The Secret Rescue (33 page)

Charles Adams (
left, front
), still sporting a black eye, and William Eldridge (
far left
) are among those who enjoyed coffee at the 26th General Hospital in Bari, where the group was confined for several days upon their return.
(15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)

Duffy, who received a kiss at the hospital from Tacina and Nelson for helping to rescue them, later noted that the nurses “always managed to create an impression, either entering or leaving a village. For years to come I feel sure that certain inhabitants of Albania will never forget the ‘Çupke Amerikane’ (American girls).”
(15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)

The enlisted men—(
left to right
) Gilbert Hornsby, Richard Lebo, Charles Adams, Robert Cranson, Willis Shumway, Paul Allen, William Eldridge, James Cruise, Robert Owen, Gordon MacKinnon, Raymond Ebers, Harold Hayes, Lawrence Abbott, Charles Zeiber, and John Wolf—stayed together in the hospital before briefly returning to Catania.
(15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)

The nurses—(
left to right, front row first
) Gertrude Dawson, Elna Schwant, Lois Watson, Lillian Tacina, Ann Kopsco, Ann Markowitz, Frances Nelson, Agnes Jensen, Eugenie Rutkowski, and Pauleen Kanable—were confined to the same ward as the enlisted men while military officials decided what information about their journey to release to the public.
(Courtesy of the National Archives at College Park, 342-FH-3A-13650)

Eldridge, one of several in the party who were ill while stranded in Albania, offered Cruise a hand shaving in the hospital while Cruise recovered from pneumonia.
(15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)

Dawson (
left
) and Jensen passed the time in the hospital waiting for word of when they would be released and allowed to go back to their headquarters in Catania.
(15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)

Though the men and women were forbidden from discussing details of their time behind enemy lines, they could still send V-mails to friends and family, as Watson did while in the hospital.
(15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)

Lloyd Smith, a twenty-four-year-old captain on detached service with America’s clandestine Office of Strategic Services (OSS), helped rescue the main party. Months later, he returned to rescue the remaining three nurses.
(Courtesy of the Agnes Jensen Mangerich Family)

False papers, like this document made for Wilma Lytle, helped the three nurses trapped in Berat eventually escape.
(Courtesy of Carolyn Sue Lytle Lonaker)

Several Albanian men, including Hodo Meto (
center
) and Tare Shyti (
far left
), risked their own lives leading the three nurses to OSS officer Lloyd Smith near the coast.
(Courtesy of Carolyn Sue Lytle Lonaker)

The three nurses, Wilma Lytle, Ann Maness, and Helen Porter (
left to right
), seen here with Sulejman Meço, Tare Shyti, and an unknown man (
left to right
), walked the mountain trail from the coastal road to the caves that served as an Allied base camp.
(Courtesy of Carolyn Sue Lytle Lonaker)