P Division

*by Raymond H Rich and Gil Trevizo*

The Parapsychology, Paranormal and Psychic Phenomena Division, better known as the 'P Division' or 'P4 Division' was a section of the Office of Naval Intelligence responsible for investigating supernatural events and occult methods that might endanger the safety of the United States, particularly those involving naval matters. P Division was established in 1917 to look into certain bizarre occurrences in central Europe during WWI. At its inception the 'desk' consisted of fifty officers, but this number had withered to two by the mid 1920s. These two officers spent most of their work hours reading through newspapers looking for articles about ghouls and ghosts, which left their ONI colleagues with the impression that P4 was something of a joke. It was under the command of Lieutenant Edward Brookstone sometime in the 1920's, but came under the command of Marine Corps Colonel James Whelan by the time P Division participated in the federal raid on Innsmouth in February 1928. This raid, codenamed Operation PUZZLEBOX (earlier Operation COVENANT) by P Division, was the true beginning of the organization of what would later become known as Delta Green.

During this raid on Innsmouth, several texts, including a set of mysterious stone tablets, were captured. The stone tablets were turned over to the Black Chamber signals intelligence and cryptography unit in April, 1928. By November, 1929, the translation was completed as the Book of Dagon. The Office of Naval Investigation moved their Project COVENANT veterans and artifacts to the ONI’s P Division and assigned them with a large number of ex-Black Chamber cryptographers, which P4 Division put to work translating the artefacts recovered from Innsmouth.

From 1929 to 1942, P Division acquired:

1. *An Investigation into the Myth-Patterns of Latter-Day Primitives, with Especial Reference to the R’lyeh Text* by Dr. Laban Shrewsbury (1913)
2. *Cthulhu in the Necronomicon* by Dr. Laban Shrewsbury (1938)
3. *Polynesian Mythology* by Prof. Harold Hadley Copeland (1906)
4. *The Prehistoric Pacific in the Light of the Ponape Scripture* by Prof. Harold Hadley Copleand (1911)
5. *The Zanthu Tablets* by Prof. Harold Hadley Copleand (1916)

P Division successfully disrupted a pair of Deep One colonies. In 1930, depth charges were dropped on a coral reef near a small island in the Philippine archipelago infested with hybrids. Captured cultists and hybrids were taken to the secret Arizona containment facility. In 1933, the Pacific coast of Nicaragua was found to contain a fishing village with a growing Esoteric Order of Dagon. The village was destroyed, along with all the villagers and artifacts. Along with the requisite dropping of depth charges on nearby reefs, P Division used an invocation found in the Ponape Scripture to lure Deep Ones into deadly ambushes.

The invocation was then attempted near the ruins of Innsmouth to capture Deep Ones for study and to learn the locations of other colonies. While the former goal was achieved, the latter was not. By the late 1930s the Deep One threat appeared to have been neutralized.

On February 12 1942 P Division was transferred from the Navy to the Office of the Coordinator for Information, where it was set up as a psychological warfare unit reporting directly to the head of COI, William J. Donovan. Within the same order transferring P Division, Donovan created a security clearance for all material concerning the covert unit, called "Delta Green". When COI was re-established as the Office of Strategic Services on June 13, 1942, P Division remained a unit of the new OSS, and gradually became better known as OSS-Delta Green. After the OSS was disbanded in October 1945, OSS-Delta Green was itself disbanded until it was resurrected in 1947, now simply known as Delta Green.

### List of P4 Division Operations:

* Operation PUZZLEBOX (earlier Operation COVENANT) - A raid on Innsmouth that resulted in the capture of two-hundred and nine half-human creatures as well as a plethora of unnatural artefacts and texts.
* Operation TALCUM - The Phillippine island of *Piedra Negra* is raided by P4 with the support of the Navy. Five hundred hybrids are captured along with dozens of artefacts of the Esoteric Order of Dagon.
* Operation BAKELITE - US Army and Nicaraguan National Guard forces, at P4's direction, enter the village of *Agua Verde* on the Mosquito coast. A massacre of the hybrid creatures takes place, and artefacts recovered point to China as the point of origin for the cult.
* Operation THIMBLE - P4 Officer Lester Dean, accompanied by twenty-two men, enters China in search of the mystical city of Yian-Ho. He emerges three months later alone and insane. P4 Agents are restricted to operating only within the US in response.