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Please read our editorial note for April 27. This is a work in progress.
This is both a work that is still in the research and precursory editorial process. As we dug deeper and deeper into the story of James Dudley Wilmeth, and his reason for being sent to Moscow in 1944, it became obvious that not only does that phase of his life begin a new chapter, for us it also marked the start of new volume. Therefore we will now conclude this volume with Precursory Chapter Thirty-five, and the precursory chapter that was to have become Precursory Chapter Thirty-six in this first volume and titled "Our Man in Moscow", will now become the first chapter of the second volume in the series.
This is both a work that is still in the research and precursory editorial process. As we dug deeper and deeper into the story of James Dudley Wilmeth, and his reason for being sent to Moscow in 1944, it became obvious that not only does that phase of his life begin a new chapter, for us it also marked the start of new volume. Therefore we will now conclude this volume with Precursory Chapter Thirty-five, and the precursory chapter that was to have become Precursory Chapter Thirty-six in this first volume and titled "Our Man in Moscow", will now become the first chapter of the second volume in the series.
To understand why Lt Col. James Dudley Wilmeth would be "ordered to London for an orientation course", we turned to a website project that began in November 2000 for the sole purpose of preserving and documenting the story of 'Combined Operations' during World War II. Knowing more about the reason for Mountbatten's 'Orientation Course', and its purpose, helped us to understand why Wilmeth was ordered to attend, and then, why Wilmeth was ordered to take up his successive duty postings back in the USA.
Our initial knowledge about the posting of Lt Col. James Dudley Wilmeth to London in 1942, came from one skeleton overview of his life story that appeared in 'The Austin Statesman', which was later renamed 'The Austin American-Statesman'. This newspaper in Austin, Texas reported that: "Wilmeth was ordered to London for an orientation course in Admiral Louis Mountbatten's office of combined operations in the summer of 1942." Before we explain why Wilmeth attended Mountbatten's Orientation Course in 1942, we need to explain the reason why the man who was known as Prince Louis of Battenberg, and in 1917 assumed the name of Mountbatten, took over the command of Combined Operations. Louis Mountbatten was born on June 25, 1900, becoming the youngest son of Prince Louis of Battenberg. In 1914, Prince Louis became Admiral of the British Fleet and its First Sea Lord. In 1941, under the name of Mountbatten he was in the USA waiting to take command of a ship that was undergoing repairs at Norfolk, Virginia. That is when Winston Churchill signaled him to return to London. At a meeting held at the official country residence of the British Prime Minister called 'Chequers', which is located just outside London, Churchill gave Mountbatten a new assignment. On October 27, 1941, Mountbatten was told to replace Admiral Sir Roger Keyes who was at that time in command of Combined Operations. Churchill had created this Operation on June 4, 1940, in the wake of the disastrous British military retreat from Dunkirk. Winston Churchill ordered the British Army, Navy and Air Force Chiefs of Staff to cooperate with each other under the Combined Operations Command of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes. This project limped off the ground in a disorganized manner, and that is why Churchill got rid of Keyes and replaced him with Mountbatten. Having just received his new Command in late October 1941 and knowing that he could not follow in the footsteps of his predecessor by just picking up where Keyes had left off, Mountbatten had to first assess what he was expected to accomplish - before he could issue new directives to subordinates for their implementation. Mountbatten was to be "technical adviser on all aspects of, and at all stages in, the planning and training for Combined Operations" specifically coordinating inter-service training; running the UK Combined Operations Training Establishments; advising on tactical and technical research and development; devising the special craft needed "for all forms of Combined Operations varying from small raids to a full-scale invasion of the Continent." Because Keyes had not created an organization with planning, signals, and training staff, Mountbatten had to create it. Combined Operations Headquarters (COHQ) was located in a small building not far from 10 Downing Street in Whitehall, while the actual training of troops was accomplished within the boundaries of a huge slice of northwestern Scotland, well away from the prying eyes of spies, and generally protected from bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe. For the Allied Forces to defeat Adolph Hitler's Nazi troops, they had to first cross the English Channel and gain a foothold on the European Continent. But Wilmeth was an Army man who spent his time with heavy armor. How was this U.S. Army Lt. Col. supposed to contribute to the defeat of Adolph Hitler? During the remaining months of 1942, after Wilmeth returned to the USA from England, the answer to that question became readily apparent. He had gone to London in "the Summer of 1942", but while we do not know the exact month, we do know that in the Northern Hemisphere, "the Summer months" are comprised of June, July and August. If Wilmeth returned to the USA in the Autumn of that same year, he would have September, October, November and December to carry out his new mission. This is what that same 1956 Austin newspaper article tells us about where Lt. Col. Wilmeth went, and what he did: "From London he was ordered to Camp Carrabelle, Florida, and Camp Edwards, Massachusetts, to serve on the staff at the amphibious training centers at the posts." Those two locations were not next door each other; they are approximately one thousand and thirty plus miles apart. It should also be noted that in January 1943, Camp Carrabelle was renamed Camp Gordon Johnston. This means that Wilmeth was indeed sent to Camp Carrabelle in 1942, before it was renamed. What he did at Camp Carrabelle is not explained in the 1956 newspaper article. What we do know is that after Wilmeth's visit during 1942, the Amphibious Training Center at Camp Carrabelle which had been closed prior to his visit, was reopened in 1943 under the name of Camp Gordon Johnson. That camp was then used as the training station for American amphibious landings on D-Day. That took place on June 6, 1944 when the U.S. Army 4th Infantry Division landed on Utah Beach in France. Camp Edwards in Massachusetts was used to train both anti-aircraft and amphibious units until mid-1944, after which its amphibious training center was relocated to Camp Gordon Johnson in Florida. These 1942 visits by Wilmeth took place immediately after Mountbatten's Orientation Course in London. Mountbatten explained in the Forward to the 1950 book called 'Combined Operations; The Official Story of The Commandos', what he expected from people he orientated to his new approach for Combined Operations: "We cannot win this war by bombing and blockade alone: it can be won only when our armies have taken physical possession. If we look at the map, we find that there is no place where United States or British troops can land to fight the enemy without the probability of severe opposition. They can only be taken there in force by a seaborne expedition with air support. They cannot land unless, in fact, combined operations are carried out. Amphibious warfare, therefore, will play an even greater part in the coming year than it has in the past." That was Wilmeth's reason for going first to London for instructions, and then to Florida and Massachusetts where he put those instructions into action. However, it seems that he was only given the remaining months of 1942 to carry them out. Because in February 1943, Wilmeth was made Commanding Officer of an armored battalion of the 20th Armored Division. It was activated the following month on March 15, 1943, at Camp Campbell in Kentucky. Although the 20th Armored Division did not go into combat until April of 1945, elements of the 20th Armored participated in the liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp located in southern Germany. The military career of James Dudley Wilmeth is now beginning to take on the characteristics of a man who starts things up; a man who applies first plans to new ventures that others will then pick-up and run with. In business he would be called an entrepreneur; a person who takes an idea and puts that idea into practice so that a manager can take over day-to-day operations. The idea-to-application man then moves on to something else. But in this narrative, Wilmeth was still a team player. He was not the originator of an idea, but one of several people who were assigned by the originator of the idea to put individual parts of it into operation. This is what Wilmeth began to do in his Army career. All military personnel carry out orders given to them by superior officers, but Wilmeth's military career took an unusual turn when he was reassigned from "just following orders" to carrying out military instructions by implementing aspects of strategic planning and turning ideas into practical application. When Wilmeth's military career took that unusual turn, is not clear. Nor is it clear who selected him to become part of such a team. Obviously he was vetted first and then given his assignment which was low profile enough not to attract too much unwanted attention. As 'Mister Start-Up', his assignments were not long term, and his activities can be explained away and glossed over by obfuscation and misdirection. However, the indications are that by 1944, Wilmeth was being groomed as an advance agent who was silently representing the geopolitical interests of the United States of America. He was no longer just an ordinary military fighting man, although he was still a member of the U.S. Army. Next: (Second Volume in this series): Our man in Moscow .... Tina Turner asked in song "So, what do we do with our lives?"
It is true, each human being comes and goes by birth and by death and most of us only leave a mark in the annals of governmental records where no life story shines like a light, they are all deposited in the darkness of files. There is no "we", there is only an individual life and for that individual on this Planet at this time, that individual is "the last generation" because once that life, is gone, it's gone from here, forever. But some human beings think that they can live on in pyramids and statues on plinths, or even portraits on canvas hung in galleries, until one day, a mob comes along and raids your pyramid; topples your statue and removes your portrait from the wall. Of course the human being that the pyramid; statue and portrait is supposed to memorialize won't know about that, because that person is already dead. It's not just Elvis who leaves the building, it is his entire audience, and not just that audience but all audiences and all of the so-called 'idols'. All die. What then? Tina asked in song: "Is it all or nothing?" The answer is that each person comes and goes. It is not a choice. It is a fact of life and death. You have no choice of whether to live forever, or die as a human being. You will die as a human being. But everyone does have a choice about whether to tell the truth or whether to lie. Whether to admit that which "is" or whether to invent a yesterday that never was. We decided to tell the truth, to the extent that we can uncover the truth buried under lies about the past. We are topping the past, a past which is built upon a yesterday that never happened. In doing so, pretenders memorialized in stone and on canvas by one generation of terminal human beings, are then shown up to be what they were not you see, by another generation of human beings. In the end there are only words. Words that tell the known truth, or words that lie about the known truth. Ignorance comes from a decision of whether to admit that which is true, or to lie about that which is true by repeating that which is not true. Learning is not lie, it is a task in itself, because it requires an open mind and a decision about whether to learn by discovery that which is true, or to incorporate that which is not true. The individual who tries to hide in a mob of individuals chanting that which is not true, only deceives themselves, because the truth remains a fact, while the lie remains a fiction. Finding that truth has taken us down a long and winding road of discovery which has revealed that the yesterday as believed in by the mob, never happened. Thank you for joining us in our quest in toppling the past to restore the truth, which of course should be the quest of each and every human being alive today. Thanks too go to those who put elements of our story into song: Tina, Elvis, Freddie, Barry and Paul. Our next precursory chapter will appear here tomorrow. Cadet Wilmeth had no sooner arrived at the U.S. Army's Military Academy at West Point in New York State, when he received word that his father had died in Fort Worth, Texas. Because of the importance of cattle to 'Cow Town', and his father's contribution to the economy of Fort Worth, Jo Brice Wilmeth's death received a lot of detailed coverage in the local newspaper.
The next few years passed by without any noteworthy events of consequence (that we can discover) that took place in the life of Cadet Wilmeth. Then in the Friday, June 1, 1934 edition of the 'Fort Worth Star-Telegram' this newspaper reported that on June 12 of that year, Cadet Wilmeth would be among 250 young men graduating from West Point with a Bachelor of Science degree. On that day Wilmeth officially enlisted in the U.S. Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant of infantry. Following graduation and three months' leave, Wilmeth and his fellow graduates all reported to their first stations as officers. Wilmeth was assigned to Fort Hamilton in New York State. On Wednesday, March 6, 1935, the 'Evening Star' newspaper in Washington, D.C., reported that Wilmeth had been reassigned from Fort Hamilton to duty at the Panama Canal Department beginning on May 3, 1935. Wilmeth took the opportunity to visit his mother in Fort Worth. His arrival and departure in 'Cow Town' were noted in the April 19, 1935, edition of the 'Fort Worth Star-Telegram'. Such detailed coverage did not continue. Wilmeth's activities in the Panama Canal Zone from 1935 to 1936, are concealed from public view by a blanket of press silence. In those years the Panama Canal existed in its own 'Twilight Zone'. It was not part of the USA, and it was not covered by laws made under the protection of the U.S. Constitution, and persons born in the Zone did not qualify for an automatic right to U.S. citizenship. What we do know from official records is that in 1935, Wilmeth established his official place of residence in New York City, and so it is not clear how he divided his time between the Panama Canal Department and his leave time in the 'Big Apple'. To discover what happened to Wilmeth after 1936, we have to turn to a brief retroactive mention in 1937 that appeared on August 2, 1956, in the Austin Statesman' newspaper. In 1937, Lt. Col. Wilmeth attended "infantry and tank schools" at Fort Benning in Georgia. In 1938, James Dudley Wilmeth married Eleanor Doxey in New York. She was born the year after her husband on January 2, 1911, but there is not very much information about their marriage that we have so far come across, apart from the birth of a son who was born in 1939, and named after his father. This same 1956 newspaper report does mention that from 1937 to 1939, Wilmeth was further assigned to the Third Division Tank Company at Fort Lewis, in the State of Washington. In 1939, while the United Kingdom put its people in the gun and bomb sights of Adolph Hitler's military forces, the average American was staying out of harm's way. The USA did not want any part of yet another European War that would follow hot-on-the heels of 'The Great War'. That War was renamed 'World War I', so that the new conflict could be branded as 'World War II'. Americans had no intention of singing "Over There", all over again. But Winston Churchill had other ideas. He needed to get that wartime choir back in action as fast as possible and sing the same song with an updated schedule. Even that WWI military tune for golfers called 'Colonel Bogie' made a comeback. Churchill's predecessor in office had tied the fate of the UK to the fate of Poland, but instead of being able to "put up", Churchill turned into a bag of wind. He could not fight back because although Churchill had campaigned for rearmament in light of Nazi Germany's obvious intentions, no one listened to him. So, while Churchill did not "shut up" when he became Wartime Prime Minister, at first, he was all mouth and no muscle. He could only exclaim: "I told you so". However, when it came to doing something about Hitler's attack on Poland, all that Churchill could do was make speeches and try to stop Hitler from invading and occupying the British Isles. To achieve anything more, Churchill had to drag America's farm boys and its munitions makers back into yet another European war. Before the Japanese attacked the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, there was only one way in which Churchill could get America to enter the War, and that was by deception. He had to con the American voter into getting their government to move from neutrality to hostility towards Adolph Hitler. To do that he had to manipulate the media and create the impression that America would soon be under attack. When Churchill's inferior military position was compared to that of Adolph Hitler, it seemed that British defeat was very possible. It was a fight for survival brought about by the previous Prime Minister who made military promises to Poland that Britain could not honor with practical measures. For Churchill this now meant that desperate times required desperate measures. Churchill decided that there was only one way out of the mess that he was now in charge of, and that was to play dirty. Hitler was waging a conventional war based upon military might, but Churchill only had words and meagre armaments. Today, the tactics employed by Churchill to fight Hitler might be classified as terrorism, and they were certainly outside the accepted 'rules of war' where military targets were to be attacked for all the world to see. This status of military inadequacy resulted in a devious plan by Churchill to avoid fighting fire with fire. Instead, Churchill decided to fight Hitler with unconventional terror tactics. To assist in his war of words, Churchill turned to Sefton Delmer who helped create the practical side of the Political Warfare Executive. While the British Broadcasting Corporation carried on as before in its post-Reithian staid manner, Sefton Delmer delved into pornography, lies and deceit in both clandestine broadcasting and in print to such an extent, that it even horrified some in Churchill's own national government. Sefton Delmer's father had taught in Berlin before the War and Sefton Delmer had personally met with Hitler. Now he was told by Churchill to use his knowledge to deceive and malign Hitler and his henchmen in any way possible. Delmer even created fake religious broadcasts in German made by a Roman Catholic priest that were aimed at the German armed forces. While Delmer's clandestine broadcasting and publishing activities plastered Nazi occupied Europe with fake news and information, Churchill used a modified American form of deceit to sway Americans away from neutrality. In New York's Rockefeller Building, Churchill authorized the establishment of British Security Co-ordination (BSC). It was controlled by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in order to manipulate U.S. print and broadcast media. Its purpose was to move American public opinion from neutrality to action in going once more going "over there" to save the British. But there was even more to Churchill's methodology of military mind manipulation, because a huge chunk of northwestern Scotland fell under his militaristic command. Churchill transformed the entire area into a de facto military zone for his Special Operations Executive (SOE). In its northernmost boundary area, troops were trained to become saboteurs. It was their job it was to "set Europe alight". Further down this same landscape of northwestern Scotland begin and beginning at the town of Inveraray with its eponymous castle and grounds which morphed into the lengthy shores of Loch Fyne, military camps sprang up on both of its elongated banks and on the castle grounds. This huge slice of Scotland that came under martial law and control by Combined Operations, was situated on the sector of the island of Great Britain that was furthest away from Nazi occupied Scandinavia and Europe. The purpose of Combined Operations was to amalgamate a fighting force that would eventually become capable of invading the Continent of Europe and engaging on land with Hitler's military machine. To make this invasion possible, Combined Operations had to first get its troops across the English Channel without them being attacked and sunk at sea. That would require training to turn sailors into soldiers, soldiers into sailors and airmen into soldiers. It did not take long for Combined Operations to get bogged-down and in need of a new commander to kick-start it all over again. Churchill wired Louis Mountbatten who was in the USA, to return immediately, and it was upon his return that Lord Mountbatten was then told by Churchill to take over command of Combined Operations. In 1950, five years after the Nazi machine had been destroyed, Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten described his 1941 assignment. It appeared as a Forward to a book called 'Combined Operations; The Official Story of The Commandos' written by Hilary Saunders. Mountbatten wrote: "The term “Combined Operations” is vague and does not convey more than a general meaning; but their scope is definite and precise. A combined operation is a landing operation in which, owing to actual or expected opposition, it is essential that the fighting services take part together, in order to strike the enemy with the maximum effect, at the chosen point and at the chosen moment. To help the services to do this, a Combined Operations Command was formed, whose primary function is to train officers and men of the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, the Army and the Royal Air Force in the conduct of amphibious warfare. It is also the task of this Command to plan and execute all kinds of raids, small or large." Mountbatten continued: "Amphibious operations are a complex form of warfare. On the material side they entail technical study, the production of new machines of wear, special types of assault craft, both large and small, and the use of these and other new devices. On the human side they demand the creation of sailor-soldiers, soldier-sailors, and airmen-soldiers, who must cooperate with imaginative understanding of each other’s methods and problems. The Combined Operations Command is concerned with both of these aspects and with many others." When Mountbatten returned to the UK in 1941 to takeover command of Combined Operations, he had under his direct control, the training of not only British forces, but French, Norwegians, Czechs, Poles, Dutch, and Belgians from occupied Europe, and officers from the United States Naval, Marine, Army, Rangers and Air Corps. Therefore, Mountbatten's first task was to create a new agenda, and then to orientate everyone who would be charged with carrying out his instructions. One of those summoned to attend Mountbatten's Orientation Course held during the Summer of 1942, was Lt. Col. James Dudley Wilmeth. Next: Wilmeth's amphibious mission .... Our slogan is "forensic investigations into cultural origins", and it means that we dig deep and look for evidence of the kind that is overlooked, either intentionally, or because of sloppy research.
The assassination of President John F. Kennedy has been picked over by so many writers seeking fame on the back of a tragedy, that it would be difficult to name them all. In 1959, Colonel James Dudley Wilmeth, was a university professor. Two decades later, he also taught the university student who later became Professor Habil Dr Eric Gilder in a class dedicated to the Russian language. In the 1940s, James Dudley Wilmeth was attached to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He remained there for two years. In 1962, Professor Wilmeth was also a student given a Masters degree in the Russian language, and yet it is claimed, that Professor Wilmeth who was proficient in the Russian language, called Marina Oswald one year later, and arranged for lessons in the Russian language just three days before her estranged husband Lee Harvey is said to have murdered President Kennedy. Colonel Wilmeth kept his appointment with Marina, the estranged wife of the man who is alleged to have killed President Kennedy. Then, just two days after his murder, her husband was murdered in plain sight of the press, on 'live' television, and while in police custody. Who was Colonel Wilmeth? No one asked that question in this context before now! Yes, the FBI did interview him in a superficial sort of way. So did investigators working on the Warren Report. While they all asked questioned about Wilmeth, they did so in a superficial sort of way. But no one began asking what was known about Colonel Wilmeth. Colonel James Dudley Wilmeth was a member of G2, an organization attached to the U.S. Intelligence community, and he had been for many, many years before that fateful day of November 22, 1963, and yet, no one else seems to have been investigating the life story of Colonel James Dudley Wilmeth, but us. How do we know this? Because forensic evidence has remained unexamined until now, and by this we mean that the intricate details of Colonel Wilmeth's life have remained unexamined, until now. We have been picking through a tangled mess of information encased in a series of snippets that have lacked detailed examination, until now. We will tell you more in the next precursory chapter. We have now performed a major revision of the text of precursory chapter thirty-three The grooming of a spy .... which incorporates new material. It also corrects details about the identity of James Dudley Wilmeth's father. It is possible that due to such a major edit, the text that is now Online may contain typographical errors, and we are now performing a copy edit of this text for that reason. If you spot a typo, please bring it to our attention and we will it correct it immediately.
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