Louis Austin "Jib" O'Jibway was an Ojibwe American football player, boxer, US Army soldier, and intelligence officer. He was one of the few Native Americans to have served in both the OSS and the CIA. He was a Golden Glove heavyweight champion, and was an early training player in the All-America Football Conference. He commanded an OSS amphibious Operational Group (OG) in the Burma campaign. Later, he trained local soldiers during the Laotian Civil War. He presumably died during that war, when his helicopter crashed into the Mekong River, and is recognized with a star on the CIA Memorial Wall and an entry in the Book of Honor. His body, however, was never found, and the date of his death is only presumed.
Early life O'Jibway was born on an Indian reservation of the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians at Soo Township in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. His mother was white, and his father was descended from a long line of Ojibwe chiefs. He was the fifth of their seven children. O'Jibway's grandfather was an Ojibwe chief who married a French-Canadian woman. O'Jibway's father, Joseph E. O'Jibway, died when O'Jibway was only three years old.
O'Jibway's mother remarried when he was nine years old to an abusive white stepfather. The new stepfather sent O'Jibway and his six siblings to Indian schools which participated in the controversial practice of the cultural assimilation of Native Americans.
Early athletic career Despite these early hardships, O'Jibway distinguished himself as an athlete, excelling in American football and boxing during his teenage years. O'Jibway's athletic talent earned him a scholarship to the Haskell Indian School in Lawrence, Kansas. While studying at Haskell, O'Jibway joined the Kansas National Guard to supplement his educational costs.
Later, O'Jibway earned a scholarship to the Bacone Indian School in Muskogee, Oklahoma. At Bacone, he won first place in both the shot put and javelin and gained prominence as a football tackle. O'Jibway also transferred at this time to the Oklahoma National Guard.
In 1937 and 1939, as a heavyweight boxer, he earned state and regional Golden Gloves amateur titles, becoming the first member of the Bacone “Braves” to advance to the national competition. The New York Times described him as one of the most formidable contenders in the heavyweight class and referred to him as “the Indian from Bacone, Oklahoma.” He later reached the national finals of the Catholic Youth Organization boxing tournament. Sportswriters nicknamed him “Big Honey O'Jibway” and “The Battling Chippewa."
Despite the opportunities that athletics provided, O'Jibway sustained numerous injuries from boxing, including a broken nose, damaged teeth, and a fractured hand. He had also not secured any national titles. To support himself beyond his scholarship funding, he worked summers in oil fields and steel yards as a roughneck laborer.
The University of New Mexico awarded O'Jibway a sports scholarship, enabling him to study there for two academic years. He entered into the school's petroleum engineering program. His speed and coordination earned him recognition as the university's leading football tackle during the 1939 and 1940 seasons. He also won the state Amateur Athletic Union heavyweight boxing championship in the winters of 1940 and 1941. The university yearbook described him as “New Mexico’s greatest lineman in recent years,” while sports broadcaster Bill Stern selected him for Life magazine's national Little All-America team in 1940, stating that O'Jibway was one of the most outstanding college football players of his time.
World War II When O'Jibway was 22, he was drafted into the United States Army. On September 24, 1941, O'Jibway officially passed his physical examinations for the Army in Santa Fe, New Mexico. That night, he boarded transportation to be processed at the reception center at Fort Bliss.
Army boxing and football career
O'Jibway's athletic reputation attracted the attention of a former West Point football coach, who persuaded him to extend his initial one-year enlistment into a three-year term in the regular U.S. Army. He advanced quickly to the rank of corporal and was assigned to the physical training unit at the First Cavalry Division headquarters.
In 1942, after completing a 90-day course at Officer Candidate School, O'Jibway was commissioned as a second lieutenant and appointed athletic director of the Cavalry Replacement Training Center at Fort Riley, Kansas. There, he oversaw programs designed to improve soldiers’ physical conditioning and morale through organized athletics.
The Army encouraged competitive sports such as football and boxing to build strength, discipline, and unit pride among new recruits. By the time he was promoted to first lieutenant, O'Jibway had led the cavalry football team to victories over the infantry team and the reigning Midwest Army champions in 1942 and 1943. He also directed one of the Army's most successful boxing programs, which combined training and public exhibitions. Ring magazine described the boxing program under O'Jibway's leadership as “one of the outstanding service ring outfits of any army camp.”
O'Jibway was serving in this capacity when Joe Louis was assigned to Fort Riley's boxing program and placed under his command. The two men, along with Sid Marks, the former Canadian lightweight champion, collaborated in the Fort Riley GI Boxing Training Team, organizing exhibition matches intended to improve physical readiness and morale among soldiers. Contemporary accounts and later recollections indicate that O'Jibway occasionally acted as one of Joe Louis's sparring partners during this period.
Career in the Office of Strategic Services In 1944, O'Jibway volunteered for the Office of Strategic Services, recruited for an amphibious unit mission by Lloyd Peddicord. This unit would eventually be known as the Arakan Field Unit. On April 27, 1944, O'Jibway became the first member of that new OSS unit to arrive at OSS Training Area F, located at the former Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Maryland.
As additional recruits arrived, the sixty-man group began intensive instruction in commando tactics. Their training included jujitsu, unarmed combat, small-boat handling on the Potomac River, and other specialized exercises. By the end of May, the unit had been reduced to forty men, divided into six small-boat teams. In June 1944, they relocated to OSS Training Area A, a wooded expanse near Quantico, Virginia, now part of Prince William Forest Park. There, the men trained in the use and maintenance of foreign and Allied weapons, the construction and disarming of explosive devices, field survival techniques, and night raids. The program concluded with an Independence Day celebration that included a boxing match so fierce that O'Jibway intervened to stop it. The unit departed for the West Coast on July 14, 1944, before proceeding to the China–Burma–India Theater under the South East Asia Command.
From late 1944 through 1945, the OSS waterborne Operational Group conducted missions along the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal using high-speed boats operated by the OSS Maritime Unit. Based at Camp Ritchie, the unit carried out reconnaissance and raiding operations across the islands, mangrove swamps, tidal creeks, and jungles of the Arakan coast in Japanese-occupied Burma, initially under OSS Detachment 404 and later under Detachment 101.
O'Jibway commanded his amphibious reconnaissance team in several other operations, some of which involved direct engagements with Japanese forces, including Operation Rugby and Operation Boston.
During one nighttime probe on Ramree Island, OSS patrols came under heavy fire from entrenched Japanese positions, sustaining casualties and revealing the extent of enemy defenses. Subsequent Allied operations required an entire British Indian Army division and a Royal Marine brigade to secure the island in January 1945, paving the way for the advance on Rangoon.
In the spring of 1945, OSS headquarters reassigned the Arakan Field Unit from coastal reconnaissance to a new mission in China. The men were flown over the Himalayas to join OSS teams from the European Theater tasked with organizing and training the first Chinese paratrooper commando units for operations behind Japanese lines. Before assuming this role, O'Jibway and his team underwent airborne training, earning British parachute qualifications in India and American wings in China.
The Blackberry Mission
O'Jibway and Lieutenant John C. Hooker were assigned to the 10th Chinese Commando, one of twenty planned units, each composed of approximately 200 Chinese soldiers with American OSS advisers. The Chinese recruits, many of whom were poorly equipped and in weak physical condition, were reluctant participants in the experimental program. O'Jibway and Hooker worked to train and motivate them, often discussing in private how best to overcome the challenges posed by low morale and limited discipline among their trainees.
When a major Chinese offensive began in July 1945, six OSS-trained commando units were deemed ready for deployment. Their mission was to capture airfields, seize bridges, and disrupt Japanese communication and supply routes. The 8th, 9th, and 10th Chinese Commando units were grouped under the “Blackberry Mission,” commanded by Captain Arthur P. Frizzell, a veteran of OSS operations in France. Assigned to support the Nationalist Chinese Army's 265th Regiment of the 89th Division, their initial objective was the capture of a Japanese-held airfield in southeastern China that had been constructed on the site of a former Maryknoll Catholic mission.
When the joint Chinese and OSS commando units launched their assault, most of the regular Chinese Army officers and troops failed to advance from their positions. In the sector assigned to the 10th Chinese Commando, Lieutenant Louis O'Jibway and his American sergeants, supported by Lieutenant Hooker's mortar section, led their Chinese paratroopers in an attack on a fortified hill. From that position, they directed sustained fire against Japanese forces below.
After several hours of intense combat and heavy counterfire, the commandos began to exhaust their ammunition supply and, lacking reinforcements, were forced to withdraw. Approximately three dozen Chinese paratroopers were killed in the engagement, but the combined force inflicted more than 160 Japanese casualties. During the night, Japanese forces abandoned both the airfield and the nearby town, allowing the U.S.-trained commandos to achieve their tactical objective despite limited support from regular Chinese units.
Following the battle, Maryknoll priests who had taken refuge in the surrounding hills returned to the mission compound and welcomed the American personnel. As a gesture of thanks and remembrance, the commandos hung a parachute in the chapel of the mission.
Postwar years Following Japan's surrender in August 1945, O'Jibway returned to Washington, D.C. Those who had served in the field in China, including O'Jibway and Lieutenant Hooker, were in poor health after months of exposure to harsh conditions and tropical diseases. O'Jibway was promoted to the rank of Captain and received nearly a year's worth of back pay. On the recommendation of OSS Director William J. Donovan, the War Department awarded O'Jibway the Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service behind enemy lines in China during an assault on a Japanese-held airfield. Having served continuously since September 1941, O'Jibway chose to leave active duty in December 1945, retaining his commission in the Army Reserve.
In January 1946, O'Jibway married Mary Louise Ratcliff, who worked at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Santa Monica. They settled in Pasadena.