The Holohan Murder Case

The Holohan murder case concerns the death of OSS Major William Holohan in Italy during the Second World War.

In September 1944, the U.S. Army's Office of Strategic Services (OSS) dispatched teams of specially trained soldiers into enemy-occupied territory to organize resistance movements. In Europe, one team was dispatched to the Como, Italy area. Its mission was code-named "Chrysler". Many of the partisan groups in Europe and Asia were overtly communist. This greatly concerned some Allied planners, since the communists could be expected to use their military power to take control of post-war government. The uprising in Paris in August 1944 was fomented by pro-communist police who were then pushed aside by forces loyal to Charles de Gaulle. In Greece, a civil war erupted between communist and anti-communist partisan forces.

On September 27, 1944, four American soldiers – mission commander Major William V. Holohan, First Lieutenant Giannino, Second Lieutenant Aldo Icardi, and radio operator Carl G. LoDolce – and three Italian agents parachuted into northern Italy near Coiromonte, a frazione of Armeno in the province of Novara. Holohan was a forty-year-old lawyer who had a peacetime reserve commission in the cavalry. Twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant Icardi was the only mission member able to speak the dialect of the region. Lieutenant Giannino spoke Italian and LoDolce spoke Sicilian. Holohan was entrusted with about $16,000 worth of U.S. dollars, gold Louis d'ors, Swiss francs, and Italian lire to fund mission activities. Holohan insisted that his men wear their uniforms in accordance with OSS directives to protect against being executed as spies if captured.

The situation in northern Italy, 600 miles (1,000 km) from the Allied armies, was particularly complex. There were four major anti-fascist groups: the Socialists, Action Party, Christian Democrat, and Communist, plus smaller groups under commanders with imprecise allegiances. Originally, Mission Chrysler was to establish a show of authority and liaison in the area in anticipation of an early Axis capitulation. When this did not happen, the mission was changed to assist the partisan units with arms and supplies.

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