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The Untold Story of the Men who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War Two.
By Gregory A. Freeman
Publisher: New American Library, 2007. New York.
Review by Aleksandra Rebic
During the second half of World War Two, hundreds of American airmen were sent on dangerous missions over Europe during which their job was to cripple the oil production that was feeding the Nazi war machine.
Freeman describes in vivid detail the nature of these missions and by tapping the memories and experiences of the airmen and faithfully capturing them on the pages of The Forgotten 500 he paints a graphic picture of what was endured by these patriots who did their job and followed their orders regardless of the retaliation that was sure to follow.
These missions would cost many of their lives. Those who survived the Nazi retaliations had to bail out of their planes over foreign territory in order to get a shot at survival and they did so, not knowing what their fate would be.
Their desperation landed them in the hills of Yugoslavia, mainly in Serbia, enemy occupied territory that was, luckily for them, also the land of General Draza Mihailovich, his Chetnik forces, and the peasants who were loyal to them.
When they landed in the hills and forests of Serbia, the airmen were now among freedom fighters, loyal above all else, to the democratic Allies, though they did not know it as they fell. Among the hundreds who fell, most were Americans.
Once on the ground these men were soon found by the Serbian peasantry and it was these strangers who spoke a foreign language on foreign soil who would shield them, soothe their wounds, feed them, house them, and protect them, even at the sacrifice of all that they owned and even their lives.
The fallen airmen would soon learn that their benefactors were acting on the orders of General Draza Mihailovich, the Serbian hero, who in the beginning darkest moments of the war, had been heralded as being a legendary warrior for the whole free world, but who, in recent times, had been abandoned by the very democracies to whom he had been so loyal.
Though he had been abandoned and left to the wolves, both the Yugoslav communists who were bent on destroying him and everything his organization stood for, and the Germans who continued to view him as their primary enemy in Yugoslavia, Mihailovich, upon learning of the fallen airmen, gave out the order to do whatever necessary to protect them, heal them, and in the ensuing months, evacuate them to safety regardless of the cost to himself.
This man, whom the airmen had been told to avoid, would end up being the man who would save them. In cooperation with American OSS personnel, whose struggles and ultimate triumphs are faithfully recorded by Freeman as Operation Halyard came to fruition over the course of 1944, General Mihailovich and his forces would prove just how profound doing the right thing no matter what is.
Though this story has been competently tackled by other historians and authors genuinely interested in doing justice to the events of 1944 in enemy occupied Serbia, this story has never been appropriately publicized in the western world because it has not been politically correct to do so.
It has remained a taboo theme in many political and publishing circles which has dismayed and frustrated so many of the veterans of Operation Halyard, both the rescued and their rescuers, for decades.
Many spent the duration of their postwar years striving to right this wrong. Many have since passed away without ever experiencing the contentment of seeing justice done and a debt repaid. Mr. Freeman and his publishers, with The Forgotten 500, may well be the catalyst for finally changing all of this.
When one becomes familiar with the obstacles that have been pervasive in getting this story told over the last six decades, one cannot help but appreciate the courage and the fortitude that it took to produce and publish this book.
As much as I admire Freemans talent for telling a great true story as it deserves to be told and for his attention to detail that makes this story come alive on the pages, I admire his publishers even more. Instead of dismissing this story, they have chosen to bring it out in the light, thus vindicating all of those both on this side of the world and on the other who lived this story.
The heroic details of the bombing missions and the subsequent bailouts over enemy occupied territory and the great rescue evacuations that followed in 1944 are the easy part of this story. Author Freeman didnt settle for the easy part. In The Forgotten 500 he delves into the more complicated tangential issues that cannot be ignored in the telling of the story of the Halyard Mission.
Not until 1997 would the world understand that the switch of allegiance was orchestrated largely by a Soviet operative who convinced the British that Mihailovich could not be trusted Communist moles had infiltrated both the OSS and the SOE, working to besmirch the name of Mihailovich to promote the postwar Communization of Yugoslavia under (Croatian communist) Tito Klugmann, who was closely associated with the infamous British traitors known as the Cambridge Five, was principally responsible for sabotaging the Mihailovich supply operation and for keeping from London information about how much Mihailovich forces were fighting the Germans and how much success they were having.
The drama of Operation Halyard would end in December of 1944, and due to the perseverance of men with the names of Vujnovich, Musulin, Petrovich, Rajachich, Lalich, Jibilian and others, it would end as a virtually perfect success story in the face of almost insurmountable odds.
Every downed airman survived. General Mihailovich, however, would not share their fate. His life would come to an end a year and half later, when he was executed by the Yugoslav communists.
The airmen whom he had saved were left to their tears, devastated by the news, and many would dedicate the rest of their years to vindicating Mihailovich, his Serbian people, and to seeking justice for the man to whom they felt they owed their very lives.
Many in the Allied world who were following the capture, trial, and execution of Mihailovich, were left to wonder how it could have been allowed to happen.
Gregory Freemans The Forgotten 500 goes a long way in shedding light on how could this have been allowed to happen.
Freeman does not accept the fact that it was allowed to happen. With the publication of The Forgotten 500 he is doing his part to make things right. Given the truths contained in this book, I wondered who Gregory Freeman was. He accommodated my curiosity with the following response:
As you probably know already, I am not of Serbian descent and have no personal connection to this story at all. Instead, I was drawn to the opportunity to bring some measure of justice to a hero and local Serbs who risked their lives for my country and who ultimately were betrayed by history.
I wrote this book because that wrong should be made right, not just for Mihailovich and the Serbian community, but for the American public as well. After all, we can't say "thank you" if we don't know what they did.
I highly recommend The Forgotten 500, not just to my American and Serbian friends, but to anyone interested in historical accounts that are not tarnished with propaganda, lies, and political correctness.
(This is only part of the story of how the history of the Balkans has been grotesquely twisted and misrepresented in America.)gs
By Gregory A. Freeman
Publisher: New American Library, 2007. New York.
Review by Aleksandra Rebic
During the second half of World War Two, hundreds of American airmen were sent on dangerous missions over Europe during which their job was to cripple the oil production that was feeding the Nazi war machine.
Freeman describes in vivid detail the nature of these missions and by tapping the memories and experiences of the airmen and faithfully capturing them on the pages of The Forgotten 500 he paints a graphic picture of what was endured by these patriots who did their job and followed their orders regardless of the retaliation that was sure to follow.
These missions would cost many of their lives. Those who survived the Nazi retaliations had to bail out of their planes over foreign territory in order to get a shot at survival and they did so, not knowing what their fate would be.
Their desperation landed them in the hills of Yugoslavia, mainly in Serbia, enemy occupied territory that was, luckily for them, also the land of General Draza Mihailovich, his Chetnik forces, and the peasants who were loyal to them.
When they landed in the hills and forests of Serbia, the airmen were now among freedom fighters, loyal above all else, to the democratic Allies, though they did not know it as they fell. Among the hundreds who fell, most were Americans.
Once on the ground these men were soon found by the Serbian peasantry and it was these strangers who spoke a foreign language on foreign soil who would shield them, soothe their wounds, feed them, house them, and protect them, even at the sacrifice of all that they owned and even their lives.
The fallen airmen would soon learn that their benefactors were acting on the orders of General Draza Mihailovich, the Serbian hero, who in the beginning darkest moments of the war, had been heralded as being a legendary warrior for the whole free world, but who, in recent times, had been abandoned by the very democracies to whom he had been so loyal.
Though he had been abandoned and left to the wolves, both the Yugoslav communists who were bent on destroying him and everything his organization stood for, and the Germans who continued to view him as their primary enemy in Yugoslavia, Mihailovich, upon learning of the fallen airmen, gave out the order to do whatever necessary to protect them, heal them, and in the ensuing months, evacuate them to safety regardless of the cost to himself.
This man, whom the airmen had been told to avoid, would end up being the man who would save them. In cooperation with American OSS personnel, whose struggles and ultimate triumphs are faithfully recorded by Freeman as Operation Halyard came to fruition over the course of 1944, General Mihailovich and his forces would prove just how profound doing the right thing no matter what is.
Though this story has been competently tackled by other historians and authors genuinely interested in doing justice to the events of 1944 in enemy occupied Serbia, this story has never been appropriately publicized in the western world because it has not been politically correct to do so.
It has remained a taboo theme in many political and publishing circles which has dismayed and frustrated so many of the veterans of Operation Halyard, both the rescued and their rescuers, for decades.
Many spent the duration of their postwar years striving to right this wrong. Many have since passed away without ever experiencing the contentment of seeing justice done and a debt repaid. Mr. Freeman and his publishers, with The Forgotten 500, may well be the catalyst for finally changing all of this.
When one becomes familiar with the obstacles that have been pervasive in getting this story told over the last six decades, one cannot help but appreciate the courage and the fortitude that it took to produce and publish this book.
As much as I admire Freemans talent for telling a great true story as it deserves to be told and for his attention to detail that makes this story come alive on the pages, I admire his publishers even more. Instead of dismissing this story, they have chosen to bring it out in the light, thus vindicating all of those both on this side of the world and on the other who lived this story.
The heroic details of the bombing missions and the subsequent bailouts over enemy occupied territory and the great rescue evacuations that followed in 1944 are the easy part of this story. Author Freeman didnt settle for the easy part. In The Forgotten 500 he delves into the more complicated tangential issues that cannot be ignored in the telling of the story of the Halyard Mission.
Not until 1997 would the world understand that the switch of allegiance was orchestrated largely by a Soviet operative who convinced the British that Mihailovich could not be trusted Communist moles had infiltrated both the OSS and the SOE, working to besmirch the name of Mihailovich to promote the postwar Communization of Yugoslavia under (Croatian communist) Tito Klugmann, who was closely associated with the infamous British traitors known as the Cambridge Five, was principally responsible for sabotaging the Mihailovich supply operation and for keeping from London information about how much Mihailovich forces were fighting the Germans and how much success they were having.
The drama of Operation Halyard would end in December of 1944, and due to the perseverance of men with the names of Vujnovich, Musulin, Petrovich, Rajachich, Lalich, Jibilian and others, it would end as a virtually perfect success story in the face of almost insurmountable odds.
Every downed airman survived. General Mihailovich, however, would not share their fate. His life would come to an end a year and half later, when he was executed by the Yugoslav communists.
The airmen whom he had saved were left to their tears, devastated by the news, and many would dedicate the rest of their years to vindicating Mihailovich, his Serbian people, and to seeking justice for the man to whom they felt they owed their very lives.
Many in the Allied world who were following the capture, trial, and execution of Mihailovich, were left to wonder how it could have been allowed to happen.
Gregory Freemans The Forgotten 500 goes a long way in shedding light on how could this have been allowed to happen.
Freeman does not accept the fact that it was allowed to happen. With the publication of The Forgotten 500 he is doing his part to make things right. Given the truths contained in this book, I wondered who Gregory Freeman was. He accommodated my curiosity with the following response:
As you probably know already, I am not of Serbian descent and have no personal connection to this story at all. Instead, I was drawn to the opportunity to bring some measure of justice to a hero and local Serbs who risked their lives for my country and who ultimately were betrayed by history.
I wrote this book because that wrong should be made right, not just for Mihailovich and the Serbian community, but for the American public as well. After all, we can't say "thank you" if we don't know what they did.
I highly recommend The Forgotten 500, not just to my American and Serbian friends, but to anyone interested in historical accounts that are not tarnished with propaganda, lies, and political correctness.
(This is only part of the story of how the history of the Balkans has been grotesquely twisted and misrepresented in America.)gs
