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The Washington State connection

Sage and Harris weren’t the only men from Washington State College to end up in our country’s first secret service agency. At least three more trained with them and served in critical wartime posts in China, England, and France.

Sage was among the first to join. The Spokane native was handpicked because of his efforts training recruits on the West Coast, his athleticism, and his readiness to use his fists. An ROTC student and first lieutenant in the Army Reserve, he sought active duty in 1941, believing that the United States would soon join the fight against the Nazis. He reported for duty early and was quickly placed in command of a field bakery platoon. He trained his men to carry rifles in their hands and ovens on their backs. But that assignment didn’t last long. He was pulled into an officer training school at Fort Lewis, and just a few weeks later was called across the country to Washington, D.C.

He arrived to find himself in a private meeting with William Donovan, a Medal of Honor winner from the First World War whom President Roosevelt had appointed chief of the intelligence community. Donovan, then operating under the title of coordinator of information, was just starting to shape the Office of Strategic Services.

He told Sage he had a job for him as agent, saboteur, and possibly assassin. To Sage, it sounded exciting. It was a chance to take action against the Axis forces. “I’m aboard. Yes, sir,” Sage told Donovan.

His first stop was a secret training camp called Area B on Catoctin Mountain in Maryland. Sage learned hand-to-hand combat, how to use a fighting knife, and how to kill silently. He was made an assistant instructor. From that perch, he saw his WSC classmates filter in. Chris Rumburg ’38, a farm boy from eastern Washington who was student body president and played center on the football team when Sage played end, showed up among the first military officers to be trained as instructors. Along with him came Joe Collart ’39, who had been a diver and member of the Washington State gymnastics team. Collart used his engineering education and Rumburg’s brawn to build a confidence course for the camp. They erected a structure of tall logs with crossbeams to help the men overcome fear and vertigo at great heights.

At the camp, Harris, who was living nearby and training with the Marines, ran into Rumburg, and they went out and had a night on the town together. Not long after that, Harris’s name somehow made it onto the OSS list. Besides being a trusted friend of several other agents, Harris had a good Marine career going, and had broken many shooting records while training at Pendleton. His years growing up and hunting in Ketchikan may have given him the gun smarts that served him so well in the Marines. “Well, on your ninth birthday you got a gun,” he said.

Harris’s former fraternity brother, Arden Dow ’40, also joined the trainees at Area B. “Donovan and Roosevelt decided they should have a secret force that wasn’t tied to just the Army or the Navy,” said Harris. “They could get anybody they wanted. I don’t know who pulled me out of the Marine Corps, but someone did.”

The men learned how to change their appearance, how to handle all kinds of weapons and explosive devices, and how to tell if their rooms or luggage had been searched. They also learned how to jump out of airplanes and collect strategic information from behind enemy lines. Some, including Sage, were sent to England to refine their spycraft under the guidance of their British counterparts.

When the Americans joined the Allied efforts during World War II, the new OSS agents were ready to go.

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Continued