U.S. Special Forces Commando: From OSS Agent in the Eastern Bloc to Airborne Soldier in Korea and Green Beret: The Cold War Service of Leif Bangsbøll

Chronicles the life of OSS agent Leif Bangsboll, from WWII espionage to Korean War heroics and Cold War Special Forces pioneer.

With the ending of the Second World War, Lief Bangsboll, after distinguished service with the O.S.S. behind enemy lines in Denmark, prepared himself for a life of peace and hopefully love with the young Canadian girl he had met while training at Camp X during the war. But the United States War Department and the Office of Strategic Services had other plans for the young soldier/agent.

In September 1945, Lieutenant Bangsboll was secretly sent into Soviet-occupied Germany to assess and report upon Russian military activities in and around Berlin. In December 1945, a deadly incident occurred in which a KGB agent was killed, and Leif and his O.S.S. team were forced to escape back into the American sector of Germany.

With his O.S.S. identity compromised and himself now target of the KGB, Lieutenant Bangsboll was re-assigned to the regular U.S. Army and became a member of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. With the outbreak of the Korean War, Leif was part of the first airborne operation in which he and the 187th Airborne Regiment Combat Team parachuted into North Korea as part of the U.S./United Nations force confronting the North Korean invasion.

During his year of combat in Korea, Captain Bangsboll, the platoon leader for the Headquarters Intelligence & Reconnaissance platoon, worked under Lieutenant Colonel Aaron Bank, also a former OSS agent. During that assignment Leif led numerous special operations missions behind enemy lines, including a mission to recover a large cache of American gold bullion which had been left behind when the U.S. 8th Army was overrun during a North Korean offensive. He also led a secret parachute mission to rescue American /United Nations’ prisoners of war held in North Korea and a daring assault on a North Korean base which earned him the Silver Star for ‘extraordinary courage in combat’.

Captain Bangsboll played a crucial role in the develop of the United States’ first Special Forces unit and was appointed as one of the initial Company Commander of a Green Beret/Special Forces unit. Then, as the Army Liaison Officer to the 302nd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing in Sembach, West Germany, he flew as an observer, reporting on Soviet troop movements over Warsaw Pact held territory and instructed American pilots the skills of escape and evasion. As a Company Commander with the 10th Special Forces Group in Ulm, West Germany, he stood his ground, facing Soviet and East German combat troops poised to invade Western Europe during the tense days during the U2 spy plane incident and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

BROOK G. BANGSBOLL followed in his father’s footsteps by joining the U.S. Army after high school in Toronto, Canada. Upon completion of the United States Military Academy (West Point) Preparatory College, Brook returned to Canada to pursue a career with the Canadian Armed Forces. A professionally trained and tested Senior Logistics Office in the field of transportation and air movements, Brook has over thirty years of experience in the Royal Canadian Air Force, serving on numerous operations with NORAD, NATO and the United Nations, including the Gulf War, the Bosnia-Herzegovina conflict, and in the war against ISIS on Operation IMPACT, as the Commanding Officer of Camp Canada and the Operational Support HUB, at Ali Al Salem, Kuwait. Brook is a consultant in the Defence and Logistics industry and serves on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Battlefield Foundation and is Chairperson for the Board of Directors of the 410 Wing (National Capital) Chapter of the Royal Canadian Air Force Association and is an Executive Board Member of the Maritime Aviation Veterans Association.