a World War II story that has never been told before

Uncovered from declassified documents, Operation Underworld reveals for the first time the full extent of what’s known about the Office of Naval Intelligence’s Homefront operations and alliance with the Mafia during WWII.

Operation Underworld is a story about eavesdroppers and spies, saboteurs and informants, lawyers and crooked politicians, sailors and soldiers, and the unlikely alliance between the Navy and the Mafia.

For the first time, Operation Underworld reveals the full true story of how mobster Charles “Lucky” Luciano—the Mafia boss who put the “organized” into organized crime—was recruited by U.S. Naval Intelligence to help turn the tide of WWII.

In 1942, fear was building that the Port of New York was vulnerable to sabotage. To add to the threat, transport ships in the Atlantic were being blown up by enemy U-boats with impunity, and often within eyesight of the coast. Then, a very public fire off of a downtown Manhattan pier wrecked the SS Normandie, which was a troop carrier, and the second largest ship in the world. Just about everyone in New York City saw the fire, and the devastation. It was looking like the waterfront was infested with German and Italian spies and saboteurs.

Naval Intelligence officer Lieutenant Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden had his men go pier-to-pier to try and infiltrate enemy spy rings. But what he found out was that it wasn’t the enemy who put fear into the longshoremen, stevedores, shopkeepers, and boat captains on the waterfront—it was their Italian Mafia, or Irish gang dock bosses. These gangs of New York were what Haffenden needed access to, but to protect the reputation of the Navy, he had to keep it a secret from people in his own outfit. 

Operation Underworld shows Haffenden’s intoxication from dealing with the Mafia, and how he began to run his outfit more like the bosses he used as informants than a Navy officer. But he was also an outside the box thinker and fearless when it came to bending rules. It was thinking like this that led him to recruit “Lucky” Luciano, as he was the only person in New York who could “snap the whip on the entire underworld.” 

It was a Faustian bargain that brought Homefront enemies together but, as journalist and crime historian Matthew Black reveals, one that ultimately succeeded in helping the Allies take the fight to the enemy, and played a significant role in many of the most pivotal moments of WWII.

Mafia Boss Charles “Lucky” Luciano mugshot circa 1931