Operation Underworld

Operation Underworld was the United States government's code name for its co-operation with the Italian-American Mafia and Jewish organized-crime figures from 1942 to 1945. The operation aimed to counter Axis spies and saboteurs along the U.S. northeastern seaboard ports, to avoid wartime labor-union strikes, and to limit theft by black marketeers of vital war supplies and equipment.

Background

In the first three months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U.S. lost 120 merchant ships to German U-boats and surface raiders in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in February 1942 SS ''Normandie'', a captured French ocean liner that was being refitted as the troop ship ''Lafayette'' in the Port of New York, caught fire, capsized, and sank into the Hudson River, allegedly sabotaged by arsonists. Mafia boss and one-time Murder, Inc. head Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia allegedly claimed responsibility for the sabotage, according to Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano, one of the bosses of the New York Mafia's Five Families and the founder of the American Mafia's Commission.Newark, ''Mafia Allies'', pp. 83-98

The United States government portrayed the loss of ''Normandie'' as an accident, and no evidence was ever produced linking Axis spies to the loss of ''Normandie''. After the war, Axis records claimed no sabotage operation had existed, and no evidence has ever been produced by the Allies to indicate there had been underworld sabotage.Campbell, ''The Luciano Project'', p. 29 In 1954, a report looking into the contacts between US Naval Intelligence and the New York Mafia by William B. Herlands also did not mention Anastasia's role in the sabotage.

Operation Underworld

Fears about possible sabotage or disruption of the waterfront led Commander Charles R. Haffenden of the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) Third Naval District in New York to set up a special security unit. He sought the help of Joseph Lanza, who ran the Fulton Fish Market, to get intelligence about the New York waterfront, control the labor unions, and identify possible refueling and resupply operations for German submarines with the help of the fishing industry along the Atlantic Coast.

To cover Lanza's activities, Haffenden also approached Lansky, who had previously broken up pro-Nazi German-American Bund rallies, including one in Manhattan's Yorkville German neighborhood that he personally disrupted alongside fourteen associates. He solicited Lansky's help in reaching Lansky's partner Luciano. Luciano had been tried and convicted in 1936 for compulsory prostitution and running a prostitution racket after District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey had investigated him for years and was serving a 30- to 50-year sentence at Dannemora.

Luciano agreed to cooperate with authorities in hopes of consideration for early release from prison.Newark, ''Mafia Allies'', pp. 99-111 In addition to Lansky and the Jewish gangsters wanting revenge for the Nazis' oppression of Jews, Luciano and the Mafia also wanted revenge on Benito Mussolini and the Fascist regime in Italy after Mussolini had directed Prefect of Palermo Cesare Mori to eradicate the Sicilian Mafia. By 1928, Fascists had arrested over 11,000 suspected Mafia members and driven many more to flee Sicily, including future Five Families bosses Joseph Bonnano and Carlo Gambino.

Luciano's contacts allegedly assisted in Operation Husky, the Allied Forces’ 1943 amphibious invasion of Sicily by providing maps of the island's harbors, photographs of its coastline and names of trusted contacts inside the Sicilian Mafia, who also wished to see Mussolini toppled. Luciano directed Calogero Vizzini to assist the Allies in the invasion of Italy. Vizzini became the central character in the history of direct Mafia support for the Allies during Operation Husky, spending 6 days on an American tank guiding Allied forces through the mountain pass and directing his Sicilian Mafia to eliminate Italian snipers in the mountains. Just over two weeks after Operation Husky began, Mussolini was deposed on July 25th.

For his cooperation, Luciano was moved to a more convenient and comfortable open prison in Great Meadows in May 1942.Newark, ''Mafia Allies'', p. 103 Luciano's influence in stopping sabotage remains unclear, but authorities did note that strikes on the docks stopped after Luciano's attorney contacted underworld figures with influence over the longshoremen and their unions.Campbell, ''The Luciano Project'', pp. 111-127 In 1946, Luciano's sentence was commuted after he had served 9½ years. He was deported to Italy as part of the provisions of his sentence being commuted and died in 1962 in Naples.Campbell, ''The Luciano Project'', pp. 233 ff.

Modern research

While mafiosi supported the US Army, recent research has led most serious historians to dismiss the legend of Luciano's role in the invasion of Sicily.The Sicilian Campaign – 1943
Best of Sicily site (Retrieved on January 16, 2009)Lupo, ''History of the Mafia''
p. 187
/ref>Newark, ''The Mafia at War''
pp. 180-81
/ref>Dickie, ''Cosa Nostra'', p. 240
La Repubblica, July 11, 2010Passaporto per Lucky Luciano
Blog di Giuseppe Casarrubea, May 26, 2011 According to historian Salvatore Lupo:

References

*Campbell, Rodney (1977). ''The Luciano Project: The Secret Wartime Collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy'', New York: McGraw-Hill,
*Lupo, Salvatore (2009).
History of the Mafia
', New York: Columbia University Press,
*Newark, Tim (2007). ''Mafia Allies. The True Story of America's Secret Alliance with the Mob in World War II'', Saint Paul (MN): Zenith Press
Review

*Newark, Tim (2007/2012).
The Mafia at War: Allied Collusion with the Mob
', London: Greenhill Books,
Review

{{American Mafia

United States home front during World War II
American Mafia events
Jewish-American organized crime events
Office of Naval Intelligence