The Secret Rescue (41 page)

52. highly trained German soldiers
Department Military Archive, Freiburg, RH-26-100-31, November 23, 1943.

Chapter 8

1. over several mountain ridges
Hayes, interview.

2. village council
Ibid.

3. Thanksgiving
Ibid.; Lawrence O. Abbott,
Out of Albania,
ed. Clinton W. Abbott (Lulu Press, 2010). Abbott’s memoir differs from Hayes’s account, but Hayes’s dates of when the party met the British in Lavdar coincide with the reports filed by the British. Agnes Jensen Mangerich,
Albanian Escape
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), skipped from November 22 to November 29.

4. imam
Hayes, interview.

5. Mecca
John L. Esposito, ed.,
The Oxford Dictionary of Islam
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 103.

6. sacred stone
Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
87.

7. curse
Hayes, interview; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
87.

8. Qani
Hayes, interview

9. Mount Ostrovicë [and snowstorm]
Ibid. Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
87–90, and Abbott,
Out of Albania,
87–89, mentioned Mount Tomorrit, which is close to Berat and not near the villages of Faqekuq and Ceramicë, which Agnes Jensen Mangerich’s diary listed as the places they were before and after their crossing.

10. Cruise’s hat off his head
Jim Cruise to John Graham, letter received February 3, 1995, from the John Graham family’s papers.

11. “Some of the girls were sleepy”
“Balkan Escape,”
Collier’s
, April 1, 1944, 64.

12. lost her footing
Hayes, interview; Welzel, “Wilderness Survival Trek Recalled.”

13. village council of Çeremicë
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
90; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
90.

14. note from a British officer
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
91–92; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
91–92. “American Nurses,” TNA, HS 7/70.

15. Not everyone knew right away.
Hayes, interview.

16. OSS
“What Was OSS?” Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/oss/art03.htm.

17. On November 27
David Brodie, “The Rescue of American Nurses from Albania,” in
The OSS CommVets Papers,
ed. J. F. Ranney and A. F. Ranney (Covington, KY: James F. Ranney, 2002), 28.

18. [Davies was alerted]
E. W. (“Trotsky”) Davies,
Illyrian Venture
(London: Bodley Head, 1952), 67–68.

19. “an American aircraft”
Davies,
Illyrian Venture,
67.

20. forty-three-year-old
Roderick Bailey,
The Wildest Province
(London: Jonathan Cape, 2008), 92.

21. Royal Ulster Rifles
Ibid.

22. twice been awarded
Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
92.

23. “take all steps”
Davies,
Illyrian Venture,
67.

24. radiogram
Colonel David R. Stinson to Major General Smith, Allied Force Headquarters, memo, November 29, 1943, Women in Military Service for America Memorial Foundation archives.

25. front-page wire story
“13 U.S. Army Nurses Missing: Transport Plane Struck Bad Weather,”
The News
(Frederick, MD), November 29, 1943; “Plane Missing with Army Nurses Aboard,”
Wisconsin Tribune,
November 29, 1943; “13 U.S. Nurses Missing at Sea,”
Las Cruces Sun-News,
November 29, 1943.

26. devastating telegrams
Adjutant General James Alexander Ulio to Ralph V. Hayes, telegram, November 26, 1943, Harold Hayes papers; Adjutant General James Alexander Ulio to Peter Cruise, telegram, November 26, 1943, James P. Cruise personnel file, NPRC; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
211. “Army Nurse Listed Missing,”
Indiana Evening Gazette,
November 30, 1943; Nolan McKenzie to Office of the Adjutant General, letter, January 2, 1944.

27. Watson’s husband of just a few months
Lois Watson McKenzie, lecture, Nurses in War symposium, Washburn University School of Nursing, February 7, 1991, McKenzie family papers.

28. “I don’t know what to say.”
Nolan McKenzie to Harry and Leila Watson, letter, November 27, 1943, McKenzie family papers.

29. “Your grief is mine too.”
Helen King McKenzie to Harry and Leila Watson, letter, November 27, 1943, McKenzie family papers.

30. Hayes’s mother… nightmares and premonitions
Virginia McCall, e-mail interview, November 3, 2011.

31. sent their… son, Karl
Karl Hayes, e-mail interview, November 7, 2011.

32. Adams
“Adams, Brother of Wake Captive, Lost Near Italy,” 1943 newspaper article, NPN, Harold Hayes papers.

33. Schwant
Bette Newell, e-mail interview, December 7, 2012; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
172.

34. As the weary party… left Çeremicë
Hayes, interview.

35. they found the British soldier
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
95; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
98.

36. Lavdar
Hayes interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
95; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
98; “American Nurses,” TNA, HS 7/70.

37. Victor Smith
TNA, HS 9/1384/6.

38. dropped into Albania
Ibid.

39. spycraft techniques
Bailey,
The Wildest Province
, 60.

40. SOE personnel attended
Bailey,
The Wildest Province
, 60; Nigel Morris, “The Special Operations Executive, 1940–1946,” BBC, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/soe_02.shtml.

41. same type of training
Bailey,
The Wildest Province
, 60.

42. “just about the most useful course”
Bailey,
The Wildest Province
, 52.

43. local touches
Ibid., 53.

44. first mission into Albania
David Smiley,
Albanian Assignment
(London: Sphere Books, 1984), 17–18; Bailey,
The Wildest Province
, 58.

45. four men had parachuted
Smiley,
Albanian Assignment
, 17–18; Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
58.

46. Commando Order
Roderick Bailey, e-mail interview, November 19, 2012; David M. Kennedy, ed.,
Library of Congress World War II Companion
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), 657.

47. concentration camp
Davies,
Illyrian Venture,
194–196; Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
215.

48. trained some eight hundred men
Smiley,
Albanian Assignment,
67; Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
77.

49. Of the first fifty
Bailey,
The Wildest Province,
90.

50. [agents in Yugoslavia, Greece]
Ibid.

51. knew nothing of SOE
Hayes, interview.

52. Lancashire Fusiliers
TNA, HS 9/1384/6.

53. “Why did you bring these people?”
Hayes, interview.

54. list of their names
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
96.

55. stay in Lavdar
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
96. Abbott,
Out of Albania,
98.

56. maps
Hayes, interview.

57. took baths
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
97–98.

Chapter 9

1. When Smith returned to Lavdar
Hayes, interview; Agnes Jensen Mangerich,
Albanian Escape
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 100; Lawrence O. Abbott,
Out of Albania,
ed. Clinton W. Abbott (Lulu Press, 2010), 98. Hayes remembers that they spent two nights in Lavdar, November 30 and December 1, and arrived in Krushovë on December 2. Mangerich wrote that they spent the night of November 29 and November 30 in Lavdar and December 1 in Krushovë. Abbott indicated that they spent the nights of November 26 through November 30 in Lavdar and arrived in Krushovë on December 1. The available British records do not offer the specific date the Americans arrived in Krushovë.