Shadow Warriors

by Dick Camp

  Wrong Assumption

  The general’s assurance proved to be wrong. “At about 0530 one morning a guerrilla guard came to the parachute tent where Bailey and I were sleeping and said, ‘Nemsi su blizu,’ (Germans are close),” Mansfield said. “Not taking any chances, however, we had our guards pack all radio and other equipment on the horses, saw that everything was squared away, then went back up to the mountainside.” The two officers had no sooner reached their tent when “All hell broke loose!”

  “Heavy machine gun and small arms fire [broke out] on all sides right around us. We grabbed our rifles and jumped into the bushes. The fog was just lifting and we could spot some figures dodging behind trees and bushes and firing at intervals. Machine guns at higher elevations were blazing away down the other side of the hill.” The fire fight was confusing; neither officer could determine where the guerrillas were. “Bailey finally spotted two or three Jerries [German soldiers] off to the left, running from tree to tree. Their uniforms were a solid green-gray color. We opened up on them, but it was impossible to tell whether we connected because of the thick brush.”

  The firing died down and the two officers worked their way back to Mihailovich’s headquarters. “The General hurriedly advised us that about two hundred German soldiers had come by truck before day-break to a spot on the road nearest our camp. Then, under cover of fog, they had successfully slipped through our outer defenses before being detected. By that time they were so spread out that confusion reigned. Mihailovich himself was directing operations, dispatching groups here and there.” The Germans were forced to retreat after losing twenty dead and wounded. The Chetniks captured five prisoners but lost about the same number of casualties. With their location pinpointed, “[t]he General ordered that we move at once,” Mansfield said. “We started with many others in single file up over a trail to the rear through the mountains.”

  The withdrawal proved to be a test of endurance, as Mansfield recalled.

  I shall never forget the ‘pocred’. In all there must have been about five hundred of us, including old and young, stretcher cases, cooks, camp followers, and rugged little heavily-laden pack horses. Hour after hour, we slowly wound our way up and down steep, almost impassable, mountain trails, through a cold, penetrating rain. The march started around noon and continued all day and night until 0300 the following morning, with frequent rests while we waited for patrols to report. … I became weary and stiff. Whenever I asked, ‘How much longer?’ I would always receive the same reply, ‘Only two hours.’ This would stretch into three, then four more hours. We finally camped in a little village. The endurance of these men amazed me. Despite their ragged condition and the tiring, steady, endless pace, there was only cheerfulness and no complaints.

  As Michael Lees observed:

  In that country of gentle mountains and woodland, which stretched mile after mile with only an occasional track and no paved roads at all, the peasant holdings were often separated by one or two ravines and usually a mile or so as the crow flies. This distance could entail two or three hours’ march on foot with one, two, or maybe more ascents and descents of hundreds of feet each time. Each holding was independent and virtually self-supporting. There was usually barley or wheat corn and grazing for livestock. There were cattle, sometimes sheep, bullocks for transport, small sturdy horses, but very few mules. Pigs and chickens ran around the homesteads, and the warm summer climate favoured peppers and other semi exotic vegetables. Beans formed the main item of the staple diet. No holding was without plum trees for making the potent rakiya or shlivovica (plum brandy), and many had pear and apple trees as well. The women worked with the men on the land, and after cooking the food, they wove all the material they needed on their own looms; they also made all of the clothing, some of which was of fine quality, design, and appearance. The footwear was formed from rectangles of rawhide wrapped around the foot and known as opanke.

  Lees described the peasant houses, which were built of mud with home-fired tiled roofs.

  In the mountains they were universally single-storied. A two-storied house was regarded as a sign of enormous prestige and fortune, and was to be found only in the foothills and plains. But even in the mountains, most of the houses had a cellar, or podrum, which served the vital purpose of storing the rakiya. Chimneys were a rarity; the smoke from the open fire in the center of the floor filtered through a hole in the peak of the roof. There was usually just one bed in the house, reserved for the mating couple. Grandparents, children, and others slept on mats on the floor, where we would join them in due course. There would be a low, round table and a few small stools and, apart from the looms, no other furniture. The reserves of food, mostly dried, hung from hooks in the ceiling. The homesteads were simple. The holdings seemed limited only by the amount of land the members of the family were physically able to cultivate; there were large areas of unexploited woodland between each settlement. The families were almost entirely self-supporting. Some produce was carried was carried up to ten, fifteen, or more hours’ journey—an average difference to the nearest village or township—and sold in order to purchase needles, sugar, or salt, which were the articles most in demand. The mountain peasants the life was rugged and hard. They were proud and fiercely individualistic, and they loved their svoyna—their home and land.

  Field Operations

  After several weeks of observing the headquarters and getting the lay of the land, Mansfield requested to be allowed to go on an operation. “I spoke to the General about this and after considerable reluctance he agreed to let me go on a job to be jointly planned by ourselves and the British.” The target was the main railroad line running from Belgrade to the Adriatic Sea. “It was an important German supply link to the coast,” he pointed out. “The local guerrilla chieftain, Captain Radovich, told us there were three or four unguarded tunnels and a river bridge near the town of Vardiste.” The information was almost too good to be true because usually they were heavily guarded and fortified with pillboxes, barbed wire, and mines. Mansfield and Lieutenant Colonel Hudson decided on a personal reconnaissance, along with a large detachment of guerrillas. “We marched three days over the mountains to the vicinity of the bridge and tunnels,” Mansfield explained. “There were several tunnels in the mountain where the railroad skirted around the side of it, on two different levels.” He was able to get to a good vantage point within a couple hundred yards of the bridge. “Through my binoculars I saw only a few Bulgarian puppet troops hanging around.” He waited until a train passed by. “It was a medium-sized engine drawing eight cars, three of which were full of soldiers,” a lucrative target.

  The detachment returned to the base camp and started planning for the operation. They estimated that it would take about two hundred pounds of explosive to drop the span. “The bridge was a modern, single-track, steel girder type, about one hundred feet long, supported by concrete abutments and two concrete piers,” Mansfield explained. “We estimated that by using ring-mounted charges set on all girders and beams about five feet in from both piers we could cut it clean and drop it into the river.” They wanted to deny the Germans the use of the railroad for at least a month, so they planned on wrecking the train inside the tunnel. “The only railroad wrecking yard was located east of the bridge, which lay between it and the tunnel. By blowing the bridge, the Jerries would have to replace it before getting to the wrecked train.” The plan called for Mansfield to plant the derailing charges in the tunnel, while Hudson took down the bridge. “We spent the next two days preparing the charges and briefing the men on their assignments. The explosives were packed on four horses and we started out for the target area.”

  The three-day trip was uneventful. “At the railroad we found the situation to be the same. No one was guarding either bridge or railroad,” Mansfield explained, “but we were concerned about a detachment of five hundred Bulgars in a town about three miles away.” The men quickly set up security. “Machine guns were placed on two hills near the bridge, whi
ch gave us good enfilade fire. Two hundred men took up positions, spread out in the edge of the woods, under Captain Radovich’s command. The prepared explosive charges were unloaded and made ready for carriage by small three-man groups to the bridge. Hudson busied himself cutting the time fuses. Everything was secure.” Mansfield and a security force left to place the explosives in the tunnel, which was about a mile away.

  The group took cover in the woods at the west end of the tunnel until a reconnaissance patrol reported that the coast was clear. “I entered the tunnel with five men, leaving one group at each end,” Mansfield said. The track rested on very short ties, supported by rocks and cinders. We walked about two hundred feet when my eyes became accustomed to the darkness and I could see the other entrance about three hundred feet away. I put two half-pound blocks of TNT under the rail, connected up the prima cord and snapped the detonator on the tracks—a simple job.” Mansfield was a graduate of the OSS demolitions school where he had been taught how to blow up railroad tracks and other interesting things. “I had just crossed the track and was kneeling down to place a staggered charge on the other side when cries came from the west end of the tunnel. We all looked up, and simultaneously heard the ‘chug-chug’ of an engine! A train was coming, even though none was due for about an hour. Panic seized us! Someone cried ‘Idemo’ (Let’s go) and all six of us bounded down the tracks toward the east entrance away from the train. It seemed as if we would never reach the exit, but we finally made it, turned off at the end and kept right on running up into the woods where we hit the trail leading down toward the bridge.” The train roared out the tunnel right on their heels and squealed to a stop—undamaged. “I could not understand it,” Mansfield murmured, “Why hadn’t it derailed?”

  At that moment, a terrific explosion shook the ground. “Hudson had blown the bridge,” Mansfield explained, “a beautiful job in which he succeeded in cutting it completely at both ends, dropping it into the river and ruining the piers.” Mansfield and his security element continued on the trail to the rendezvous point. “I met Hudson and got the story … After I had started out for the tunnel, he had decided that the situation was safe enough to place the charges on the bridge. With a dozen men he had tied them on … and was about to retire to the hills when he heard the train in the distance. … [H]e had pulled the fuse igniters and, retiring to his post in the hills, watched the bridge go up in the air.” As the two talked, shooting broke out near the destroyed bridge. “Apparently some Jerries or Bulgars had arrived,” Mansfield said. “Captain Radovich dispatched a hundred men under Lieutenant Medenovich to go back to the tunnel, while we withdrew about three miles up into the hills.”

  Lieutenant Medenovich returned that night and told Mansfield what happened inside the tunnel. “[The] charge had exploded and blown about four or five feet of rail out of the track,” he related, “but the train’s large wheels still continued to pass over the gap without derailment. The engineer, hearing the explosion, realized something was wrong and stopped the train after exiting the tunnel.” Medenovich’s force surrounded the train and succeeded in capturing three Bulgar soldiers. They tried to destroy the train but only succeeded in damaging it. Despite his failure to block the tunnel, Mansfield considered the raid a success because they were able to destroy the bridge. Before they could mount another foray, news reached them that the Italian Army had surrendered to the Allies, only six days after the invasion of Italy proper. Mansfield recalled that, “General Mihailovich sent out orders to all his field commanders to attack German and Italian occupation forces everywhere. … I personally saw and had translated a good many orders which were sent by radio from his central headquarters.” At the same time, SOE headquarters in Cairo radioed them to do “everything possible to effectuate peaceable surrender of Italian forces in Yugoslavia.”

  At the time of the surrender, there were five Italian occupation divisions and two German divisions in and around the area where Mansfield was located. It was doubtful that the Italians, even if they wanted to, would be allowed to surrender by the Germans. Furthermore Mansfield noted, “What would we do with all the Italians, if they surrendered … we could not feed and house them in the woods and mountains.” However, orders were orders and, “After a quick conference with the General, we decided to make a stab at it.” They decided on a two prong; Bailey and eight hundred guerrillas would march on the headquarters of the Italian “Venezzia” Division and try to entice it to surrender, while Mansfield and a smaller force of 300 men would try to affect the surrender of the 1,800-man Italian garrison at Priboj. “We used the General’s typewriter to type up a surrender demand—a pompous document which made us both blush when we read it,” Mansfield recalled. “It called upon the Italian CO to send out a delegation which would meet us in the woods and work out terms of surrender, and guaranteed their safe conduct; otherwise we would attack.”

  The following night, Mansfield and his guerrilla force marched over the mountains for over eight hours to get into position overlooking the Italian fort, a formidable structure stretching along the crests of several small hills. “It was pitch black and movement through the woods was most difficult,” Mansfield said regretfully. “We realized that our timing was poor and that daylight would have provided more suitable conditions, but decided to go through with it.” The guerrillas crept forward to the edge of the woods, about four hundred yards from the garrison’s position and gave the surrender demand to a local man to deliver. “About fifteen minutes after the peasant departed, the silence was broken by a burst of heavy machine gun fire … then the Italian hit us with everything they had,” Mansfield exclaimed. “[M]ortars and machine guns fired wildly into the side of the mountain. … [P]anic apparently seized the Italians and they mowed down our emissary before he even reached the gate.” The guerrillas withdrew and assembled on top of the mountain where they spent the night.

  The next day, Mansfield sent the Italian commanding officer another demand. He responded that he had did not have any orders to surrender and therefore would not do so. “One remark in the note, however, made us determined to wait another day,” Mansfield recalled. “The writer, half-pleading, stated that he was ‘only a soldier, and must obey his orders.’ Through the peasant grape-vine we learned that there was trouble inside the garrison. The commander wanted to surrender but there were about a hundred Fascist ‘Black Shirts’ who demanded to fight it out to the bitter end and threatened rebellion.” The next morning an emissary brought a note from the commander stating that he would, in fact, enter surrender negotiations. “Within three hours, we were discussing preliminary plans … with a cocky little Italian major dressed in fancy blue-gray peg pants, high boots, and a tight-waisted, almost feminine-looking blouse. Six hours later we walked with a heavy guerrilla guard through the streets of the town to the garrison commander’s headquarters, cheered by laughing Serbs, saluted at every turn by cheerful little Italian soldiers.”

  The Italian surrender brought forth an embarrassment of riches for the ill-equipped and poorly supplied guerrillas—shoes, blankets, small arms and ammunition, and mortars. For three days they enjoyed “the good life” before word reached them that a large force of Germans were coming. “We decided to evacuate rather than rely on the Italians to join in making a stand against their recent allies,” Mansfield related. “We got our guerrillas started on a quick exodus up through the mountains. Before leaving, however, our men loaded fifteen of the mortars with several hundred rounds on the horses and carried out a large number of rifles, machine guns, and ammo. By nightfall we were camped up in the mountains.” Mansfield learned that the Germans used large numbers of the Italian garrison as labor troops, while hundreds of others fled into the woods. “We were plagued with stray Italian soldiers wanting to join us,” he said. “Most of them were far too soft for guerrilla life and ended up working on peasant farms for their keep. … [W]hatever became of them we never learned.”

  Blood Feud

  The animosity between Tito
and Mihailovich was reaching a critical stage. A bloody civil war was raging throughout Herzegovina and south Bosnia, threatening to involve both the United States and Britain in the feud. “Both Tito and Mihailovich were jockeying for Allied support,” Mansfield explained. “Allied missions and supplies were parachuted to both guerrilla groups. With Britain as well as Russia appearing to side with Tito, those of us with Mihailovich were in the middle of a chaotic situation. Mihailovich, ignoring the British, turned to me in his anger and pleaded for more American support as well as additional teams to come in and see for themselves what his guerrillas were doing.” Mansfield radioed headquarters for instructions. “I felt it would be a sorry situation if Allied missions on both sides found themselves using Allied equipment to destroy each other rather than the Germans.”

  In late September 1943, OSS headquarters in Cairo advised Mansfield that additional team members were being sent in to deal with the difficult situation. “After several nights of waiting, the new members parachuted in … British Brig. Gen. Charles Armstrong with three British officers, three enlisted men, and my new commanding officer, U.S. Army Col. Albert B. Seitz. (It was reported upon landing that Seitz burst into a joyous ‘Yee-haw,’ cowboy style whoops to the delight of the Yugoslavia welcoming party.) At the same time several tons of badly needed military supplies were dropped.” At the time, Seitz thought that the friction between Tito and Mihailovich “did not appear insurmountable,” an opinion that would change as he spent time on the ground. He came to realize that, “I was there simply to give an Allied illusion to the Yugoslavs. The mission was British and the whole show would remain a British show. I would be permitted to see or talk to Mihailovich only at the discretion of the brigadier [Armstrong]. … I was even forbidden to address Mihailovich in French. Further, any message destined for my people would be subject to the brigadier’s censorship.” Even the British thought Armstrong was a little “stuffy.” He was a regular officer, with no experience in guerrilla warfare, and given to strict military discipline. To top it off, he was “a non-smoking, teetotaler,” according to Lees, “who was not at home in the Chetnik meetings at which ‘raki’ [a potent distilled spirit] was regularly passed around in a thick fog of cigarette smoke.”