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The Forgotten Story of How Lucky Luciano and The Mob Helped The US Invade Sicily During WWII
A reminder of how war makes strange bedfellows
In 1942, in New York City’s bustling harbor, a ship by the name of SS Normandie caught fire and capsized, coming to rest at the bottom of the Hudson River. Normandie was an ocean liner that was undergoing a conversion into a troop transport for the US Navy. The ship was of French origin and had been seized under wartime provisions. It would have made a large and valuable transport ship if it had ever been finished. The sinking changed all of that, and the ship never made it into US military service.
The sinking alarmed American officials who believed that the act had been an act of sabotage. For years, authorities fretted that fascist sympathizers and spies had been flowing into the United States by way of New York City. Many of the dockworkers in New York were of Italian origin, and fears began to grow that Italian fascists could be infiltrating America’s most important infrastructure. Rumros began to spread of a looming worker’s strike which would cripple the American war efforts by paralyzing east coast docks.
The government had little influence over the rough and tumble underbelly of New York City’s blue collar workers. But they knew someone who did. Sitting…
