Thank you, Paul. What have we been told about Sarbacher? Pulling from memory, please correct me on my "facts" concerning his presence in Germany at the end of the war.
In the immediate, post war period, the Allies were grabbing all the information and technology, and scientists they they could get before German Boundaries were redrawn and frozen.
As the European war drew to a climax....A number of intelligence operations, planned to become operational as soon as practicable in the event of a German collapse, were designed to seize the intellectual property of the Third Reich. Loosely coordinated by the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee a number of these operations such as ALSOS, which searched for nuclear information and research, OVERCAST, dedicated to the capture of rockets, and SURGEON, the search for avionics and jet technology, were planned. These operations were well documented in both popular and academic literature after the war. However, a lesser-known operation, TICOM, which targeted the capture of German signals intelligence organizations remained top secret and to this day remains shrouded in mystery.
http://www.ticomarchive.com/home/origin-of-ticom
Twigsnapper was a Royal Marine assigned to escort/protect Townsend on his mission. I would guess he was part of Assault Unit 30:
The group's title harks back to the original 30 Commando (which in turn became 30 Assault Unit RM), formed in 1942. This unit was tasked to move ahead of advancing Allied forces, or to undertake covert infiltrations into enemy territory by land, sea or air, to capture much needed intelligence, in the form of codes, documents, equipment or enemy personnel.
Townsend had been sent in to evaluate a scientist, who, presumably claimed to have expertise that only he could verify.
We have been told that Twignsnapper was pulled off the mission because Lieutenant Commander Howard Campaigne did not think Royal Marines should be providing mission security for an American Scientist. USNR Campaigne was the senior naval intelligence officer on TICOM 1.
http://www.ticomarchive.com/the-teams/team-1
(for more on Campaigne, see
https://jansrose.blogspot.com/2011/12/h ... that.html)
Reportedly, Sarbacher was in the near vicinity when Townsend was captured and his "men" are the ones who came to the rescue. Coincidentally? Sarbacher knew the scientist involved because, as young men, the two of them had once traveled around Italy together. (on motorcycles, or have I conflated two stories?)
But when I look at Sarbacher's WWII history I find nothing. The closest matching narrative comes from Chapter 8 of
The Hunt for German Scientists. Author Michel Bar-Zohar says that a Robert B. Staver was put in charge of a U.S. scientific snatch and grab mission to Germany in April and May of 1945, as WW II was winding to a close. Zohar also states that one of Staver's colleagues in this hunt was 'an engineer named
Hull [emphasis mine]. No other name, rank, or mission has been given for this engineer.
There is not much to be learned about Staver, either. I find no mention of him during the war, until the very end. He is often described as Chief of the Jet Propulsion Section of the Research and Intelligence Branch of the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps. (bullets, rockets, a-bombs and such(.Sounds like a pretty smart guy.
Major Robert Staver from the Rocket Section of the Research and Development branch of the Ordinance Office was tasked in directing the effort to find and interrogate the German rocket specialists who had built the V-2. Since April 30 he had been in the Nordhausen area searching the smaller laboratories for V-2 technicians....On May 14, Staver found Walther Riedel, head of the Peenemünde rocket motor and structural design section, who urged the Americans to import perhaps 40 of the top V-2 engineers to America....On May 22, 1945, he transmitted to the U.S. Department of War Colonel Joel Holmes' telegram urging the evacuation of German scientists and their families, as most "important for [the] Pacific war" effort.
https://www.v2rocket.com/start/chapters/backfire.html
Holmes was, at that time, the Chief of the Technical Division for Ordnance (bullets and bombs) for the European Theater.
https://goordnance.army.mil/hof/1990/1990/holmes.html Yet Staver, a lowly Major, felt free to boot his bosses telegram up to a higher power. Consequently, Staver is credited with initiating Operation Paper Clip, which brought 127 German scientists to the US.
But given his reported expertise, I was surprised too be able to find zero mention of any Robert Staver in the defense and aerospace world after 1945. He is a man whose history has been nearly erased.
Could Staver have been Sarbacher's legend at the time of this mission? Everything else dovetails so neatly with what we know of him.
One more tidbit about Sarbacher. He introduced himself as Irving before the war and as Bob, forever afterward.