Katie S. Sanders

OSS Marine Col. Peter Ortiz was the most battle-decorated member of America’s first spy agency, the Office of Strategic Services. He was my grandfather’s hero—and for good reason...

@SpiesVespers @michaeldweiss Can’t make this stuff up! Re-reading Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy and toasting to Papa Hem today 🍸

@michaeldweiss Apparently also bonded with NKVD's Alexander Orlov, who later defected. See: Nicholas Reynolds' book on Hemingway. @KatieSSanders

OTD July 21, 1899 Ernest Hemingway born. Relentlessly self-promoting author who volunteered to spy for Soviets and U.S. Proved ineffective for both, though showed an infinite talent for self-parody as he grew older.

#ThursdayThoughts French Legionnaire, wartime spy, US Marine, or Hollywood heartthrob? Most people would be grateful to experience any one of these careers but Pierre (Peter) Julien Ortiz was not “most people." He chose to immerse himself in all four. bit.ly/2XDptD4

@KatieSSanders They got the clandestine radio right.

@SpiesVespers Their technical adviser was in the know!

Definitely wasn’t the portrayal Gen Donovan had originally hoped for (especially the German double agent infiltration). Donovan had recruited Peter Ortiz to be a technical adviser…

@SpiesVespers Hollywood wasn’t feeling it…

@KatieSSanders He wanted something like House on 92nd Street that bolstered the FBI.

Into WWII secret agents / American heroes? Pls join me and my #OrtizsWar co-author Nick Reynolds as we share the story of OSS Marine Col. Peter Ortiz. Get 🎟️ & pre-order 📖 here ⬇️ harpercollinsfocus.com/harper-horizon…

🆅🅸🅾🅻🅴🆃🆃🅴 🆂🆉🅰🅱🅾 🅼🅴🅼🅾🆁🅸🅰🅻 🅿🅸🅲🅽🅸🅲 Author @ClareMulley with Tania Szabò at the annual Violette Szabò memorial picnic in Hereford, organised by Violette’s cousin Rosemary. Violette was an SOE agent who was executed in 1945. #VioletteSzabò #SOE #WW2 1/3

DC-area friends and spy/history enthusiasts: Pls join me and my #OrtizsWar co-author Nicholas Reynolds at @IntlSpyMuseum for a talk on Sept 2. It’s free but you can register here to reserve a seat ⬇️ spymuseum.org/calendar/ortiz…

@DrHelenFry Wild to think that the Carpetbaggers generally had no idea who they were carrying on one-way journeys to be inserted behind enemy lines. My grandpa flew these ops from Harrington. This footage never gets old youtu.be/UhwrAAhGM-A?si…

During WW2, SOE-led Special Forces underwent rigorous training as secret agents before parachuting into occupied France to support the French Resistance and the Allied advance. This powerful image shows a team of "Jedburghs" assembled beside their B-24 Liberator at Harrington Airfield, just moments before departure:

@SpiesVespers Never knew the story behind @AFIO. Neat.

OTD July 7, 1988 David Atlee Phillips died. Career CIA officer, he rose to become the CIA's chief of operations for Western hemisphere. In 1975 he founded the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO).

@kershaw_alex This photo immediately made me think of the following image of service members—including an OSS vet I was lucky to interview, Virginia Rathbun Stuart—heading to the Pacific a year later, in July 1944. She’d just graduated from Skidmore, and this was essentially her first job.

Union Station, DC, July 1943, in a nation at total war, just a couple of days from Allied landings in Sicily - the start of the liberation of Europe.

Ortiz’s exploits in WWII France (including rescuing my grandpa, a downed USAAF pilot) are the subject of Nicholas Reynolds’ and my book, ORTIZ’S WAR, out from HarperCollins on Aug 25. Follow @ortizswarbook on IG and pre-order Ortiz’s War wherever books are sold ⬇️ harpercollinsfocus.com/harper-horizon… #ww2history #peterortiz #usmc #osshistory #wwiibooks

OSS Marine Col. Peter Ortiz was the most battle-decorated member of America’s first spy agency, the Office of Strategic Services. He was my grandfather’s hero—and for good reason...

Tuskegee Airman Lt Col Harry T. Stewart and Lady Liberty share a birthday. Stewart would have been 102 today. He’s among the most extraordinary people I’ve ever interviewed. @NYCMayor - NYC should consider naming a school or airport or school after him

Full @TIME Q&A is here: time.com/article/2026/0…

What @tomhanks told me when I asked him for his thoughts on #America250: “We will never be a perfect union—but we’ve had 250 years to figure out how we actually get closer to that.” Amen. Happy Independence Day. 🗽

A stunning portrait of WW2 heroine Noor Inayat Khan now graces the RAF Club in Piccadilly, London. A beautiful and fitting tribute to one of the bravest SOE agents of the Second World War. I've had the honour to see it in person:

"Ortiz's War has it all." —@kershaw_alex Pre-order Nick Reynolds' and my new book about OSS Marine Col. Peter Ortiz here or at your local bookstore: #buy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">harpercollinsfocus.com/harper-horizon… Ortiz's War comes out Aug 25. Every pre-order helps spread the story of Ortiz, a true American hero 🇺🇸

Thank you so much again. Two months until pub day, but just one month until I head to France to join the people in Les Saisies as they commemorate Operation Union II, Ortiz’s final WWII mission where he and six OSS recruits and many many tons of supplies were parachuted into France to support the Resistance and the mass Allied landings. Very moving how they still honor what happened there 82 years ago, when Ortiz’s team— @USMC paratroopers + OSS agent Francis Coolidge of the USAAF .. himself a former French Foreign Legion vet and the great (x3) grandson of Thomas Jefferson—arrived, fought, and sacrificed…

@KatieSSanders @HarperCollins Thank you for the praise and congratulations on the forthcoming pub day and capturing Peter’s War.

I’ve long admired @combathistorian’s books about the OSS and American military history. Grateful for his words re: #OrtizsWar, Nick Reynolds’s and my book about a real-life James Bond: OSS Marine Col. Peter Ortiz.