By Sam Roberts, New York Times<\/p>\n
Irv Refkin, an impromptu but daring spy who served the United States and Britain as a saboteur, assassin and courier behind enemy lines in Europe during World War II, died on Thursday at his home in San Diego. He was 96.<\/p>\n
His death was confirmed by a friend, Vera Davis.<\/p>\n
Dispatched from England, Mr. Refkin, a scrappy 5-foot-6 Wisconsin native, was said to have smuggled explosives to the French Resistance in Paris, infiltrated Nazi Germany to kill specific targets integral to the Nazi war machine, and sabotaged train tracks to slow the deployment of German tanks to Normandy before the Allied invasion on D-Day.<\/p>\n
On his clandestine missions inside Germany, he would disguise himself in a Wehrmacht corporal\u2019s uniform.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one,\u201d he explained, \u201chas ever noticed a corporal.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also carried out assignments in Italy, the Soviet Union and South Africa.<\/p>\n
Mr. Refkin, who was discharged as a master sergeant after the war, was awarded the Bronze Star. In 2014, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the Office of Strategic Services Society, an association of alumni from the wartime intelligence predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cO.S.S. founder General William Donovan described O.S.S. personnel as \u2018glorious amateurs\u2019 who performed \u2018some of the bravest acts of the war,\u2019 \u201d said Charles Pinck, president of the society, in an email. \u201cThat\u2019s a perfect description of Irv Refkin.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, when legislation was pending to award the Congressional Gold Medal to World War II spies who served behind enemy lines, Mr. Refkin lobbied for speedy adoption, arguing that the ranks of those former spies were dwindling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all in our mid-90s,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be here that long.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Barack Obama signed the legislation in December 2016, but the medals have not yet been formally conferred.<\/p>\n
Isadore Irving Refkin was born on June 7, 1921, in Milwaukee to Samuel and Anna Refkin, Jewish immigrants from Russia.<\/p>\n
According to his account, his parents were killed in an auto accident when he was 3 or 4, and for the next 10 years he was raised in a German Lutheran orphanage. Then, he said, with $3.26 in his pocket, he fended for himself.<\/p>\n
After completing high school he attended Marquette University in Milwaukee for two years, then enlisted in the Army in 1940 when he was 19 to avail himself of the proverbial \u201cthree hots and a cot\u201d \u2014 a place to eat and sleep. After basic training, he was sent to Canada for instruction in explosives.<\/p>\n
According to his account, he had a run-in with a senior officer there who extracted revenge by putting him on a plane to Britain without notice. By the time the authorities there realized he was not Canadian, and before the United States Army learned he was missing, he had parachuted into occupied France to apply his skills as a demolition expert and a speaker of German.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they catch you they\u2019re going to kill you for being Jewish,\u201d an officer warned him, Mr. Refkin recalled in an interview for the strategic services society this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they catch me for being a spy, is it going to be any easier?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
When the officer replied no, Mr. Refkin said, he delivered a typically practical response.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne way or another,\u201d he said, \u201cI can\u2019t let them catch me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he carried out three successful missions for the British. Once the United States entered the war he performed special assignments for the Americans, according to the society.<\/p>\n