Operation Underworld

How the Mafia and US Government Teamed Up to Win World War II

By: Matthew Black

Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross

Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

In 1942, a rational fear was mounting that New York Harbor was vulnerable to sabotage. If the waterfront was infested with German and Italian agents then the US Navy needed a recourse just as insidious to secure it.

Naval intelligence officer Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden had the solution: recruit as his own spies, members of La Cosa Nostra. Pier to pier, no one terrified the longshoremen, stevedores, shopkeepers, and boat captains along the harbor better than the Mafia gangs of New York, who controlled the docks in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Haffenden was prepared to make a deal with the devil--the man who put "organized" into organized crime. Even from his cell in Dannemora State Prison, former Public Enemy #1, Charles "Lucky" Luciano still had tremendous power. Luciano was willing to wield it for Haffenden. But he wanted something in return--Luciano's contacts in Italy to track the Nazis' movements.

Operation Underworld is a tale of espionage and crime like no other, the unbelievable, first-ever account of the Allied war effort's clandestine coalition between the Mafia and the US Government to protect New York, vanquish the Nazis by taking the fight to the enemy in the 1943 US invasion of Sicily.

©2023 Matthew Black (P)2022 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Superb

An excellent view into a point in history largely unheard of or ignored. Captivating and interesting to the very end.

Fascinating- who could have guessed

Fascinating story of the US Navy thinking out of the box in order to protect our Eastern shores and locate those in the US who were supplying German U boats American goods off our shores

Must read of the extraordinary WWII Navy/Mafia Partnership

This is the story of how the NY Mafia together with the Navy saved the US Eastern Seaboard from Nazi terrorism stateside as well as regaining control of transatlantic shipping from the disasters of the German U-boat scourge early in WWII.

Interesting account of events that were less significant than I expected.

I was expecting something different, to be honest. It turns out to be a carefully detailed account, with some imagined conversations, of the assistance the NYC Mafia provided a commander in the Office of Naval Intelligence during WWII. Although the author tries to create a sense of momentousness and makes numerous detours into Mob history for some sensationalism, the actual core of events is not that significant. Basically, the Mob tamped down dockworker labor actions, and helped contain anti war radicals in NYC, on behalf of the USN. Also, some men working on this task force learned enough Italian and Sicilian and acquired some references to make or facilitate very important gains in the Sicilian landing of 1943. But when the book starts off, the author keeps referring to the number of American ships being sunk by UBoats in the Atlantic as the problem that leads Commander Hafferden to reach out to the Mob for intelligence and other assistance. Then, once the Mob is engaged, the book simply forgets about this problem. No explanation is offered of how the Mob aided the solution and I assume they did not. I thought that was a little cheap.

I enjoyed the author’s recreations of the conversations Lucky Luciano may have had with his compatriots Meyer Lansky et al when he was in prison but approving the cooperation with the Navy. Still, they are recreations and not actual history.

The last several chapters report the postwar paths of Hafferden, Luciano, the Navy and the Mob. This was also useful in a cynical way. The Navy destroyed all the documentary evidence and used the “classified’ tactic to gag all of its personnel from disclosing what had gone on with the Mob during the war. Tactics which seem all too familiar in the 2020s. The only reason we know anything about it is because Governor Dewey commissioned a report justifying his commutation of Luciano’s sentence in response to allegations of a payoff. While incomplete, because Luciano had been deported and Hafferden had died, and the Navy had burned the records, it did at least preserve the fundamental facts for subsequent generations.

I was expecting some material on the meetings in NYC between J Edgar Hoover and Frank Costello but there was none. It seems to have fallen outside the narrative.

Overall, this was a perfectly fine book, a little too nonfiction for a summer read, but not a hard read either.

Amazing history

This book gives an amazing account of a piece of WWII history that most of us have never heard. It's a shame so much historical records were destroyed under the guise of protecting the Navy. I think they would have been more enlightening to see the outside the box thinking they were using to protect our waterways in an uncertain time. It's obvious the efforts also contributed to the successful retaking Sicily & Italy.

Pretty Good

Its an interesting story that I really enjoyed. That being said, I can imagine the narration might irritate some people, as the narrator speaks with the cadence of someone reading an elementary school textbook.

Interesting Read

Overall, this wasn't a terrible book. For me, it simply seemed more filled with mini bios about mafia members involved, and how they came to help the U.S. Navy more than anything else. I suppose I wanted more U.S. Navy and Mafia defeat Hitler than was provided. The book does however provide several historical facts which could be expanded upon when looking for related research.

Do not troll me please

Please do not troll me against my own will or my family will report you to the authorities for violating my rights and privacy