Agnes Jensen, one of thirteen nurses aboard the flight, joined the Army in 1941 in hopes of seeing the world. (Courtesy of the Agnes Jensen Mangerich Family)
Twenty-one-year-old Harold Hayes, seen here in 1945, was one of the first medics added to the 807th’s roster. (Courtesy of the Harold Hayes Collection)
Medics Robert Owen (left) and Lawrence Abbott (right) became fast friends with Hayes during their air evacuation training at Bowman Field Air Base in Louisville, Kentucky, and were also on board the ill-fated flight. (Courtesy of the Robert Owen Family)
A German attack on the Albanian town of Berat almost cost the Americans their lives and left the party scattered. (Courtesy of the National Archives at College Park, RG 226, Entry 165, box 11, folder 105)
Kostaq Stefa, shown here with his wife, Eleni, and their dog Rosy in their garden, led the stranded party through the mountains for weeks, finding food and shelter for them and keeping them from the Germans. Stefa was tortured when he returned to his home after helping the Americans and in 1948 was executed for having collaborated with the Allies. (Courtesy of the Kostaq Stefa Family)
Sergeant Willis Shumway, the flight’s crew chief, who had to be carried from the battered plane, rests his injured knee while overlooking the town of Berat. (Courtesy of the Willis L. Shumway Family)
Telegrams, like the one sent to Hayes’s father in Iowa, alerted family members in late November that their loved ones were missing. (Courtesy of the Harold Hayes Collection)
In late December, the valley beyond the Albanian town of Gjirokastër became the site of a daring but failed air evacuation. The ill and exhausted party was inconsolable when the arrival of German troops prevented rescue planes from landing. (Courtesy of the National Archives at College Park, RG 226, Entry 165, box 11, folder 105)
British Lieutenant Gavan Duffy (third from right) of the clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE), shown here with other British officers and top-ranking partisans, including future Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha (second from right), led the party from eastern Albania through the war-ravaged country to the Adriatic coast. (©Imperial War Museums, HU 64764)
British Sergeant Herbert Bell served as Duffy’s wireless operator during the journey and helped provide a critical link between those in the field and SOE headquarters in Cairo. (©Imperial War Museums, HU 65068)
The crew of the British motor launch, which rescued most of the Americans after months of being trapped in Albania, braved waters patrolled by the Germans during the nighttime mission. (The National Archives of the UK: ref. HS5/121)
McKnight (left), the 807th’s commanding officer, greeted Gertrude Dawson and the rest of the party at the dock in Bari, Italy, while unseen military photographers snapped pictures of the event. (15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)
Some of the nurses—(left to right) Lois Watson, Lillian Tacina, Pauleen Kanable, Elna Schwant, Ann Kopsco, and Frances Nelson—showed off oversized men’s shoes given to them by the British in Albania when their own fell apart after they walked hundreds of miles. (15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)
Duffy poses with nurses Eugenie Rutkowski (left) and Ann Kopsco in front of one of the staff cars that transported the Americans from the dock in Bari, Italy, to the 26th General Hospital. (15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)
The British crew (above) who helped rescue the Americans offered them shots of rum to celebrate their escape during their journey back to Italy. (15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)
The flight crew—(left to right) copilot James Baggs, pilot Charles Thrasher, radio operator Richard Lebo, and crew chief Willis Shumway, members of the 61st Troop Carrier Squadron—were fortunate to have had their leather flying jackets with them to help battle the brutal weather in Albania’s mountains. (15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)
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)
In the hospital, though she and the others were forbidden from discussing details of their time behind enemy lines even with their loved ones, Watson wrote a V-mail letter while enjoying a cigarette. (15th Air Force [USAAF] photo courtesy of Air Force Historical Research Agency, Roll A6544)
Lloyd Smith, a twentyfour-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)
Jensen (left) and Maness, shown here in uniform with a little girl trying on one of their flight jackets, returned to Bowman Field as instructors and sold war bonds, but like the others in their party, they never forgot their harrowing journey and ultimate rescue. (Courtesy of the Agnes Jensen Mangerich Family)
Contents
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
A Note to the Reader
Those On Board Army Air Forces Aircraft 42-68809 on November 8, 1943
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1: The Nurses and Medics of the 807th
Chapter 2: Destination Unknown
Chapter 3: Flying Blind
Chapter 4: In Enemy Territory
Chapter 5: Unlikely Comrades
Chapter 6: Under
Attack
Chapter 7: Suspicions
Chapter 8: Albanian Curse
Chapter 9: Secret Agents
Chapter 10: Rumors
Chapter 11: Lurking Danger
Chapter 12: Breaking Point
Chapter 13: Beyond Reach
Chapter 14: Unstoppable
Chapter 15: Escape
Chapter 16: Left Behind
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Newsletters
Notes
Photos
Copyright
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Cate Lineberry
Cover design by Jason Gabbert; photographs courtesy of the U.S. Air Force (plane) and Topical Press Agency/Getty Images (Albanian mountains)
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Map by David Lambert
ISBN 978-0-316-22023-1
The Secret Rescue Page 28