On the night of August 2, 1944, a team of operatives from the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of today’s Central Intelligence Agency, parachuted into the town of Pranjani, Serbia. Led by U.S. Army Lt. George “Guv” Musulin, the team of three was to contact Gen. Draža Mihailović, the leader of a Serbian nationalist band of fighters called the Chetniks.
He was there to plan how the United States’ 15th Air Force would airlift the more than 500 downed Allied pilots the Chetniks rescued and bring them back to safety. Operation Halyard, as the mission was named, would be the largest rescue operation of American airmen in military history.
The Forgotten 500: The Daring Rescue Mission
“The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II” is a 2008 book that describes in detail how some 500 airmen were shot down over Serbia, how they were protected by Serbian civilians and the brave group of resistance fighters who helped them all get home. It’s a refreshing and engrossing reminder of the courage and teamwork of Serbia’s Chetniks from Award-winning author and journalist Gregory A. Freeman.
After the Allies liberated Sicily in 1943, it wasn’t long before Fascist Italy capitulated entirely, giving the Allied forces a foothold in southern Europe. This foothold became critically important, as it put the Nazi-controlled oil fields of Romania and Hungary – which provided more than a quarter of Adolph Hitler’s fuel – within bombing range of the 15th Air Force. They also targeted objectives in Bulgaria and Serbia.
The U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) would fly more than 20,000 sorties against those oil fields between October 1943 and October 1944, taking 50% of aircraft losses and losing 10% of its personnel. Those who bailed out over the targets were either captured by the enemy and sent to POW camps, or rescued by Marshal Josip Broz Tito’s Partisans or Gen. Draža Mihailović’s Chetniks. Those who were rescued by Chetniks were moved to local villages where they were blended in with the population and cared for.
Over time, the toll of the bombing campaign swelled the numbers of downed airmen. By the autumn of 1944, more than 500 Allied crewmen were living hidden among the Chetnik Serbs. In the face of political opposition from ally Great Britain (who supported Tito and his Partisans, and wanted the U.S. to end contact with the Chetniks), the OSS and Army Air Forces created Air Crew Rescue Unit 1 (ACRU 1), and hatched a plan to get them out.
The Legacy of Draža Mihailović and Operation Halyard
Operation Halyard was as dangerous as it was ambitious. Downed aircrew had to build a landing strip, by hand and at night, to avoid detection by the enemy. Meanwhile, the Chetniks had to engage enemy occupation forces at different points to keep their attention far away from the makeshift airfield, losing a number of fighters in the gambit. But on the nights of August 10th, 12th, 15th, and 18th, C-47 transport planes landed one after another to take on their precious cargo: hundreds of rescued Allied pilots. Not only was the massive airlift a success, it was repeated in September, November, and December 1944 at similar airfields in the Serbian towns of Koceljeva and Boljanić.
The postwar world wasn’t kind to Draža Mihailović and his royalist, nationalist Chetniks. After being liberated by the Soviet Red Army, Yugoslavia descended into a civil war between the anti-communist Chetniks and Tito’s Soviet-backed Partisans. His forces were crushed by the Yugoslav Army and Partisans, and Mihailović himself was captured in 1946. He was put on trial, and the airmen he rescued were not allowed to testify in his defense. He was convicted of high treason, executed, and buried in an unmarked mass grave.
For his help in rescuing American and Allied aircrews, Mihailović was posthumously awarded the Legion of Merit by President Harry S. Truman. The award was kept a secret during the Cold War to maintain relations with the communist government of Yugoslavia. It was finally presented to Mihailović’s daughter Gordana Mihajlovic by the U.S. State Department on May 9, 2005.
To learn more about Operation Halyard and the monumental efforts by the OSS, USAAF, and Serbian nationalist leader Draža Mihailović and his Chetniks, pick up Gregory A. Freeman’s “The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II.” It’s currently available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, Kindle Reader, and on Audible, starting at $11.74
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