The Forgotten 500 (33 page)

Hundreds of airmen crouched in the brush and trees along their newly made airstrip. They were eager and hopeful, but they were worried, too. Then, at exactly ten p.m., they heard the drone of a plane. A wild cheer arose from the trees, shattering the silence in the pitch-black night.

Musulin and his team heard the plane at the same time, the cheers quickly drowning out the welcome sound.
Right on time,
Musulin thought, looking at his watch again.
Okay, this is it. Let’s get this done
. He yelled to the men in the trees, giving final orders before the planes came in.

“Stay where you are!” he yelled, trying to overcome the sounds of celebration. “If you are not going out tonight, stay off the field! I don’t want a madhouse out here when the planes land!”

The airmen understood Musulin’s orders and remained in place, scattered all along the sides of the runway so everyone could see what happened, the cheers steadily dying down and giving way to silence again. The young men crouched in the bushes could hardly breathe as they waited to see their fate played out on this makeshift airfield.

As the roar of the planes grew louder and came closer, Musulin and everyone else realized that it was more than just one plane. The planes made their way toward the airfield at low altitude and began to circle Pranjane.

That’s when Musulin saw there was a problem. There were only four planes, not the six he had requested. He didn’t know that two had been forced to turn back because of engine trouble along the route.

Musulin ordered Rajacich to go ahead with the signal that would tell the rescue planes they were in the right place. He rushed out onto the airfield with an Aldis lamp, a highly focused lantern that produced a bright pulse of light. Most commonly used on naval vessels and in airport control towers to signal planes, the OSS team had brought the Aldis lamp along for exactly this purpose. Rajacich held up the round lamp in one palm, using a sight on the top to aim it at the lead C-47 circling overhead and squeezed the trigger three times to send the predetermined signal: Red. Red. Red.

Using the same device, a crewman on the C-47 signaled the appropriate response: Red. Red. Red.

Then Rajacich sent the next message that would confirm all was ready on the ground and the planes could come in. This time he used the lamp to blink a predetermined code word:
-. .- -. Nan.

Everyone waited a long moment for the plane’s reply. And then everyone on the ground saw the flashes:
-..- - ....- .-. .- -.--. X-ray.

The airmen in the trees could see the signal and knew what it spelled, but they didn’t know the code words. Likewise, the villagers knew what the signaling was about, but they couldn’t tell if all was going as planned. All of them, the villagers and the airmen alike, looked intently at Rajacich and Musulin. Rajacich let the Aldis lamp drop to his side and began trotting off the field. Musulin stepped out to address the airmen one last time.

“We’re on, boys! This is it!” Musulin’s last words were drowned out by another joyous roar from the airmen and the villagers. He yelled to the Chetniks to light the flares and hay bales, and within seconds, the field was ablaze with fiery orange markers. The night took on an eerie appearance and the crowd grew silent again as they watched the planes circle. When he was sure everything was in order, Musulin marched out to the middle of the airfield, raised a flare gun high over his head, and pulled the trigger. A green flare screamed skyward like celebratory fireworks, the final signal that the landings should begin. The excited airmen let out another cheer as the flare erupted and then quickly quieted down again.

The night was deadly quiet except for the crackling of the burning hay bales, and all eyes were on the first plane in the group. The airmen watched as it dropped out of the circling formation and positioned itself for a landing on their airstrip. Every airmen in Pranjane knew what a risk this crew was taking for them, and in the air, the C-47 pilots from the 60th Troop Carrier Command especially knew what a difficult task lay before them. The airmen on the ground watched the plane come closer and closer and then, finally, they could see the white star on the tail. They knew by now that the planes were American, but still, the sight of that white star added another layer of jubilation for these men who weren’t sure they would ever see home again. The Americans were coming to rescue them!

But the plane still had to land, and that was the tricky part. Everyone waiting in the woods had spent many hours in planes just like that C-47 and they knew that landing at night on such a rough airstrip wouldn’t be easy. They all watched, wondering if they would have the nerve to make the same landing attempt if the roles were reversed. And just as the men on the ground suspected, the pilots coming in for this first landing were terrified. They didn’t know what to expect of this hastily made landing strip and they feared they would crash, either dying in the wreckage or joining the other men in their limbo behind enemy lines. Both on the ground and in the air, scarcely a breath passed the men’s lips as they waited for the C-47’s wheels to touch down.

The plane came in lower and lower. Musulin, Rajacich, and Jibilian were left to watch just like all the airmen, the same thoughts running through everyone’s mind as they focused intently on the incoming plane.

First there was the thump of the wheels; then the pilot cut back on the throttle and the engines changed pitch. The plane raced down the airstrip, nearly silent now, hundreds of eyes watching intently. Maybe this plan would work, after all. The men crouched in the brush were just about to breathe a sigh of relief when they heard the plane’s engines roar back to life.

The plane lifted back into the air, over the trees, and into the darkness.

The field was quiet again, the only sound the crackling of the burning hay bales.

The airstrip was too short. The pilot just couldn’t do it.

Musgrove and the rest of the men were crushed. The dark, quiet night hid hundreds of broken hearts. Musgrove thought that was the end of it all.

“Too short, too short,” he heard another airman say quietly. “They can’t do it. This will never work.”

Everyone feared the same thing: The mission was a failure
. No one had been sure that the airstrip was long enough or that the C-47 pilots would have the nerve to land here in the dead of night. Seeing the plane touch down and then roar off again was a terrible disappointment, but not necessarily a surprise.

The despair, however, was quickly pushed aside by another glimmer of hope. The second plane was coming in! The airmen had feared that the first plane, presumably the lead C-47 carrying the pilot in charge of the whole group, had told the other planes that the airstrip was too short. They fully expected the planes to regroup and just fly back to Italy. But here was a second C-47 coming in for this dangerous landing. Again, all eyes were on this plane as it lined up in the darkness to try and hit this little airstrip just right. Once again, the plane came down at a steep angle, slammed its wheels on the ground and cut the power. But this time, the pilot hadn’t overshot the runway. He dropped in hard on the leading edge of the field so he could use every single foot in front of him to stop the plane, braking hard and taxiing all the way down to the end of the runway, then maneuvering off to the side as much as possible so the next planes wouldn’t hit the first one.

Musulin, Rajacich, and Jibilian joined the airmen in letting out a wild cheer as they saw the airplane come to a safe stop.
This is like Babe Ruth hitting a home run to win the Series,
Musulin thought.

Airmen and Serb villagers rushed the plane, screaming in celebration and urging the crew to hop out so they could be welcomed to Pranjane. Musulin and his team, along with some of the Chetnik soldiers, worked to keep the airstrip clear, pushing the crowd away from the parked plane and off the airstrip. Other planes were coming in, or at least Musulin hoped they were, and each landing was going to be just as risky as the one before it.

Musulin crouched by the airfield again, and with everyone else, watched as the second and third planes came in for landing, ignoring his previous orders to wait for the previous plane to take off and clear the field before coming in. The OSS team was on edge, wondering if they would end up with a pile of planes running into one another on the small field. Each landing was nerve-racking, but the planes made perfect landings—all except one that ran into a haystack near the airstrip and ended up with a severely dented wing tip. The planes taxied off the airstrip as much as they could, the wings of one plane sometimes passing over the wings of another, clearing by only a few inches. Then the first plane, the one that had overshot the runway, came back in for another attempt. Musulin felt for the crew, having to make this frightening landing more than once. But on the second try, the pilot knew exactly where to find the sweet spot. The last of the planes was on the ground and everyone could relax again. At least for a moment.

The airmen shook the hands of the C-47 crews, who all looked tremendously relieved to be on the ground, and the villagers greeted them with the same over-the-top show of hospitality to which the downed airmen had become accustomed. Burly men and stout women gave the rescue plane crews hearty bear hugs and kisses on both cheeks, while others threw flowers on them and pressed cups of plum brandy into their hands. Women and young girls rushed the C-47 crews to drape garlands of flowers around their necks. The moment was joyous, with the villagers singing songs in celebration and also as a farewell party for some of their American friends.

In the midst of the celebration, Musulin, Rajacich, and Jibilian were pleasantly surprised to see Nick Lalich step out of one of the C-47s. Vujnovich had thought it a waste to keep Lalich in Bari when he was so eager to help with this mission, so he sent him out on one of the first planes. He knew the OSS team could use another experienced hand on the ground, and he was right. As soon as they could make their way through the throng of airmen and villagers surrounding the planes, Musulin welcomed Lalich with a strong handshake and said he was glad to have the help.

As usual, Musulin was a favorite of the villagers and everyone wanted to sing and dance and drink with him, but the big American had to demur, for he still was in the middle of carrying out the most dangerous part of this mission. The planes were on the ground, and now he had to get them back in the air. He also kept worrying about whether the Germans would show up at any minute.

 

 

 

Nick Petrovich, the young Chetnik
soldier who was among the thousands of Mihailovich’s fighters around Pranjane, was on guard duty during the rescue. He was stationed about half a mile away on the one road leading up the mountain and into the village, crouched in the woods waiting for a German patrol to investigate the air show they must have seen from below. Petrovich was manning a fifty-caliber machine gun taken from a downed bomber, which he knew from experience acted more like a small piece of artillery than a machine gun. He had torn through German troops, trucks, and cars with the big gun already, so he was confident that if the Nazis came up the mountain to stop the rescue, he and his fellow soldiers could hold them off long enough to let the planes get back in the air. As they had many times before, Petrovich and the other Chetniks chose a spot on the road that was slightly elevated to give them a firing advantage, and on a curve so that the vehicles could be surprised when they came around the bend. If a patrol came near, the ambush team would hold their fire and let the first one or two vehicles come by, then open fire with the big fifty-caliber and their other weapons. Several soldiers were ready with hand grenades to throw at any Germans who tried to flee the vehicles.

But for the moment, the road was empty. No sign of Germans. Petrovich was trying to concentrate on watching the road, but he couldn’t help staring off in the distance at the airfield, which he could see clearly from his elevated hiding place. The airstrip danced with the flickering lights of the flares and burning haystacks, illuminating the hundreds of figures dancing in the open field and pressed close to the four big planes that Petrovich saw come in earlier. He had watched in awe as the C-47s came down at treetop level, just barely clearing the surrounding woods and then dropping down sharply onto the airstrip. Petrovich was sure the planes were going to crash, especially when he saw the first plane go down and right back up again. When the next planes went down and taxied to a safe stop, Petrovich and his fellow soldiers were overjoyed, letting out a cry of celebration that echoed the cheers rising from the airfield, waving their rifles high in the air and hugging one another with joy.
The Americans are here!

Petrovich couldn’t take his eyes off the spectacle below, and he longed to be with the rest of the Chetniks celebrating on the airfield. But he was also immensely proud to be part of the operation, and he knew it was vital that he guard the road. There was still every reason to think the Germans would come investigate this outlandish incursion into their territory.

He tried to keep his eyes on the road, but he kept going back to stare at the airfield in the distance. It was such a sight.

 

 

 

The celebration on the airstrip
continued as Musulin conferred with the pilots of the rescue planes and discussed plans for the next rescue flights that would come in. He wanted to know if the field was suitable for more rescues and if they could count on more of the men going out in the next few days. The pilots assured him the field was okay, though it made for a dicey landing. The first plane just overshot the runway, touching down too far down the runway, and then the other pilots knew where they needed to aim.