Saturday, August 29, 2009

Trenutak velike istine o Draži

By Marko Lopusina
For "Serbianna"

Aug 25, 2009



"Dokumentacija koja je otkrivena potvrđuje navode penzionisanog podoficira KNOJ-a Ljube Lazarovskog da je general Mihailović streljan i pokopan u grobnici u Lisičjem potoku," kaže Slavko Panović, predsednik Srpske narodne odbrane u Americi.


 

Slavko Panovich, President of Serbian National Defense.
Photo by Aleksandra Rebic June 28, 2009

"Srpska narodna odbrana iz Amerike poseduje krunski dokaz da je đeneral Draža Mihailović streljan i sahranjan u Lisičjem potoku u Beogradu," izjavio je za “Reviju 92” predsednik ove organizacije Slavko Panović iz Čikaga.



General nakon streljanja

Panović kaže da će SNO tužilaštvu Srbije staviti na raspolaganje autentičan snimak intervjua sa Ljubom Lazarovskim koji su novinari “Slobode” snimili kamerom.


"Srpska narodna odbrana u Americi podržava napore sudskih organa da se konačno otkrije najstrože čuvana tajna posleratnih komunističkih vlasti. U nadi da će istina o mučeničkoj smrti generala Mihailovića konačno biti otkrivena, kao i mesto na kome je sahranjen. Bliži se trenutak velike istine o Draži Mihailoviću. Mi ćemo Republičkom javnom tužilaštvu i Državnoj komisiji za utvrđivanje istine o Dragoljubu Mihailoviću ustupiti film koji su naši novinari iz lista “Sloboda” snimili prilikom razgovora sa Ljubom Lazarovskim neposredno pre njegove smrti," kaže Panović.

Predsednik Srpske narodne odbrane u Americi objašnjava da dokumentacija koja je otkrivena potvrđuje navode penzionisanog podoficira KNOJ-a Ljube Lazarovskog, koji je nekoliko dana pred smrt rekao novinarima “Slobode” da je apsolutno siguran da je general Mihailović streljan i pokopan u grobnici u Lisičjem potoku.



Dali general lezi negde u ovoj sumi? Mapa lisicjeg potoka.

Krunski svedok bivši podoficir KNOJ-a Ljubo Lazarevski umro je u 82. godini života, pre nego što je dao iskaz članovima državne komisije.

"Neka mu Bog dušu prosti, a u ime Srpske narodne odbrane u Americi i moje lično ime izražavam mu zahvalnost što je svojim svedočenjem po-mogao da se približimo istini o stradanju generala Mihailovića. Podignut je u Beogradu čitav mauzolej austrijskom kaplaru, a za prvog gerilca Evrope se ne zna gde su mu kosti," kaže Slavko Panović.

SNO taj snimak još nije poslala komisiji u Beograd, ali je obavestila da on postoji.

"Samo ako nam zatraže snimak, ustupićemo im ga. Mislim da je trebalo bar nekog od nas da konsultuje ta komisija, s obzirom na to da smo mi ti koji su ponudili nagradu od 100.000 dolara za Dražin grob. To bi bilo lepše i pametnije, ali niko nas nije kontaktirao," ističe Panović.


Kako je Srpska narodna odbrana raspisala nagradu od 100.000 dolara potencijalnom pronalazaču groba generala Mihailovića, posle čega je usledilo i formiranje Državne komisije za istinu o Draži Mihailoviću, nagrada pripada pokojnom Ljubi Lazarovskom, odnosno njegovim naslednicima. Ali pod uslovom da DNK analiza potvrdi da se u Lisičjem potoku zaista nalati telo četničkog komandanta.

Lazarovski kaze da on nije ubica Generala ali da je bio u konvoju koji je Generala odveo iz zatvora do Belog dvora odakle su se spustili u Lisičji potok i da je čuo kako komunisti ubijaju Čiču.

Dva dana pre nego što će Čiču i još osmoricu osuđenika na smrt odvesti na streljanje, 15. jula 1946. godine, komunistička Ozna ih je sakrila u dobro čuvano zdanje u Đušinoj ulici, u zgradu današnjeg Rudarsko-geološkog fakulteta. Sutradan ujutru su im šturo saopštili da im je odbijena molba za pomilovanje, a već naredne večeri počeli da pripremaju za izvršavanje presude.

Predveče, 17. jula, stiglo je naređenje da tačno u ponoć budemo u Đušinoj ulici,” ispričao je tada Lazarevski. “Niko nije govorio o čemu je reč, ali smo svi dobro znali šta se sprema. Stigao sam nekoliko minuta pre 12, i nasred hodnika u prizemlju zgrade video vezanog đenerala. On i ostali su potrpani u tri marice, a zatim smo laganom vožnjom Takovskom ulicom, pa zatim Miloša Velikog i Bulevarom Kneza Aleksandra, stigli do glavne kapije dedinjskih dvorova.


Pred ulaz u posed, koloni automobila se otvorila velika dvorska kapija, koja je posle stotinak metara skrenula levo, u Ulicu Velisava Vulovića kroz Lisičji potok. Nakon nekoliko minuta, povorka je skrenula u bagremar pored puta i ugasila motore. Već ih je čekala raskrčena poljana i nasred nje tri tek iskopane, duboke rake. Postavljeni reflektori osvetljavali su svaki korak na desetine ljudi u uniformama.

Predao sam „svog“ zatvorenika, Dragog Jovanovića oficiru Ozne i on mi je rekao da se vratim u maricu," prisećao se Lazarevski. “Poslušao sam ga, a onda sam gledao kroz prozorče: najpre lekar detaljno pregleda osuđenike, a onda se začuje škljocanje zatvarača na automatima. Na kraju odjeknu rafali. Tri duža i tri kraća. Sigurno je da je Držin grob na tom mestu.

SAHRANA U IVANJICI

Udruženje ratnih vojnih invalida u Ivanjici pokrenulo je inicijativu da se, ukoliko bude pronađen Dražin grob, njegovi posmrtni ostaci sahrane pokraj Mihailovićevih roditelja Cmiljke i Mihaila na ivanjičkom groblju.


"Ratni veterani kao i mnogobrojni Ivanjičani smatraju da đeneral Mihailović treba da počiva tamo gde se rodio i gde mu počivaju roditelji. Molimo sve koji su uključeni u pronalaženje njegovog groba da ubrzaju proces jer će na taj način zadovoljiti ljudsku i Božiju pravdu. Vreme je da se zauvek spere ljaga sa njegovog imena," kaže Miodrag Bogdanović, predsednik duruženja.

Ivanjički ravnogorci su 2003. godine u centru Ivanjice Draži Mihailoviću već podigli spomenik visine dva metra.


Marko Lopusina


serbianna


____________________

To get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at ravnagora@hotmail.com

____________________

Saturday, August 22, 2009

SERBIA marks 65th Anniversary of OPERATION HALYARD!

Plaque in Pranjani dedicated to the Halyard Mission on September 12, 2004.
The plaque next to it reflects the same inscription in the Serbian language.
Photo courtesy of OSS Halyard Mission radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian


Serb soldiers in front of the Halyard Mission monument first dedicated in September of 2004,
in Pranjani, Serbia August 15, 2009 Photo courtesy of Lt. Col. John Cappello




Ohio National Guard troops that are in Serbia doing work on schools in South Serbia. They are working with Serb soldiers, some of which are also in the photo. The older folks are those who participated in assisting the American airmen in 1944. Pranjani, Serbia Aug. 15, 2009.

Photo courtesy of Lt. Col. John Cappello.




Laying of the Wreath at the Halyard Mission monument,

Pranjani, Serbia August 15, 2009

Photo courtesy of Lt. Col. John Cappello




Aleksandra's Note:


To fully appreciate the magnitude of Serbia officially marking the 65th anniversary of the great rescues of American and Allied airmen on her soil in 1944, from behind Nazi occupied enemy lines, one would have to be familiar with just how "hidden" and "ignored" the pivotal contributions of General Mihailovich, his Chetnik forces, and the Serbian people loyal to them during WWII have been all these years in his own beloved homeland.


Thanks to the many years of dedication and perseverance of a number of individuals, both young and old, in America, Serbia, and abroad, the magnificent Halyard Mission is increasingly seeing the light of day in the public historical record and in the national consciousness. The truth is coming out, and with it a true story that all Americans and Serbs can be very proud of.


The following is part of the media coverage that the 65th anniversary commemoration received in Serbia. The coverage in both the English and Serbian language are included.


"The times," as my friend Professor Peter Maher stated so eloquently, "are a changin'".



And for the better, indeed!
Hvala Bogu.


Aleksandra Rebic


*****


From John Cappello
Lt Col, USAF
Air Attaché, DAO Belgrade

I would like to inform you of the memorial celebration that took place on Galovica Field, in Pranjani, Serbia on Saturday, August 15th, 2009.

To commemorate the 65th Anniversary of the beginning of the Halyard Mission, the US Embassy organized a wreath laying ceremony at the site of the first flights that rescued over 500 US airmen. With the assistance of the Serb Ministry of Defense and the Serb Ministry of Labor and Social Policy the event was a successful commemoration of the mission. It is important to note that this is the first time the Serb government has officially recognized and participated in such an event commemorating the partnership of US-Serb forces during this mission. It was a beautiful day in Pranjani, and there was a terrific turnout.

Here is an example of the press coverage of the event:

From "Radio, Television Serbia (RTS)":
65th Anniversary of the Evacuation of 500 American Airmen

The 65th anniversary of Operation Halyard was marked on Saturday in Pranjani, near Gornji Milanovac, during which the joint team of Yugoslav Royal Army and American service evacuated more than 500American airmen during World War II, Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS) reported.

The representatives of the US Embassy in Belgrade, the Ohio National Guard, the Serbian Government and Army of Serbia laid the wreaths on a monument in Pranjani.

Charge d’Affaires Jennifer Brush led the delegation of the American Embassy in Belgrade, and USAF Attaché John Capello was also present.

Brush said that America could never forget what Serbian people did for her airmen.

Some 1.000 members of the U.S. Air Force were struck down in the summer of 1944 above occupied Yugoslavia, and a significant number ended up in Serbia.

During a series of day and night flights, the joint team of the Yugoslav Royal Army in the country led by General Draza Mihailovich, and the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), evacuated more than 500 American airmen from the village of Pranjani.

The rescue mission involved the action of a low-number of Allied troops against German forces and this jeopardized the whole village protecting the American military staff.

'Operation Halyard' was marked as one of the most successful rescue missions from behind enemy lines in the history of warfare, RTS reported.


*****
IN SERBIAN:


Godišnjica Operacije Haljard

U Pranjanima kod Gornjeg Milanovca obeležena 65. godišnjica Operacije Haljard, u okviru koje je zajednički tim Jugoslovenske kraljevske vojske i američke službe evakuisao više od 500 američkih vazduhoplovaca. Vence na spomen obeležje položili predstavnici američke ambasade u Beogradu, Nacionalne garde Ohaja, Vlade i Vojske Srbije, opštine Gornji Milanovac i drugih organizacija.

Ambasada SAD u Srbiji obeležila je u Pranjanima kod Gornjeg Milanovca 65. godišnjicu Operacije Haljard, u okviru koje je zajednički tim Jugoslovenske kraljevske vojske i američke službe evakuisao više od 500 američkih vazduhoplovaca.

Polaganje venaca i izjava Dženifer Braš

Vence na spomen obeležje kod bivšeg aerodroma, položili su predstavnici američke ambasade u Beogradu, Nacionalne garde Ohaja, Vlade i Vojske Srbije, opštine Gornji Milanovac i drugih organizacija.

Delegaciju američke ambasade u Beogradu predvodila je otpravnik poslova Dženifer Braš, a prisustvovao je i vazduhoplovni ataše potpukovnik Džon Kapelo.

Braš je poručila da Amerika nikada ne može da zaboravi to što je srpski narod učinio za njihove avijatičare.

"Ovo je važan zajednički događaj. Mi nikada ne možemo zaboraviti to što je srpski narod učinio za naše avijatičare u toku proteklog rata i zato smo obeležili ovo mesto i stalno ga posećujemo," izjavila je Braš.

Vence su položili i predstavnici Vlade Srbije, vazduhoplovstva i protiv-vazdušne odbrane, na čelu sa brigadnim generalom Brankom Živakom i lokalne samouprave.

U Muzeju rudničko-takovskog kraja otvorena je izložba fotografija i prikazan dokumentarni film o operaciji "Haljard", a predsetavnici Američke ambasade saopštili su novinarima na skupu da je na inicijativu vojnog atašea SAD u Beogradu i Evroatlanske inicijative iz Beograda, meštana Pranjana, američkih avijatičara veterana i srpske zajednice u SAD, osnovana Fondacija "Haljard".

Ta fondacija ima u planu snimanje dokumentarnog filma o spasilačkoj misiji, kao i gradnju centra za mlade u Pranjanima, nedaleko od aerodroma sa koga su spašeni pilota.

U leto 1944. godine oko 1.000 američkih pripadnika vazduhoplovnih snaga oboreno je iznad okupirane Jugoslavije, od kojih je značajan broj završio u Srbiji.

Tokom serije dnevnih i noćnih poletanja zajednički tim Jugoslovenske kraljevske vojske u otadžbini generala Draže Mihailovića i američke Službe za strateške poslove evakuisao je više od 500 američkih vazduhoplovaca iz sela Pranjani.

Spasilačka misija uključivala je dejstvo manjih trupa protiv nemačkih snaga, čime je u opasnosti bilo čitavo selo koje je štitilo američko vojno osoblje.

Pripadnici Vazduhoplovnih snaga SAD posvedočili su o požrtvovanosti lokalnih srpskih seljana koji su ih hranili i štitili, u nekim slučajevima i do šest meseci.

Operacija Haljard smatra se za jednu od najuspešnijih spasilačkih misija izvedenih iza neprijateljskih linija u istoriji ratovanja, navedeno je u saopštenju.
*****





*****
To get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at ravnagora@hotmail.com
*****

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Professor Alex N. Dragnich, 97, passes away but his works on Yugoslavia remain an important and valuable treasure // August 10, 2009





What a long, remarkable, wonderful, productive life he led. Professor Alex Dragnich is someone I began corresponding with in 1992, and throughout our correspondence he showed himself to be a man not only of intelligence, insight, foresight and education, but a genuinely nice human being who was always generous with advice and necessary critique and guidance. I had the pleasure of meeting him in person in Chicago in 1994 and was first struck by how tall he was! He could easily (and with justification) have presented himself as an intimidating persona who did not suffer fools or "aspiring authors" gladly. But he did just the opposite. With humility and genuine sweetness, a kind face, a gentle voice, and a warm manner, he made me feel like he valued my thoughts and opinions and my "beginner" outlook on the Serbian situation, which, by 1994 had escalated in ways that none of us could possibly have conceived of, regardless of all the signs that had been pointing that way for years in the former Yugoslavia.


His books are a valuable treasure and a must for any library that presumes to contain the proper perspective and insight on the former Yugoslavia.


To his children, Alix and George:


Thank you for putting together the tribute to your father below. What an amazing man he was. His valuable works will transcend his physical life and for that we can all be grateful.


Aleksandra Rebic



*****



Alex N. Dragnich

1912-2009


By son George Dragnich and daughter Alix



Alex N. Dragnich, 97, a retired professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, died August 10th at the Collington Episcopal retirement community in Bowie, MD.

A specialist in Slavic studies, and an authority on the multinational state known as Yugoslavia from its origins in 1918 to its demise in 2003, Prof. Dragnich was a prolific author. He published his last article, on relations between Serbia and Montenegro, just a few months before he died.

Prof. Dragnich joined the faculty of Vanderbilt University in Nashville in 1950, retiring in 1978 after having served as chairman of the political science department from 1964-69. Reflecting his multiple elections to Vanderbilt’s Faculty Council and University Senate, he received the Thomas Jefferson Award in 1970 for “distinguished service to Vanderbilt through extraordinary contributions as a member of the faculty in the councils and government of the university.” He also served as President of the Southern Political Science Association, and Vice-President of the American Political Science Association, during the 1960s. He held the Chester Nimitz Chair at the Naval War College in Newport, RI from 1959-60, and afterwards remained a consultant to the Department of Defense.


He was a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, California from 1978-81. He was a Distinguished Lecturer at Washington & Lee University (Lexington, VA) in 1982. Following a brief retirement in Spokane, WA, he settled in Charlottesville, VA where he continued scholarly research and writing. In 1988, he and his late wife became charter residents of the Collington Episcopal retirement community in Bowie, MD. From there, he continued to author books, journal articles, Op-Eds, and a steady stream of letters to the editor. Among his eleven books, Prof. Dragnich is probably best known as the original author of the textbook, Major European Governments (1961), which added more authors and is still in print, and used worldwide, forty-eight years and nine editions later.

Prof. Dragnich became an expert on Yugoslavia during World War II while serving in Washington as a foreign affairs analyst for the Department of Justice and the Office of Strategic Services. Following the war’s end in 1945, he taught at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio until joining the US Foreign Service in 1947. From then until he returned to academia in 1950, he was Public Affairs Officer at the US Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. That experience spawned his first book, a scathing critique of the new communist regime, Tito’s Promised Land, in 1954.


He continued to write on Yugoslavia and Serbia for the rest of his life, including a short monograph written in 1992 for general readership, Serbs and Croats: The Struggle in Yugoslavia, that went through multiple printings. A frequent panelist at Washington policy gatherings, Prof. Dragnich made guest appearances on the then "MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour" as the Balkans erupted into conflict. Prof. Dragnich was critical of US foreign policy in the region, believing that the Dayton Accords of 1995 would not have been necessary had the US played a more constructive role in the early stages of Yugolavia's disintegration. The Serbian Government awarded him the “Yugoslav Star, First Class” in 2002 in recognition of his efforts to foster a positive image of Yugoslavia and Serbia in the United States.

The son of Serbian immigrants from Montenegro, Prof. Dragnich was born in 1912 on his parents’ homestead outside Republic, Washington. When he was nine, the Ferry County truant officer found their log cabin in the mountains and informed his father that education was compulsory in America. He and two siblings entered a rural, one-room schoolhouse not knowing a word of English, the first of their kin to ever sit in a classroom. Although his education was frequently interrupted by Depression-era poverty, including an entire year spent cutting logs and building roads during college, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1938, and completed work on his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley in 1942 (wartime service delayed his Ph.D. until 1945).

A keen gardener whose belief in homegrown vegetables reflected his farming roots, Prof. Dragnich left the growing of flowers to his wife, Adele Jonas Dragnich, who died in 2000.

Survivors include a daughter, Alix Lombardo of New York City, and a son, George Dragnich of Geneva, Switzerland, and three grandchildren, Marisa, Paul, and Alexander. A son, Paul Dragnich, predeceased him.


*****



NOTE from Aleksandra:


A must read, especially now in the 21st century, is The Saga of Kosovo by Alex Dragnich and Slavko Todorovich, Columbia University Press, New York, 1984. A remarkable book, especially in light of future events.



*****



To get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at ravnagora@hotmail.com



*****




Saturday, August 08, 2009

Richard L. Felman USAF remembered as 'Operation Halyard' marks 65th Anniversary

Major Felman kneeling at the Eternal Flame
Daley Plaza, Chicago, IL May 31, 1994
Photo by A. Rebic







MAJOR RICHARD L. FELMAN OF THE UNITED STATES AIR FORCE


FEATURED SPEAKER AT THE 50th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

OF THE HALYARD MISSION RESCUE OPERATION


CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

May 31, 1994





Transcription of Major Felman's Speech by Aleksandra Rebic


*****


“Distinguished guests…
Very Distinguished guests…
Reverend Clergy…
Fellow airmen who were with me when we were shot downover Yugoslavia in 1944
and Bracho i Sestre (Brothers and Sisters)…



"Before I say a single word, I must first express my everlasting gratitude to the City of Chicago and the Department of Defense today, for honoring the Halyard Mission. Until now, one of the most glorious moments in American history has been one of the best kept secrets of World War Two.

Today, in Chicago, U.S.A., a dream came true for our group of former MIAs. There is no way to describe the enormous significance of what happened today at Daley Plaza. After 50 years, those of us who participated in the Halyard Mission reached the top of the mountain after a long journey to repay a long overdue debt of honor…Our debt is not only a personal debt, it is a national debt of the United States government and its people. It took Moses only 40 years to reach the Promised Land…it took us a little longer… "


…laughter…


"Today, we’ve reached the promised land…recognition of the greatest rescue of American lives from behind enemy lines in the history of warfare.


Just imagine the significance of what I just said. Over 500 Americans and 250 Allied personnel were saved from behind enemy lines, and to this day, it’s been covered up and nobody knows about it. The American people do not know about it to join us in saying ‘Thank you.

As we laid the wreath today in Daley Plaza, we not only honored the Halyard Mission and those saved by it, we also honored those responsible for saving us, and I am thrilled to see so many of those people sitting in our audience today. It’s difficult to communicate the emotion that the airmen feel at being joined with the Serbian chetniks who rescued us. Today, for the first time, we saw them, after fifty years. How do you say ‘Thank you’?



How do you say ‘Thank you’ to the people that saved your life? Some people say to me, ‘Why are you doing this after fifty years?’ When somebody saves your life, what do you say – ‘Thank you, Charlie, I’ll see you tomorrow?’ When people thank me for doing a wonderful thing for the Serbs, I don’t buy that. If it weren’t for the Serbian people, I wouldn’t be here."



Felman gets teary eyed.



...applause…





"Today is the first time in fifty years that the American airmen and the Serbian chetniks are gathered in one place. This is a tremendous event. I wish I could communicate...



Milton Friend tells me before I started ‘I know this is a long session, but could I squeeze in two minutes?’ Milton, please, say two words –"



Milton Friend, one of the rescued airmen, says from the audience, ‘I’m happy to be here, Dick.





Major Felman continues:



"It’s hard to transmit…I get all choked up, but if these chetniks hadn’t of risked their lives, the airmen you see in this room wouldn’t be here…the airmen that they saved across the country wouldn’t be here…neither would their children or grandchildren, who today can walk freely in this country. They are living memorials of the Halyard Mission and the fact that the Serbian people saved them. They are walking in this country today because of General Mihailovich and the Serbian chetniks..."



...much applause….



"And to me, today, in Daley Plaza, American honor was served. I say that, because today, for the first time in memory, the American people could join us in a public forum to say ‘Thank you General Mihailovich and the Serbian people for saving 500 American lives while we were fighting in defense of our country.



Nobody else, in the entire history of the United States government as ever said that, and today the American people joined us on saying ‘Thank you, and we appreciate it.’"



...applause…





"If I digress once in a while, I hope you’ll bear with me. I get very emotional about these events, and it’s hard to follow a prepared few notes that I put down, so please forgive an old fogey to get through a very difficult time…"



….laughter…



"Let me tell you how I first got involved in the Halyard Mission. In early 1944, I completed my flight school training and was given a shiny pair of silver wings and a commission as Second Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. Next thing I knew, I found myself in Lecce, Italy with the 98th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, flying B-24 bombing missions over southern Europe.



Early one morning, before a pre-takeoff briefing on a mission to Ploesti, our American Intelligence officer told us we would be flying over Yugoslavia that day, and to stay away from the Serbian people, because the Serbian people would cut off the ears of the American airmen! These were his exact words. This was the information that American Intelligence gave to the bomber crews that were flying out of Italy. The Serbian people will cut off your ears!"



...laughter….



"Now, I heard this, and this is a complete about face from what I had read in Time Magazine. Time Magazine had a cover story on May 25th of 1942 calling General Mihailovich the greatest guerrilla leader in the history of warfare. So, I said to my Intelligence officer, ‘How come I read this in the paper and all of a sudden he does an about face?’ He said to me, ‘Lieutenant, don’t ask questions, just fly your mission. We have reports, top secret reports from British Intelligence…'"





...rumbling in the audience…





"'...that Mihailovich is now collaborating with the Germans, see…’ He says, ‘In wartime, these guys, they play around, so just be careful…If you get shot down over Yugoslavia, stay away from the Chetniks. Look for the people with the red star on their hats…Tito’s communists (the partisans)….’"



...rumbling in the audience…



"I remember this, fifty years ago. I mean, I don’t remember what I did last night, but I remember this fifty years ago…"



…laughter, applause…



"Not only did they not cut them off, as you can see, but they grabbed me up, kissed me, put me on their soldiers like a conquering hero…To this day, I could never figure out, why only did the Serbian men kiss me, why didn’t the women kiss me!?"





...laughter…from the audience someone speaks out ‘I’ll tell you later!





...More laughter….





"Since that time, to expose this treacherous propaganda lie, the American airmen have been doing every possible thing we could to expose the thoroughness with which the truth was manipulated by the communists during World War Two. Let me give you a concrete example: I don’t believe what I read in the papers…I know what I see."



…applause….



"Let me tell you some techniques of communist propaganda. I went on some raids with General Mihailovich and the Chetniks…We raided a few German garrisons, forts…very successful…We came back. The next day or so, we turn on the shortwave radio. BBC from London says: ‘Tito’s partisans just completed a successful raid at such and such a village’ – the same place we went to just the night before…that’s how the truth was manipulated. Now, let me tell you, how would you feel – I just saw something, and the news reports say ‘This didn’t happen, something else happened.’"



Someone from the audience speaks out:



Just like today, just like today!



Major Felman smiles and says “I’ll get to that in a minute.’’



….laughter….applause….



"Supposing you go to Soldier’s Field here in Chicago. You see the Chicago Bears beat Denver in football. You get home, you put on CNN and they say ‘Today, the Denver Broncos wiped out the Chicago Bears.’"





….laughter….





"They completely distorted history. Today I’m still baffled by it. Now, the only thing wrong with it was that this was not a football game…this was the Serbian people I lived with – and the Chetniks would fight for their country and their freedom, and the Tito’s communists would get credit for it! To this day, this aggravates me. And it’s happening today too, believe me."



...applause…





"As the war stepped up, and we had raids of 250 bomber planes occurring every day in southern Europe, more and more airmen were being shot down over Yugoslavia. Many were sick and wounded and in constant danger of being captured by the Germans.The Americans who were shot down – we had no idea how and if we were ever going to get rescued. Let me explain to you how we faced the difficulty of how we would get back to Italy. We were deep in occupied territory. We had no prearranged rescue plan. And you can’t go to the corner phone booth and call up 15th Air Force headquarters and say, ‘Hey, we’re down here in Chachak, come rescue us.’ They don’t know where we are. I was in Chachak, Pranjani, Breznica, Gornji Milovac – all familiar names, I’m sure, to some of you. But more importantly, the very friendly people that we were with, that were saving our lives, were abandoned by the Allies, because of the – can I use the word – screwed up intelligence of the British."



….laughter…applause…



"So the days, weeks, and months rolled by, and more and more airmen were getting shot down. We tried to contact headquarters back in Italy, but as I say, if we broadcast in the clear, number one, the Germans would intercept it. Number two, the Americans in Italy would say, ‘well maybe this is a trap.’ So, we couldn’t very well transmit in the clear. We were lucky – a brilliant man by the name of T.K. Oliver – he devised an ingenious system of American slang that the Germans could not intercept. Well, they could intercept it, but they couldn’t understand it. But the Americans could, and once they understood it, and approved of it – they said, ‘this is a legitimate transmission', and they formed the Halyard Mission, the secret Halyard Mission, and the rescue was on. At this time there were some 250 of us airmen who had been downed.



The next thing we knew was that the night of August 2, 1944, Lieutenant George S. Musulin – his family…Oh, God…"



Major Felman becomes visibly moved.



"His family is sitting right here. George parachuted in our area with two other members of the rescue team: Mike Rajachich and Arthur Jibilian. They brought with them a radio transmitter, an agreed upon code, and an evacuation plan. At the sign of Musulin’s team coming in – we didn’t know if anyone was coming in to rescue us, but when we saw George, we knew we were not being abandoned and that we were going to get rescued eventually. So when he came in, we let out a yell – you wouldn’t believe it – we knew that we were getting out of this place.



The sad part of it was that there was a long delay before he came in. We found out later that the reason that George Musulin and his team were delayed was because the British objected to it. They objected to it, because they no longer recognized General Mihailovich. So, how could they send in an Allied team to someone that didn’t exist? So they objected to our being rescued. The only way it got approval, was that it went up to the White House, and President Roosevelt interfered, and said ‘I don’t give a blank about what the British care – I don’t care about embarrassing them – to me the most important thing is saving American lives – the hell with the British!’"



...applause….



"I might add that after the war, Churchill admitted that abandoning Mihailovich was one of the biggest mistakes he had made of the war."



...applause….



Then on the night of August 9th, Captain Nick Lalich was went in by the O.S.S. to assist Musulin in the rescue operation. Once they were in place, Lalich, then later Colonel McDowell, working together with Mihailovich’s Chetniks, rounded up the Americans and other Allied personnel to carry out the most successful rescue operation of its kind in history. The other Allied personnel [to be rescued] consisted of British, French, Canadian, Italian, and Russian troops.



When we came back to our base, there was no way we could talk about it, about our rescue, or express our gratitude, because our rescue had been classified top secret. Then when the war was over, we couldn’t tell anybody, because no one cared. But that wasn’t the end of the Halyard Mission, because as you know, it’s continuing to this very day, and there’s still one more chapter we’d like to finish – of national recognition of the Halyard Mission!"



....applause...



"Before I get into that phase of it, I would like to share with you the one experience that stands out in my mind about the people that saved our lives.



Returning that day from bombing Ploesti, we were attacked by a group of German M-109 Messershmitts, caught fire, and were forced to bail out over 20,000 feet. The mention of it scares me, but I was a little younger then…"



...laughter...



"The Germans were in the villages, and they counted our parachutes as they came down. They knew where we were, but they couldn’t get to us. So they sent an ultimatum down to General Mihailovich. It said, ‘we know you have ten Americans. Either you return them to us, or we burn down a village of 200 women and children.’ Now, when we heard this, we said, ‘well we’re strangers in a foreign land. How can we be responsible for killing 200 women and children.’ We figured, well, we’ll turn ourselves in. The worst that can happen to us is a prisoner of war camp. Maybe we’ll escape, but no harm could come to us.



General Mihailovich said, ‘No, absolutely no.’ He said, ‘Let me tell you something about the Serbian people. We’ve been fighting our entire history for freedom – ever since Kosovo, Saint Sava, Tsar Lazar – we’ve been fighting for our freedom, our country, and our land. We have a saying, ‘Bolje grob nego rob!’ (Better the grave than to be a slave!)"



...applause...



"He said, ‘Life without freedom means absolutely nothing to the Serbian people.’ He said, ‘If we return you to your base, and you drop one bomb on our common enemy, the German invader, you’ll do more for our country and our freedom than the 200 women…'"



Major Felman stops, getting emotional...



"'…the 200 women and children that we love.’ He said, ‘That is our choice.’ And, the next day, I watched the Germans…Oh, God…"



Felman pauses to compose himself.



"The next day I watched the Germans burn down a village of 200 innocent women and children. You know, you never forget that. Fifty years later, it still bothers me. Today, when I laid that wreath at Daley Plaza, I dedicated it to those 200 women and children. That’s the price paid for our freedom today, in this country.And not too many people know and are grateful for it.



I may be running over my time, but I’m not going to stop until I finish what I have to say, and they can pull me off."



...much applause…



Everyone of the airmen sitting here and throughout the country...I believe I can speak with one voice, for every one of them...They will join me in saying that throughout the entire time we were evading capture, no sacrifice was too great for the Serbian people in making us comfortable. It was they who sheltered us in the hills and in their farmhouses, often at great risk to themselves. Those of us who were wounded received whatever medical supplies were available. If there was on e slice of bread in the house, or one egg, it went to the American. If there was one blanket or one bed, it went to the American while our Serbian host slept on the bare ground. Many of the peasants were tortured, tortured to death, because they would not tell the Germans where we were. The many heroic stories and sacrifies made on our behalf is something the airmen will never forget.



I recall these sacrifices of 50 years ago every time I read in today's American press that the Serbs are murderers and some sort of two headed monsters."



...applause...



"Those that we met were all fine, decent, God-fearing people who were fighting for their freedom and their country. Were it not for them, there would not have been a Halyard Mission, nor would we have survived the war.



To all those all-knowing political analysts and politicians who were in their diapers, literally, when World War Two was going on, they know absolutely nothing about the people and the war. I would say to them, if they want to know anything about the Serbian people, to talk to the thousands of American grandchildren who are alive today because of these monsters they are condemning.



I would also tell them in the strongest possible terms about the anguish that we Americans would feel to see our fellow Americans go charging with their guns blazing, to kill some of the very Serbian people who saved our lives. I don't believe our government should return their kindness and sacrifice by killing them."



...applause...



"I was very hesitant, because the American airmen have dissasociated themselves from anything political. Our only purpose - we're not making a political statement -- our one goal is the expression of gratitude for 500 Americans. That's all we want. But because of the situation today, I cannot refrain from saying something about the people who saved our lives. These are the people, who, when we were in trouble, helped us, and we cannot deny them today. To deny the Serbian people who saved us would be like denying the Holocaust ever happened. The Serbian people saved us. There's no two ways about it. This is the message we're trying to get across today -- Gratitude. I often say if it wasn't for the American airmen, the politicians in Washington would be speaking German today."



...applause...



"After the war was over, as you know, we turned over the government of Yugoslavia to the communists. They seized upon the opportunity to capture Mihailovich, and in March of 1946, Tito announced to the world that they had captured Mihailovich and were putting him on trial as a war collaborator.



The immediate response was that the airmen he had rescued ran to the newspapers, saying 'How can this be?!' I have a book here, a thousand newspaper clippings from 1946 of airmen in the newspapers asking 'How can this be? How can this man who saved our lives be a war collaborator? We want to go to Belgrade. We want to testify on his behalf. This man saved our lives! We don't want to be presumptuous and say - we want to interfere in your internal affairs -- but, the government of Yugoslavia was charging him with being a collaborator! How could he be a collaborator? Our lives were a testimony that he wasn't. So, we don't want to judge him, we just want to present testimony that our lives were relevant to the charges of collaboration.'



So we flew to Washington. We chartered a plane from Chicago, called it 'A Mission for Mihailovich.' There were 22 of us Allied personnel. Two were from Canada. Norman Reid here from the Royal Canadian Air Force... and twenty Americans flew to Washington. We were met by congressmen and senators, and we petitioned the State Department to send a diplomatic note to Yugoslavia to request permission to appear at his trial, presenting evidence relative to the charges of war collaboration. The State Department sent two notes to the Belgrade Court. The response from the Belgrade Court was this:



Mihailovich will be given a fair trial, but we have enough legal evidence to convict him, and he will be shot.’"



...rumbling and sarcastic laughter in the audience...



"At that point, we almost gave up. We couldn't appear. I'm going to digress a little. I was called up in 1946, I was living in New York -I was called up by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich. He called me to say: 'I appreciate the work that the Americans are doing, but I want to tell you something about the Serbian people. We love General Mihailovich. But the important thing is to clear his name. Even if they do kill Mihailovich, another Draza will rise from the hills to lead the Serbian people. The most important thing is to clear his name. If you do that, we'll be happy.’



The most brilliant man I ever met. One of the great scholars of the 20th Century.



After the Belgrade court turned us down, we formed the "Commission of Inquiry" in New York. Testimony was presented at the Commission of Inquiry in May of 1946. It was presided over by some of the most prominent jurists in the United States. We accepted testimony fron all of the American Intelligence officers and airmen. The findings were sent to the Belgrade Court in the interest of international justice. The Belgrade court ignored it, and on July 17, 1946 they executed Mihailovich and threw his body in an unmarked grave.



Now once that happened, put yourselves in our position. What do we do now ? The man was executed - murdered is a better word - so what do we do now? Thank God, along came the Honorable Edward J. Derwinski. Without him..."



...applause...



Twenty years after Mihailovich was executed by a communist firing squad, Edward Derwinski came up -- he was investigating this for years - he came up with the fact that in 1948, two years after Mihailovich was shot - Secretary Derwinski came up with the information that President Truman, on the recommendation of General Eisenhower, who knew better than anyone else, on his recommendation, that President Truman awarded posthumously the Legion of Merit in the Degree of Chief Commander, to General Mihailovich for his material contribution to the Allied victory. Mind you, this is the highest award the United States government gives to a foreign national. This award was given two years after the communists shot him as a war collaborator.



For the first time in the history of this country, because of the "behind the scenes" activities in Washington, this award was kept secret. The first time in history, one of the highest awards was kept secret. The State Department finally admitted - 'well we did not want to release this because we did not want to offend the communist government of Yugoslavia.’ This is in an actual document! So, it's okay to offend the Americans, but don't offend the communists!



Let me give you an idea of how this thing was kept secret for all those years. Three years ago, Maryann and I went up to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. I went up there to speak to the head archivist in the library. I introduced myself and said 'I'm one of the members of the Halyard Mission'. He said, 'What's that?'



I said, 'this is one of the most glorious moments in Air Force history. 500 Americans and 250 Allied airmen were rescued from behind enemy lines, and you don't have a record of it?' He says, 'no'. He said, 'we have records of our failures in Iran. We have records of our failures to rescue American in Vietnam. But we don't have any records of our Allied airmen being rescued.'



Now, doesn't that just burn your pippi?!"



...applause...



"I left my files with him. And thank goodness, shortly after that, I received a letter from the Superintenant of the Air Force Academy, Lieutenant Charles R. Hamm that 'in the future, the Halyard Mission and the efforts of General Mihailovich would be on permanent display at the Academy, and it was sure to be of great interest to the cadets.'"



...applause...





The State Department is still on record for saying 'we do not care about the truth. Our only concern is appeasing Yugoslavia.' It seems that our State Department has a desk in every country of the world, except the United States of America."



...applause...



"Not to long ago, the Washington Post called to ask me 'how come after fifty years, the United States government has never expressed its gratitude for the lives of 500 Americans saved during the war?’ Excellent question. I can't answer it.



I told them it was not our fault. I told him, we've been giong to Washington for fifty years. Unfortunately, we don't have any money to buy a lobbyist. Without a lobbyist in Washington, you have absolutely no political clout. All we have working in our favor is truth, justice, national honor, and gratitude to a former ally. Those values mean absolutely nothing in Washington when they come up against powerful foreign lobbies. When they come against powerful public relations firms and million dollar contributions given to our elected officials. Believe me, it disturbs me greatly to stand up here in uniform..."



Major Felman pauses to compose himself.



"It disturbs me greatly to make these accusations about some of the people I met up in Washington. I don't like to do it, but I would be unpatriotic and un-American if I didn't bring it out.



This is the real kicker. This is what really got to me... In all those years of trying, I was never more incensed than when I was told by the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Dante B. Fascell, on February 27, 1990 - I wrote to him pleading 'please, the American airmen, all we want to do is say Thank You, express our gratitude for saving our lives. We are not making a political statement. Do not make a political football out of this. All we want to do is say 'Thank you' and express our gratitude.'



He says to me, 'thank you very much. We appreciate what you're trying to do, but the petition for Mihailovich is being denied,' and I quote, 'because of the opposition of the Yugoslav Government and the opposition of certain ethnic groups in Yugoslavia.'"



...rumbling in the audience...



I broke four windows when I got this letter. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would live to see the day when a committee of the United States Congress would allow an ethnic group to interfere in our internal affairs! Besides that, and this is the important thing, it sets a frightening precedent that the legitimate requests of American citizens are denied by the United States government on the basis that they might upset a foreign government.



After trying all these years, I will never accept the fact that, during World War II we risked our lives and watched our buddies get their arms, legs, and heads blown off so that ethnic groups could tell us what we could or could not do in our own country!"



...applause...



"I don't know if I'll ever get another opportunity to release my sense of outrage. Two days ago, on May 29th, I celebrated by 73rd birthday..."



...applause...Felman gets teary-eyed...



"You know as well as I do, I don't have another fifty years to fight for a cause as American as the American flag, the Star Spangled Banner, and the Bill of Rights. Gratitude. American gratitude. That's all we want. For 500 American lives.



For a birthday present, I was going to ask our featured speaker, the Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs, to conduct a full scale investigation of why ethnic groups in Yugoslavia are more important than 8 million American veterans?"



...applause...



I am an American with a fierce love for my country. I have red, white, and blue blood flowing in my veins. But I am absolutely put to shame by a mere handful of my own countrymen who would dare to oppose an expression of gratitude for the saving of 500 American lives while we were fighting in defense of our country.



There is not a single American, worthy of the name of this country, who would dare object to that, and if there is, he better not show his face to me. All I can say is thank God that the Department of Defense and the City of Chicago do not give a damn about what the ethnic groups in Yugoslavia think about the Halyard Mission.



The American airmen will always be greatful to them. To the committee chairman, Colonel Kenneth Plummer, and to one of our Serbian chetnik rescuers, Rade Rebic and his wonderful family who have worked hard day in and day out to put this ceremony together and give us this recognition."



...applause...



"And to hell with what the ethnic groups in Yugoslavia think about it!


May God bless us all and the millions of Americans who support us. May God Bless the United States of America!’’



Major Richard Felman walks off the stage to a standing ovation from the audience.



*****

NOTE: I had the great fortune of being able to see Major Felman two more times when he again visited the Chicago area - once in 1996 when he attended the 60 anniversary commemoration of General Mihailovich's execution, and at another event in 1998. By that time, he was already sick with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease), but he wore his WWII uniform proudly and honored us with another one of his wonderful speeches about Operation Halyard. He never gave up the fight. His debt of honor continued to motivate him to the very end of his life, and his enthusiasm, dedication, loyalty, and incredible tenacity continues to remain an inspiration to me 10 years after his passing. He lost his battle with ALS in November of 1999, but I know that wherever he is today, he is mighty pleased with the progress that has been made in securing national recognition for the Halyard Mission, his dream.

Since his passing, I've attended a number of events pertaining to the Halyard Mission and General Mihailovich. Without fail, at every single one of them, the following thought would run through my heart and my mind repeatedly:

'Felman would have loved this.'






Aleksandra Rebic

August 10, 2009



*****


To get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at ravnagora@hotmail.com

Halyard Mission Radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian wins more acclaim as 65th Anniversary of Operation Halyard is upon us.



In all the time I've known Arthur Jibilian personally, there's been one thing he's insisted on from Day One. He has been adamant that any and all attention that might come from his efforts to have 'Operation Halyard' recognized in the annals of history as the great and heroic WWII feat that it was to be focused on General Draza Mihailovich and his Serbian Chetniks. For Arthur Jibilian it was about Mihailovich, never about Jibilian.

Well, Arthur, my friend, I'm afraid I must disrespect your wishes. You are, bit by bit, day by day, receiving the acclaim that you so richly deserve for all of your efforts to bring Halyard into the light. This is all happening in your lifetime, while you are still here to enjoy it, so please enjoy it and know that you are truly a beloved man with many, many friends.

What you have done over the years for General Draza Mihailovich and his legacy goes above and beyond the call of duty. You are truly an honorable man, Arthur, and I'm grateful to know you and call you "Friend."

This weekend marks the 65th anniversary of the first 'Operation Halyard' evacuations of American and Allied airmen from Pranjane, Serbia. I believe I know where your heart and mind will be on August 9th and 10th, 2009. What glorious memories you have, and you have been so generous in sharing them with all of us. Thank you, Arthur.

May God Bless you forever.


Aleksandra Rebic







Ohio Congressman Robert Latta (R)


From Debi Jibilian, the proud and loving daughter of

O.S.S. Halyard Mission Radioman Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian:


"It is with no small amount of pleasure that I am now able to share with you that Ohio Congressman Latta has introduced a Bill (referred to Committee) that has recommended Dad receive the Congressional Medal of Honor! I know he won't toot his own horn, so I'll do it for him! Brian Mc Mahon, of the EAA, has worked tirelessly on this for the last few months, taking a germ of an idea to fruition. We never thought he'd get this far, and are so grateful to him for all his efforts."



August 4, 2009




WTOL Editorial: "JIBILIAN'S ACCLAIM LONG OVERDUE"


August 3, 2009





WTOL Vice President and General Manager Bob Chirdon:

"Art Jibilian, a native of northwest Ohio, was a hero in World War II. He was a key participant in the rescue of more than 500 downed US Airmen in the mountains of Serbia.

Because of the political nightmare that Eastern Europe became for the United States following the war, the remarkable story of this rescue was suppressed by the U.S. Government.

Recently a book, "The Forgotten 500" was published. This book documents Mr. Jibilian's selfless and heroic actions to save his fellow airmen.

Congressman Bob Latta has introduced a Bill to award Mr. Jibilian a Congressional Medal of Honor. Last week, Jibilian was also a featured star of the largest air show in America at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

There is even talk that some huge stars in Hollywood are considering this true adventure for a movie.

It is heartwarming to see ‘Jibby' finally get the acclaim and honor he so richly deserves."


Click on the link below to see the video that aired on television on August 3rd, 2009:


The video below is from 2008:

WTOL: "LOCAL MAN WAS 1 OF 5 AGENTS WITH A DARING PLAN TO SAVE SOME AIRMEN DURING WWII"
*****
To get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at ravnagora@hotmail.com

*****

Saturday, August 01, 2009

"Halyard Mission" and Mihailovich Honored at World's Largest Private Air Show - AirVenture July 2009


O.S.S. Radioman for Halyard, Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian (front row, light colored jacket), with American airmen and Captain Nick Lalich and General Draza Mihailovich standing with his hand over his heart, directly behind Jibilian. Serbia, 1944.




Trying to right a wrong

WWII airmen honored for role in rescue operation


Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Jack Kelly
July 31, 2009


http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09212/987716-84.stm


OSHKOSH, Wis. -- Art Jibilian hoped his presence here at the largest private air show in the world would, in a small way, help right a terrible wrong that had been done so long ago.

Mr. Jibilian, of Fremont Ohio, and surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the pioneering squadron of black fighter pilots, were honored here yesterday at AirVenture 2009 for their roles in Operation Halyard, the greatest rescue of downed American airmen in World War II.

Two former Western Pennsylvania men also played prominent roles in planning and executing that 1944 mission in the former Yugoslavia.

Mr. Jibilian recounted that rescue yesterday to members of the Experimental Aviation Association at the suggestion of Brian McMahon, a Toledo real estate developer and EAA member. He also presented a plaque honoring the black airmen who flew cover while C-47 transport planes landed and took off from a runway hacked out of a mountain by hand.

"This means so much, not for me but for General Mihailovich," Mr. Jibilian said yesterday, referring to the guerilla leader whose involvement in the rescue was largely suppressed until recent years.

Mr. McMahon said he was fascinated to learn about the former Toledo man's prominent role in Operation Halyard after picking up a copy of "The Forgotten 500," a 2007 book by Gregory A. Freeman about the mission.

Mr. McMahon previously arranged for the University of Toledo, from which Mr. Jibilian was graduated in 1951, to honor him. His next target is Hollywood.

"This story would make a heck of a movie," Mr. McMahon said.

Bold mission

Between Aug. 9 and Dec. 27, 1944, rescuers spirited 512 airmen, most of them Americans, out of the former Yugoslavia under the noses of the Nazis. To accomplish the daring mission, members of the Office of Strategic Services -- the forerunner to the CIA -- had to fight not just the Germans, but the British, who tried to sabotage their efforts.

Many of the Americans fliers had been shot down while striking at oilfields in Ploesti, Romania, the principal source of oil for the Nazi war machine.

As the radio operator on the OSS team, Mr. Jibilian, then 21, was crucial to the success of the mission. Even more critical was the involvement of former Western Pennsylvanians George Vujnovich and the late George Musulin.

An Ambridge native who later became an executive with Pan American World Airways, Mr. Vujnovich ran OSS covert operations in Yugoslavia from the 15th Air Force base in Bari, Italy during the war. Mr. Vujnovich wanted to lead the rescue mission himself, but was forbidden to do so.

So he turned to Mr. Musulin, a giant of a man who played tackle for Pitt's Rose Bowl team in 1936 and later played for the Pittsburgh Steelers before joining the OSS from the Office of Naval Intelligence. After the war, the native of Franklin, Cambria County, joined the CIA, from which he retired in 1974. He died in 1987.

The biggest hero of Operation Halyard, however, was Gen. Draza Mihailovich, the leader of Chetnik guerrillas in Yugoslavia. It was mostly Gen. Mihailovich's men who assisted American fliers who parachuted from crippled airplanes, and fed and hid them from the Nazis at great risk to themselves. They also helped the fliers and OSS men construct a makeshift runway near Gen. Mihailovich's headquarters in Pranjane from which they were airlifted to Italy.

But it was Allied policy to deny Gen. Mihailovich and his Chetniks support, or even credit for their contributions to the Allied cause. That's why the British tried to stymie the mission, and why -- after it succeeded -- the British and the U.S. State Department insisted it be hushed up.

That policy was chiefly the work of James Klugmann, a Communist mole in the Special Operations Executive, the British counterpart of the OSS.

As an intelligence officer for the Yugoslav section of the SOE, Mr. Klugmann was in a position to invent triumphs for the Communist Partisans, to attribute to the Partisans victories over the Nazis that were actually won by Gen. Mihailovich's Chetniks, and to fabricate "evidence" of Chetnik collaboration with the Nazis.

"Every time a message came in from Musulin about some success Draza Mihailovich had, (Klugmann) assigned it to the Communists," Mr. Vujnovich, now 93 and living in New York, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "The next day it would be on the BBC."

Mr. Klugmann was able to censor messages from OSS operatives in Yugoslavia because the OSS relied on British radio operators in the early days of the war. The British had much better radios for clandestine communication and the OSS had few radio operators in the region.

That was why Mr. Jibilian's arrival was so important to the success of Operation Halyard.

Ideological stew

For Americans, World War II was a fight against Germany, Italy and Japan. In Yugoslavia, things were more complicated.

Yugoslavia was cobbled together from parts of the Austro-Hungarian empire after its collapse at the end of World War I. Its largest population was Serbs, but it also had Croats, Slovenians, Bosnians and Montenegrins, many of whom disliked being in a kingdom ruled by Serbs.

When Germany invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941, the Serbs opposed the invaders. But the Nazis received a friendlier welcome in other parts of Yugoslavia. Although the Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly crushed and surrendered unconditionally on April 17, 1941, Draza Mihailovich, then a colonel, kept on fighting.

Also opposing the Nazis were Communist Partisans under Josip Broz -- a Croat better known by his nom de guerre, Tito -- although they didn't join the fight until after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Tito wanted to rule a Communist Yugoslavia after beating the Nazis. Gen. Mihailovich, a royalist inclined towards the West, stood in the way.

In November, 1941, the Partisans attacked the Chetniks. From that point, the two guerrilla armies fought each other more than they fought the Germans.

In addition, Gen. Mihailovich found himself in a four-sided civil war. This was the stew of ideological and ethnic hatreds into which Art Jibilian parachuted on March 15, 1944.

"Jibby" had been drafted into the Navy in March, 1943. He was at the Great Lakes Naval Station near Chicago learning to be a radio operator, when an OSS recruiter came to visit.

The OSS desperately needed radio operators, the recruiter said. Was he willing to volunteer for hazardous duty behind enemy lines? He was.


While waiting in Cairo, Egypt, for his first assignment, Mr. Jibilian volunteered again when he heard Col. Lynn Farish was looking for a radio operator for a team he was taking into Yugoslavia. After being forced to rely on British radio operators to get out reports during an earlier mission, Col. Farish insisted upon an American radio operator this time, even a rookie.

The mission, into territory controlled by the Partisans, went badly after the Germans located the OSS position through direction-finding equipment.

Dodging bombs and bullets, the three-man OSS team fled higher into the mountains, running so fast they had to jettison their equipment, including the radio. After six nights of cold and hunger, they evaded their German pursuers.

As they made their way back down the mountain, peasants told them about American airmen hiding from the Germans. They found a dozen, and were able to contact their base in Cairo. On June 16, the airmen and the OSS team were rescued.

Airmen await help

George Vujnovich learned from his Serbian-born wife, Mirjana, who'd escaped from Yugoslavia earlier in the war, that many more downed airmen were hiding in Yugoslavia. Gen. Mihailovich had been sending radio messages about the airmen for months, but the British ignored them.

One of those messages was intercepted by an American listening post in Algiers, which passed it on to the Yugoslav embassy in Washington, D.C., where Mirjana was working.


"She wrote me a letter with the names of the airmen and asked me what we could do about it," Mr. Vujnovich told the Post-Gazette.

After graduating from Ambridge High School in 1934, George Vujnovich went to Yugoslavia, from which his parents had emigrated to America in 1912, to attend medical school. He and his wife-to-be were in Belgrade when the Germans attacked.

Because America wasn't yet in the war, Mr. Vujnovich could leave the country. Despite their hasty marriage, it was dicier for his wife. The Gestapo was looking for Yugoslavs with connections to the Americans or the British, and she was on their list.

After a risky, roundabout trip through Bulgaria, Turkey, Egypt and West Africa that took more than a year, Mirjana made it to Washington, D.C., and George joined the OSS.

When he proposed the rescue mission, the British and U.S. State Department opposed it. But Gen. Nathan Twining, commander of the 15th Air Force, wanted to get "his boys" back, and OSS chief Bill Donovan lent crucial support. Still, President Roosevelt agreed to a demand from Prime Minister Winston Churchill that Mr. Vujnovich not be permitted to lead the expedition. Though few in the OSS knew Yugoslavia better, George Vujnovich was too fond of Gen. Mihailovich, too suspicious of Tito for British tastes.

"I was [angry]," Mr. Vujnovich said. "But I couldn't do anything as a soldier, because I was under orders."

In addition to Mr. Musulin, who had spent months with Gen. Mihailovich the year before, the OSS team also included Mr. Jibilian, who volunteered to go back despite his harrowing experience weeks before.

They almost didn't make it. The team relied on British air support, but four attempts to drop them were aborted. The British pilots, apparently deliberately, twice flew to the wrong coordinates. On the fifth attempt, the British tried to drop the team into an ongoing battle.

"They were hoping we would just drop into the battle and just disappear," Mr. Jibilian recalled. "They obviously didn't want us to go in there."

A furious George Musulin insisted upon an American plane with American pilots. On their sixth attempt, on Aug. 2, 1944, the OSS team landed successfully.

Extraordinary feat

In Pranjane, just 30 miles from a German garrison, 200 airmen and 300 Chetniks built, with their bare hands, a 700-foot dirt airstrip on a plateau just 50 yards wide halfway up a mountain. That was the absolute minimum length needed to land the C-47s that were to carry the airmen to safety. The plateau was surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges just two miles away.

Four C-47s made it in on the night of Aug. 9 and carried several dozen airmen to safety, barely clearing the woods at the end of the runway. But the night operations were dangerous, and took so much time that Mr. Musulin worried the Nazis would notice. He decided to gamble all on a daylight rescue.

At dawn on Aug. 10, six C-47s and an escort of about 30 fighters, most of them P-51s flown by the Tuskegee airmen, arrived. The fighters bombed and strafed German positions within 50 miles while the C-47s circled for landing. No sooner were they airborne than another six C-47s appeared. A total of 272 airmen were rescued without a casualty.

"This was an extraordinary feat of airmanship," said Jeff Underwood, the historian for the National Museum of the Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton.

For the airliner version of the C-47 (the DC-3), the minimum distance required for takeoff was 900 feet, and 1,600 feet to land, Mr. Underwood said.

Mr. Musulin was ordered out of Yugoslavia after the rescue. He also was threatened with court martial for disobeying an order to offer no aid to Gen. Mihailovich because he arranged for shoes to be brought in for mostly barefoot peasants in the area.

Mr. Jibilian remained behind. The rescue scenario was repeated several times until the last of the airmen under Gen. Mihailovich's protection --512 in all -- were evacuated on Dec. 27.

"We asked Mihailovich to come out with us," Mr. Jibilian said. "In fact, we begged him. He said no. 'I'm a soldier, this is my country,' he said."

Posthumous award

Gen. Mihailovich was captured by the Partisans and accused of collaboration with the Nazis. After a show trial, he was executed on July 17, 1946.

The airmen he'd rescued and members of the OSS vigorously protested the arrest, demanding the right to testify at his trial. But Tito refused, and the State Department offered no help.

Art Jibilian was one of the few OSS members to work with both the Partisans and the Chetniks.

"Having spent two months with the forces of Marshal Tito, and six months with Mihailovich, the contrast was amazing," he said. "The Partisans shadowed us, never leaving us alone with the villagers. They were always tense, and the villagers seemed ill at ease in their presence.

"On a few occasions we were able to shake our guard and talk to the people," he said. "One question they always asked us is 'Why are the Americans backing the Partisans?' "

"It was night and day between the two," Mr. Jibilian said. "When we were in Mihailovich territory, we were free to go wherever we wanted, talk to anyone we wanted. It was clear the villagers loved Mihailovich."

The official silence about Gen. Mihailovich continued because the State Department was trying to woo Tito from allegiance to the Soviet bloc. Mr. Churchill later told a Belgian newspaper his handling of Yugoslavia was his biggest mistake during the war.

At the insistence of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, President Harry S. Truman in 1948 awarded the Legion of Merit, the highest award the United States can give to a foreigner, to Gen. Mihailovich posthumously. But the award remained secret until 1967, when former U.S. Rep. Edward Derwinski of Illinois demanded it be made public.

In 2005, a delegation including Mr. Jibilian and Mr. Vujnovich went to Belgrade to present the Legion of Merit to Gen. Mihailovich's daughter, Gordana.

Originally scheduled as a public event with media coverage, the medal presentation was changed to a small affair in a private home, attended by no representatives from the U.S. embassy in Belgrade.

"Embassy personnel told us they couldn't do anything because the State Department wouldn't allow them," Mr. Vujnovich said.

But the historical record was corrected two years ago with the publication of Mr. Freeman's book.

"I first became aware of this during the conflict in Bosnia," Mr. Freeman told the Post-Gazette.

"The story was amazing, and so was the fact that it had hardly been told, But I didn't want to tell it in the context of the violence that was going on then, so I put the project off for five years."


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Jack Kelly can be reached at jkelly@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1476.

Jack Kelly writes a nationally syndicated column, chiefly on national security issues, and covers fitness for the Post-Gazette's health section. He is a former Marine, Green Beret, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force.


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If you would like to contact me, Aleksandra, please feel free to e-mail me at ravnagora@hotmail.com

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