The Untold Story of Marine Legend Major Pete Ortiz, Nazi Germany’s Most Wanted ‘Das Fantom’

To the German military intelligence and the dreaded Gestapo operating in Nazi-occupied Europe, he was known simply as Das Fantom—The Phantom. They had placed a staggering bounty of half a million French francs on his head, dead or alive. His crimes in the eyes of the Third Reich were extensive: operating deep behind enemy lines as a scout, master spy, relentless saboteur, and a fearless commander of the French Resistance.

Now, in a compelling new historical work titled The Phantom, acclaimed authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin pull back the curtain to reveal the untold, harrowing story of Major Peter Julien Ortiz. Widely recognized as one of the most highly decorated United States Marine Corps officers of World War II, Ortiz’s clandestine exploits span continents, branches of service, and some of the most dangerous assignments of the twentieth century.

PROLOGUE: August, 1944: Savoie Department, France

Fresh blood carries a distinct, unmistakable scent. Clean and entirely impersonal, it smells sharply of a sheared brass bullet casing. That metallic tang filled Major Pete Ortiz’s nostrils as he knelt over the broken, lifeless body of a fellow United States Marine, twenty-two-year-old Sergeant Chuck Perry.

Thin red rivulets, resembling tiny scarlet worms, leaked steadily from Perry’s nose and ears, leaving dark streaks across his tawny hair. In the violent final moments of his descent, the young noncommissioned officer had bitten off the tip of his tongue, leaving a bloody flap of the severed muscle still impaled on a broken front tooth.

Major Ortiz was no stranger to violent death. He had inhaled its pungent, copper musk from corpses scattered across two continents—Arab and Italian, French and German, and even his fellow Americans. Yet, this particular loss felt fundamentally different. Standing over the young sergeant in the remote alpine meadows, Ortiz felt an overwhelming, deeply personal sense of responsibility.

Earlier that very morning, before climbing into the frigid belly of a B-17 Flying Fortress at an airfield in England, young Perry had confessed his mounting dread to Ortiz. He admitted that he harbored a deeply unsettling "bad feeling" about the impending mission.

Ortiz had known the young man for only a few weeks, barely long enough to learn that Perry had married his stateside sweetheart just days before volunteering to parachute behind Nazi lines. Remembering his own terrifying first clandestine insertion into enemy territory, Ortiz immediately understood the paralyzing weight of that dread. To soothe the sergeant’s frayed nerves, Ortiz offered a gesture of solidarity: he traded parachutes with him. Perry would jump using Ortiz’s personal, lucky silk rig, which the seasoned major had carefully packed himself.

Coming from a legendary officer whose combat exploits were already whispered about with reverence across the French Foreign Legion, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)—America’s fledgling wartime intelligence agency—the gesture had the desired calming effect. Perry visibly relaxed as the two men exchanged their gear on the rutted wartime tarmac.

To minimize catastrophic casualties from enemy antiaircraft batteries and Luftwaffe interceptors, Ortiz and his six-man team had boarded separate aircraft. Tragically, none of Sergeant Perry’s flight crew noticed that the steel static line connecting his deployment bag to the anchor cable inside the bomber had somehow kinked when he hooked it into place. The wire snapped the moment Perry leaped from the rear side door into the open sky. His parachute—Ortiz’s lucky chute—never deployed. Perry plummeted some four hundred feet before slamming into the alpine meadow, dying instantly from a broken neck.

It was far from a promising omen, particularly because the entire operation appeared to be unraveling before the boots of the Americans had even touched French soil. In military service slang, the mission was rapidly sliding sideways into a state known colloquially as Tits Up.

The Chaotic Drop Over the Col des Saisies

The cascading series of complications began during the approach to the target area—referred to in special operations jargon as the pinpoint. The chosen location was a rugged, thirty-mile break in the French Alps known as the Col des Saisies. This isolated mountain pass, rising approximately fifty-five hundred feet in the shadow of the towering Mont Blanc, was chosen as the logical site to insert a squad of Allied spy-saboteurs.

While a small detachment of German troops was known to occupy the nearby town of Albertville, the vast majority of enemy forces were stationed far to the south in Grenoble, roughly seventy miles away, making a daring daylight jump theoretically feasible. The jagged peaks to the east were painted in golden morning light when three massive waves of Flying Fortresses approached the alpine saddle at staggered altitudes. Seventy-eight heavy bombers were tasked with delivering their human cargo alongside nearly nine hundred steel canisters packed with weapons, ammunition, and provisions intended for the disparate French Resistance cells collectively known as the Maquis.

Although the bombers had picked up a protective squadron of American P-51 fighter escorts somewhere over the English Channel, the massive formation had encountered virtually no enemy resistance since lifting off from England’s Knettishall Air Station nearly seven hours earlier. Perhaps the sprawling, ferocious air battle currently raging over Chartres far to the north had managed to completely absorb the attention of what remained of the Luftwaffe.

However, as the aircraft closed in on the targeted pass, the pilots heading the first wave—designated Group A, which carried Ortiz, his men, and a portion of the supply containers—failed to spot the essential smudge pots and bonfires that local resistance fighters had lit to delineate the drop zone. Adhering strictly to preflight instructions, the heavy bombers overflew the alpine pass before banking to circle back for a second attempt.

Coming in low and fast this time, flying so close to the verdant slopes that Marine Sergeant John Bodnar could clearly distinguish the individual cowbells hanging from the necks of grazing herds below, the airmen finally caught sight of the signal smoke.

Every man on Ortiz’s team was heavily laden for combat. Each carried a wire-reinforced canvas bag containing a Winchester semiautomatic M1 carbine with a folding metal stock—weighing roughly half as much as the standard, Marine-issue Garand rifle—alongside a Colt .45 sidearm and a double-edged Fairbairn-Sykes stiletto. Their rugged mountain rucksacks were crammed with detailed topography maps printed entirely on silk and safely sealed inside cylindrical leather cases, hip flasks of medicinal cognac, cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and the financial equivalent of one thousand dollars in French francs cleverly concealed within secret fabric flaps sewn inside their boxer shorts.

Major Ortiz, lumbering under the immense additional weight of a Thompson submachine gun and a secondary rucksack carrying nearly a million francs destined for local partisan commanders, had to be physically lifted and shoved out of the bomber’s jump door by the waist and tail gunners.

He was barely clear of the aircraft when the navigators of Group A belatedly realized a catastrophic navigation error: they were vectoring on a direct, head-on collision course with the trailing planes of Groups B and C, which were approaching simultaneously from the west.

Standing safely on the ground, Ortiz watched in horror as he peered up into the cornflower-blue sky. A massive tangle of thirty-two-ton aircraft hurtled toward one another at closing speeds approaching three hundred miles per hour, pitching, rolling, and violently banking to avoid disaster. Through a miraculous combination of pilot skill, split-second instinct, and sheer luck, not a single plane collided. Yet, as the crews frantically jettisoned their heavy steel supply containers, the dangers on the ground multiplied. Each cylindrical crate, suspended beneath heavy-duty parachutes, weighed between 150 and 300 pounds and was packed with lethal hardware ranging from Sten guns and hand grenades to explosives and medical supplies, alongside unexpected items like spare bicycle tires and chewing gum.

Tragically, Chuck Perry was not the afternoon’s only casualty. As scores of guerrilla fighters poured out of the enveloping pine forests like choreographed dancers to pry open the bomb-shaped containers, Major Ortiz collected Perry’s dog tags and personal effects. He soon noticed another tense circle of men forming around the injured body of Marine Gunnery Sergeant Bob LaSalle.

Standing within the somber group was the veteran Free French fighter Joseph "Jo-Jo" Arcelin, a deeply experienced wireless radio operator. The sinewy, twenty-one-year-old Arcelin cut an eccentric figure in a war zone. Thin as a bronze sculpture by Giacometti, he wore a dark beret cocked at a jaunty angle above a sharp, corvine face and wire-rimmed spectacles that sat precariously on his nose. His jerky, angular gait resembled a praying mantis folding and unfolding its spindly limbs. Yet despite his youth, Ortiz knew Arcelin possessed nerves of steel, having proven his absolute fearlessness as a getaway driver during previous covert operations in the region.

Crouched over the inert form of LaSalle, Arcelin was deep in consultation with a French physician who had rushed to the scene. Unlike Chuck Perry, the gunnery sergeant’s parachute had deployed successfully, but during the turbulent jump, his static line had somehow coiled tightly around his torso like a boa constrictor, causing him to blackout during his rapid descent.

Examining the injured Marine, the French physician assured Ortiz that LaSalle’s spine was not broken, though the tightening cord had fractured several ribs, wrenched his back, and severely shattered his ankle upon impact. With dilated pupils suggesting a concussion, LaSalle would have to be carried out on a stretcher. The tiny American reconnaissance outfit had barely set foot on French soil, and they were already down two men.

Rising Threats and the Shadow of the Nazi Occupation

Ortiz opened his rucksack and handed Arcelin a set of forged identification papers and a spare Marine sergeant’s uniform provided by his OSS handlers in London. Although the young Frenchman had been born and raised in the nearby Haute-Savoie region, he was now instructed to pose as a French Canadian named George Andrew who had enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. The elaborate ruse would offer little protection from summary execution by the Gestapo if he were captured—in the wake of the Normandy landings, Adolf Hitler had issued a direct order commanding that all Allied personnel captured behind enemy lines, even those wearing standard military uniforms, must be shot immediately. However, the alias might shield Arcelin’s three sisters, who bravely served as couriers for the Maquis.

Arcelin then introduced Ortiz to a third man: Jean-Marie Bulle, the legendary commander of the Free French Maquis battalion bearing his name. Bulle delivered alarming news that fundamentally shifted the strategic reality of the mission. Nearly twelve thousand German troops were currently stationed in and around Grenoble.

This revelation came as a profound shock. Months earlier, during his initial clandestine infiltrations, Ortiz had slipped quietly into the regional hub multiple times to map enemy positions. At that time, the presence of the Gestapo hovered like a toxic vapor over the cobblestone streets, but Grenoble had housed only a fraction of that troop strength. The Germans had previously relied on skeleton forces of passive security battalions—composed of elderly soldiers deemed unfit for frontline combat—alongside auxiliary units of conscripted Czechs, Poles, and Russians.

However, Bulle explained that since D-Day, the Wehrmacht had heavily reinforced the area with ruthless Ost Bataillones, hardened combat veterans transferred directly from the Eastern Front. These units, operating alongside specialized action squads, had previously participated in mass atrocities across Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. While many Americans back home might remain unfamiliar with the names of remote eastern villages where tens of thousands of civilians were executed and buried in mass graves, the French Resistance knew the history intimately. Now, those same brutal units were operating locally, bringing a merciless brand of total war that made little distinction between active partisans and unfortunate civilians.

Equally ominous was the arrival of Heinrich Himmler’s black-uniformed Waffen Schutzstaffel combat units. Known colloquially as the Black Angels, these fanatical soldiers had sworn an oath exclusively to Adolf Hitler. They operated entirely outside the chain of command of the somewhat pragmatic regular Wehrmacht military authorities who had governed the region since replacing Italian occupation forces in late 1943. Senior German army officers had virtually no control over the SS units.

Ortiz had read intelligence reports detailing atrocities committed against French noncombatants following the Normandy landings, but to men on the ground like Arcelin and Bulle, the summer felt like an apocalypse. Events such as the June massacre of the entire population of Oradour-sur-Glane and the destruction of nearby Vassieux-en-Vercors a month prior were permanently seared into local memory.

Bulle’s grim assessment made it clear that the occupation had taken a terrifying turn. The cornered German forces on the Western Front were growing increasingly desperate and vicious. Both men recognized that Vichy regime sympathizers had undoubtedly reported the daylight parachute drop to Wehrmacht headquarters in Grenoble. Nevertheless, with hundreds of maquisards actively blocking the few narrow mountain footpaths leading up to the Col des Saisies, any enemy response would take hours to materialize. Speed remained essential.

As dusk approached—l’heure bleu—Bulle and his guerrilla fighters loaded the tons of recovered military equipment onto a pack train of mule-drawn carts. Arcelin joined Ortiz, Sergeant Bodnar, and Sergeant Jack Risler in hoisting the bodies of their fallen Marine comrades onto makeshift stretchers.

Bodnar and Risler formed a striking contrast. Bodnar, twenty-one, possessed a barrel-chested build, close-cropped dark hair, and a stubbed, broken nose, carrying himself with the earnest demeanor of a trained tracking hound. Risler, twenty-four, was fair-skinned, feline, and visibly wary, with sharp blue eyes and a tight, reserved expression. Ortiz informed his squad that a formal military burial for Sergeant Perry would be conducted as soon as humanly possible, regardless of closing German patrols. Afterward, the injured Sergeant LaSalle would be safely secreted away to a secure safe house far from Albertville to await eventual rescue.

The Mission Ahead

Ortiz knew Albertville well, and the enemy forces stationed there certainly knew him. Das Fantom, the Gestapo had christened him during his earlier operations throughout the rugged region. The Nazi secret police had placed a staggering half-million-franc bounty on the head of the audacious American officer who brazenly paraded through the alpine countryside in his Marine whipcords while leading local partisan units in coordinated uprisings. Over four months of relentless spying and sabotage, Ortiz had blown up bridges, attacked heavily defended munitions plants, ambushed troop convoys, and smuggled downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to safety in Spain.

For this latest assignment, however, the major carried a much larger strategic burden. Initially deployed as an isolated ghost tasked with conducting tactical assaults to distract German forces ahead of the Normandy landings, his new objective was to unify the fractured and frequently feuding partisan factions into an organized, cohesive fighting force.

With another massive Allied amphibious invasion—originally designated Operation ANVIL—scheduled to strike the southern coast of France from the Mediterranean in just two weeks, the success of Ortiz’s mission was paramount. It fell entirely upon his small infiltration squad to ensure that a unified resistance army stood ready to act as a devastating hammer against the enemy.

As the Americans and the Maquis battalion marched up the dusty mountain trails deeper into southeastern France that August evening, the guiding words of OSS director General William Donovan echoed clearly in Ortiz’s mind. Donovan had a habit of reminding his operatives that their core responsibility behind enemy lines was simple: to let fly an arrow of penetration. Major Pete Ortiz and his team remained the sharpest point of that weapon.