A Special Force

Although retired Army Col. Aaron Bank never completed his most important mission--a top-secret 1945 assignment to kidnap Adolf Hitler in Austria--today the 94-year-old founder of the Green Berets is still a hero among members of the Army Special Forces Command.

“Col. Bank is the father of the Special Forces,” said Carol Jones, a representative for the command at Fort Bragg, N.C. “He is the cornerstone of our Special Forces heritage.”

Bank, who left the military in 1958 and moved to San Clemente in the 1960s, was honored Sunday by about 80 people, including past and present Special Forces personnel. They gathered at the Newport Beach Pier to kick off a 3,000-mile walk across eight states to Lumberton, N.C.--just 40 miles south of Fort Bragg, the home of the Green Berets.

Operation Bank/Walk Across America, organized by a dozen chapters of the Special Forces Assn., is a way for military groups to raise awareness of prisoners of war and the missing in action. They also want to raise funds for the Special Forces museum at Fort Bragg.

Participants carrying an honorary baton bearing Bank’s name have pledged $1 for each mile they walk. They plan to cover about 50 miles a day. The baton will remain on display at the museum.

When the California contingent reaches the Arizona border near Needles, a ceremonial transfer of the colors to Arizona chapters of the Special Forces Assn. will take place. The ceremony will be repeated at the border of each state.

On Sunday, Bank led the first leg of the walk in a golf cart.

Bank is a legend to Special Forces veterans. It was at his urging that the Army established the unit.

The Special Forces Command was founded in 1952 by Banks and the late Col. Russell Volckmann.

“There had never been such a unit before in the regular army,” Bank said. “It was the first time the Army authorized what we call an unconventional warfare unit. We were specialized to use all the dirty tricks that are not supposed to be used.”

Bank’s inspiration for the original 10th Special Forces Command came from his work as a special operations officer for the Offices of Strategic Services, the predecessor to the CIA.

“Once we get behind enemy lines we are a thorn in his line of communication,” Bank said.

Having worked as a lifeguard before joining the OSS, he was asked to recruit and train about 200 German prisoners of war for a mission dubbed the Iron Cross.

“I figured it was a gamble and I had to trust them,” said Bank. “They defected because they said Hitler was ruining Germany.

The group trained for months at the St. Germain Villa in France.

They were set to parachute into the Austrian Alps where Nazi leaders were believed to be seeking refuge near the end of the war.

As they waited to board the plane for Austria, about a month before Hitler’s death, central intelligence called the mission off.

“They claimed it was too risky,” Bank said.

Forty-one years later, Bank wrote the nonfiction book “From OSS to Green Berets: The Birth of Special Forces” on his role in the formation of the Special Forces. In 1993, Bank co-wrote with E.M. Nathanson the novel “Knight’s Cross.”

Nathanson said the first half of the novel is based on Bank’s real-life anecdotes from the Iron Cross mission--but this time Hitler doesn’t get away.

“For years Aaron always wondered ‘What if we jumped in and caught the son of a bitch?’ ” said Nathanson.