In August of 1945, Major Albert Peter Dewey was assigned to lead the first OSS team into Saigon, Cochinchina. The mission was code-named Operation Embankment. Originally, it was to be a typical OSS operation, involving ambushes and sabotage. However, when the war abruptly ended on August 15th, the mission's main purpose was changed. No longer would it be a guerrilla military operation. Instead, its new identity would be that of a political intelligence unit and its new goal would be to clandestinely gather information on the military, political and economic situations in Cochinchina. Although there were French military units present in Indochina, they were all imprisoned as a result of a Japanese coup carried out in March 1945. Therefore, the only credible military forces belonged to the Vietnamese Liberation Front, commonly known as the Viet Minh. The leader of the Viet Minh was Ho Chi Minh. On September 2nd, he declared Vietnamese independence. With neither the British nor the French Army to restrain them, the Vietnamese nationalists quickly consolidated their power in Hanoi while making similar preparations to do so in Saigon.On September 1st, the first contingent of Operation Embankment arrived in Saigon. They were overwhelmed by the disorder and violence they witnessed. Attacks against the French Colons (French colonists) occurred daily. Dewey and the rest of the team arrived on September 4, 1945. Within days, they were sending reports back to both the OSS Headquarters in Kandy and to the State Department in Washington, D.C. Most of his information came from French and Vietnamese informants, especially the Viet Minh. When the French discovered Dewey was meeting with their mortal enemies, they were furious. They felt betrayed. They had considered Dewey to be one of their own.Into this potentially explosive situation a new element, in the person of General Douglas Gracey, was added. On September 13, 1945, Gracey, along with a small expeditionary force, landed in Saigon. Gracey was a believer in "Old School" military discipline. Immediately, he became involved in frequent clashes with the much less formal OSS and its leader, Peter Dewey. Gracey wanted to crush the Vietnamese independence movement and restore Indochina to French colonial rule. Dewey, on the other hand, realized the British and French would never be able to regain control over Indochina. He presciently described the futility of trying to restore French colonial rule when he stated, "Cochinchina is burning, the French and the British are being destroyed here and the United States should stay out of Southeast Asia." In their ongoing conflict, Gracey was continually frustrated by Dewey's keen intellect and razor-sharp wit. After a particularly rancorous conference, Gracey decided he had enough. On September 23rd, he ordered Dewey out as a "persona non grata". Dewey's superiors were notified he was to be removed by September 26, 1945.On the morning of September 26th, after a long wait for his flight back to OSS Headquarters, Dewey and his executive officer, Major Herbert Bluechel, decided to return to the OSS villa for lunch. As they were approaching the villa, they were ambushed at a roadblock, a short distance from their destination. Dewey was killed instantly. Bluechel managed to escape back to the villa. After Bluechel's return, a three-hour skirmish ensued between the OSS team and their assailants. Finally, British troops were dispatched to the villa to break the siege and to rescue the Embankment Team. However, when the fighting was over, Dewey's body along with his jeep had disappeared. They were never found, nor was the group responsible for Dewey's death ever officially identified.