The Secret Rescue (40 page)

15. Albanian bar
Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
46.

16. raki
“raki,”
Britannica Online Encyclopedia.

17. [George’s home]
Hayes, interview.

18. Jens and Lytle
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
48–50.

19. speech
Ibid., 50–51; Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
47.

20.
Vdekje Fashizmit… Liri Popullit
Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
48; Owen Pearson,
Albania in the 20th Century
(London: Tauris, 2005), vol. 2, 205; H. W. Tilman,
When Men and Mountains Meet
(1946), collected in
The Seven Mountain-Travel Books
(1983; repr., London: Bâton Wicks, 2010), 349.

21.
Shqipëria Shqiptarëvet… Vdekje Tradhëtarëvet
Pearson,
Albania in the 20th Century,
210.

22. next two days
Ibid., 54; Hayes, interview; Wilma Dale Lytle Gibson, “World War II Story of Escape from Germans,”
Falmouth Outlook,
May 18, 1964.

23. never come back
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
53.

24. “the GIs”
Hayes, interview.

25. photographer
Ibid.

26. [attack on Berat]
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
55–61; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
49–59; Charles Thrasher, Richard Lebo, statements, Roll A6544, AFHRA. Though Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
57–58, reported that the party was aware that three nurses were missing, Hayes maintained that they did not discover the nurses’ fate until much later. Abbott,
Out of Albania,
72, confirmed this. It likely would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to count heads on the crowded truck during the chaos of the attack.

27. [Hayes and Jens’s group]
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
61–63.

28. Siqeca
Qani Siqeca to Eugenie Rutkowski, letter, September 17, 1998; Qani Siqeca to Harold Hayes, letter, March 10, 1997.

Chapter 7

1. memo
Operations officer 61st Troop Carrier Squadron to commanding officer 314th Troop Carrier Group, memo attached to Missing Air Crew Report No. 1147, November 13, 1943, Roll A6544, AFHRA.

2. attended church services
Untitled and undated account, Roll A0323, AFHRA.

3. morale was low
Untitled and undated account, Roll A0323, AFHRA.

4. “The building housing”
Untitled and undated account, Roll A0323, AFHRA.

5. officially missing
Ibid.

6. signed the reports
William Eldridge personnel file, NPRC.

7. rushed them out
Hayes, interview.

8. Hayes, Owen, and Ebers
Ibid.

9. Qani, Jens, and the others
Agnes Jensen Mangerich,
Albanian Escape
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 64–68.

10. “Here they are!”
Hayes, interview.

11. one partisan lying on the floor
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
67. Mangerich mentioned one severely wounded partisan who was shot in the leg, along with two other less injured partisans who arrived later. Siqeca mentioned that two partisans were injured. Hayes believes that by the time he, Owen, and Ebers arrived, there was only one wounded man, who’d been shot in the chest.

12. BK
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
66; Roderick Bailey,
The Wildest Province
(London: Jonathan Cape, 2008), 63. Mangerich referred to the BK as Ballista. Bailey listed a variety of names used to refer to the group, including BK, Ballists, Balkom, or as the British called it, the Balli.

13. Italian soldiers… following them
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
64. Mangerich mentioned the large group of Italian soldiers following them before they were caught in the shootout. She estimated the number at one hundred fifty men; Hayes estimated the group to number around eighty.

14. “Look back there!”
Hayes, interview.

15. lights of Berat
Ibid.

16. reached a village
Ibid.

17. mountain telegraph
Ibid.; Melville Chater, “Albania, Europe’s New Kingdom,
National Geographic Magazine,
February 1931, 175.

18. refused to let them stay
Hayes, interview.

19. “onion strudel”
Ibid.

20. walnuts
Ibid.

21. Americans in Dobrushë
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
72–73.

22. saw some of their missing party
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
73–74; Lawrence O. Abbott,
Out of Albania,
ed. Clinton W. Abbott (Lulu Press, 2010), 72.

23. three nurses [missing]
Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
72–76.

24. Americans’ suspicions
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
72–76, 86; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
64–71.

25. contact some of the British
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
77; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
78.

26. SOE
William Manchester and Paul Reid,
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940–1965
(New York: Little, Brown, 2012), 273–274; Nigel Morris, “The Special Operations Executive 1940–1946,” BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/soe_01.shtml.

27. “set Europe ablaze!”
Manchester and Reid,
The Last Lion,
273–274; Morris, “The Special Operations Executive.”

28. offices [in Cairo and Bari]
Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
35, 200; Jon Naar (former Royal Artillery captain with SOE and military intelligence officer, who worked in the Cairo and Bari SOE offices), interview at his home in New Jersey on March 7, 2012.

29. “Thousands of Albanian guerrillas”
Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
128; “Aid for Albanians Cited by Churchill,”
New York Times,
November 5, 1943.

30. The day before the Americans crash-landed
Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
101–102; E. W. (“Trotsky”) Davies,
Illyrian Venture
(London: Bodley Head, 1952), 93–94.

31. kill a sheep
Hayes, interview.

32. bottle of raki
Ibid.

33. Zippo lighter
Ibid.

34. tobacco
Ibid.; “Balkan Escape,”
Collier’s
, April 1, 1944, 66.

35. fleas and lice
Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
78.

36. “foot races”
Lois Watson McKenzie, lecture, Nurses in War symposium, Washburn University School of Nursing, February 7, 1991, McKenzie family papers.

37. books whose pages
Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
84.

38. route was necessary
Hayes, interview.

39. Owen had announced
Ibid.

40. higher mountains
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
80.

41. streams
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
79; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
71.

42. the GIs
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
82; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
81.

43. shoes
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
83; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
87.

44. clean bedding
Hayes, interview.

45. red berries
Ibid.

46. Hayes and Abbott
Ibid.

47. crude bridge
Ibid.

48. yelled across the mountains
Ibid.

49. invaded Albania
Ibid.

50. Hayes, Owen, and Wolf
Ibid.

51. fourteenth day in Albania
Ibid.