The Honor Bound series is a World War II thriller book series by W. E. B. Griffin, whose latest four volumes were co-authored with his son, William E. Butterworth IV. It takes place mostly in Argentina, but also deals with internal struggles in the Nazi Party as the war escalates. Griffin based the books on historical events and his own experiences in Argentina.Author Biography at webgriffin.com , accessed 2008-07-05.
Books
Honor Bound (1993) Cletus Frade returns from a flying sortie on Guadalcanal and crashlands. After he recovers, he learns he has been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and is being sent home to participate in a war bonds tour. However, when he reaches the United States, he is approached and recruited into the OSS by Colonel Graham. His mission is twofold; posing as an employee of Howell Petroleum, he and his team will attempt to sink the Reine de la Mer, a German replenishment ship posing as a neutral freighter; he will also try to reestablish contact with his estranged father, who is among the most powerful men in Argentina and is the architect of the impending military coup to overthrow Ramón Castillo, the pro-German President of Argentina. His team members are Tony Pelosi (demolitions) and David Ettinger (radioman).
Ettinger discovers from Jewish refugees living in and around Buenos Aires that the Nazis are ransoming Jews in concentration camps, accepting bribe money from their overseas families for their safe passage out of Germany. The OSS orders the team to verify this information.
Meanwhile, Hans-Peter von Wachtstein, a young Luftwaffe pilot, is selected to escort the remains of the late Capitan Jorge Alejandro Duarte back to Argentina. A neutral observer attached to the Eastern Front, Duarte was flying a Fieseler Storch against the rules of neutral observation and was shot down. Peter's father, a Generalleutnant in the General Staff, reveals that he is one of a group of officers that is duty-bound to pursue the removal of Adolf Hitler. To this end he sends considerable amounts of money with Peter as he escorts the casket to Argentina. Peter meets Juan Perón, who introduces him to the Duartes and their extended family.
Relations between Cletus and his host, Enrico Mallín, are strained, and become even worse when Mallin's daughter, Dorotea, takes an obvious liking to Cletus. Cletus meets his father at long last, and his father is finally able to explain that he did not abandon Cletus willfully; he was prevented from entering the U.S. by Cletus' grandfather. Frade insists that Cletus move out of the Mallín home and into his guest house. Coincidentally, Capitan Duarte's mother, Beatrice, has already sent Peter von Wachtstein to stay there. An awkward moment between two opposing officers turns into a truce, as they find they have more in common with each other than anyone else in Buenos Aires, and they become fast friends. Later, when Cletus's assassination is ordered, Peter warns him, and Cletus is able to defend himself and kill his attackers, but not before they kill the long-time housekeeper, Enrico Rodríguez's sister.
Cletus and his team are able to identify the replenishment ship, but they realize that there is no way to accomplish their mission without getting killed — the ship is obviously well-armed. When the local OSS station chief accuses him of cowardice, it is only the arrival of the destroyer USS Alfred Thomas and the intervention of Colonel Graham that save the mission. The OSS team is augmented by Chief Petty Officer Oscar Schultz, the ship's chief radioman, who deliberately misses the boat when the Thomas sails. Cletus and his team devise a plan to illuminate the Reine de la Mer at nighttime using incendiary devices dropped from a plane (which Cletus is flying, and from which Pelosi is dropping the incendiaries). This allows a hidden American submarine to enter the bay and destroy the replenishment ship, as well as the U-boat alongside her. Cletus and Pelosi are shot down but are promptly rescued.
Blood and Honor (1996) On leave at his grandfather's house in New Orleans, Cletus Frade is contacted by Colonel Graham and informed that his father has been assassinated. Instead of returning to Argentina as a naval attache in uniform, he will assume the cover story of having been discharged from the Marine Corps in order to claim his inheritance. When he does return to Argentina and begin to make preparations for his father's funeral, he discovers that as a result of one of their very few trysts, Dorotea is pregnant.
Meanwhile, the officers allied with el Coronel Frade are panicked, for among the belongings passing to Cletus Frade is the operations order for Esquema Azul (Outline Blue), the planned military coup against the Castillo government. They contact Cletus and are relieved when he willingly passes it to them.
Cletus finds himself tasked with two difficult missions — infiltrate a second OSS team and their radar set from Brazil; and fly an airplane (a Lockheed Lodestar) that he has never flown before from Brazil to Argentina for the use of the rebelling officers.
Peter von Wachtstein stumbles upon the ransoming operation from his end and is definitely able to confirm to Cletus and the OSS that it exists. Ettinger decides to investigate further and is assassinated, making von Wachtstein the only source of information on the ransoming scheme. Peter finds out that the money is part of Operation Phoenix, the plan to hide high-ranking Nazis in South America should the Third Reich fall. He also finds out that several officers with access to the "special fund" are using it for personal gain instead, which further revolts him. He decides to reveal to Cletus Frade where a shipment of money is being landed from the new replenishment ship; Cletus dispatches one of the new OSS team's men with a camera to document the landing, and sends Enrico Rodríguez and another retired cavalry sergeant to guard him. However, Enrico recognizes the Germans who ordered the death of el Coronel Frade and his sister on the beach and shoots them both dead, intentionally barely missing Peter von Wachtstein.
The military coup proceeds as planned (however accelerated due to el Coronel Frade's death) and General Arturo Rawson becomes the new President of Argentina, with no small help from Cletus Frade.
Secret Honor (1999) The Nazi regime decides to investigate the killings of their operatives in Argentina; it seems possible that there is a double agent in the German embassy. Peter is among those singled out for suspicion and is ordered back to Germany. While in Germany, he is reunited with his father and with his old friend Claus von Stauffenberg, who relates to him the plan to eliminate Adolf Hitler. Peter is ordered back to Argentina when it becomes apparent that he has gotten Alicia Carzina-Cormano pregnant. When Peter returns, one of the investigators, Korvettenkapitän Karl Boltitz of the Abwehr, reveals to him that he knows he is the traitor, and directs him to commit suicide by crashing his plane, thereby sparing his father suspicion and possibly death. However, when it is revealed to Boltitz by Ambassador von Lutzenberg that he and Peter share the confidence of Vice Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Peter's life is spared.
Cletus Frade and Dorotea Mallín are married, and it turns into a grand affair that encompasses most of Argentine upper society.
Death and Honor (2008) (with William E. Butterworth IV) Peter von Wachtstein reveals to Cletus Frade that Korvettenkapitän Boltitz is now "one of them", and furthermore that Canaris, head of the Abwehr, is confirmed to be unsympathetic to the Nazi cause. Cletus requests that Colonel Graham visit him personally in Argentina to impart this new information, which confirms information developed in Europe.
Colonel Graham then reveals to Cletus that the U.S. President and "Wild Bill" Donovan would like Cletus to set up a civilian airline in Argentina, using surplus aircraft from the Army Air Corps. Donovan hopes the assets of the airline will be available for OSS use; Cletus Frade suspects the President is trying to put pressure on Pan American-Grace Airways, which has a near monopoly on South American air travel. He nevertheless is able to form the airline in relatively short order, but staffs it with Argentine pilots and staff under pressure from the Argentine government, which makes it unlikely to be usable by the OSS.
The German commercial attache to the Buenos Aires embassy, Wilhelm Frogger, and his wife desert their post when ordered back to Germany. They pass into Cletus Frade's control, and he smuggles them to a small estancia in the mountains. It turns out that their son, a captured Afrika Korps lieutenant colonel, may have information on the plot to eliminate Hitler. Cletus travels to the States (under guise of acquiring Air Transport Ratings for himself and his pilots) and is key in getting Oberstleutnant Frogger to cooperate with his American captors.
Peter von Wachtstein, still under suspicion of being a double agent, is recruited to assist in the landing of yet another shipment of money for Operation Phoenix. Although he is carefully watched during the entire operation and cannot slip away to notify Cletus, he does make note of the fact that mountain troops from the Argentine Army appear to be assisting the Nazis who deliver the shipment. He relates this to Cletus afterward.
Later, when the mountain estancia is attacked and it seems the Froggers were killed, Enrico Rodríguez reveals that he spirited them away safely. He also provides photographic evidence that Juan Perón led both Argentine mountain troops and undercover Nazi operatives to the estancia to kill the Froggers. This, coupled with other evidence, leads Cletus Frade to confront Perón and threaten to out him in front of the rest of the Argentine officer corps should the Nazis take any action against him or his family.
The Honor of Spies (2009) (with William E. Butterworth IV) The beginning of The Honor of Spies overlaps with the end of Death And Honor, as the Argentine mountain troops assault Cletus Frade's mountain estancia in Tandil and Cletus confronts Perón. Immediately following this, another unsuccessful attempt is made on Cletus's life.
The German Embassy in Buenos Aires is still reeling from the implications of the defection of the Froggers. A senior SS operative, Brigadeführer-SS Manfred von Deitzberg, who took part in the previous investigations into the mysterious killings, returns to Argentina, in part to locate the Froggers, in part to continue to uncover the traitor or traitors in the embassy, and finally to continue work on the plan to relocate the Nazi leadership to Argentina in the event of setbacks on the European front. Meanwhile, back in Europe, the plan to eliminate Hitler (referred to as Operation Valkyrie), secretly picks up speed, even as the Nazis plan and execute the rescue of Benito Mussolini.
In Portugal, Graham and Allen Dulles, Graham's OSS counterpart in Europe, meet with Canaris' deputy, who offers the services of Oberstleutnant Reinhard Gehlen, who has been collecting intelligence on the Soviets, and is willing to share it with the Americans in exchange for American assistance in relocating his men and their families to Argentina, in the same way the Nazi party leadership envisions.
Cletus Frade is forced to move his operations to an estancia in Mendoza Province after the German commercial attache's wife becomes mentally unstable and violent. He then takes delivery of three Lockheed Constellations for his airline, and flies one to Portugal, where he picks up two of Gehlen's officers disguised as clergy and returns with them and their families to Argentina. Only later does he realize that one is a Nazi true believer, who Gehlen sent to Argentina to distance him from Operation Valkyrie.