, France, June 1940-August 1944 (1994) - Lists of the top personnel of the Vichy government (the French State under Nazi collaborator control), diplomatic service, press, radio, and political parties, with an accompanying alphabetical Who's Who.

Assessment of Men - Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services written by the OSS Assessment Staff - A 565-page report created by the OSS Assessment Staff in 1947 detailing the process in which OSS personnel were evaluated and selected.

Abstract: This volume is the account of how several psychologists and psychiatrists attempted to assess the merits of men and women recruited for the Office of Strategic Services. The undertaking is reported because it represents the first attempt in America to design and carry out selection procedures in conformity with so-called organismic (Gestalt) principles. As a novel experiment it might interest a wide range of readers, but more specifically we hope it will invite the attention of those who are concerned with the problem of predicting human behavior, especially if they are engaged in practicing and developing clinical psychology and psychiatry and in improving present methods of diagnosis, assessment, and selection. All told, 5,391 recruits were studied intensively over a three-day period at one station or over a one-day period at another. These were the two areas in the United States where the bulk of assessment was done. Of these the performances of 1,187 who went overseas were described and rated by their superior officers.

Secret Intelligence Field Manual-- Strategic Services (Provisional) (1944) - This manual sets forth the operational principles, methods, and organization of Secret Intelligence as a part of Strategic Services activities, exclusive of that obtained by counter-espionage methods, which is covered by a separate manual. Its purpose is to provide guidance to authorized Strategic Services personnel engaged in operational planning and training in Washington and at field bases. In view of its highly secret nature, this manual will be given a very limited distribution.

The other OSS publications include:

SO Branch OSS ETO Code Words and Operations

OSS Glossary of Initialisms, Abbreviations, and Acronyms

Special Operations Field Manual -- Strategic Services (Provisional) February 23, 1944

Dissolution of the Nazi Party and its Affiliated Organizations - Civil Affairs Guide (1944)

Japanese Social Structure (1947)

Morale Operations Field Manual-- Strategic Services (Provisional) (1943)

Office of Strategic Services - Reports - Hints on Life in Egypt

Office of Strategic Services OSS Organization and Functions (1945) 

OSS - Recruiting and Training Program for Communications Personnel-

Organization of Communications Branch (1942)        

The Protestant and the Catholic Churches in Germany – Civil Affairs Guide (1944)



Additional Material in this collection includes:

CIA Manuals, four CIA manuals:

CIA Operations Against Guerrilla Forces (1950)

CIA Headquarters Handbook - Procedures for Domestic Courier Operations (1968)

CIA Handbook for Special Operations Sudan September 1963 (1963)

CIA intelligence Handbook for Special Operations Somali Republic (1966)


NPS History

OSS Training in the National Parks and Service Abroad in World War II (2008)

A 712-page report produced in 2008 by the National Park Service covering the origins of the OSS and its use of National Parks for training and organization. 

Chapter headings include:

"Wild Bill" Donovan and the Origins of the OSS 

A Wartime Organization for Unconventional Warfare 

Converting Catoctin Mountain Park into Military Camps 

Instructing for Dangerous Missions 

Daily Life in Camp, Park and Town 

OSS in Action: Mediterranean and European Theaters 

OSS in Action: The Pacific and the Far East

Abstract: Because of the secrecy that enveloped the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in World War II, it surprises most people, including nearby residents, to learn that spies were trained in some of the National Parks—not just spies but guerrilla leaders, saboteurs, clandestine radio operators and others who would be infiltrated behind enemy lines.