Donovan's Devils

by Albert Lulushi

  * * *

  Musulin sent a message to Colonel Kraigher with the returning airplanes requesting that the airlift operation resume that morning and continue until all the airmen at Pranjani were evacuated. Time was of the essence, because the Germans could discover the operation at any moment, and the conditions of the airstrip made night operations extremely dangerous. Jibilian spent the entire night at his radio trying to confirm that Bari had received the message and approved the request. Although they did not receive a positive response, Musulin send couriers around Pranjani, asking all the airmen to be ready at the airfield at 0800 hours on August 10. At just about that time, they heard a tremendous roar of engines in the distance. They thought it was a bombing party heading for Ploesti, first. Then, cries of jubilation went up when they recognized the shapes of six C-47s in the center of a protective umbrella of twenty-five P-51 Mustang fighters.

  General Twining and Colonel Kraigher entrusted the mission of protecting the unarmed C-47s to fliers of the 332nd Fighter Group, known as the Red Tails, because of the distinctive bright red color they used to paint the tailfin of their planes. The Red Tails had a tremendous reputation among bomber crews of the 15th Air Force for not having lost a single bomber under their escort. They stuck close to the planes under their protection, unlike other escort fighters who often ventured away looking for enemy planes to add to their kill list while leaving the bombers exposed to surprise attacks. They were part of the contingent of African American fighter pilots that later became better known as the Tuskegee Airmen.28

  As the flight formation approached the airfield, a number of the Red Tail fighters peeled off to strafe the roads leading to Pranjani and German installations nearby. Another group bombed the Kraljevo airfield, about thirty-five miles southwest. These diversionary actions kept the German fighters on the ground and left the impression that they were the main objective of the flights overhead. In the meanwhile, each of the six C-47s came in at a five-minute interval. Some of the pilots had to ground-loop their planes, turn them rapidly left and right after the wheels touched down, to slow down and stop before they ran off the end of the airstrip. Musulin described the jubilant atmosphere on the ground:

  The minute each plane taxied to a stop, it was surrounded by screaming women and girls who showered the planes, their crews, and the embarking Americans with garlands of flowers. The airmen going aboard were shouting boisterously, and as each group of twenty entered their designated plane, they would peel off their shoes and most of their clothing, and toss it to the cheering chetniks.

  The pilots and crews of the evacuating planes were caught up with the excitement of the occasion. All of them wanted souvenirs—daggers, guns, chetnik caps and opankas, the Serbian sandals made out of goatskin. None of them was in any hurry to leave, and I had trouble getting them to take off to clear the strip for the other planes.29

  And yet, within minutes, all six C-47s had landed, loaded the airmen, and were back up in the air, circling slowly up the funnel of the surrounding mountains to gain altitude. Then, they formed a loose V formation, dipped the wings in salute to their friends on the ground, and headed toward Italy with the Red Tail fighters roaring around them. On the night of August 9 and the morning of August 10, the Halyard mission sent to safety 289 Allied personnel, including 251 Americans, six British, four French, nine Italians, seven Yugoslavs, and twelve Russians.

  * * *

  As soon as the planes left, the mission retreated into the mountains fearing a German attack against the airfield. It was the first time in five weeks that Musulin, Rajicich, and Jibilian felt relaxed. Evidently, the operation had gone undetected, so, as more airmen were rescued, they mounted another evacuation. In two consecutive nights, on August 27 and 28, fifty-eight Americans came out, together with two British officers attached to Tito’s partisans that the chetniks had captured in battle.

  Musulin received orders to return to Bari on the flights of August 28, as well. Officially, the reason was that he would work with the Air Force to prepare updated escape maps and proper briefings instructing the airmen on how to evade capture over chetnik territory. The real reason was that Musulin was too vocal a supporter of Mihailovich to suit the political line of the time, which continued to treat Mihailovich as a collaborator and Tito as the sole leader of Yugoslav resistance. Lalich took command of the Halyard team and remained with the chetniks until the end of December 1944, when the partisans finally overran their territory. Throughout its operations in Yugoslavia, the Halyard mission rescued 432 Americans and another 80 Allied personnel of other nationalities.

  The achievements of the Halyard mission in Yugoslavia and the rescue of American nurses in Albania were examples of the networks that the OSS established to rescue thousands of airmen trapped behind enemy lines, which the New York Times compared to the Underground Railroad that had helped slaves escape during the Civil War. The numbers were impressive and included almost 1,800 personnel rescued in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece; 1,350 in Romania; 342 in Bulgaria; 275 in Switzerland; and 226 in Italy. In a letter of commendation to Donovan, General Henry H. Arnold, commanding general of the Army Air Forces, hailed the OSS work, declaring: “The success of the rescue missions has been directly dependent upon excellent OSS cooperation. Please accept my sincere thanks for the assistance your organization has rendered to the Army Air Forces.”30

  * * *

  General Mihailovich remained with his Chetniks until the end. He turned down an OSS offer presented through Lieutenant Lalich to take the last American flight out of his areas in Yugoslavia to Bari at the end of December 1944. Tito’s Communist regime captured him in 1946 and put him on trial. Dozens of the American fliers who had been rescued by his men petitioned the State Department to intervene with the Yugoslav government on behalf of Mihailovich. It was a fruitless effort. Mihailovich was sentenced to death, executed by a firing squad on July 17, 1946, and buried in an unmarked grave.

  The Truman administration awarded Mihailovich the Legion of Merit in 1948 for his support for the Allies, especially during Operation Halyard. The citation read, “Through the undaunted efforts of his troops, many United States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control.” The award remained secret in order not to antagonize Tito who, at the time, had become a wild card in the Cold War by breaking ranks with Stalin and taking Yugoslavia out of the Soviet bloc. Almost sixty years later, on May 9, 2005, a group of participants in Operation Halyard, including Arthur Jibilian, traveled to Serbia and formally presented the award to Mihailovich’s daughter, Gordana.31

  CHAPTER 13

  Mission Peedee-Roanoke

  The end of 1944 was the low point in the struggle of the Italian partisans across northern Italy and especially in the Sixth Operational Zone. The Nazi-Fascist rastrellamenti or cleanup operations of November–December 1944 had forced the partisans to abandon the liberated areas and retreat to the heights of the Apennine Mountains. The Germans elevated the terror policy to a level never seen before to drive a wedge between the resistance and the local population. They planned raids with a scientific precision to cover the entire territory the partisans once controlled. Where before they shot civilians, now they hanged them; where before they hanged people on the noose, now they hung them on the meat hook. Whereas before they arrested family members of the partisans, now they pillaged their houses, as well. The Fascists created special units specializing in antipartisan warfare. Field tribunals, the dreaded Cogu (Contro-guerriglia or anti-guerrilla), roamed the countryside passing swift judgments and showing no mercy.1 The Germans offered special inducements to soldiers for Baenderkampftage, or days of service in antipartisan operations.2

  The morale of the partisans suffered another blow when British General Harold Alexander, the Allied theater commander, broadcast over the airwaves on November 13 his new instructions to the Italian patriots:

  The summer campaign that began on May 11 and continued without interruption until the Gothic line was breached is o
ver. Now begins the winter campaign…. The patriots should cease their activities and prepare for the new phase of the war and to face the new enemy, the winter…. General Alexander’s orders to the patriots are as follows: cease large-scale organized operations, conserve the ammunition and materiel, and be ready for new orders … be guarded, be in defense, but at the same time be prepared to attack the Germans and the Fascists…. The patriots should be prepared for the approaching advance.3

  The announcement was well-meaning and reflected the realities of the situations at the time. The bad weather had curtailed the ability of the theater air force to fly supply missions over the partisan-held areas, and there was fear that it would not be possible to provide adequate food, clothing, and equipment to the partisans during the cold months. But the effect it had on the morale of the partisans was devastating. It lead to accusations, repeated with much more vigor after the war, that Alexander had intentionally tried to sabotage the position of the Communists in Italy with this move.

  The OSS protested the curtailing of aid and made all efforts to deliver as many supplies as possible. Beginning in December, the aid was provided under the umbrella of the tripartite agreement forged between the Allied Command for the Mediterranean theater, the Italian government, and the CLNAI (National Liberation Committee of Upper Italy). The agreement recognized the CLNAI as the de facto government in German-occupied Italy. To support the activities of the CLNAI, the OSS and SOE funded in equal parts a monthly budget of 160 million lire ($1.6 million), which increased to 350 million lire in March 1945. They distributed funds to partisan groups under the command of the CLNAI according to regional priorities established by the Allied command. Monthly expenses per partisan were estimated at 1,500 lire per month. The funds also covered couriers, transportation, and relief for the families of fallen partisans or civilians who had suffered from the Nazi-Fascist reprisals.4

  The Sixth Operational Zone remained one of the most important areas for the Allied command given its position in the rear of the Gothic Line. While the American Fifth Army prepared for the coming spring offensive, it looked to the partisans in the zone to continue to harass the Germans and disrupt their communications and the flow of troops and supplies to the front. In addition, the partisans were expected to counter the scorched-earth tactics that Germans were likely to follow as they retreated north. German engineers had demonstrated a great mastery in mining key infrastructure installations and setting booby traps all over before abandoning cities or positions.

  General Mark Clark, the Fifth Army commander, had seen the destructive genius of the Germans at work in several occasions. When the Fifth Army entered Naples on October 1, 1943, Clark found a city in ruins. Describing his drive through the deserted streets, he wrote in his memoirs that “there was little triumphant about our journey.” The Germans had left behind “a city of ghosts.”5 To make matters worse, the Germans had hidden a series of time-delayed mines in the city’s central post office building, which had become a shelter for homeless civilians. On the morning of October 7, a series of violent explosions ripped through the building, leaving it in ruins and killing at least a hundred, mostly civilians but also members of the 82nd Airborne Division.

  When the US 34th Infantry Division liberated the city of Livorno on July 19, 1944, it found the port in ruins and the city covered in explosive devices that took days to clear. Clark described the situation as follows: “As soon as we mastered one trick, we immediately discovered that the Germans had another up their sleeve … bars of chocolate, soap, a packet of gauze, a wallet, or a pencil, which, when touched or disturbed, exploded and killed or injured anyone in the vicinity. Others were attached to windows, doors, toilets, articles of furniture, and even bodies of dead German soldiers. We found over twenty-five thousand of these hideous devices, and many of our lads were killed or injured as a result.”6

  There was a serious concern that the Germans would follow the same scorched-earth tactics against the port city of Genoa, the maritime gateway to northern Italy, which the Allies needed to capture in working conditions to ship food and other supplies to the civilian population after the liberation. The Allied command determined that the partisans of the Sixth Operational Zone, with support and training from the Allies, could play a key role in protecting the port facilities, factories, electric power plants, and other infrastructure objects in and around Genoa. Thus, immediately after the Walla Walla mission returned at the end of December 1944, the OSS activated another team of OGs, code-named Peedee, to be parachuted on the mountains where the Sixth Zone command had retreated.

  * * *

  The Peedee team was headed by Captain Les Vanoncini and included five NCOs.7 The team completed a dry run over the target drop zone on January 17, 1945, but was unable to see the ground signals due to the snow that was falling at the time. They flew in the next day in clear weather and found the drop zone easily with clear landing signals prepared by the reception party on the ground. Three feet of snow that covered the ground made the landing very easy for all except for Technical Sergeant Ignatius Caprioli, who landed on the only bare spot in the area, slipped on the ice, and hit his head hard. He was immediately placed under the care of the zone doctor and confined in bed for five days.

  The Peedee assignment was to work closely with a SOE mission that parachuted with them on the same night. They would work with seven thousand partisans of the Sixth Zone to prevent the Axis troops from retreating into the Alpine redoubt where the Nazis were rumored to be preparing for their final stand. The SOE team had the responsibility to collect intelligence about the enemy forces and provide the information to the advancing Allied forces, whereas the American OGs would provide combat training and military instruction, as well as coordinate the dropping of arms, ammunition, and supplies to the partisans.

  When Peedee arrived in the area, they found the partisans in total disarray, lacking weapons, and low in morale. A general confusion existed in the zone as a result of the German drive against the partisans that had started in December and continued through the month of February. Just three days after the team’s arrival, the Germans probed the partisan positions near the Sixth Zone headquarters in Carrega, about forty miles northeast of Genoa. The six OGs and a group of thirty partisans responded with bazookas, heavy machine guns, and other weapons the team had brought. The Germans held for half an hour, then took civilian hostages in a nearby village and retreated, using them as shields. They returned in force five days later, on January 26, when six hundred Germans and Fascists attacked Carrega from two directions and forced the mission and the Sixth Zone command to take to the mountains in three feet of snow and under a temperature of twenty degrees below zero. Over the next several days, the OGs and thirty to forty partisans from the Sixth Zone command were constantly on the run, moving from one mountain location to the other, leaving everything behind except for the clothes and the equipment they could carry.

  The Germans controlled the major highways—Route 1 between La Spezia and Genoa, Route 35 between Genoa and Alessandria, and Route 45 between Genoa and Piacenza—and all the important secondary roads in the area. In addition, they captured all the major towns and villages across the zone and pushed the partisans into remote areas in the mountains and forests. The Sixth Zone command sent half of the partisans home for the winter and struggled to provide food, clothing, and shelter for the remaining ones. Captain Vanoncini, or Captain Van as the OGs and the partisans called him, wrote about patrols out on duty with only burlap sacks wrapped around their feet.

  Under these conditions, the Peedee team had their own share of hardships. Their movements were limited during the months of January and February due to the German operations, and the very cold weather, with temperatures often between 0 and -10 degrees Fahrenheit. The deep snow covering the ground had rendered the mountain paths impassible except for emergencies. The living conditions were very poor. Fleeing from an enemy attack, the six OGs lost their sleeping bags within a few days of their arriv
al and had to spend many a nights in barns and stalls with only straw for cover. Bathing was infrequent and there were no facilities or warm water. Lice infections and scabies rashes became a constant nuisance and presented serious health hazards.

  * * *

  Despite the difficulties, the six OGs remained preoccupied in the first weeks of their mission with establishing and maintaining contact with the division commanders in the zone to assess their needs, provide encouragement, and coordinate as many supply drops as possible. They split into groups of two and three, visited with the partisan brigades and divisions in the zone, and identified suitable drop zones closer to the units where supplies began to arrive. They located and prepared twelve new pinpoints, which, in addition to six pinpoints that Team Walla Walla had identified earlier, made for a total of eighteen drop zones used to fly in resources for the partisans.

  From the beginning, the team set up a rigorous procedure for handling the material parachuted into the drop zones, to ensure accountability and fair distribution of the supplies. The first rule that Vanoncini established was that at least one mission member would always be present at the pinpoints during the drops. This often required that the OGs attach themselves to the partisan units for extended periods of time and travel for three to four hours to reach the pinpoints where the supplies arrived. The OGs took with them thirty to forty armed partisans to organize the reception, set out the signals, and provide security around the drop zone. Two men counted the number of parachutes and free bundles as they left the plane to ensure later that the partisans retrieved and accounted for all of them.

  After the planes had completed the drop, groups of partisans first collected the containers attached to parachutes, then all the bundles, and counted them. They loaded everything on mules and took them to a protected and well-hidden place nearby that served as a makeshift logistics depot. Here, the Peedee team member responsible for the drop zone supervised the opening of containers and bundles and made an accurate inventory of all the material received. He allotted the material to the partisan brigades in the area based on requests that they had filed with the mission. Mule trains were loaded with these allotments and began the trek to take the newly arrived supplies to the various partisan brigades. The goal was to have all the supplies received, accounted for, and on the way to the partisans within a matter of hours, not only because they were badly needed but also to prevent the Germans from raiding the drop zones and seizing the materials.