Walter Orebaugh

Walter W. Orebaugh Jr. (March 19, 1910 – June 12, 2001) was an American Foreign Service Officer, intelligence officer and university director. For the Foreign Service he served posts in Wellington, Montreal, Trieste, Venice, Nice, Monte Carlo, Florence and Bridgetown. For his service in France and Italy during World War II, Orebaugh was awarded the Medal of Freedom.

Orebaugh is a native of Wichita, Kansas and is a graduate of University of Wichita. He and another Italian partisan escaped to a hideout with other Allied personnel and he eventually sailed in a boat with some British and Americans to Allied lines on May 10, 1944. To the Allies he was able to give detailed intelligence of Italian resistance and German forces and helped facilitate supply lines to the resistance groups behind Axis lines. After briefly returning to the United States, he returned to Italy before the war's end and served as consul in Florence.

Orebaugh wrote a book about his service during the war entitled Guerilla in Striped Pants: A U.S. Diplomat Joins the Italian Resistance.

US consul Walter W. Orebaugh signed visa from 1942, Vichy France.