Operation Halyard - Commemoration

Commemoration

Authority to erect a monument to General Draza Mihailovich was given in 1989 by the National Committee of American Airmen in Washington, District of Columbia, in recognition of the role he played in saving the lives of more than five hundred United States airmen in Yugoslavia during World War II.

On September 12, 2004, five years after the NATO armed conflict against Yugoslavia, four American veterans, Clare Musgrove, Arthur Jibilian, George Vujnovich and Robert Wilson, visited Pranjani for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque. A bill introduced in the US House of Representatives by Bob Latta on July 31, 2009, requested that Jibilian be awarded the Medal of Honor for his part in Operation Halyard.

On Veterans' Day, 2007, the U.S. Ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter, visited Pranjani and presented the citizens of the area with a proclamation signed by the Governor of the State of Ohio expressing gratitude to the Serbian families that rescued hundreds of U.S. airmen whose aircraft had been shot down by Nazi forces in World War II.

On October 17, 2010, George Vujnovich was awarded the Bronze Star in a ceremony in New York City for his role in the operation. Vujnovich trained the volunteers who carried out the rescue, teaching them how to blend in with other Serbians, by mastering mundane tasks conforming to local custom, such as tying and tucking their shoelaces and pushing food onto their forks with their knives during meals.

The U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, in cooperation with the Euro-Atlantic Initiative and the citizens of Pranjani, initiated a project to construct a library and youth center in Pranjani which will help the education of local children and enhance commemoration of the Halyard Mission. The project will mark a historical bond between the Serbian and American people and the state partnership between Serbia and the State of Ohio, which was established in 2006. The project will include an effort to educate both the Serbian and American public about the Halyard Mission, through photographic exhibitions, an internet presentation and the production of a documentary movie. The library-youth center project consists of the construction of a multipurpose facility. It will serve as a library and the center for multimedia education of young people and farmers from the Pranjani area. It will be equipped with Internet access and as a memorial center for the Halyard Mission which will include a permanent exhibition of photographs, objects and documents related to the evacuation mission of Allied airmen and the wartime alliance between the people of Serbia and the U.S. Part of the Center's exhibits will be given to the National Museum of the United States Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Base in Ohio where a special exhibition area will be opened about Serbia's role in the rescue of the airmen in World War II. Similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., one wall of the Pranjani center will include the names of all the Allied airmen that were rescued during the Halyard Mission and the Serbian families that hid and cared for them. The Library will be built immediately adjacent to the primary school and Pranjani church, which was the place used for ceremonies of friendship and cooperation by citizens of the area, the Ravna Gora movement (Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland), and the U.S. mission. Another segment will be built on Galovića field in Pranjani where the U.S. Air Force evacuated the airmen. This part of the project envisions the construction of a hangar and the placement of one C-47 aircraft inside it. In addition, multi-language plaques and maps will be erected that will allow history lovers and interested tourists to become acquainted with the Halyard Mission and the historic heritage of the area.