On December 26, 1944, a Nazi counter-partisan unit named "Edelweiss" stormed a log cabin high on Homolka Mountain in today's Slovakia which housed 15 Allied intelligence officers, a Slovak officer, a Slovak-American interpreter, two Slovak civilian resistance fighters, and Morton himself, covering an OSS operation in the country for a story.
He became the first American correspondent to report the entry of Soviet troops into Bucharest and obtained an exclusive interview with King Mihai on September 7, 1944.
Morton was remembered by some officers as "gentle, ever smiling Joe" although his charm and friendly character disguised an aggressive reporter who would go anywhere and do anything for a story.
In July 1944, Moscow reluctantly approved a U.S. military mission to fly into German-occupied Czechoslovakia to evacuate a number of downed Allied aviators being harbored by British intelligence units and Slovak partisans.
The mission became the OSS cover story to support a Slovak partisan uprising against Nazi rule with guns, ammunition, and sabotage, while gathering military intelligence deep inside Hitler's occupied Europe.
Green, while stationing in a rebel capital of Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, reported to the OSS headquarters in Bari that the German Army offensive was closing in and "would probably be successful.
[4] Joe Morton had heard of an intelligence mission slated to begin on October 7 and persuaded the Dawes team to let him join them.
Realizing that escaping into the hills was the only option left, Joe Morton, Lt. Holt Green, and the Dawes team, joined long columns of soldiers, partisans, and civilians fleeing into the mountains while encountering German planes strafing and bombing, artillery fire, as well as German units with dogs in hot pursuit.
"[7] On December 14, Morton, the Dawes men, and Maria reached and hid in the Homolka cabin above the village of Polomka in the mountains as the blizzard closed in.
Eleven days on, the officers celebrated Christmas by singing carols and enjoying a ham that young Slovak partisan Rudolf Hruska had carried up from the village.
"[8] The next morning, a 300-man strong Nazi counter-partisan named "Edelweiss", under Commander Ladislav Niznansky, stormed and surrounded the cabin.
Morton made clear that he was not a soldier or officially part of the intelligence group, even showing the Germans his war correspondent insignia or ID to prove that he was a journalist.
[12] All were executed at Mauthausen in the presence of Franz Ziereis and camp chief Adolf Zutter on orders from SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
Ziereis was fatally shot during an escape attempt, whereas Zutter was tried in Mauthausen trial, sentenced to death, and executed in 1947.
However, London received an alarming news from a German radio that said 17 Anglo-American agents who had been captured in Slovakia had been tried by a military tribunal and executed by shooting on January 24, 1945 that same day.
[10] Years later, declassified U.S. government files claimed that the OSS had no idea Morton would be aboard the aircraft flying the rescue mission to Slovakia for downed airmen.
The file noted that Morton had no clandestine training and that he was actually a guest of the 15th USAAF, not the OSS, and also mentioned that he intended to leave Slovakia when the aircraft returned to Italy, but on the arrival at Banská Bystrica, he changed his mind.