by Anda Vranjes
Daytime conditions changed the parameters of the rescue. Word quickly spread that now the planes could accommodate twenty airmen instead of twelve. This meant fewer planes to complete the rescue. O’Donnell was in awe at the magnitude of the rescue.
The fighter planes flew a fifty-mile radius around Pranjane. Every German supply convoy, freight train and troop encampment within that radius was destroyed.
The American fighter planes continued their attack on the surrounding Germans. Hundreds of bombs dropped and thousands of bullets and missiles were shot. The impact of surrounding explosions combined with the roar of the engines of the rescuing C-47’s was intense.
“It’s amazing. One of the greatest airshows of this war,” thought O’Donnell with pride. “This is what I’m talking about! America!” he whooped as he jumped in the air.
O’Donnell laughed as he ran towards the planes. Wallace was getting ready to board. O’Donnell would be one of the last ones, but he wanted to say his goodbyes.
“Wallace, be safe! See you in Italy!” he shouted.
Wallace saluted O’Donnell before climbing aboard the plane. Within minutes O’Donnell watched as Wallace’s plane took off.
Thirty minutes later another group of six c-47s arrived under the same cover of fighter planes. One hundred and twenty airmen boarded the planes and were now on their way back to Italy.
O’Donnell waited for the last set of planes. Branko walked up to him and shook his hand.
“Thank you. Friend,” he said to O’Donnell as he handed him a black towel folded into a small square. Confused, O’Donnell unfolded the towel. It wasn’t a towel at all. He was looking at a black flag with a white skull and cross bones in the center with the words “Sloboda ili Smrt, za Kralja I Otadjbina”. The Chetnik flag and he knew it translated to “Freedom or Death. For the King and our Fatherland.” Touched, O’Donnell shook his hand.
“No, thank you. You are one young brave soldier. And I am proud to have been on a mission with you.” O’Donnell didn’t know if Branko fully understood what he told him. But he wanted to say it anyway.
O’Donnell, with his coat over his arm, looked over his shoulders as the last group of planes that landed. He quickly unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. He slipped off his shoes and socks and put them in his coat along with this shirt and handed it all to Branko.
“Take these. It can’t nearly repay what you’ve all done for the others and me. But it is a start. Stay Chetnik strong, Branko.”
O’Donnell jogged to the plane and boarded with the others.
He sat among this last group of airmen, Chetnik flag on his lap and looked out the window. He saw General Mihailovic in the distance watching as the final planes of the day taxied to takeoff.
When he thought he had caught the General’s eye, O’Donnell saluted him, honored to have met such a remarkable man. The General saw him, stood straight and saluted him in return.
O’Donnell watched as Pranjane and his Chetnik saviors disappeared through the clouds.
CHAPTER 18
PETROVICH WATCHED WITH joy as wave after wave of C-47s landed, bringing with them hundreds of rescued airmen. He anxiously scanned each group of men as they departed their planes, looking for O’Donnell’s face among them.
But as each group dispersed, his hopes that O’Donnell would be one of them diminished. He knew that it was a long shot, but he continued to hope that O’Donnell would be alive and well.
The last group of planes arrived from Yugoslavia. Petrovich waited impatiently to see if O’Donnell would be among this last group. It was his last hope.
One after another, the airmen exited the planes. O’Donnell was not one of them. In mourning, he bowed his head to offer an overdue silent prayer for his friend’s soul.
“Is that anyway to welcome home a friend? By daydreaming in the middle of the base?” asked O’Donnell as he stood in front Petrovich.
Petrovich opened his eyes and saw a dirty, shoeless, sockless and shirtless O’Donnell standing in front of him.
“What did they do to your clothes?” laughed Petrovich.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it, after a long shower!”
In the end, two hundred and forty-three Americans and twenty Russians, French Canadians and British were rescued from Pranjane within those two days of the evacuation. Over the course of the next several weeks, many more batches of rescued airmen arrived in Pranjane to be arranged for evacuation.
In thanks, Mihailovic and his Chetnik army received one and a half tons of medical supplies - barely enough to fill half of an aircraft. And certain British and Americans in Bari, Red included, were vehemently opposed to even that meager amount of aid.
Later, O’Donnell learned that as the planes were coming to Chetnik territory to rescue the airmen, they were also dropping off supplies to Tito and his Partisan army. He couldn’t believe the audacity and betrayal. Mihailovic, his men and the Serbian peasants had risked it all to save Americans, and we were dropping off supplies and medicine to his enemy. And that enemy was surely going to use those supplies against Mihailovich.
To make matters even worse, O’Donnell and the others were ordered not to share their story with anyone. The military authorities classified the mission as top secret and they were forbidden from disclosing any details.
“I don’t understand. They rescued us. Why should that be a secret?” argued O’Donnell. “In fact, it was an amazing rescue. People have a right to know!”
“That is an order. You and the others will not share your experience in the Mihailovic camp and you will not disclose the events of the mission. If you do, you will be violating direct orders and as such you will be punished accordingly,” replied O’Donnell’s commanding officer.
To the airmen’s complete surprise, the position of the British and Americans hadn’t changed. They still viewed Tito as their ally. O’Donnell and the others were forced to listen to briefings on Yugoslavia that described Mihailovic and his Chetniks as the enemy. O’Donnell and the others could barely contain themselves, short of being court martialed for disobeying orders
“The enemy?” questioned O’Donnell. “They aren’t the enemy. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the Chetniks!”
“That’s enough, O’Donnell,” reprimanded his commanding officer. “As I have told you before, you are not to tell anyone what happened in Yugoslavia. NO ONE. Do you understand me? This is a direct order!”
“Yes sir. I do understand you. But it’s not right. Not right at all.”
Red continued his opposition to General Mihailovich and continued his support of Tito. O’Donnell and Petrovich confronted him one evening. O’Donnell twirled between his fingers the red star Petrovich had found months earlier.
“Hey, Red. I think you lost something,” said O’Donnell as he tossed the star to Red.
“Wherever did you find this?” Red smiled. “Perhaps from your stint in Yugoslavia? What a wonderful gift. Thank you!” he said with a sneer.
* * *
On December 27, 1944, the final evacuation took place. Musulin was replaced two weeks after the successful completion of the main evacuation in August. Nick Lalich, who was among those on the very first set of cargo planes to touch down in Pranjane, took over for him.
In all, over five hundred Allied men were rescued with the help of General Draza Mihailovich and his Chetniks in the greatest rescue mission of World War II.
O’Donnell contemplated this as he crouched down in front of his bed and pulled out a small worn box. He slowly opened it and looked inside. On top of the other items was the black Chetnik flag Branko had given him. He took it out of the box. Taking his time, he unfolded it and spread it out on his bed.
He traced the skull and cross bones with his finger and remembered a remarkable General and his people, who risked everything to save him and those other five hundred men. The guilt that plagued him was unbearable. How could he ever repay them if he couldn’t even talk about what t
hey did?
“I swear I will spend the rest of my life trying to find a way to let the world know what you did for us. Every waking moment, whenever possible, I will thank you for giving me my life back. And I will do what I can to give you the thanks and respect you deserve.”
Tears streaming down his face, O’Donnell folded the flag, carefully placed it back in the box, and slid it under his bed.
EPILOGUE
IN 1945, THE Germans were defeated and forced to leave occupied countries, including Yugoslavia. Tito took control of Yugoslavia and established a communist state that deprived the people of Yugoslavia the freedoms that they so desperately fought for, during World War I, World War II and every war over the course of their existence.
Although it was never publicly admitted, it has been said that Churchill and Roosevelt privately acknowledged that they had made a mistake supporting Tito and abandoning Mihailovich. Eventually, the truth about the moles that had infiltrated their commands and manipulated information in favor of Tito emerged. Unfortunately, both for Mihailovich and the people of Yugoslavia, it was too late.
Obsessed, Tito engaged in a campaign to capture Mihailovich. The Chetniks were forced to leave Yugoslavia and seek refuge in other countries, with many emigrating to the United States. Most had to leave their wives and children behind, leaving them in the unmerciful hands of the Communists. As they were forced to leave the country, thousands of other Chetniks were killed by both the Partisans and Croatian Ustasha.
Mihailovich, ill with typhus, evaded the Partisans with the help of his dedicated Chetnik soldiers who carried him on stretchers from village to village. Friends urged him to leave Yugoslavia to save his life but he refused.
On March 25, 1946, American newspapers announced that Mihailovich had been captured and was to be tried as a Nazi collaborator and enemy of the state. American airmen all across the United States rallied to save the man who had risked so much for them.
They wrote their senators and congressmen, pleading for an intervention at the trial. The American airmen knew Tito’s tactics and they were convinced that the trial would be a farce. If you were against Tito, you were considered an enemy and guilty, regardless of the evidence to the contrary.
They appealed to Tito’s court, asking to be witnesses for Mihailovic, to prove the accusations of Nazi collaboration to be false. They were denied. Carrying signs that read, “Tito’s court said Mihailovich killed me,” they demonstrated in major cities across the United States, especially in Washington DC, demanding to be heard. Desperate to save Mihailovich, they also wrote newspapers and contacted radio stations.
Tito and his court denied them again. In a typical tactic, Mihailovic was drugged to prevent him from defending himself. Tito’s prosecutors presented false documents and information, and claimed that the Partisans were the ones who rescued the American airmen, not Mihailovic.
On June 10, 1946, as expected, and to the extreme disappointment of the rescued Airmen, Tito’s mock court found Mihailovich guilty of war collaboration and treason. Throughout his trial, the communist courtroom spectators hissed and taunted. Despite their overt hostility, Mihailovic closed his defense in a calm and dignified manner. Although he was tired, battered and drugged, Mihailovich stood before his condemners and spoke his last public words.
“During the first World War, I was wounded and received medals for valor. I stayed at the front all the time when I could have left. I never used brutality to the enemy, much less to my own people.
When war came and our front broke, I was left with a broken-spirited people and with a legacy of the rottenness of two decades. I went into the forest and told the people to hide their weapons. I wanted to continue resistance, and thus I became a rebel against Hitler’s Germany.
At that time, only England and I were still at war.
I proclaimed that my army would be a Yugoslav Army. Others wished to have only a Serbian Army, but I proved to them the greatness of Yugoslavia as an idea. Unfortunately, some other commanders would not accept this.
Partisans appeared immediately when Soviet Russia entered the war. The Germans began to take reprisals, and some of the people begged me not to emerge. My first success was when ten Partisan plunderers came over to me. I had an action against those Partisans, who, peasant women told me had been pillaging. I released them and warned them not to behave in that manner any more . . .
I had three meetings with Marshal Tito, to which I went sincerely. I told him I believed we could come to an understanding, and that both sides had made mistakes. Unfortunately, we spent our time in mutual accusations. Obviously, even before I met him, our battle had already begun . . .
I deny that I had ever handed over Partisan prisoners to the Germans. The blame lies entirely on the witness who testified against me. He was in fact the collaborator.
German reprisals had been terrible. I’d seen flames burning villages. My 5,000 men were not anything against five German divisions. I told the London Government but go no instructions in return. So I went with two other men to the Germans. We took grenades in case of treachery from them.
The Germans would not parley. They called for our unconditional surrender and I was called a rebel. I was astonished and said I was fighting for my country and they must, as soldiers, understand this. I refused to drink wine with the Germans and there was NO agreement. I told the Germans I would fight. Soon after, they attacked my headquarters in Ravna Gora and killed many of my men.
I deny that I had ever had a representative at Italian headquarters.
I had never ordered action against civilians and could never even approve it. I could never favor killing a man without a trial.
I remind the court of Hitler’s message to Mussolini, saying that I was the greatest enemy of the Axis and that I was only waiting for the right moment to attack.
My other meeting with the Germans was conducted with the American Colonel McDowell. That meeting was to negotiate a surrender of German arms and not for collaboration.
I wanted nothing for myself.
I never wanted the old Yugoslavia, but I had a difficult legacy.
I am a soldier who sought to organize resistance to the Axis for our own country and for the rising of all of the Balkan peninsula.
I am sorry that anyone should think I have been disloyal to the Government. I was caught in a whirlpool of events and the movements of the new Slav unity, which I have favored for a long time.
I had against me a competitive organization, the Communist Party, which seeks its aims without compromise. I was faced with changes in my own Government, and accused of connections with every possible secret service, enemy and Allied.
I believed I was on the right road and called for any foreign journalist or Red Army Mission to visit me and see everything. But fate was merciless to me when it threw me into this maelstrom.
I strove for much. I undertook much. But the gales of the world have carried away both me and my work.
I ask the court to judge what I have said according to its proper value.”
—The Times, July 12, 1946. The Daily Telegraph and
Morning Post, July 12, 1946.
He spoke for over four and a half hours, and at his conclusion, the entire courtroom was overcome with silence. The correspondents representing London newspapers: The Times, The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post were impressed with his words and evidently, so was the communist audience. Though his defense was solid and impactful, it was to no avail. Tito’s government had never intended on Mihailovic being a free man again.
On July 17, 1946, General Draza Mihailovich, World War II’s greatest guerilla general and friend to the United States and Allies, was executed by a Communist firing squad and buried in an unmarked grave.
Across the United States, grown men wept at the news. They would spend the rest of their lives defending Mihailovic and the Chetniks.
AUTHORS NOTE
THIS STORY IS historical fiction. While several characters and si
tuations are fictionalized, it is based on true events, the most important one being the actual rescue mission. The story is a compilation of stories gathered from the rescued airmen and the members of the Air Rescue Unit Team.
Musulin, Jibilian, Rajacich, Lalich, and Mihailovich are real people. The other characters were created out of a combination of the stories of several airmen and people of Yugoslavia. These men, along with Major Richard Felman, on whom much of O’Donnell’s character is based, spent the rest of their lives fighting to clear the names of Mihailovic, the Chetniks and the Serbian people.
General Eisenhower, President of the United States of America in 1953, was instrumental in seeing that Mihailovic was honored by the United States. He was one of many who convinced President Truman to posthumously award Draza Mihailovich the highest award possible for a foreign nationalist: the Legion of Merit. It was awarded for rescuing the airmen and for his overall effort in the war, proving he was not collaborating with the enemy. Unfortunately, the award was not made public.
Airmen tried to erect a monument in Washington DC to honor General Draza Mihailovic and to commemorate the Halyard Mission. But the United States government worried it would offend Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia with an iron fist until his death in 1980 and who spent his entire life demonizing Mihailovic and the Chetniks with propaganda and lies. The monument was never erected.
Yugoslavia broke apart in the late 1980s with the support of countries such as Germany, Great Britain and the United States. For most of the 1990’s the country was entrenched in one of the bloodiest civil wars since World War II.
Much of the deep-rooted hatred was seeded during World War II and from the atrocities committed by the Croatian and Muslim Ustasha and the German Nazis. The media inaccurately portrayed the recent war as a war of aggression, comparing it to Nazi Germany of World War II, instead of what it really was: a civil war.