John Billings flew 39 missions for the OSS, the wartime precursor to the CIA. One risky operation dropped Allied spies high in the Austrian Alps.
a heavy bomber that he jokingly referred to as “the pregnant pig.” He completed 14 combat missions before being assigned to the 885th Heavy Special Bombardment Squadron, which he later discovered was a front for the OSS. “We weren’t even supposed to mention that we were with OSS. The less people that know, the safer it is for all of us,” he told CNN in 2016. “I was a good boy. I didn’t talk about it to anybody.
Mayer “gathered vital intelligence that hastened the war’s end,” Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society, a group that honors the wartime agency, said in an email. Even after he was captured and tortured by the Germans, Mayer persuaded the regional Nazi authority to surrender Innsbruck to approaching Allied forces, “saving untold thousands of lives,” Pinck added. “He was the only member of the OSS who was nominated for the Medal of Honor.
The oldest of three children, John Malcolm Billings was born in Winchester, Mass., on Aug. 7, 1923, and grew up in Scituate, a coastal town south of Boston. His mother was a homemaker, and his father was a millwright who took Mr. Billings for his first flight as a third birthday present.The ride was “probably 10 to 15 minutes, but it seemed like the whole afternoon,” Mr. Billings told. “That really buried itself under my skin, and it’s still there.
His first wife, Nancy Gardiner Billings, died in 1995. In addition to his wife of 24 years, the former Barbara Staley, survivors include three children from his first marriage, Susan Billings of Dumfries, Va., Leslie Billings of Alexandria, Va., and Lee Billings of Stafford, Va.; two stepdaughters, Lisa Oleskie and Lori Staley, both of Woodstock; a brother; six grandchildren; and 13 great-grandchildren.Mr.
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