Drop, Improvise, Win OSS

In China

By Lt. Col. Zachary Griffths

Article published on: June 24th, 2025 in the Special Warfare 2025 E-edition

Read Time:< 12 mins

At 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 16, 1945, six men flew into the unknown. By sundown, they’d been beaten, stripped, and installed in the nicest hotel in Mukden. None of them knew this was in front of them just seven days earlier.

The end of World War II surprised the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). On Aug. 11, 1945, two days after the nuclear attack on Nagasaki, the OSS received the mission to dispatch Mercy Mission teams into China.⁰¹ The Japanese had badly treated American prisoners of war, and there were concerns that Japanese officers might execute prisoners rather than return them to American control. As an additional concern, the Soviet Union had invaded Manchuria in northern China on August 9 and were racing towards camps holding American prisoners.

The OSS had a clear task: Get there first

Though the war’s end surprised the OSS, they were ready. Commander of OSS forces in China, Col. Richard Heppner, reported August 10 that “although we have been caught with our pants down, we will do our best to pull them up in time.”⁰² The OSS transitioned quickly. The same day, Heppner sent another cable reporting that his commandos were “ready to leave tomorrow.”⁰³

Cardinal dropped in alongside seven other Mercy Mission teams across China on August 16 — just seven days after Fat Man fell on Nagasaki. Their mission was to prevent further harm to allied prisoners by the Japanese or the rapidly approaching Soviets.⁰⁴ These teams also had secondary intelligence gathering objectives in otherwise inaccessible locations.⁰⁵ The Mercy Missions were a veritable “who’s who” of future special operations leaders. Colonel Aaron Bank led the Raven mission into Laos while Capt. John Singlaub joined the Magpie mission into Beijing.⁰⁶ All of the Mercy Missions put OSS operatives in challenging situations where they found both success and failure.

Small teams operating in politically sensitive, semi-permissive environments are core to what Army special operations does, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, yet operations like Cardinal remain underexplored. A review of eight Special Warfare and Veritas articles found only two mentions of OSS operations in China, and only one included the Mercy Missions.⁰⁷

Cardinal is worth closer study not because it was cleanly executed, but because it succeeded amid limited intelligence, minimal guidance, and political ambiguity—the same environments our teams must prepare for today.

CARDINAL, THE STORY

The six men of Operation Cardinal had no time to rehearse and no idea what they would find. Dropping into Japanese-occupied Manchuria just a day after the emperor’s surrender, they carried a mandate to get there first—before the Soviets, before the chaos, and before anyone else could harm or hide the prisoners.

Little is recorded about the planning for Cardinal. However, the team’s diverse membership and varied airdropped supplies show an understanding of the challenges ahead. Cardinal initially had six members. Major James T. Hennessy led the operation. Major Robert F. Lamar, a physician, joined to provide immediate medical care for the prisoners. On the enlisted side, Staff Sgt. Hal Leith served as the Russian language interpreter, Sgt. Edward A. Starz served as the radio operator, and Sgt. Fumio Kido served as the Japanese interpreter. As a second-generation American born to Japanese parents in Hawaii, he spoke fluent Japanese. The team also included Maj. Cheng Shih-wu, a Nationalist Chinese officer and the team’s Chinese interpreter.⁰⁸

The team departed from Hsian at 4:30 a.m. on August 16, flying 800 miles to Mukden aboard a B-24 Liberator. The aircraft, designed for bombing runs, was not ideal for parachute insertion. Still, the team exited one by one through the bomb bay, landing in broad daylight outside the industrial city of Mukden.⁰⁹

Hundreds of local Chinese surrounded the drop zone as Cardinal landed. As Starz and Cheng gathered the equipment, the rest of the party started walking to the Hoten camp, located north of the drop zone. Two Japanese platoons ambushed the Americans walking north. Unaware the war had ended, the Japanese forced the team to disarm and disrobe. They then beat the prisoners. Kido faced special violence as a Japanese-American. Fortunately, a Japanese officer arrived on horseback soon after, ending the violence. He then took them to meet with the Kempati, Japanese secret police, in downtown Mukden. The Kempati agreed to escort them to the Hoten Camp the next day, installing them in the nicest hotel in Mukden in the meantime.

The next day, on August 17, Cardinal liberated the Hoten camp. With a Japanese escort, Cardinal traveled to the camp, met with the senior American, and then announced the camp’s liberation. They rescued 1,321 Americans, 239 British, and some Australian, Dutch, and Canadian prisoners.¹⁰ Cardinal also learned of an additional camp, holding senior allied prisoners, about 150 miles northeast. Despite this major success, higher OSS command did not learn of the liberation until the 18th when Cardinal finally established a radio connection.

Conditions immediately improved for the Hoten prisoners. One prisoner, Capt. Lloyd Allen, commented “Food got easier right away” after liberation and that prisoners needing advanced medical aid left within the first week.¹¹

As the rest of the Cardinal team stabilized conditions at Hoten, Leith and Lamar departed by train on August 18 to rescue the high-ranking prisoners. Japanese escorts provided a first-class rail car, and the pair arrived early the next morning. There, they liberated prominent prisoners including Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, Maj. Gen. Edward King, British Gen. Arthur Percival, and Dutch Governor-Gen. Alidius Starkenborgh.¹² Though the prisoners were ready to depart, poor phone lines and missed calls delayed coordination with Mukden.

Soviet forces arrived on August 25, complicating the return. The Soviets denied them the train. So, they found a bus. Then a rail line without water for the steam engine. Leith and Lamar didn’t improvise once, they improvised the entire way back.¹³ The group finally reached Mukden in the early hours of August 27.

Cardinal worked to evacuate prisoners as quickly as possible but were forced to triage evacuees due to insufficient airlift. The bulk went by train to Port Arthur (now Dalian), where the Navy moved them on to Okinawa for flights home. Very sick prisoners flew to Manila while less-sick patients flew back to the United States for care. Notable prisoners, like Lt. Gen. Wainwright, flew to take part in the Japanese surrender ceremony on the battleship Missouri while other high-ranking officers were flown out for debriefing.¹⁴

Just as the worst seemed behind them, another problem surfaced: teeth. After years of poor nutrition, many prisoners could not chew the fresh vegetables or canned food now available. Fortunately, the camp included two allied dentists. The OSS team seized dental chairs, tools, and supplies from Japanese army hospitals, enabling immediate treatment.¹⁵

With the prisoners safe, Cardinal became something else entirely: America’s first eyes in a region the Soviets claimed. This OSS intelligence base in Manchuria continued despite strong Soviet reaction to continued American presence. Multiple sources report that Soviet troops robbed Americans of their watches, rings, and money while also damaging American aircraft without any accountability.¹⁶ Despite the pressure, the OSS were the only American intelligence assets in Manchuria, reporting on things like the secret arrival of the Chinese Communist forces and other significant political developments.¹⁷ Under considerable pressure, the Americans took refuge in the French consulate until both the French and Americans were forced out by the Soviets on October 5.

Cardinal’s mission didn’t end with liberation —It evolved under pressure. From humanitarian relief to intelligence gathering, the team adapted as conditions shifted and higher command remained distant. Their ability to operate with initiative, cultural fluency, and tactical restraint in a politically sensitive environment exemplifies the kind of readiness special operations forces (SOF) must continue to cultivate.

SOME LESSONS

Cardinal did not follow a doctrinal script, and the team did not look like a standard detachment. They had no comms for nearly two days, operated with a patched-together team, and solved unanticipated problems—like dental care. Still, they got it done.

Cardinal was the kind of mission that doctrine does not quite know what to do with, but that special operations get anyway. It was not direct action, unconventional warfare, or foreign internal defense. Army doctrine would categorize it as a “collateral task”—a catch-all for missions that fall outside the principal tasks. As Field Manual 3-18 puts it, “Special Forces can perform other tasks of a collateral nature, such as counterdrug operations and noncombatant evacuation operations.”¹⁸ These are the irregular, politically-sensitive assignments that come by default. Cardinal shows why we need to train for them.

The Cardinal case also highlights the essence of mission command. The team went in knowing they would have no contact for a while. Then, when they did not check in for two days, no one came looking—They were trusted to figure it out. Today, that kind of communications blackout is rare. But, the principle holds: Train teams to think, not wait.

“Special Forces can perform other tasks of a collateral nature, such as counterdrug operations and noncombatant evacuation operations.”¹⁸

Field Manual 3-18

Likewise, Cardinal’s six-person team is a study in creative task organization. They did not have the right people, they had the available ones: two majors, a doctor, a radioman, two linguists, and a foreign officer. And yet, they built a team, adapted on the fly, and made it work. Special operations forces will continue to face missions that do not match their manning documents or rehearsal cycles. Attachments will arrive late. Some will bring SOF experience; many will not. The teams that succeed will be those that integrate fast, build trust quickly, and move forward

Finally, we should not overlook “the teeth.” Years of malnutrition had left prisoners unable to chew their first real meals—and solving that meant recognizing the problem, finding camp dentists, raiding Japanese depots, and setting up a field dental clinic. The lesson is not about dentistry. It is about judgment. Cardinal’s team identified an unanticipated need and solved it with whatever resources they could find. That is what detachments do. And, sometimes, the mission turns not on what we rehearse most, but on the skills we rarely touch: delivering calves, pulling teeth, building bridges, or fixing radios. We must train like those moments matter.

The value of Cardinal lies in what it demands from us today: Preparation for doctrinal edge cases, reinforcement of mission command, confidence in creative task organization, and fluency in the rarely used skills that may prove decisive. As special operations forces face uncertain contingencies in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, leaders and trainers must prepare teams not just for the missions we plan but for the ones we never saw coming.

FIT CARDINAL INTO YOUR TRAINING

Operation Cardinal was not special because it was dramatic. It was special because it demanded the full range of what makes special operations forces unique: initiative in the absence of guidance, cultural and linguistic adaptability, improvisation under pressure, and the ability to assemble and lead a nonstandard team in a politically-sensitive environment. While many readiness exercises test the raid or infiltration techniques, few assess a detachment’s ability to integrate non-standard specialties or adapt to humanitarian imperatives under time pressure. This kind of training starts at the detachment, but it succeeds only if company and battalion leaders build it in.

Modern special operations units can honor their legacy not only by studying missions like Cardinal but by training for them. A Cardinal-inspired snap exercise could challenge a detachment to plan and execute a humanitarian or rescue mission with just 48 hours of warning, followed by an unplanned secondary task that exercises rarely used skills like horizontal construction for the 18C, veterinary or dental care for the 18D. Add two last-minute augmentees—perhaps a foreign partner or interagency specialist—and test the team’s ability to integrate, adapt, and succeed.

This does not require more training; it requires smarter training. The 1st Special Forces Group ran quarterly snap exercises with unknown infiltration methods and non-standard tasks—testing flexibility, improvisation, and integration under pressure. Events like those could easily add Cardinal-like objectives. The combat training centers offer another opportunity. Large, complex, and well-resourced, these opportunities are ideally suited for scenarios like Cardinal, where the challenge is not the raid but what happens after. These exercises also offer higher headquarters, such as 1st Special Forces Command, a way to evaluate readiness for the ambiguous, irregular missions that do not fall neatly within doctrinal lines but often land on our shoulders.

We cannot predict the next Cardinal, but we can build the teams that will succeed when it arrives.