Operation Underworld: How An Italian Mafia Boss In Prison Helped The US Invade Sicily In World War II

 Allen Frazier at Military.com offers a piece on imprisoned Cosa Nostra boss Salvatore “Charlie Lucky” Luciano and how he aided the U.S. Navy during WWII.

A luxury ocean liner burned and capsized in New York Harbor on Feb. 9, 1942. The SS Normandie, being converted into a troopship, caught fire during welding work and took 6,000 tons of water from firefighting efforts before rolling onto its side in the Hudson River. One worker died and more than 1,500 people evacuated the vessel.

The Navy immediately suspected sabotage. German U-boats had sunk 120 American merchant ships in the first three months after Pearl Harbor, and fears of Axis agents operating along the waterfront ran high. Naval Intelligence started looking into local dock workers. Italian and German workers controlled by organized crime networks remained silent when federal investigators asked them questions.

Commander Charles Haffenden of the Office of Naval Intelligence needed help investigating the incident and protecting the waterfront. He turned to the one man who could make dock workers talk, Charles Lucky Luciano, who was serving 30 to 50 years in New York's Dannemora Prison for running prostitution rackets.

Thomas Dewey, the special prosecutor who sent Luciano to prison in 1936, had called him the most dangerous gangster in America. By 1942, Luciano controlled New York's Five Families crime syndicate from behind bars. Meyer Lansky, a Jewish mobster and Luciano's longtime associate, served as his connection to the outside world.

The Navy approached Luciano through his attorney, Moses Polakoff, in March 1942. Intelligence officers offered better prison conditions in exchange for Luciano's help securing the docks. Luciano agreed. The Navy moved him from Dannemora to Great Meadow Prison in May 1942, closer to New York City and easier for his associates to visit.

Luciano ordered his criminal network to watch for saboteurs, report suspicious activity and prevent labor strikes that could disrupt the war effort. Joseph Socks Lanza, who controlled the Fulton Fish Market and United Seafood Workers Union, became a key contact. Lanza told Haffenden during their first meeting: "You let me know where you want the contacts made, or what you want, and I'll carry on."

Albert Anastasia, who ran the Brooklyn docks and Murder Inc., guaranteed cooperation from the longshoremen.

Dock strikes stopped after Luciano became involved. No major acts of sabotage occurred in New York Harbor for the rest of the war. Lieutenant Maurice Kelly, a former New York Police Department officer who joined Naval Intelligence after Pearl Harbor, testified years later in the Herlands investigation about the success of Luciano's connections.

"From the time Commander Haffenden made these contacts with Luciano there was a very open and cooperative condition that existed between the investigators and the people that were very influential on the various docks in the Port of New York," Kelly said.

The Navy's covert partnership with organized crime, codenamed Operation Underworld, achieved its immediate goal of securing the docks.

You can read the rest of the piece via the link below:

Operation Underworld: How an Italian Mafia Boss in Prison Helped the US Invade Sicily in World War II | Military.com

You can also read my Washington Times On Crime column on Operation Underworld: How the Mafia and U.S. Government Teamed Up To Win World War II via the link below:     

 Paul Davis On Crime: Operation Underworld: My Washington Times On Crime Column on 'Operation Underworld: How The Mafia And U.S. Government Teamed Up To Win World War II'