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Book Review Pro | Karen Pool
Book Review Pro | Karen Pool
Author : Gregory A. Freeman
Genre : Nonfiction
This is the true story of over 500 airman, while bombing oil fields in Romania, were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Over weeks and months, with the help of local Serbian farmers who risked their own lives, hid the soldiers, eventually bringing them to the Pranjane area in central Yugoslavia, where they were protected by anti-Nazi forces under the command of General Mihailovich.
By chance, a rumor heard by his wife back in the States, the head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) office in Bari, Italy, George Vujnovich learned that as many as 100 airman were alive behind enemy lines that needed to be rescued. Thus, Operation Halyard was born in the summer of 1944. George enlisted veteran  agent George Musulin and Sergeant Mike Rajacich, who both spoke the language, and radio operator, Arthur Jibilian to drop in behind enemy lines, somehow build an air strip and manage rescue efforts on the ground.
Suppressed for more than half a century for political reasons, Gregory Freeman crafts a well-documented account of courage and daring that sadly, also illustrates the effects of politics and illuminates the betrayal, turf wars, and outright sabotage among agencies across countries, along with successful efforts of Russian spies who infiltrated the agencies, as well as the secrets and lies perpetuated for decades by our own country.
“People in the OSS don’t have any real political orientation. When they hear ‘Communist’ they just think of russian Communists. When they hear ‘Fascist’ they think of Germany and Italy. They don’t realize what Communism really is, the way it works to overpower a country’s people and take everything from them. They don’t understand that Communism is a cancer that can spread all over if you don’t stop it. They just think it’s Russia and right nowRussia is our ally.”
“Musulin was on horseback, looking for any last-minute problems, when he spotted two or three tiny specks off the horizon. ‘German planes! Get off the field.’ It didn’t take long to see that the planes were a Stuka dive bomber and two JU-52 Junker planes. The airman all knew that the pilots would notice something amiss when they spotted the freshly cleaned strip of land. Then Musulin noticed a most providential herd of cows sauntering onto the airship; their attention drawn to the fresh grass on the airship. The cows waddled onto the field just as the three planes flew directly overhead at low altitude, giving the field exactly the look the airmen needed at that moment—that of a normal farm field in the mountains of Yugoslavia.”
“A mission that was supposed to last a couple of weeks went on for six months, during which the OSS team rescued 432 American airman, and eighty personnel from British, Canadian, French, Italian, and Russian units.”
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