The Trap

Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission behind the enemy lines? Knowing you may never return alive? What you have just heard is the question asked during the war to agents of the OSS. Ordinary citizens who do this question answered, yes.

This is... Cloak and Dagger. Warfare, espionage, international entry. These are the weapons of the OSS. Today's story, the trap, about an OSS agent who prevented an American advance onto German soil from turning into a massacre, is suggested by actual incidents recorded in the Washington files of the Office of Strategic Services.

A story that can now be told. Did you ever notice the name Irwin signed in a fancy flourish on the covers of those kid comic books? You know all about moon men chasing the Earthmen into the stratosphere?

Well that's me, Erwin Hazen. I'm a little guy about 5'4". Before the war I loved flashy ties and babies. Girl babies about 21. So what was Erwin doing being an OSS spy in a German held town in France after D-Day?

Listen my children and you shall hear. Sergeant Erwin Hazen reporting sir. Here are those overlay maps you requested, Colonel. Good, good. Fast work, Sergeant. Thank you, sir. I'll hook them over now. In the meantime, I want to do something for me.

Yes, sir? I just had word that one of our agents, Lieutenant Miller, who would send a head into Breuer for advance reconnaissance, has returned. Lieutenant Miller? Yes, sir, I know him. He's in that tavern about a mile from headquarters getting very drunk. Can't understand it. Doesn't sound like Miller. No sir. You should have reported

immediately. I want to go down and bring him back to headquarters. Yes Colonel. Right away, sir. Oh, uh, Hazen. That's all that cartoon you submitted to Yang. Oh. They're good. They're Good. Not very flattering of me though.