The Forgotten 500 (11 page)

A couple of days after they landed in Yugoslavia, Captain Milankovic explained to McKool that the Germans were looking for them. And worse, they had taken twenty villagers prisoner, threatening to kill them if they did not reveal the whereabouts of the Americans. McKool and his crewmates were horrified at the idea and wondered aloud if they should give themselves up.

“It will not help,” the Chetnik officer explained. “The Germans will kill who they wish. You cannot stop them.”

Nevertheless, the villagers weighed heavily on the minds of the Americans as they rested in the secret military camp, eating and drinking plum brandy. After several days, they left the camp and started walking toward General Mihailovich’s headquarters, eighty miles away. They moved mainly at night and stayed away from roads, until they met up with a brigade of Mihailovich’s fighters numbering eight hundred. When the commander of the brigade was introduced to the Americans and found out that McKool was from Texas, he nicknamed him “Tom Mix,” after the movie cowboy popular at the time, and gave him a horse to ride.

With the protection of the brigade, the group’s travel was safer but no faster. It took three weeks to reach their destination, during which there were several skirmishes with German patrols. But even more than the moments of danger, the Americans were impressed by the way the Serbian people greeted them along the way. They were offered the best food in the village and learned not to eat all they were offered, lest the family be left with nothing. Villagers offered their homes and beds for rest, and when the brigade moved out again, the Americans were singled out for special good-byes and bits of bread and goat cheese wrapped in a small cloth. As the group marched on, the column more than half a mile long, local Serbs would line the path or road to see the soldiers and especially the Americans they had only heard about, never seen. More often than not, they would step forward as the Americans passed by, offering a kiss on the cheek or a cup of goats’ milk.

Sometimes the American airmen didn’t even realize immediately how generous the local people were, not until it was too late to be gracious. Some of the airmen, when first on the ground with the local villagers, eagerly scarfed down all the food put in front of them because the amount was small, they were hungry, and they thought it was all intended for them. Their bellies were full by the time they realized the peasant couple and their child had intended to share the food and were only waiting for them to eat first. One airman was sheltered in a villager’s home on his first night in Yugoslavia and made a snide comment the next morning about the uncomfortable wooden bed. Another airman, who had been there longer and knew how far the villagers’ hospitality extended, took the first airman around to the small stone barn behind the house and showed him that the mother and her two children had slept with the animals so the American could have their bed.

One day McKool was overcome by the outpouring of emotion from an elderly woman in a long dress and the traditional head covering who rushed forward and grabbed his hand as he passed by on horseback, kissing it fervently and speaking words he could not understand. He could tell, however, that there was great emotion behind the words. She sobbed and held on to his hand as long as she could. As they passed and the woman fell back, McKool asked the Serbian officer he was riding alongside why the woman responded that way to him.

“Many of these people have lost sons to this war. Some of them have sons in German prisoner camps,” he explained, looking ahead as his horse walked on. “They see you as their own children, Americans especially, because you come here to help us fight. That woman was kissing her son when she kissed you.”

 

 

 

Thomas Oliver’s brief stay with
the family who found him was followed by an afternoon on horseback, accompanied by three soldiers. He understood almost nothing they said to him along the way, other than their mention of the name Draza Mihailovich. Oliver didn’t know a lot about Mihailovich but figured that the men were taking him to the general.

The group moved at a steady pace through the hills, stopping late in the afternoon to talk with a Yugoslavian doctor who had been educated in France. He didn’t speak any English, but Oliver was able to use his rudimentary French to communicate, noting that talking with a Yugoslavian who spoke French was much easier than any of his previous attempts to speak French with a Frenchman. The doctor understood that Oliver could not speak French well but understood the language when he heard it. So the doctor translated in French what the soldiers told him, and Oliver had only to answer,
“Oui,”
or ask,
“Ou?”
The doctor conveyed that the rest of Oliver’s crewmates had been found, and one was slightly wounded.

With an
“Au revoir!”
to the doctor, Oliver got back on his horse and kept moving through the countryside, stopping in the evening at a farmhouse where the woman offered him a cup of hot goats’ milk. Oliver was ravenously hungry by then and took the cup eagerly, but he hesitated when he looked at the cup. The milk had some kind of scum all over the top, and whatever it was, it didn’t look appetizing. But Oliver thought to himself that he had to eat something, and whatever this was, apparently the locals did fine with it. So he brought the cup to his lips and tossed the scummy milk back in one big gulp, hoping not to taste it on the way down. It turned out not to be as bad as he’d expected.

After that meager supper, Oliver was put to bed on a pile of straw, where he slept soundly for a few hours until the soldiers woke him up. He saw that three other soldiers had arrived in the night, and the group of seven all rode off into the night, Oliver in his flight suit and the Chetniks in their tight-fitting jackets and Cossack-style fur hats. As they moved along quietly, the only sound the jangling of the horse bridles and the scuffing of hooves on the trail, Oliver felt like he was in a Grade B cowboy movie.

When the sun rose, the group traveled through a series of larger villages and continued their journey at a more leisurely pace. As the day wore on, Oliver started to think that the goal was to stop at every café in every village, or at least any establishment that could sell them a round of drinks. The Chetniks were generous in buying brandy and whatever other libations might be available for Oliver, which helped take his mind off not knowing where he was going. With the brandy flowing, the Chetniks escorting Oliver loosened up and started laughing, telling jokes he couldn’t understand but nevertheless including him in the revelry. At one point, one of the soldiers noticed that Oliver carried two knives, one on his belt and one strapped to his leg.

The Chetnik motioned to Oliver as if to ask why he had two knives instead of just one. Oliver was trying to figure out how to explain that he liked having a backup when another of the soldiers interjected. He pointed to the knife on Oliver’s belt and said, “Ahhh . . . Hitler!” and made a gesture as if cutting his throat, followed by a dramatic death. Then he pointed to the knife on Oliver’s leg and said, “Mussolini!” followed by the same gesture and overacting. Oliver joined the other Chetniks in hysterical laughter.

 

 

 

After a night of revelry
with his escorts, Oliver experienced a more somber morning. The soldiers and the local Serbs took Oliver to a religious ceremony at the graves of two American airmen who had been shot down earlier but hadn’t made it safely into the arms of the local people. Oliver watched silently as a Serbian Orthodox priest conducted a service for the dead, passing a cup of wine around for all to sip. Then he poured a small amount from the cup onto each grave. Oliver was moved by the solemnity of the moment, the way these local people conducted the service as if the Americans were their own brothers.

He thought about it for the rest of the day as he waited in the small village, not knowing how long they were staying before moving on again. As night fell and he was given a bed to sleep in, Oliver figured the group would head out after daybreak the next morning. But in the darkest early hours, Oliver awoke to screams of “Heidi! Heidi!” or at least that was what it sounded like to him. The Serbs were yelling “Hurry!” in their language, the terror in their voices conveying quickly to Oliver that Germans were coming. Several men rushed into the cottage and grabbed Oliver, practically dragging him outside and deep into the woods, where he hid for hours until the danger had passed.

Later that day, as he lounged around the village waiting for any signal that he was moving on, the rest of his bomber crew straggled in, led by a few more Chetnik soldiers. They were accompanied by an old man who was acting as their interpreter, having spent several years living in Wisconsin and working in the logging business. Because he had worked mostly with Swedish immigrants, the Serb spoke English with a Swedish accent that always made Oliver chuckle. With the help of the old man’s English, Oliver was introduced to the local Chetnik commander, known as Kent. He was young and handsome, charismatic and a natural leader, Oliver thought. It was no wonder that he was leading all these soldiers. Kent explained to Oliver that he and the other Americans in the village, totaling twenty-four now that several groups had been brought to the same place, were not going anywhere anytime soon. They would stay in this small village close to the Danube River on the eastern border of Yugoslavia while Kent tried to arrange an evacuation with the Allies. Kent hoped to get supplies or other aid from the Allies in return for his help.

So Oliver and the other Americans waited and waited. A month passed with almost nothing happening. Kent kept saying he was waiting on the Allies to agree to an evacuation plan, but the men saw no evidence of any forward progress. They had little to do but lie around the village, helping the locals with their chores and scrounging for food as they grew thinner and thinner. Oliver and the other Americans started pressuring Kent to do something with them, anything. They couldn’t stand the thought of staying in this little village for much longer, with the food shortage getting more desperate every day. Finally they convinced him to send them west to an area closer to General Mihailovich’s headquarters. Maybe something more could be done for them there, they thought.

Kent arranged to have the Americans taken west, appointing Captain Ivan Milac as the leader of their escorts. The Americans were pleased, as Milac was one of their favorites in the village, a former officer in the Yugoslav Regular Army who had learned English mostly from listening to radio broadcasts. Milac issued rifles to the Americans and warned them that their journey would be dangerous. The village they were in was relatively safe because it was remote and offered nothing that would attract the Germans. But traveling to the west would mean heading into more heavily occupied territory. The Americans had to be ready to defend themselves.

Their journey started on a mountain railroad, where they followed the tracks until they approached a large town that was sure to have German units patrolling. From there the group hiked through the woods, through fields, in the sun and the rain, just constantly marching westward and trying to avoid Germans. They traveled in the brush and sometimes at night to avoid the German patrols that they knew would either take them prisoner or just kill them. They knew that the short-handed German occupiers had little time to corral and care for dozens of downed airmen, so the more expedient solution would be to open fire with a machine gun.

They would sleep in haystacks, on the wooden floors of whatever buildings they came across, anywhere they happened to be when night fell. Days blended into weeks, and Oliver could scarcely tell when one day ended and the next began. They were all filled with the same hunger, the longing for home, and fears about what might be around the next bend.

Only once on the journey did Oliver forget his aching feet and his desire to be anywhere but Yugoslavia. It was the middle of the day when the group of Americans and their Chetnik escorts came to a village where the locals greeted them warmly, as always, and offered them bits of food and drink. But Oliver and a couple of his crewmates were singled out by three girls who stood out from the rest. They were young, probably in their late teens, and the Americans immediately locked onto them as the most beautiful girls they had seen since landing in this country. While all the villagers were as hospitable as anyone could desire, the Americans had noticed that the girls in the mountains tended to the robust and hardy, with babushka-type kerchiefs on their heads that reminded them more of grandmothers than pinups. These girls, however, were different. They were more slender, they wore nicer dresses, though still simple, and their hair was uncovered. Oliver and his crewmates surmised that they must be city girls who somehow landed in this country village, possibly fleeing the Germans in town.

The American boys were smiling from to ear to ear and doing their best to charm the girls, who seemed equally interested in the Yanks. The girls gestured for the three Americans to come into their cottage and have lunch, and they didn’t have to ask twice. Oliver and his friends eagerly took seats at the rough-hewn wooden table and smiled at the girls, who shot flirtatious looks every time they brought a plate with bread and cheese to the table. The six of them sat there smiling at one another, the men eating and commenting among themselves about how nice it was to see a pretty girl again. The girls were chatting among themselves too, quietly, and giggling every so often as they looked at the three men.

Then one of the girls started talking to the men and gesturing toward the back room, which had two simple beds. At first the men didn’t know what they meant, but with more gestures and simple words, they got the idea. The girls were telling them that they could stay with them for the night. When it dawned on them, the Americans could hardly contain their excitement. They looked at one another and grinned; then they turned back to the girls and all three men said yes at once. They nodded in the affirmative, said yes several more times, and nodded some more to make sure the girls understood.