Editing A. Peter Dewey (section)

==Office of Strategic Services==
On August 10, 1944, Dewey parachuted into southern France as the leader of a 10-man team from the United States [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS). Operating behind enemy lines for six weeks, he transmitted intelligence reports on German troop movements. For his service, General [[William "Wild Bill" Donovan]] personally awarded him the Legion of Merit and the French gave him the Legion of Honor and a second Croix de Guerre.<ref name="morgan67">Morgan, p. 67.</ref>

Dewey arrived on September 4, 1945, in Saigon to head a seven-man OSS team "to represent American interests" and collect intelligence.<ref name="morgan67" />  Working with the [[Viet Minh]], he arranged the repatriation of 4,549 Allied POWs, including 240 Americans, from two Japanese camps near Saigon,<ref>Morgan, p. 68.</ref> code named Project Embankment. Because the British occupation forces who had arrived to accept the Japanese surrender were short of troops, they armed French POWs on September 22 to protect the city from a potential Viet Minh attack. In taking control of the city, the French soldiers were quick to beat or shoot Vietnamese who resisted the reestablishment of French authority.

Dewey complained about the abuse to the British commander, General [[Douglas Gracey]], who took exception to Dewey's objections and declared Dewey ''[[persona non grata]]''. Adhering to strict tradition, Gracey prohibited anyone but general officers from flying flags from their vehicles. Dewey had wanted to fly an American flag for easy identification among the Viet Minh, who Dewey claimed were only concerned about attacking the French. The jeep he rode in prior to his death had a flag wrapped around a pole that was unidentifiable.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lee|first=Clark|title=One Last Look Around|date=1947|publisher=Duell, Sloane and Pearce|page=211|chapter=French Colonials Are Sad Sacks}}</ref>

On the night of September 24–25, Capt. Joseph R. Coolidge IV, part of the OSS team in Saigon, became the first post-World War II U.S. casualty in Vietnam when he was shot and critically wounded in a Viet Minh ambush in [[Thủ Đức]], outside of Saigon. He was rescued by the Japanese, treated at a British field hospital and airlifted out of Vietnam to Ceylon by the USAAF.<ref name=Williams>{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Kenneth|title=The US Air Force in Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War A Narrative Chronology Volume I: The Early Years through 1959|publisher=Air Force History and Museums Program|year=2019|url=https://media.defense.gov/2019/Feb/22/2002092352/-1/-1/1/USAF%20Vietnam%20Chronology%20v1.pdf|page=27}}{{PD-notice}}</ref>

On September 26 because the airplane scheduled to fly Dewey out did not arrive on time at [[Tan Son Nhat International Airport]], he returned for a lunch meeting with war correspondents [[Bill Downs]] and [[Jim McGlincy]] at the villa that OSS had requisitioned in Saigon.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lee|first1=Clark|title=One Last Look Around|date=1947|publisher=Duell, Sloan and Pearce|pages=200–211|chapter=French Colonials Are Sad Sacks|quote=The following day Colonel Dewey invited two of our party, Bill Downs and Jim McGlincy, to lunch at the O.S.S. house on the northern edge of Saigon. They drove out...and sat in the patio to have a drink and wait for Dewey to return from the airport. Five minutes later there was heavy firing up the road, and an American officer came running toward the OSS villa which was also, in effect, American Army headquarters in Saigon. The officer halted every few yards to crouch and fire his .45 back down the road at some invisible pursuers.}}</ref> As he neared the villa, he was shot in the head in an ambush by Viet Minh troops. Dewey's jeep overturned, and Dewey's subordinate, Captain Herbert Bluechel, escaped without serious injury, pursued by Viet Minh soldiers.<ref>Morgan, pp. 67–70.</ref>

The Viet Minh afterward claimed that their troops mistook him for a Frenchman after he had spoken to them in French. Bluechel later recalled that Dewey had shaken his fist and yelled at three Vietnamese soldiers in French while driving back to headquarters.<ref>[https://archive.today/20120714221218/http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/org.wgbh.mla:d8e55cbafa25941c5486c83b72e941d30ae01ec4 "Interview with Herbert Bluechel, 1981"]. April 23, 1981. WGBH Media Library & Archives. Retrieved 2010-11-17.</ref> According to Vietnamese historian [[:vi:Trần Văn Giàu|Trần Văn Giàu]], Dewey's body was dumped in a nearby river and was never recovered.<ref name="Topping 2005 3–4"/><ref name=Williams/> Another version is that his body was first hidden in a well and then reburied in nearby village of An Phu Dong. Reportedly, [[Ho Chi Minh]] sent a letter of condolence about Dewey's death to U.S. President [[Harry S. Truman]] while also ordering a search for the colonel's body.<ref name="Topping 2005 3–4" /> His body was never recovered.

A. Peter Dewey was noted for his prediction over the future of the [[First Indochina War]] and the [[Vietnam War]]: "''Cochinchina is burning, the French and the British are being destroyed there and we are forced to get out of Southeast Asia''" due to recent conflict between France and the [[Viet Minh]].