Operation Halyard - Mission

Mission

This operation took place between August and December 1944 from a crudely constructed forest airfield created by Serbian peasants in Pranjani. It is little known today, and largely unknown to most Americans. It is the subject of the 2007 book The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II, by author Gregory A. Freeman. In his book, he describes it as one of the greatest rescue stories ever told. It tells the story of how the airmen were downed in a country they knew nothing about, and how the Serbian villagers were willing to sacrifice their own lives to save the lives of the air crews.

The OSS planned an elaborate rescue involving C-47 cargo planes landing in enemy territory. It was an extremely risky operation, involving the planes not only entering enemy territory without being shot down themselves, but also landing, retrieving the downed airmen, then taking off and flying out of that same territory, again without being shot down themselves. The rescue was a complete success, but received little to no publicity. This was partly due to the timing, the world's attention being focused on the conflict in northern France.

Because of this operation, and due to the efforts of Major Richard Felman, United States President Harry S. Truman posthumously awarded General Mihailović the Legion of Merit for his contribution to the Allied victory during World War II. The award was presented to Mihailović's daughter Gordana Mihajlovic by the US State Department on May 9, 2005.

Initially, this high award and the story of the rescue was classified secret by the U.S. State Department so as not to offend the-then Communist government of Yugoslavia. Such a display of appreciation for the Chetniks would not have been welcome as the Western Allies, who had supported the Chetniks early in World War II, switched sides to Josip Broz Tito's Partisans for the latter part of the war.