Part 1 (1/2)

The forgotten 500: the untold story of the men who risked all for the greatest rescue mission of World War II.

by Gregory A. Freeman.

Introduction.

One of the last untold stories of World War II is also one of the greatest. It's a story of adventure, daring, danger, and heroics followed by a web of conspiracy, lies, and cover-up. of the greatest. It's a story of adventure, daring, danger, and heroics followed by a web of conspiracy, lies, and cover-up.

The story of Operation Halyard, the rescue of 512 Allied airmen trapped behind enemy lines, is one of the greatest rescue and escape stories ever, but almost no one has heard about it. And that is by design. The U.S., British, and Yugoslav governments hid details of this story for decades, purposefully denying credit to the heroic rescuers and the foreign ally who gave his life to help Allied airmen as they were hunted down by n.a.z.is in the hills of Yugoslavia.

Operation Halyard was the largest rescue ever of downed American airmen and one of the largest such operations in the war or since. Hundreds of U.S. airmen were rescued, along with some from other countries, right under the noses of the Germans and mostly in broad daylight. The mission was a complete success, the kind that should have been trumpeted in newsreels and published on the front page of the newspapers. But it wasn't.

It is a little-known episode that started with one edge-of-your-seat rescue in August 1944, followed by a series of additional rescues over several months. American agents from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA, worked with a Serbian guerilla, General Draza Mihailovich, to carry out the huge, ultrasecret rescue mission.

These are the tales of young airmen shot down in the hills of Yugoslavia during bombing runs and the four secret agents who conducted their amazing rescue. These are the stories of young men-many of them first-generation Americans, the proud, patriotic sons of European immigrants-who were eager to join the war and fight the Germans, even finding excitement in the often deadly trips from Italy to bomb German oil fields in Romania, but who found themselves parachuting out of crippled planes and into the arms of strange, rough-looking villagers in a country they knew nothing about. They soon found that the local Serbs were willing to sacrifice their own lives to keep the downed airmen out of German hands, but they still wondered if anyone was coming for them or if they would spend the rest of the war hiding from German patrols and barely surviving on goats' milk and bread baked with hay to make it more filling.

When the OSS in Italy heard of the stranded airmen, the agents began to plan an elaborate and previously unheard-of rescue-the Americans would send in a fleet of C-47 cargo planes to land in the hills of Yugoslavia, behind enemy lines, to pluck out hundreds of airmen. It was audacious and risky beyond belief, but there was no other way to get those boys out of German territory. The list of challenges and potential problems seemed never ending: The airmen had to evade capture until the rescue could be organized; they had to build an airstrip large enough for C-47s without any tools and without the Germans finding out; then the planes had to make it in and out without being shot down.

The setting for this dramatic chapter in history is a region that, for modern-day Americans, has become synonymous with brutal civil war, sectarian violence, and atrocities carried out in the name of ethnic cleansing-an impression that, though it may ignore the region's rich cultural history, is not inaccurate. Serbia covers the central part of the Balkan Peninsula, also known as the Balkans, a region in southern Europe separated from Italy by the Adriatic Sea. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; Albania and the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west. chapter in history is a region that, for modern-day Americans, has become synonymous with brutal civil war, sectarian violence, and atrocities carried out in the name of ethnic cleansing-an impression that, though it may ignore the region's rich cultural history, is not inaccurate. Serbia covers the central part of the Balkan Peninsula, also known as the Balkans, a region in southern Europe separated from Italy by the Adriatic Sea. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; Albania and the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west.

Throughout history the area has been neighbor to great empires, a proximity that contributed to a rich mixture of ethnicities and cultures, but also to a long history dominated by wars and clashes between rival groups of the same country. The fractious nature of the region even led to the term ”Balkanization” or ”Balkanizing” as a shorthand for splintering into rival political ent.i.ties, usually through violence. The word ”Balkan” itself is commonly used to imply religious strife and civil war.

The former Yugoslavia is a region seemingly in a constant state of flux. During World War II, Serbia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which then became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945. In 1992 the country was renamed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. When Montenegro voted independence from the State Union, Serbia officially proclaimed its independence on June 5, 2006.

Serbian borders and regions are determined largely by natural formations, including the Carpathian Mountains and the Balkan Mountains, which create the mountainous region that formed a hurdle for crippled American bombers trying to return to their bases in Italy, but which also sheltered downed fliers from the German patrols hunting them.

From the 1914 a.s.sa.s.sination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo, which set off World War I, to the n.a.z.i occupation in World War II, the region was in the center of global conflicts while contending with its own internal strife. The former Yugoslavia is a mix of different ethnic and religious groups, including Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Slo- venes. Throughout history, ancient and recent, most of the fighting in the region has been a struggle among these groups for the control of territory. After World War II, the Bosnian Muslims were strong supporters of Communist leader Josip Broz t.i.to, partly because he was successful at keeping the ethnic groups peaceful-just as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time. Serbs were the most populous ethnic group in the former Yugoslavia, with a national ident.i.ty rooted in the Serbian Orthodox Church.

After World War I, the Serb monarchy dominated the new nation of Yugoslavia. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies were killed by Croat Fascists, called Ustashe, and by Germans. Some Muslims fought for the n.a.z.is, while many other Muslims and Croats fought for the Partisans led by t.i.to. Serbs supported the exiled royal government.

These age-old hatreds and ethnic disputes erupted in 1992 to cause the bloodiest fighting on European soil since World War II. More than two hundred thousand people, most of them civilians, were killed and millions more were left homeless. As the fighting raged and the world learned of atrocities committed against civilian populations simply for being of the wrong ethnic background, European nations responded with numerous peace proposals that produced no peace. Then the United States moderated peace talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The talks led to a November 21, 1995, peace accord that relied on sixty thousand NATO troops to stop the killing.

The Bosnian war of the 1990s was particularly vicious. While Serbs are generally considered the aggressors in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s, there also are legitimate charges that Croats and Muslims operated prison camps and committed war crimes. Some critics accused former Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic of looking the other way while his Muslim soldiers committed war crimes in retaliation against Serb attacks. Many Serbs acknowledge the well-doc.u.mented atrocities committed by Bosnian Serb militia against Muslim and Croat civilians, but they also argue that Serb civilians were the victims of similar crimes and that the Western media coverage was skewed by a bias in favor of the Muslim and Croat sides.

The Dayton accord did not completely end the violence in the region. Between 1998 and 1999, continued clashes in Kosovo, a province in southern Serbia, between Serbian and Yugoslav security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army prompted a NATO aerial bombardment that lasted for seventy-eight days. The peace among Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in the area of the former Yugoslavia still is a fragile one.

American fliers who parachuted out of their bombers over Yugoslavia in World War II had little idea of the complex, troubled history of the country in which they were about to land, or of the international disputes in which they were about to become entangled. They sought refuge and a way back home, and they were humbled by the outpouring of support from the poor Serb villagers who risked their own lives to help the Americans drifting down out of the sky. of their bombers over Yugoslavia in World War II had little idea of the complex, troubled history of the country in which they were about to land, or of the international disputes in which they were about to become entangled. They sought refuge and a way back home, and they were humbled by the outpouring of support from the poor Serb villagers who risked their own lives to help the Americans drifting down out of the sky.

As the world came to know only the modern-day violence of the Bosnian wars, there was a small band of men who knew that the people in that distant country had once done a great service to the American people and to many young men who were scared, tired, and hungry. They held on to that story and told everyone they knew, yet the story slowly died with the forgotten 500.

Only a handful of the rescued airmen and OSS agents are still alive to tell the stories, their health and memories fading fast. But they insist that the world know the truth of what happened in Yugoslavia in 1944, including the series of almost unbelievable coincidences and near misses-everything from an improbable meeting with a top n.a.z.i officer's wife to a herd of cows that show up at just the right moment-that made their rescue possible.

They never forgot, and they refuse to let the story die with them.

Chapter 1.

We'll Get Them Out Yugoslavia, August 1944

This village seemed just like every other village Clare Musgrove had been through in the last four days, simple stone and thatch houses with minimal furnis.h.i.+ngs and even less food, occupied by people who welcomed him even though he had no idea who they were or what they intended to do with him. The smoke of a long-smoldering fireplace mixed with the earthy aroma of wet hay and livestock, the same pungent smells that permeated every one of these villages. Following the gesture of his armed escort, he entered the small house and looked nervously around, trying to a.s.sess what might happen. For all he knew, this was it; this was where they were bringing him. Was it some sort of safe house where he could hide from the Germans without running all the time? He had wondered that at every village where he and the other American airmen stopped in the past days, but each one turned out to be just a waypoint on a journey to . . . somewhere. Musgrove and the other bomber crewmen had no idea where they were being taken by these local escorts with guns. h.e.l.l, they weren't even sure they were being taken Musgrove had been through in the last four days, simple stone and thatch houses with minimal furnis.h.i.+ngs and even less food, occupied by people who welcomed him even though he had no idea who they were or what they intended to do with him. The smoke of a long-smoldering fireplace mixed with the earthy aroma of wet hay and livestock, the same pungent smells that permeated every one of these villages. Following the gesture of his armed escort, he entered the small house and looked nervously around, trying to a.s.sess what might happen. For all he knew, this was it; this was where they were bringing him. Was it some sort of safe house where he could hide from the Germans without running all the time? He had wondered that at every village where he and the other American airmen stopped in the past days, but each one turned out to be just a waypoint on a journey to . . . somewhere. Musgrove and the other bomber crewmen had no idea where they were being taken by these local escorts with guns. h.e.l.l, they weren't even sure they were being taken anywhere anywhere. As far as he could tell, they were just being pa.s.sed around from one village to the next in search of a few bits of goat cheese and sc.r.a.ps of bread so stale that Musgrove thought he might be better off eating his shoes.

They had no idea what fate awaited them, but they were fairly confident that they wouldn't be turned over to the Germans. Though the Americans and the local Serb people couldn't communicate in anything but gestures and facial expressions, the airmen got the idea that these swarthy people were on their side. The women had nursed their wounds and fed them as best they could, and the men had provided protection from the n.a.z.i patrols that were always on the lookout for Allied airmen whose planes crashed before they could get back to safe territory.

Though it seemed these locals were trustworthy, Musgrove still was apprehensive. The bomber crews had been warned that some of the Yugoslav people were n.a.z.i sympathizers and might turn them over to the Germans who had occupied their country since 1941. In fact, they'd been warned that the people in this area would cut off the downed airmen's ears and then turn the men over to the Germans. But the burly men escorting the Americans seemed friendly enough. Then again, they were the ones with the rifles. Could they be taking Musgrove and the others somewhere else before handing them over? Possibly to a German unit that offered rewards for American airmen? It didn't seem likely, but Musgrove couldn't help worrying that this curious trip would not end well. He was at the mercy of people he couldn't understand, and they were moving him around from one place to another instead of just letting the Americans hide out. Musgrove also wondered if anyone was looking for them. He hoped he and the other downed airmen hadn't been forgotten, left for dead in n.a.z.i territory.

Musgrove had been on this mysterious journey for four days, since bailing out of his B-24 bomber over northern Yugoslavia, behind enemy lines. His eighth mission-to bomb the oil fields of Ploesti, Romania, a critical source of fuel for the German war machine-turned out to be his last. All in all, Musgrove felt lucky to be alive and without serious injuries, unlike some of the Americans in his group. One of the men broke his leg badly on landing in his parachute, and every time he grimaced in pain during the all-day hikes Musgrove was grateful that all he could complain about was hunger, the occasional thirst, and being tired. Knowing how narrowly he had escaped his crippled bomber, Musgrove was happy to be walking around anywhere instead of dead in the wreckage. And with all the German patrols in this area, he was also glad that he could walk along without a German shoving the muzzle of his rifle in his back. Musgrove had gotten out of the bomber so late, just before it crashed into the mountains of Yugoslavia, that he had become separated from the other nine crew members, whose earlier exit put them down a few miles before him. He suspected they had made it to the ground okay, but he worried that they had been captured by Germans. It would be a long time before he found out his worries were justified and he was the only one of his crew not taken prisoner right away. Getting trapped in his ball turret and the agonizing minutes it took to extricate himself while everyone else bailed out of the rapidly descending bomber, as terrifying as that was, turned out to be the saving grace for Musgrove. He wasn't in the clear, of course, and he was joining the hundreds of other airmen who escaped their planes and capture by the n.a.z.is only to find themselves in limbo, unsure of what would come next.

It was getting dark when Musgrove entered the home with three other Americans, the group having been split up among several houses in the village. A rather robust woman, obviously the wife and mother, gestured for them to sit at the rough-hewn and well-worn wooden table and then she started putting out some meager food rations for them-the same goat cheese, hard bread, and bits of rotting potatoes that they had seen in other villages. Though they were ravenous, the men tried not to rush as they ate. They knew already that it was a hards.h.i.+p for these people to feed them and that their meal probably meant the couple, maybe even some children, would not eat tonight. They tried to eat with some decorum out of respect for the family's generosity, smiling and nodding thanks to the woman as she sat and watched.

Just as Musgrove was choking down a last bit of dry bread, the door opened and a man entered, saying something to the woman, who responded and then stood up, leaving the room to the men. Musgrove and the other Americans nodded to the man as he entered and hung up his hat on a wooden peg, but they didn't say anything. They had gotten out of the habit of speaking to the locals in the past few days because no one could understand them. The man sat at the table with them and smiled in return as a couple of the Americans nodded and smiled a gesture of thanks for the food, lifting a piece of bread or a cup of milk.

”You are American?” he asked.

The Americans were stunned, and thrilled. They looked at one another and then back at the only Yugoslav they had met who could speak English.

”Yes, yes, we're American,” all three of them said together.

The man introduced himself, but the name was a mash of consonants and vowels that the Americans could not catch. He asked if the men needed more food, but Musgrove and the other two men knew better than to say yes. Though they were still hungry, they could not ask this man to spare more of what little food he might have for his own family.

In all their excitement to find someone who spoke English, the Americans were momentarily dumbfounded about what to say. The man across the table spoke instead.

”I am princ.i.p.al of school,” he said. ”I study English.”

”A princ.i.p.al, oh, okay,” Musgrove said, nodding his head. After a pause, he continued. ”Your English is very good.” He spoke slowly in case the man's English actually wasn't so good. ”Where are we?”

The man responded with something in Yugoslav that, like his name, sounded like a jumble of consonants and vowels to the men. Besides, they weren't really concerned with the name of the village. They wanted to know what would happen to them.

One of the other Americans spoke up. ”Are we staying here? Did they bring us to you because you speak English?”

”No,” the man said, ”you go to other place. You go to place with more Americans. They help you.”

Musgrove looked at the other Americans, puzzled. He turned back to the man.

”They're taking us to Allied territory? Across the border?” he asked. The Americans knew that was unlikely. How could a bunch of hungry, injured, unarmed airmen get across the border and out of enemy territory?

”No, no. You go to place where more Americans. Here, Yugoslavia.”