Today in SF History: January 1

Today in Special Forces History:

1883: 62 William Joseph Donovan born in Buffalo, New York. "Wild Bill" Donovan received the Medal of Honor for conspicuous valor in World War I. He was a classmate of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Roosevelt selected to serve as America's first peacetime spymaster in the years before the war. Donovan's job as Coordinator of Information grew during the war; the organization he headed became the Office of Strategic Services and is the direct ancestor of both the CIA and Special Forces.   

Three OSS elements were most foundational to SF: The clandestine three-man Jedburgh resistance-support teams, the thirty-man independent Operational Groups, and the CBI Theater's Detachment 101, which worked with indigenous guerillas. 

Accordingly, if Aaron Bank is the father of SF, Bill Donovan is its grandsire.

source: The Special Forces Regimental History Calendar, 1993. Special Forces Historical Society Research Organization, Seminole, FL, 1993. (privately printed)

The SFHS in turn credits the Office of Command Historian, USASOC, Fort Bragg, NC. 

The same information, uncredited, is online here. 

Many online sources and SF-community sources are being used to expand these posts. The online sources will be linked in the text.