Peter Lucas: A final salute to OSS agent who helped win WWII

Nick Kukich died last Monday.

It may not mean much to you in the scheme of things, but it should.

It should because Nick was part of the dwindling number of World War II veterans who went to war to defeat Nazism and Fascism in order to keep America strong, free and democratic. He was, in short, part of the Greatest Generation. Nick, who died in a nursing home in Delaware, was 99 years old and lived a full life.

The son of Serbian immigrants, Nick as a teenager worked in Ohio coal mines before he joined the U.S. Marines on the eve of war. He became a gunnery sergeant. Because he was fluent in Serbian, he was recommended to the OSS (the Office of Strategic Services), which was the wartime forerunner of the CIA.

The OSS had a wartime program that trained ethnic Americans to fight behind enemy lines in the countries of their ancestral origin. In 1943, Nick was on a troop ship headed for North Africa.

A couple of funny things happened along the way. For one, he ended up behind enemy lines in Albania, not Serbia, where he helped the Communist partisans fight the Germans.

For another, one of his shipmates was fellow Marine Sterling Hayden, then a famous movie star, who sought anonymity by joining the OSS. Hayden, a strikingly handsome man, had been working as a sailor and fisherman on the Boston waterfront before he was discovered by Hollywood and turned into a movie star. He, too, ended up in Albania.

Nick Kukich, Sterling Hayden and the rest of the men who fought in World War II were a lot like the American soldiers pictured in the excellent movie "American Sniper." Or, more accurately, the young men in the movie were a lot like them.

In either case, both groups fought because America was attacked. They believed in their country and in the American way of life. They believed that the country was worth defending, whether it was from Nazism or from Islamic terrorism. They put themselves in harm's way to defend their country. That's what patriots do.

I got to know Nick Kukich when I began research for my book "The OSS in World War II Albania." At the time, he was one of only four living survivors of the 35- to 40-man contingent of OSS soldiers who fought in Albania. Their job was to help the partisans attack the Germans, gather intelligence and rescue downed U.S. airmen returning from bombing the oil fields of Ploiesti, Romania, and return them to their base in Italy.

Promoted to lieutenant, Nick was also on hand for the battle of Tirana, when the communist partisans, with Allied help, routed the Germans from the Albanian capital and took over the country. Then, as now, the enemy of our enemy was our friend.

"There were a lot of dead Germans lying in the streets," Nick told me. "Partisans would be stealing their boots, even if they were still alive. Many partisans had no shoes. Hell, it was war."

Nick's assignment in Albania began in December 1943 when he and other OSS agents were ferried across the Adriatic Sea from Bari, Italy, to a series of caves along the Karaburun Peninsula that jutted off mainland Albania. It was from these cold, dark and wet caves — known as Seaview — that the OSS established an intelligence network to monitor the activity of several German divisions.

The Allies feared that these divisions, unless harassed by Albanian resistance groups, would be sent as reinforcements to Italy, where the Allies were fighting their way up the boot of Italy and meeting tough German resistance. Nick's service proved to be invaluable. The Germans sent no troops from Albania to Italy.

It was all heady stuff. But he never made much of it or ever lost his sense of humor.

I visited Seaview as part of my research in 2005. I got to the cave on the remote Karaburun Peninsula with a companion by way of a fisherman's dingy after being dropped off by a patrol boat. Even though it was a sparkling and warm day, the main cave was wet, dark and cold, just as Nick had described it. It made me wonder how men could have lived there.

As we rowed out, I grabbed my cellphone and called Nick in Delaware. He was amazed when I told him I was calling from the cave.

"Did you find anything?" he asked. 

"Just an old pair of underwear you left behind," I joked.

"Well, don't bring them home," he said. "I've got enough souvenirs."

Cover lightly, gentle earth.

Peter Lucas' column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email him at luke1825@aol.com.

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