The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
Gregory A. Freeman
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0451224957
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Now in paperback the "amazing"( James Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers) never-before-told story of the greatest escape of the Second World War.
In 1944 the OSS set out to recover more than 500 downed airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia. Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time.
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hell, and the airmen couldn’t have been happier. Lalich was on the radio serving as air-traffic controller for the C-47s coming in. The airstrip was just as short and bumpy as it had been the night before, but in the light of day, the big planes were able to get down safely. It was nonetheless still the kind of landing that the pilots would talk about over beers for many years to come. To make sure they didn’t run off the end of the runway and into the trees, some of the pilots even used a
in Serbian, shaking his head as if he just could not believe his son was so fortunate. “That is so much. That is enough to keep a family of five in Yugoslavia. You can get a dinner, a very good dinner, for five dinars. The exchange rate is fifty dinars to the dollar, George. Fifty.” The son of a Pittsburgh steel-mill worker was going back to his parents’ home country to study and live a life they could have only dreamed of when they set sail for America. The Vujnovich family saw George’s
any other European capital, was steeped in a rich and colorful history that included war, occupation by other countries, and myriad hardships. But by the time the Americans arrived, Belgrade was on the upswing, gaining recognition as a cultural cornucopia and a center of higher education. After the occupation by Austro-Hungarian and German troops from 1915 to 1918 during World War I, Belgrade experienced faster growth and significant modernization as the capital of the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia
passport, and then finally George could see Mirjana coming down the aisle, Magda Goebbels’s arm underneath hers, helping steady the sick woman. As they came to the door, the officer called out, “Passports, please,” as he had with everyone else. George looked at Mirjana and they both thought this was the moment they had been dreading. Then Magda Goebbels shouted crossly at the officer. “What do you mean, ‘passports’?” she said sternly, in the tone of a woman used to berating Nazi officers and
for decades, purposefully denying credit to the heroic rescuers and the foreign ally who gave his life to help Allied airmen as they were hunted down by Nazis in the hills of Yugoslavia. Operation Halyard was the largest rescue ever of downed American airmen and one of the largest such operations in the war or since. Hundreds of U.S. airmen were rescued, along with some from other countries, right under the noses of the Germans and mostly in broad daylight. The mission was a complete success,
