The Forgotten 500 (43 page)

 

Page 235 “ ‘is LaGuardia airfield anything like this?’ ” Martin,
The Web of Disinformation: Churchill’s Yugoslav Blunder,
p. 237.

Page 236 “He had overindulged in plum brandy during the night and almost missed his flight” Martin,
The Web of Disinformation: Churchill’s Yugoslav Blunder
, p. 237.

Page 237 “Musulin soon had orders to get on one of the rescue planes and return to Italy” Some participants recall that Musulin was ordered back to Italy on the same day, returning on one of the last flights out of Pranjane on August 10. Though that version of events makes a better anecdote, Musulin actually stayed in Pranjane for more than two weeks after sending the Serbian men to Italy. The rebuke from Bari did come on the same day, but Musulin spent two weeks arguing with his superiors and insisting that he be allowed to stay. When he saw that the dispute was holding up any further rescue flights and nearly one hundred more men were ready to leave Pranjane, he relented and angrily returned to Bari.

Page 239 “the most successful rescue ever of downed airmen behind enemy lines and one of the largest rescue missions of any type in World War II or since” In fact, by just one man the Operation Halyard mission was the largest rescue behind enemy lines in World War II—if the multiple rescues over several months are counted as a single mission. A total of 512 American airmen and Allied personnel were rescued in Operation Halyard from August 19, 1944, to December 27, 1944. A month later on January 30, 1945, United States Army Rangers and Filipino guerillas liberated 511 American and Allied personnel from a prisoner-of-war camp near Cabanatuan in the Philippines. (King, M. J. Leavenworth Papers No. 11, Rangers: Selected Combat Operations in World War II. U.S. Army Command General Staff College.) The number of prisoners thought to be at the camp was higher by at least two or three, but 511 were successfully rescued. It should be noted that unlike Operation Halyard, the Cabanatuan rescue took place all at once and under enemy fire. A full account of the Cabanatuan rescue can be found in
Ghost Soldiers
by Hampton Sides (Doubleday, 2001).

Readers also may be familiar with the story of Royal Air Force officers who escaped from Stalag-Luft III, Germany’s most secure prisoner-of-war camp, in March 1944. The story is told in
The Great Escape
by Anton Gill (Review, 2002) and other books, as well as the 1963 movie by the same name. By comparison to the 512 rescued in Operation Halyard, the Stalag-Luft III escape involved seventy-six men, of which seventy-three were recaptured.

Page 249 “The first hint in the press of the remarkable success of the rescue mission came” “Radio Signal Aids Rescue of 250 Fliers.”
The Washington Post
, February 20, 1945, p. 2.

 

Page 250 “Two days later the newspaper ran a lengthy letter to the editor from Konstantin Fotić . . .” Letters to the Editor: Credit Where Due.
The Washington Post
, February 22, 1945, p. 6.

Page 251 “ ‘rather depressed, thinking of the possibilities of Russia one day turning against us . . .’ ” Gilbert, Martin.
Churchill: A Life
. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991.

 

Page 252 “Reading the
Washington Post
on the morning of March 25, 1946, he found a small article . . .” “Mihailovich Under Arrest, Belgrade Says.”
The Washington Post
, March 25, 1946, p. 2.

Page 254 “It does not matter that Draza Mihailovich will live or die” Pesic, p. 122.

 

Page 255 “The headline in the
Press
in Cleveland, Ohio, was CLEVELANDER AIDS GEN. MIHAILOVICH.” National Committee of American Airmen to Aid Gen. Draza Mihailovich and the Serbian People. Press Clippings, Book II. Chicago, 1946.

 

Page 255 “In the
Telegraph
of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the headline read STATE TROOPERS HAIL MIHAILOVICH AS FRIEND” Ibid.

 

Page 255 “The
New York Journal American
quoted former OSS agent Eli Popovich . . .” Ibid.

 

Page 256 “The headline in the
Times
in Detroit, Michigan, read DRAZA BETRAYED, CLAIMS DETROITER.” Ibid.

 

Page 256 “In an article he wrote for the
New York Journal American
. . .” Ibid.

 

Page 257 “In one article Nick Lalich delivered a copy of his own Legion of Merit citation to the
Washington Post
. . .” “Ex-OSS Agent Uses Citation in Effort to Aid Mihailovich.”
The Washington Post
, May 1, 1946, p. 14.

Page 261 “In the
New York World-Telegram
on April 19, 1946, a headline read CHURCHILL WAS TAKEN IN BY TITO, WRITER CLAIMS” Ibid.

 

Page 262 “The trial of General Draza Mihailovich began on June 10, 1946, in a makeshift courtroom . . .” “Draza Aided Reich, Italy, Court Told.”
The Washington Post
, June 11, 1946, p. 2.

Page 264 “In an editorial on June 17, 1946, the
Washington Post
acknowledged that Tito was railroading Mihailovich . . .” “Mihailovitch Trial.”
The Washington Post
, June 17, 1946, p. 6.

Page 265 “MIHAILOVICH EXECUTED BY FIRING SQUAD, the headline read” “Mihailovitch Executed by Firing Squad.”
The Washington Post
, July 18, 1946, p. 6.

Page 271 “It might have remained a secret if not for the work of Congressman Edward J. Derwinski of Illinois, who intervened in 1967 at the urging of airmen who had heard rumors” The State Department telegrams that led President Truman to agree to classify the Legion of Merit were themselves classified. The telegrams were not declassified until 1973.

Baker, Addison Earl, Lloyd Herbert Hughes, John Louis Jerstad, Leon William Johnson, John Riley Kane. “Ploesti: When Heroes Filled the Sky.”
www.homeofheroes.com/wings/part2/09_ploesti.html
.

Brown, Anthony Cave.
The Last Hero: Wild Bill Donovan
. New York: Vintage Books, 1984.

Brown, Colin, and John Crossland. “How a Soviet Mole United Tito and Churchill.”
The Independent
, June 28, 1997: 1A.

Carroll, Tim.
The Great Escape from Stalag Luft III: The Full Story of How 76 Allied Officers Carried Out World War II’s Most Remarkable Mass Escape
. New York: Pocket Books, 2004.

Casey, H. J. Office of the Chief Engineer, Southwest Pacific Area, United States Army.
Engineer Estimating Data,
June 1, 1945.

Churchill, Winston.
The Second World War, Volume 3: The Grand Alliance
. Boston: Mariner Books, 1986.

Churchill, Winston
Never Give In: The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches.
New York: Hyperion, 2003.

Davis, Larry.
P-51 Mustang in Action
. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publications, 1981.

 

Davis, Larry.
P-38 Lightning in Action
. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publications, 1990.

Davis, Larry.
C-47 Skytrain in Action
. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publications, 1995.

Deakin, F. W.
Embattled Mountain
. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.

 

Donovan, William J. Letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. July 4, 1944. Reproduced in Declassified Documents Reference System, Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale Group, 2006.

“Draza Aided Reich, Italy, Court Told.”
The Washington Post
, June 11, 1946, p. 2.

Draskovic, Wuk. Letter from Serbia and Montenegro Minister of Foreign Affairs to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Jibilian. April 7, 2005.

 

Drendel, Lou.
Walk Around: B-17 Flying Fortress
. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/ Signal Publications, 1998.

“Ex-OSS Agent Uses Citation in Effort to Aid Mihailovich.”
The Washington Post
, May 1, 1946, p. 14.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. Freedom of Information requests regarding Burgess, MacLean, and Philby. foia.f
bi.gov/foiaindex/philby.htm
.

Felman, Richard. “Mihailovich and I.” Serbian Democratic Forum, October 1972.

Ford, Corey.
Donovan of OSS
. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970.

 

Ford, Kirk Jr.
OSS and the Yugoslav Resistance 1943
-
1945.
College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1992.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. President’s Personal File: Correspondence related to William J. Donovan. Hyde Park, NY.

Garland, Greg, and Frederick N. Rasmussen. “Nick A. Lalich, 85, leader of OSS team that rescued downed air crews in WWII.”
The Sun
, May 15, 2001, p. 6B.

Gilbert, Martin.
Churchill: A Life
. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1991.

 

Gill, Anton.
The Great Escape
:
The Full Dramatic Story with Contributions from Survivors and Their Families
. London: Headline Book Publishing, 2002.

 

Goldberg, Arthur. Review of
Sub Rosa: The OSS and American Espionage
.
The Nation
, March 23, 1946, pp. 349-350.

Interagency Working Group. “Records of the Office of Strategic Services 1940- 1946 (Record Group 226).” Washington, DC: National Archives.

Goldich, Robert L. “Yugoslavia: World War II Resistance Operations and Their Implications for the Current War.” Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, 1999.

 

Jeffrey-Jones, Rhodri.
Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence
. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

Jibilian, Arthur. Personal interviews and correspondence with the author.

 

Kelly, Richard M.
The Halyard Mission
.
The 461st Liberaider
1995; 12:28-37.

Kennedy, Joseph. “Sperry Ball Turret.”
freepages.military.rootsweb.com/
~
josephkennedy/sperry_ball_turret.htm

 

Knezevic, Zivan.
Why the Allies Abandoned the Yugoslav Army of General Mihailovich, with Official Memoranda and Documents
. Unpublished manuscript donated to the United States Library of Congress, 1945.

Letters to the Editor: Credit Where Due.
The Washington Post
, February 22, 1945, p. 6.

 

Lindsay, Franklin.
Beacons in the Night: With the OSS and Tito’s Partisans in Wartime Yugoslavia.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993.

Lovell, Stanley.
Of Spies and Strategems
. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963.

 

Marquette, Sandy. “Goodbye to a tireless warrior.”
Liberty
. January 10, 2000.

Martin, David.
Ally Betrayed: The Uncensored Story of Tito and Mihailovich
. New York: Prentice Hall, 1946.

 

Martin, David.
Patriot or Traitor: The Case of General Mihailovich
. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1978.

 

Martin, David.
The Web of Disinformation
:
Churchill’s Yugoslav Blunder
. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990.

 

Mauer, Mauer, Ed.
Combat Squadrons of the Air Force
:
World War II
. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969.

McLachlan, Donald.
Room 39
. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968.

 

“Mihailovitch Trial.”
The Washington Post
, June 17, 1946, p. 6.

“Mihailovitch Executed by Firing Squad.”
The Washington Post
, July 18, 1946, p. 6.

“Mihailovich Under Arrest, Belgrade Says.”
The Washington Post,
March 25, 1946, p. 2.

 

Musgrove, Clare. Personal interviews and correspondence with the author.

Musulin, George.
Report on the Michailovic’s Cetnik army; suggestions of some Allied support
. Central Intelligence Agency 1944. Reproduced in Declassified Documents Reference System, Farmington Hills, Michigan: Gale Group, 2006.

 

National Committee of American Airmen to Aid Gen. Draza Mihailovich and the Serbian People. Press Clippings, Books I, II, III. Chicago, 1946. Unpublished collection donated to Library of Congress, 1946.

O’Donnell, Patrick K.
Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs: The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of WWII’s OSS
. New York: Free Press, 2004.

 

Oliver, Thomas.
Unintended Visit to Yugoslavia.
Unpublished manuscript donated to the United States Air Force Academy, 1990.

Orsini, Tony. Personal interviews and correspondence with the author.

 

Pesic, Miodrag D.
Operation Air Bridge
:
Serbian Chetniks and the Rescued American Airmen in World War II
[English translation from the original Serbian]. Belgrade, Yugoslavia: Serbian Masters’ Society, 2002.

Petrovich, Nick. Personal interviews and correspondence with the author.

 

“Ploesti Oil Raid: Operation Tidal Wave.”
www.ww2guide.com/oil.shtml

“Radio Signal Aids Rescue of 250 Fliers.”
The Washington Post,
February 20, 1945, p. 2.

 

Rebic, Aleksandra. “The Living Spirit of Ravna Gora.”
Liberty
, July 25, 2003.
www.snd-us.com/Liberty/sm_1843.html
.

Roberts, Walter R.
Tito, Mihailovic and the Allies: 1941
-
1945.
Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1987.

 

Roosevelt, Kermit.
The Overseas Targets: War Reports of the OSS.
Vol. I. Washington, DC: Carrollton Press, 1976.

Roosevelt, Kermit.
The Overseas Targets: War Reports of the OSS.
Vol. II. Washington, DC: Carrollton Press, 1976.

Savich, Carl K. “Draza Mihailovich and the rescue of U.S. airmen during World War II.” Serbian Unity Congress.
www.serbianunity.net/culture/history/Draza_Mihailovich/rescue.html
.