Peter Ortiz: The WWII Marine Who Foreshadowed Modern-Day Special Forces

In 2017, journalist Katie Sanders discovered an episode of a radio program called This Is Your Life. It was a scratchy recording from 1949, and she heard the voice of 2nd Lt. Murray Simon, her grandfather, for the first time. In the episode, Murray was reunited with a man named Peter Ortiz, who had rescued him after his plane crashed over Nazi-occupied France in 1944. Ortiz became one of the most decorated Marine officers of World War II, undertaking missions now handled by units like the Navy SEALs and Green Berets. Katie and Nicholas Reynolds, a former CIA historian, went on to write Ortiz's War.

Subscribe to Sasha's Substack, HUMINT, to get more intelligence stories: https://sashaingber.substack.com/ and https://www.youtube.com/@sasha-ingber 

For more information about the International Spy Museum, visit: ⁠https://www.spymuseum.org/⁠

And if you have feedback or want to hear about a particular topic, you can reach us by email at spycast@spymuseum.org.

This show is brought to you by N2K Networks, Goat Rodeo, and the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. This episode was produced by Flora Warshaw and the team at Goat Rodeo. At the International Spy Museum, Mike Mincey and Memphis Vaughan III are our video editors. Emily Rens is our graphic designer. Joshua Troemel runs our SPY social media. Amanda Ohlke is our Director of Adult Education and Mira Cohen is the Vice President of Programs.