Harvey Allan Todd was born near Greenville, Illinois on January 18,1916 to Orville and Effie Todd which is where he was located at age 3 in the 1920 census.
By the 1930 census, Allan’s family had settled down in Decatur, Illinois where Allen received his primary and secondary education.
After completing his college education, Todd found himself in Marion, Illinois by the late 1930’s where he secured a job as Algebra teacher and coach in the Marion Township High School.
With U.S. involvement in WWII looming, Allan went to Chicago on June 26, 1941 and enrolled in the army. His occupation listed on his enrollment records indicated that he was a secondary school teacher. He was recorded as being 71” tall and weighing 212 lbs.
Because of special training he had received and his ability to speak some French, the then recently formed Jedburghs picked him. Of the 200 American soldiers initially chosen, 50 survived the vigorous training to be chosen for this elite group and one of them was Todd.
The Jedburghs were a secret, elite group doing counter intelligence whose sole mission was to parachute behind German lines and wreak all types of havoc on Hitler’s Third Reich. Turned out that Allan was good at what he did, perhaps the best. At least that’s the impression former CIA Director William E. Colby gave, when giving a talk to a reunion of Jedburghs at Washington D.C. in May, 1988.
Colby, himself a former Jedburgh, talked about the three days in September, 1944 that Todd helped to hold off a German Panzer Unit advancing to the bridge at the Battle of Arnhem, one of World War II’s bloodiest battles.
Armed with only an M-16, a British-made semi-automatic rifle and a sidearm, Todd, from the third story of what was the tower’s waterworks building, kept a German army from advancing over a crucial third bridge for three days, while severely wounded in his eyes, an arm, and an ear from the shelling of Tiger tanks.
That bridge and battle, you may remember, was made famous and memorialized by a 1976 movie, “A Bridge Too Far.”
Todd was eventually “blown off” the building into the basement by a Tiger tank and later captured, but not before rendering severe losses to the German unit. According to a dispatch, dated August 31, 1945 from Lt. General W.B. Smith, Chief of Staff, in which Todd is cited for “extraordinary heroism”, the former Marion man “inflicted heavy casual ties upon the enemy.” Because of what he did he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the country’s second highest award, next to the Congressional Medal of Honor.
By order of then president, Harry S. Truman and General Dwight E. Eisenhower, Todd was presented the Distinguished Service Cross on September 22, 1945 by Maj. General William “Wild Bill” Donovan on the front lawn of the White House.
The written citation that details his bravery at Arnhem reads:
“After being parachuted into Holland to take up resistance activities, Lt. Todd became involved in fighting against overwhelming numbers of the enemy… Although wounded, he remained heroically for three days on the roof of a target building, inflicted heavy casualties upon the enemy and rendering invaluable service . . . (his) extraordinary courage and leadership under heavy enemy fire were an inspiration to his associates and reflects great credit upon himself and the United States Army.”
Still today, Todd is hailed as a hero. His former cloak-and-dagger comrades gave him a standing ovation at the reunion, after Colby’s talk about his heroics at the Arnhem Bridge. Actually, he wasn’t even supposed to be in a battle. His real mission was to parachute into Arnhem, Holland, with the British 1st Airborne Division and organize local resistance – something he had done successfully months earlier in France. But someone in the British high command miscalculated the strength of the German forces and the 1st Airborne found itself eye to eye with three of Hitler’s elite Panzer Divisions, the 8th, 9th and 10th divisions. And what a mistake it was. Of the some 14,000 British soldiers who parachuted into Arnhem 12,000 were either killed, wounded or captured.
Todd’s heroics, though, don’t stop at Arnhem. After being “blown off” the waterworks building he was eventually captured and sent to three different interrogations centers where his life hung by a thin line. “There weren’t supposed to be any American soldiers at Arnhem,” Todd said. “If they would have found out why I was actually there I would have been instantly put to death.”
Todd escaped that brush with death by using a “cover story” that he was an American officer acting as consultant-observer to the British 1st Airborne. The Germans bought the story and eventually sent him to a POW camp in Poland. A failed escape attempt there though, gave Todd his second serious brush with death. He was caught, but not before again inflicting heavy casualties, and sentenced to die; but a “sharp” American POW Colonel, using some “good ol’ fashioned American ingenuity,” saved Todd’s life.
“They (the Germans) put me on trial. It was cut and dried and lasted just two or three minutes before they handed down the sentence of death,” Todd said. “I was to be put to death at sunrise, but Col. Good (the top-ranking American POW in camp) knew that we could appeal the sentence to the German high command. The sentence would be the same, but it would take 30 days.
Todd appealed and bought himself an extra 30 days – call it luck or fate – Todd gained additional time when the Germans found out that advancing Russian soldiers planned to liberate the camp. Todd and 1,500 other POW’s were then marched, in the dead of winter, some 500 miles, where supposedly some of them were to be used as hostages by Hitler. The march came near the end of the war and rumors circulated among the POW group that Hitler wanted hostages to save his own life.
During the march, which took three months and saw more than 1,000 POW’s die from exposure to temperature that fell to 25 degrees below zero, orders came through that Todd’s appeal had been denied and that he would be shot in 30 days. On the 30th day, Todd was pulled aside for execution. But fate smiled upon him again – thanks to Col. Good.
A German colonel in charge of the POW’s had left the column earlier, putting a German captain and sergeant in charge. Col. Good told Todd the written orders for his execution had probably gone with the German colonel and that none of the remaining guards would shoot him without those orders. Good’s plan was to have Todd ask to see the orders.
“I asked to see the written orders for my execution. I told them I thought they had the wrong day and that I still had some time left,” Todd recalled. The plan worked. The orders could not be found. The execution was delayed until the POW column could reach its destination, where the German colonel and undoubtedly the written orders were waiting. That just bought Todd additional time.
Todd devised a plan to escape. He befriended the German captain and sergeant and convinced them to let him and some other POW’s go. They did and, as a matter of fact, the two Germans deserted with them. A few days later, they spotted a reconnaissance team from General George Patton’s 14th Armored Division and were rescued.
His final brush with death came when Todd led an unsuccessful raid on a German prison camp in an attempt to free Patton’s son-in-law. But something went wrong and Todd was captured again. His new captors, though, did not know that he had previously escaped from another POW camp and had been sentenced to die. They bought his story of being a paratrooper. He eventually escaped from this camp and made it back to his own lines.
Besides the Distinguished Service Cross, Todd was also awarded a Purple Heart with three oak leaf clusters, two battle stars, singled out for bravery in two British Mention End Dispatches and received a letter of commendation from Prince Bernard of Holland. At the time of his retirement he held the rank of Captain. In May, 1988, he was again honored by both the British and French embassies in Washington, D.C.
As he looks back on his illustrious military career, Todd said he can only attribute his escapes from death’s grip to “a cool head, good training, a will to succeed and, most importantly, prayer.” “I prayed a lot,” he said.
Todd went on two other “missions” for the Jedburghs; one being off the coast of France where he blew up a German ammunitions ship that required split-second timing, the type of thing you see in James Bond movies.
After his military career, Allan and his wife, Amanda Carlton Todd settled down in Decatur, Illinois. After his retirement from Prudential Harvey Allan Todd passed away in Decatur on June 15, 1993 at 77 years of age.
He is interred in Graceland Cemetery in Decatur, Illinois.
(Data extracted from an article by Mary Lou Roberts based on information from a Marion Daily Republican article and Allan Todd and published in the 1989 Sesquicentennial History; Federal Census Records; compiled by Sam Lattuca on 11/01/2013)