Name: The Forgotten 500
Rating: 4.6 (191 reviews)
Author: Gregory A. Freeman

What’s in it for me? Discover the events leading up to Operation Halyard.

In the waning months of World War II, everyone’s attention was caught up in the miraculous D-Day landings in Normandy and the slow, Allied march toward Berlin. But elsewhere in Europe, other miracles were taking place that didn’t get as much coverage. In fact, some wouldn’t become known to the general public for decades after the war ended.

The story of what happened in Yugoslavia in 1944 is one of those unreported miracles. For political reasons, the events that led to the rescue of over 500 Allied airmen would remain hidden until the late 1980s. With access to declassified documents as well as first-hand testimonies, it’s now possible to reconstruct the thrilling narrative that led to what became known as “the Great Escape of Yugoslavia.” This is the story of Operation Halyard.

In Limbo

The year is 1944. For the past three years, Allied bombers have been conducting sorties over Romania. The goal? To destroy the country’s oil fields. Romania has been occupied by Nazi Germany since 1940, and its oil is playing a key role in the war effort against the Allies. The Nazi war machine knows that to win the war, it’ll need a continuous supply of oil to power its tanks, planes, and ships.

Most Allied planes that take off from Italy to participate in the bombing raids return to base. But some don’t. Shot down over enemy territory, the airmen only have one option – to parachute down and hope for the best. But they’ve been warned – if they end up landing in Yugoslavia, Romania’s neighbor, avoid the Chetniks. This Serbian nationalist guerrilla force is suspected of collaborating with the Nazis. If caught by the Chetniks, the allied airmen might get handed over to the Germans. And if this is the case, execution by firing squad is a real possibility.

One such airman that found himself in Yugoslavia was Lieutenant Robert Wilson. He was the navigator on a B-17 bomber that went down in July 1944. To his surprise, upon reaching a Serbian village, he was welcomed with open arms. Even more surprising was when he learned that other Allied airmen were being hidden by the villagers from the occupying German troops.

Most Americans who survived the parachute down were treated like family members, fed, and provided with a place to sleep. All the while, it turned out the Chetniks weren’t turning over Allied airmen to the Germans. On the contrary, they were helping to escort Americans away from German-occupied areas to remote mountain villages.

Eventually, hundreds of airmen were gathered with the Chetniks in the remote village of Pranjani. The village also served as the headquarters of the Chetniks’ leader, Draža Mihailović. The Americans who had the chance to meet Mihailović describe him as a quiet man of principle. He ate the same food as his men and joined in with doing difficult tasks. What’s more, is that he was risking the lives of many Serbians in order to shelter the downed Allied airmen.

This begs the question: why was Mihailović doing so much to help the Allies? And why had the airmen been recommended to avoid his Chetniks in the first place?

To understand his reasoning, let’s take a brief look at the politics on the ground in Yugoslavia at the time. The two most powerful anti-Nazi resistance groups in the region were Mihailović’s Chetniks and Marshal Tito’s communist Partisans. These two groups hated each other even more than they hated the Nazis. They had opposing war goals, with the Chetniks embracing the return of the prewar monarchy. In contrast, the Partisans envisioned a new communist state under Tito.

In addition to their political differences, the two groups had differing strategies on how to counter the Nazi occupation. The Partisans were very proactive in resisting the Nazis and weren’t afraid to sacrifice civilian lives to do so. The Chetniks, on the other hand, were mostly biding their time until the Allies launched a successful invasion. This meant that the Allies’ position was to back the Partisans and, at the same time, to remain suspicious of the Chetniks. This position was strengthened by intelligence reports indicating that Mihailović was collaborating with the Nazi occupiers.

In aiding the Allied airmen, Mihailović wanted to demonstrate his allegiance to the Allied cause. In doing so, he hoped to receive their support in forming a government after the war was over.

But when intelligence sources in Yugoslavia got word out that Mihailović was gathering downed Allied airmen with the hope of returning them to the West, the reports were met with deaf ears. They assumed that Mihailović was attempting to trick them.

The situation for the hundreds of stranded Allied airmen seemed dire. With no help coming, surely the Germans would eventually find them. All the while, their mothers and wives back home had been informed that their sons were missing. This, of course, usually meant they were dead.

They needed a miracle. Luckily, the stars were about to align for the downed airmen.

The Stars Align

The months were wearing on for the now more than 500 airmen stranded in Yugoslavia. Food was scarce, and many were sleeping in barns. With few options aside from simply staying put, depression became rampant among the soldiers. It seemed that the world had forgotten about them – and that no rescue attempt was going to be made.

Meanwhile, across the Adriatic Sea in Italy, rumors of stranded airmen reached the desk of a high-ranking American intelligence official. His name was George Vujnovich, and he worked for the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. After the war, the OSS would become the CIA. Vujnovich’s parents had emigrated to the US from Yugoslavia, and he had extensive connections to the region.

Redemption

Now that the existence of the airmen was confirmed, it was time to begin perhaps the most risky phase of the operation – building an improvised runway from scratch right under the Germans’ noses in a mountainous area. They didn’t let the daunting nature of their task stop them from getting started right away.

The Chetniks had no adequate tools or equipment, so farm tools such as pitchforks and hoes were gathered, and the airmen and their Yugoslav hosts got to work. Oxcarts came in hand for hauling the bulk of the rocks and dirt, but most of the work was done by hand. To complicate matters, the men had to work at night in the dark so as not to attract the attention of German spy planes flying above.

Final Summary

Hundreds of Allied airmen were downed while conducting bombing sorties over Romania in the final year of World War II. The lucky ones were found by the Chetniks, a Yugoslav nationalist guerrilla force led by Draža Mihailović. The Chetniks kept the airmen safe until a rescue mission was finally planned by American intelligence officials. Against all odds, the mission was successful and over 500 Allied airmen were rescued.

What is The Forgotten 500 about?

The Forgotten 500 (2007) tells the story of Allied airmen who were trapped behind enemy lines in World War II and the courageous citizens of Yugoslavia who risked everything to help them get home. For political reasons, the story remained classified for decades until the 1980s. But now, the events leading to the largest rescue operation of the war are available to us all.