May 14, 2019 ▸ History

Episode 386: Project Underworld: German Uboats Versus the Italian Mob

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we go back in time to World War Two and explore the time when the US Navy got in bed with the Italian Mob through a crazy program officially called Project Underworld. It all started when about 650,000 tons of war goods per month were being sunk off the American coast by German U-boats. These were critical supplies for our European allies, and Europe was on the verge of collapsing because they couldn’t get these imperative materials. Then, a ship called the Normandie was burned on the docks in Long Island, and the Navy smelled a Nazi saboteur.

However, the docks were owned by the Mob, and snitches get stitches, so nobody would give any Intel to the Navy. At this point, they decided to contact Joseph “Socks” Lanza, a made man who controlled the fisher union. They told him then needed to find out what happened to the ship and needed to learn how the Nazi U-boats were getting fuel and supplies this far from home. Lanza was on board instantly, and he and the Navy’s Commander Haffenden hatched an incredible plot.

They used the entire fishing fleet from Maine to Miami as eyes and ears, and they were able to sniff out the sympathizers who were supplying the U-boats and spot the U-boats before they could do damage. The results were far more effective than they ever dreamed. But their use of the mob spread. The team developed a group of half mob and half navy breaking and entering teams who snuck into places throughout Manhattan and found German spy rings.

There were many twists and turns, and the mob was very much the mob through the whole affair. Surprisingly, the Navy was on board with racketeering, roughing people up, breaking limbs, burning down buildings, and even whacking people to keep the Nazis at bay. Eventually, they needed Project Underworld to spread, so they needed the help of Lucky Luciano, the father of the modern day mob. He was in prison, cut off from the four families, but his partner, the Jewish mobster Meyer “The Little Man” Lansky, came in to help (he hated the Nazis after all). Lansky got the government in touch with Luciano, and the Navy and the New York DA fully reinstated Luciano to be the head of the five families in exchange for his help. What did he do? Well, he wacked key Nazi spies for them. They got all of New York to be an intelligence gathering apparatus within days. He got the Jewish and Irish Mobs on board. He even helped plan the ultimate US invasion of Sicily where the beginning of the end of the war all started.

Quite simply, the Mob turned the tides of the war, and people like Socks, Luciano, and Lansky were to be hailed as heroes for a moment instead of lauded as murderers and criminals. So, how effective was Project Underworld at turning the tide of U-boat attacks? What did they do to help the invasion of Sicily through Operation Husky? What did Luciano get out of his deal to help the Navy? What did the Navy higher ups think of the Mob being…well…the mob? Listen, laugh, learn.

Very Thorough Discussion: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/project-underworld-the-u-s-navys-secret-pact-with-the-mafia/