Clandestine Finance Operations
By COL. Roger Edgington

     I have just read, Soldiers, Spies, and the Rat Line, by James V. Milano, Col. USA. Ret. and Patrick Brogan. It is a true story of Army espionage in Austria from the end of WWII until 1950. One of the attendees at our recent Reunion 2000, Sgt Major Ted Moran, recommended it to me. Ted and I were stationed together in Vienna at one time. I enjoyed the book immensely since I was stationed in Vienna on three separate occasions: all of 1946, November 1947 to August 1948 and then March 1952 to June 1954. I was in Linz, Austria from September 1948  until May 1951, so you can see I had my share of Austria.

     Given this introduction, my purpose in writing this is to remind all of my colleagues in the Finance Corps of the significant and necessary role our corps played in the support of military intelligence and counter-intelligence in the Army. In my experience, we paid all of the MIS and CIC personnel. We also provided funds through many intricate and demanding ways to finance their top-secret operations. I can recall numerous occasions when we necessarily used dummy vouchers to support transactions and met individuals at various prearranged locations, either to pay them, or to provide them funds.

     Financing covert operations in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Balkan countries was a primary effort for the three Finance Disbursing Sections in Austria: The 45th FDS in Salzburg, the 318th FDS in Linz and the 131st FDS in Vienna. Under the payroll system in the early years after WWII, Form 336 was used for Officers' Pay and Form 366 was used for Enlisted Pay. I can assure you that there were numerous instances when a Form 336 for an officer was sent to personnel, for subsequent return to the US, as the payee was missing somewhere in those contiguous countries to Austria. Hungary was probably the greatest risk for our people.

     In those years I was in Vienna, I can recall the saying that "the city has at least 5,000 spies and half of them are ours." Numerous intelligence agencies in Austria received our finance service support, 533 MIS Battalion, 430th CIC, Detachment M and R to name a few. Most of the people that I knew from those units were active duty military, but with the introduction of the CIA into our espionage system, there were many more civilians or at least individuals who purported to be civilians. I have never discussed this subject with anyone before, but after reading the book, I was energized to say my bit.

   In closing, I would recommend the book without exception. It is factual in the names of individuals and the locations of organizations as well as approximate dates when various individuals were in Austria. I know, I was there too.