OSS / SOE Yugoslavia 1944

OSE on Tito's lines

In Yugoslavia, the goals of the OSS were to help the resistance forces to sabotage railroad lines carrying supplies into Germany, to tie down tens of thousands of German occupation troops and prevent them from being used on the front lines against the Allied armies. In addition, the OSS in Yugoslavia rescued aviators who had been shot down on the bombing runs from Italy to the Ploesti oilfields in Rumania, and it also sought to deceive Hitler into thinking that the American invasion might occur in the Balkans instead of in Normandy. The Germans had invaded Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941 and occupied the most populated areas of the country, but a substantial Resistance movement quickly emerged and took refuge in the sparsely settled mountains.

The movement split between the Partisans under Communist Party leader Josip Broz (“Tito”), a Croatian, with their core area in the mountains and forests of northern Bosnia, and the Royalist Chetniks under Yugoslavian General Draža Mihailović, a Serb, who operated out of their base in the wooded mountains of Montenegro in the south.247 Bitter enemies, they fought each other as much as the Germans. Among the undercover operations by the Western Allies, Britain initially had a monopoly in the Balkans, but in the late summer of 1943, Donovan was able, despite SOE objections, to begin sending OSS operatives into Yugoslavia to establish connections and sources of information independent of the British. In the third week in August, two OSS Special Operations officers were airdropped, one into the headquarters of each of the two hostile factions. Army Capitain Melvin O. (“Benny”) Benson was infiltrated into Tito’s headquarters; and Marine Captain Walter R. Mansfield was air dropped into Mihailović’s camp.

Parachuting alone into the area near Mihailović’s base just before midnight on 19 August 1944, Mansfield was a highly regarded SO officer. A Boston native, Harvard graduate and a former member of Donovan’s law firm, the 32-year-old Mansfield had joined the OSS as a civilian. But he had attended Marine Reserve Officer class and also learned demolitions and guerrilla warfare at OSS SO training areas in Maryland, Virginia, and England. Accompanying him were 15 canisters filled with small arms, radios, and three tons of ammunition.

A few minutes after he landed amidst the bonfires of the drop zone, he was surrounded by a small group of ragged-looking men with black beards. “I told…their leader that I was an American,” Mansfield recalled, “whereupon they all began to shoop, holler, and kiss me (black beards and all) shouting ‘Zdravo, Purvi Americanec’ (Greetings, first American). I mustered up my Serbian to reply, ‘Zdravo Chetnici’—the first American had landed.” Mansfield was later joined by Lieutenant Colonel Albert B. Seitz and Captain George Musulin, an American of Serbian ancestry. All three were much impressed by the Chetniks.

Allied action in Yugoslavia remains controversial. Leftists among the British SOE mission attached to Tito emphasized the superiority of his forces, overstating the communist partisans’ numbers and accomplishments, while denigrating the Chetniks. Although London cut off supplies to Mihailović, the OSS argued that both Yugoslavian factions were effective and should be aided in their separate areas of control—Tito in the north and west, Mihailović in the east and south. Captain Mansfield wrote strong endorsements of the Chetnik leader. Yugoslavs loyal to the monarchy and Mihailović had been among the foreign groups trained at OSS Area B. But at the Tehran conference in November 1943, Stalin and Churchill backed Tito and insisted that Roosevelt cut off all support for Mihailović. Despite Donovan’s protests, the American OSS mission to Mihailović were forced to leave the Chetniks in the early months of 1944.

SOE and SIS assisting Serbian insurgents 1943

Tito and his Partisans had their admirers in the OSS. Captain Benson was the first, followed by Lieutenant Colonel Richard (“Bob”) Weil, Jr., 27, a former President of Bamberger department stores, a division of R.H. Macy and Company, who accompanied one of the OSS mission’s to Tito.254 In November 1943, Lieutenant George Wuchinich, a second-generation American from Pittsburgh whose parents had been Orthodox Serbs from Slovenia, and who had trained in1942 at Areas B, A, C, D and RTU-11, led the “Alum” Team that was parachuted into Partisan-held territory in the mountains near Ljubljana in Slovenia in November 1943, the first OSS team to arrive in northern Yugoslavia (Tito’s headquarters was farther south).

Wuchinich was accompanied by a Greek-American radio operator, Sergeant Sfikes, and four other enlisted men. He found the Partisans suspicious of both the British and the Americans. But when Wuchinich was finally allowed to meet the local general and accompany the Partisans into battle against the Germans, he became glowing in his reports. Indeed, he compared them to the dedicated, long-suffering Continentals in the American Revolutionary War,

Finally, in June 1944, Wuchinich gained enough trust to be allowed to pursue his assigned mission—to secure daily reports to OSS on the main Balkan railroad system which ran through Maribor at the Slovenian-Austrian border before dividing into separate main lines to Italy and Greece. Trekking through the mountains, they established an observation post overlooking Maribor and then returned to camp. From 30 June through 4 August, the observation post sent as much detailed information about troops and supplies going through the throat of the southeastern European rail network as the Allies could desire. The Germans finally located it, killed the radio operator and seized his equipment, but the Allies had gotten the information during period immediately following the Normandy invasion, which is when it was most needed.

Wuchinich’s team also gained valuable information from a deserter about the development and proving ground for the new “flying bomb,” the V-1 “buzz bomb,” rocket the Germans began to launch against England in mid-1944; and they helped rescue more than a hundred downed Allied aviators. Wuchinich’s reinforced team did suffer casualties, however; at least two of the Americans were killed.

Activity by the OSS increased dramatically in Yugoslavia in 1944, especially support for Tito and his Partisans. The number of OSSers attached to the Partisans grew from six in late 1943 to 40 men in 15 different missions in 1944. Major Frank Lindsay’s SO team destroyed a stone viaduct carrying the main railroad line between Germany, Austria and Italy, impeding German reinforcements and supplies. From January to August 1994, Donovan’s organization sent detachments of Yugoslavian-American Operational Groups, together with some Greek-American and other OG sections, all of them trained at Areas F, B, and A, to accompany British commandos on a series of raids on German garrisons along the Dalmatian coast of Croatia.

There was a dual purpose in this campaign. One was to draw off German troops who were being used in a major offensive designed to crush Tito’s Partisans. The other purpose was to deceive Hitler into thinking that the main invasion by the Western Allies might come in the Balkans instead of France.259 Corporal Otto N. Feher, from Cleveland, the son of Hungarian immigrants, was a member of the Operational Group team that helped raid and defeat the German garrisons on the sizable islands of Solta and Brac between Dubrovnik and Split. “They told us from the start, there’s no prisoners. You get caught, you’re dead,” Fehr said.

He also reported that nearly one quarter of his 109-member contingent (perhaps the contingent he originally trained with) were casualties during the war. The raids, together with the aerial attacks on German forces by Allied aircraft, assisted Tito in narrowly escaping capture. The OSS also kept supply lines open from Bari by which to sustain the Yugoslav Resistance.

The OSS effort in Yugoslavia was a success to the extent that its support of the Resistance did help keep many German divisions there and not at the main Allied fronts and it also helped rescue thousands of downed Allied aviators and aircrews. But given the political decisions made by the Big Three, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt, the proportion of support went increasingly and overwhelmingly to Tito’s Partisans instead of Michailović’s Chetniks. In the summer of 1944, Tito’s Partisans were again on the attack—against the weakened Chetniks as well as against the Germans. OSS reestablished its contact with and support of Mihailović that summer, primarily through a new unit created to help rescue downed airmen.

By the end of the war, some 2,000 downed airmen had been rescued and evacuated via Chetnik or Partisan controlled areas of Yugoslavia. The majority of these airmen were Americans shot down during U.S. 15th Air Force’s bombing raids from Italy against the heavily defended Axis oilfields and refineries in Ploesti, Romania. Most were crews of B-24 “Liberator” bombers, but some were pilots of their fighter escorts. OG member Otto Feher remembered the Resistance bringing in a Tuskegee Airman, the first black pilot he had ever seen, who had eluded capture by the Germans for several weeks.

Another 1,000 airmen had been rescued by OSS SO in the rest of the Mediterranean Theater, a total of 3,000 skilled Allied airmen rescued to fly again. Allied support of the wartime guerrilla operations, first of the Chetniks and then of the Partisans, had included the equipping of tens of thousands of guerrillas. They had held down 35 Axis divisions, including 15 German Army divisions that might otherwise have been deployed in Italy, France, or the Eastern Front.

But Allied favoritism towards the Partisans and especially the Red Army’s direct assistance in the fall of 1944 helped Tito create a communist state in postwar Yugoslavia. Similarly, although a small OSS mission worked with the rival communist and non-communist resistance movements in tiny, neighboring Albania, primarily to rescue survivors from downed American planes, it was the communists who came to dominant the country in the postwar era.

The British viewed anti-Nazi partisan movements as potential allies and Churchill in particular had a romantic conviction that special operations could undermine the German sense of military superiority. In May 1943 the first British SOE operatives were parachuted into Yugoslavia to liaison with the communist partisans led by Tito and the Chetnik royalists. With the surrender of Italy in 1943 and the capture of Rome in 1944, the Allies were able to base planes at Bari and then later on the island of Vis, where they could directly supply the Yugoslav partisans.

Rescued US airmen

Contact was maintained with the British forces on the ground through wireless and Sugar phoneportable radios that weighed about 30 pounds. The British mission in Yugoslavia was large and diverse. Its main assignment was to support the activities of the partisans, many thousands of whom were evacuated to hospitals and then, after treatment, returned to combat. Many well-known public figures served in this SOE operation, among them Fitzroy Maclean, a former diplomat and member of parliament; Randolph Churchill, the prime minister’s son; and the novelist Evelyn Waugh.

OSS with Tito Partizans

According to one writer, “throughout the war, the delivery of 16,500 tons of supplies and the evacuation of 19,000 people by special duty aircraft to the Partisans made the difference between defeat and victory.” Overall, 8,000 sorties were flown into the country. When one considers that by the end of the war over 13,000 men and women had been engaged by the SOE in World War II, including many thousands in the Yugoslav operation, By the end of 1943, Anglo-American missions in Yugoslavia numbered 65 people working with Draja a Mihailovic a Chetnik royalist with the communist-led partisans. Partisan sources dating from the end of September 1944 that mention personnel from the English missions list 121 people, among them ten parachutists of Yishuv. However, only Sergeant Feigl (Dan Lšhner/Laner) is specifically labeled as a Palestinian.or perhaps because of they were a small proportion of the Allied special forces personnel inYuguslavia, the Yishuv parachutists get only two paragraphs in Heather Williams book on the SOE in Yugoslavia.

However, several non-Jewish soldiers from the OSS left accounts of the Jewish volunteers.

Franklin Lindsay recalled Bill Deakin radio operator: His real name was Peretz Rosenberg, and he was a sabra born in Palestine to German parents. His real objective was to find out whatever he could find out about the situation of the Jews in Yugoslavia. Thirty-one year old Deakin and Captain W. F. Stuart had parachuted into Yugoslavia in May of 1943 along with Peretz Rose (Rosenberg) in the first joint SOE-SIS (Secret Intelligence Service, the British foreign intelligence agency) mission to Tito.

Royal Marines and SOE with Tito Prtisans 1944

Sebastian Ritchie recorded similar stories. Israel many archives provide a wealth of primary documentation on the parachutists. Of particular importance are the Haganah Archive, Israel State Archives, Central Zionist Archivesand Israel Defense Forces Archive. But there are also several museums and local archives, suchas Sdot YamÕs Hannah Senesh House, devoted to the parachutists. There is one surviving member of the volunteer unit, Sara (Surika) Braverman of Kibbutz Shamir in northern Israel,whom we interviewed for this article.

BravermanÕs story, although she was not the most activeof the Jewish parachutists, led us to the Yugoslav sources. Nevertheless, the Yishuv paratroopers own writings remain by far the most importantsource for chronicling their time in Yugoslavia. These documents are, however, problematic, because (with four exceptions) the paratroopers did not speak the language of the partisans they worked with. They were not acquainted with the regions geography.

Neither did they obtain anyknowledge of the local people they met, and whom those people were fighting for or against. Atmost, they understood the general picture that there were partisan bands fighting the Nazis.Beyond this, the volunteers often remained ignorant of many aspects of the situation around them.

According to histories of the parachute effort, 240 men and women volunteered for themission.

Of these, 110 were trained, 37 were selected and 32 actually participated. The British provided the operatives with code names, such as Minnie for Szenes and Willis for AbbaBerdiczew (pronounced Berdichev). Most of the volunteers were in their mid-20s, with anaverage age of 28. The oldest was 44-year-old Aharon Ben-Yosef of Bulgaria and their youngest member was Peretz Goldstein, who was only 21. All had been born in Europe and almost half were Rumanian. Fourteen of them had obtained citizenship in the British Mandate of Palestine (although for reasons that are not clear,

few of the Romanians did).

Of the 32, almost two thirds were sent by MI9, the section of the British Military Intelligence charged with rescuing pilots who had gone down behind enemy lines.Most of the parachutists never carried out the missions they were assigned. Many of themwere captured quickly, while others spent much of their time attempting to reach theirdestinations. For instance, the five-man team assigned to infiltrate Slovakia spent weeks at Bari awaiting for a plane to take them to that country,, missing their target date. Many of the paratroopers were captured, tortured, and killed. The British could be quite cold about expressing regrets in such cases. A prime example is a letter about Peretz Goldsteinsent by a British official to Teddy Kollek, who was the Jewish Agencys liaison with the British.Ò have been instructed by Cairo to cease payments to Private Goldstein, the official informed Kollek. According to our latest information, he was arrested in July, 1944, deported to Germany and in December 1944 sent to forced labour in an aeroplane factory. The question of his present whereabouts is being pursued.

Rescued US airmen Tito partizans area

Photographs taken during their training in Palestine and Egypt show them at a rail depoton the way to Egypt or in a forest, wearing a lange uniforms and some in leather flight jacketsand the others in standard-issue desert khaki fatigues with berets. Seven volunteers were originally slated to jump into Yugoslavia, which had been occupied by the Germans, Italian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian forces in April of 1941. Todays Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and a part of Serbia were formed into the fascist IndependentState of Croatia run by the fanatical pro-Nazi Ustasa destroy its perceived enemies, i.e. Serbs, Jews, Roma, and antifascists.

Resistance movementsacross Yugoslavia emerged almost immediately primarily the Chetnik royalists and the communist Partisans led by Josip Broz Tito. Titos forces eventually dominated. By 1944 large parts of the country were liberated or semi-liberated.

The Allies invested a large effort to supportthese movements, originally in the framework of Winston Churchills call to set Europeablaze. Beginning in 1943, supplies were airlifted systematically from Italy to the antifascistforces. It was this organized operation, carried out in cooperation with two free armies withwhich the British had established close ties, that theoretically ensured an effective deployment ofJewish parachutists. Of the seven parachutists slated to operate in Yugoslavia, Reuven Dafni and Eli Zoharhad both been born in Zagreb. Shalom Finci came from the town of Kreka, near Sarajevo, and Nissim Arazi-Testa from Monastir (Bitola) in Macedonia, joined aswell. At least two of the others, Braverman and Yona Rozenfeld, had been born in Romania.

Five volunteers were to be sent to Slovakia, which in 1944 was in the throes of a revolt against the Nazis that would eventually take the lives of around 20,000 Germans and Slovakian rebels.Three Jewish volunteers were to be sent to Italy, two to Bulgaria, three to Hungary (Szenes,Goldstein and Yoel Palgi) and nine to Romania. Sergeant Peretz Rosenberg, who was among thefirst to be deployed, does not appear on the British list of 31 Yishuv parachutists and theirdestinations, probably because he was seconded as a radio operator to Deakins British mission(SOE/ISLD-SIS) headquarters.

The facts on the ground dictated, however, that the largest number of Palestine Paratroopers 14 would be sent into Yugoslavia, even if their ultimate destination whasother countries, such as Hungary.

Yugoslavia also seems to have been the safest destination. Of those sent directly to other countries,12 were captured and seven executed among them Szenes in Budapest; Haviva Reik ,Rafi Reiss, and Zvi Ben Yaakov at Kemnika massacre ,Abba Berdiczew in Mauthausen; Enzo Sereni in Dachau, and Peretz Goldstein, captured in Hungary and murdered at Oranienburg concentration camp. Not a single Palestine paratrooper was captured or killed while in Yugoslavia. Many of those who died became national heroes of the young Israeli nation after the war.

Enzo Sereni, was almost 40 when he died, had been born in Italy. Fleeing the rise of fascismin 1926, he came to Palestine and helped found Kibbutz Givat Brenner. He was parachuted intohis native Italy in May 1944, but landed near a German position and was immediately capturedand sent to Dachau, where he was killed on November 18, 1944. His wife, Ada, went to searchfor him after the war in Europe, sending home to Givat Brenner a cryptic note stating : Sorry the happy news completely false, Enzo was murdered in Dachau. Hannah Szenes parachuted into Yugoslavia in March 1944. She was captured while crossing the border into Hungary, where she was put on trial for treason and executed by firing squad in November of 1944. Zvi Ben-Yaakov. Rafi Reis, Abba Berdiczew, Haviva Reik, and Haim Hermesh awaited transport to Slovakia from Bari in southern Italy.

Conclusions

Our perusal of Yugoslav archival material, interviews, and field study have shed light onthe actions of the volunteer Yishuv parachutists sent by the British into Yugoslavia during WorldWar II. The mission, we show, was confused and often inconsistent in its stated goals and theaction taken to achieve them. It was chaotic and plagued by misunderstanding between the Jews,who found themselves sometimes in a foreign world among people who did not speak theirlanguage, and the Yugoslavian partisans, for whom foreign interests and missions, includingJewish ones, were not a high priority.

Nevertheless, they cared much more than the members ofthe Yishuv realized. While the parachutists complained of a lack of sufficient assistance from the partisans, in fact the Yugoslavian combatants did a great deal for them.I have attempted in my study to mellow some of the contradictory details regarding whether the European-born Palestinian Jews did or did not hide their identities and whether the Yugoslav partisans understood who they were. It appears from the sources that, although instructed to hide their identities, the cover stories they were given would easily have given them away.

Thus the attempt to hide their identities failed. However at the same time the Yugoslav partisans

seem to have known little about them or expressed much interest in their real identities.It is

important to understand that situation in which emissaries found themselves in Yugoslavia was unexpected and complex. They found themselves deployed along the main German retreat route from the Balkans. Failing to grasp complexity of the situation, they persisted in pursinggrand but nearly impossible goals, instead of smaller and achievable ones.

Left to right : Ziablodovsky,Rosenberg

Parachuted in Yugoslavia left to right : Rosenberg, Rosenfeld , Ziablodovsky

Partizans Hdq 1944

With partizans March 1944 ( Arazi front left , Rosenfeld second from right )

Peretz Rosenberg

Rosenberg joined the paratroopers' parachute training, and in May 1943 under a false identity ("Sergeant Rose")parachuted into the Zabljak area, in the Dormitory Mountains of Montenegro, as part of British commando and intelligence. Under the command of Captain Dean (FW Deakin) whose task was to join the partisan group under Tito's command. Rosenberg served as the wireless unit of the British unit and was the liaison officer from Tito Headquarters to British OSS Hdq inCairo. He coordinated the air dropping of explosives and more to the Tito partizans.

Due to his many good contacts , Rosenberg also helped Tito people maintain their communication equipment, thus creating a warm relationship between him and Tito's team.

In November 1943, as part of the partisan forces, Rosenberg was present at the second conference of the "Yugoslav Anti-Fascist Council for Liberation of Yugoslavia" (today in Bosnia and Herzegovina), in which the Council declared itself the supreme executive branch of Yugoslavia.

Immediately after the conference, Rosenberg, with several wounded partisans, embarked on a voyage back to the Adriatic coast, where they boarded a British torpedo ship that took them to Bar

in southern Italy, and from there in flight to Cairo, and then his seat, Nahalal.

At the beginning of the War of Independence, he served in the science department and assisted with Janke Ratner in various military developments, during which time Peretz was asked at Aaron Remez's request to assist in establishing a wireless connection in the air service, and his credit was credited without the malfunction of the Black 1 weapon plane

Yona Rosenfeld

He was born in Cluj, Romania. In his youth he joined the Zionist youth movement and was elected its leader at the age of 16.

In 1939 he made an alia to British Mandate Palestine, where he got on one of the illegal voyages with his wife. In Mandate Palestine, he became a member of the elite Palmach troops in 1942 and volunteered for a secret parachute mission in Europe.

After completing special training, he jumped on March 14, 1944, over Yugoslavia, along with Hana Senesova, Abu Berdichev and Re'uven Dafni. Then they were to go to Hungary. However, Rozen failed to do so and returned to Egypt and then to Palestine. At the end of the Second World War he went to Hungary to help organize a belly (secret passage of Holocaust survivors to Mandate Palestine).

Dafni Reuven
Reuven Daphne was born in 1913 in Zagreb, Austria, called "Ruben Kandt." When he was 14, the family moved to Vienna, Austria, where he was first exposed to anti-Semitism and his affiliation with Zionism became stronger. He began attending a Jewish school, and learned Hebrew in order to immigrate to Israel and settle there. In 1936 he immigrated to Israel alone and was one of the founders of Kibbutz Ein Gev. Daphne enlisted in the British Army in 1940, serving in the RAF. On March 15, 1944, he was parachuted into northern Yugoslavia as part of a first group of four Jewish paratroopers: Reuven Daphne, Hannah Szenes, Yona Rosen and Abba Berdichev.

A month later, Joel Pelagi and Peretz Goldstein were also joined. The delegation was tasked with arranging the transfer of envoys to Romania and Hungary, and Reuven Daphne was tasked with "staying in Yugoslavia and serving as a point of contact between the outgoing members of those countries and the headquarters in Bari and Cairo, and to operate in Yugoslav territory." Shortly before leaving across the Hungarian border, Hannah delivered to Reuben the song of the match, with a request that if she did not return, the song would be handed over to friends in the sea. On New Year's Eve 1944 Reuben Daphne parachuted for the second time to Yugoslavia and on October 13 left Yugoslavia completely. In March 1945 Daphne was discharged from his military service.

Dafni Egypt 1944 ( 2nd left back raw )

Dafni and Tito's partizans

Dafini with French Maj.Adami , Yugoslavia 1944

Dafni and Hermes sometime in 1945 ,Yugoslavia

Rehavam Amir Ziablodovsky

The course must, at the same time, receive additional training for departure. Among other things, he also participated in a parachute course, designed for agents who volunteered to drop behind enemy lines, run by the British ISLD (Inter Service Liason Department).

After delays in the execution of the mission plan, in October 1943, about a month after his marriage, the order was issued and Amir boarded a ship from Alexandria to Bari, Italy. In Italy, he contacted the commanders of Eretz Israel camps in the city of Salerno, on the border of the Allied territory, and transferred them a sum of money from the Jewish Agency. He then returned to Bari, and from there on a torpedo boat arrived at Vis Island (VIS), which was controlled by Tito’s partisans. The mission of the island was to join the ISLD representative on the spot, and establish direct contact with the headquarters in Bari. During his stay on the island, he contacted various forces that passed through him, including with Israeli volunteers. He also met Jewish refugees who were smuggled into the island by partisans. These refugees conveyed the news of soldiers from Israel in Europe, and of the refugee camps set up in liberated southern Italy, and which were handled by Israeli soldiers.

On Passover 1944, Amir returned to Bari for his departure on the original mission, where he was also appointed a lieutenant . On the night of May 12-13, 1944 he was dropped in an area controlled by partisans Ljubljana, Slovenia. His mission there included: Tracing of a British mission that parachuted into the area and contact was lost with ; Dealing with the refinement of methods of linking partisan headquarters, and training partisans with communication and encryption methods;

Having direct wireless contact with the SOE headquarters in Bari.. He spent several months in the area, after which he flew back to Bari for three weeks, and returned to the area with supplies and new equipment. In late 1944, after 3 missions across enemy lines, Amir returned to his homeland in Israel.

Showing a W/T to Yugo Partizans 1944

Eli Zohar

Passover Haggadah that was used by Jewish soldiers on 8 April 1944, at a Seder on a British base for soldiers from Eretz Israel in Bari, Italy

On the inside cover are the signatures of five paratroopers from the Yishuv: Rehabeam Zabludovksy-Amir, Yaaqov Shapira, Shalom Finzi, Eli Zohar and Peretz Rozenberg-Vardimon. In addition, there are signatures of Jewish soldiers in the Allied Forces, a Jewish member of the Italian underground and others In addition, there are signatures of Jewish soldiers in the US Armed Forces and Jewish members of the Italian underground

In contrast to these accounts is the case of Eli Zohar. Zohar, born Mirko Leventhal inZagreb, was one of the parachutistsÕ only members to come from Yugoslavia and speak thelanguage of the partisans. Ivan Sibl was a political commissar of the Tenth Corps. (Reuven Dafni) accused Sibl of being the main reason for the prolonged stay of the volunteers among the partisans, which hindered their mission. Dafni thought that Sibl was a half-Jew. Zohar offers a humorous anecdote, another one involving an amateurish cover story. He relates that he was introduced to Sibl as Eli Joel, Sergeant only to find himself greeted in Serbo-Croatian by Sibl who told him you are not Eli Joel, you are Mirko Leventhal, my friend from high school. But,on the same occasion, Sibl met Hanna Senesz and, in his diary, described her as British.

Later on a group of ten Jewish refugees from Hungary came to the partisans, fleeing fromthe Germans. Among them were three young women whom Eli Zohar apparently knew from before the war. He asked to see them and was allowed, in the presence of the officers of OZNA.(OZNA was the Department for the Protection of the People, in fact a Partisan security service. It was established on May 13, 1944, meaning that this encounter occurred after that date.)

Zohar questioned the refugees in the presence of the partisans. He seems to have met one of the girls a few more times following that encounter. According to Dr. Rua Blau Franceti , all three of the girls were later arrested by the partisans and executed as British spies. This story includes one issue that may shed light on its veracity.

The relationship between the British and partisans worsened in the fall of 1944 and the British missions were under suspicion that only grew with time and another related issue. Since the counter-intelligence work of these partisan units was under the control of the intelligence officer of Tenth Corps who is believed to have been a German/Ustae spy, it may be that he used this as an excuse simply to get rid of Jews and to deepen themisunderstanding between the British and partisans. This facts of this horrendous betrayal require further study-

Nissim Arazi (Testa )

Nissim was born in the town of Bitola, in the state of Macedonia in Yugoslavia, on August 20, 1717. His parents Sol and Moshe Testa. In his youth, he was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and the founding members of the movement's city of Bitola. After graduating from the gymnasium, he enlisted in the artillery corps in the Yugoslav army, and upon his release joined training on an agricultural farm in preparation for kibbutz life. In 1939, when he was 22, he immigrated to Eretz Israel, thus surviving the Holocaust in Europe. His older sister and younger brother perished in the Holocaust.

Nissim Arazi immigrated to Israel as an illegal immigrant, managed to sneak through the British Army Guards and joined Kibbutz Sha'ar Ha'emakim where he was a wagoner and worked in agriculture. In 1943, he enlisted in the British army and volunteered to serve in the parish unit of the Jewish community trained by the English to parachute in Europe beyond the Nazi enemy lines in the hope of rescuing British prisoners and pilots who abandoned their aircraft during the war.

Nissim took a parachute course at the RAF Ramat David, and a wireless and liaison course at Kibbutz Ramat Hakovesh. To complete his training, he was sent to Cairo where he was given a pseudonym: Isaac Arazi. Upon the establishment of the state he adopted this name for his official surname. Parachuted into Yugoslavia in the spring of 1944 and broke his leg while parachuting, despite his injuries he joined the partisans and fought with them for 3 months with a legged leg mounted on a white horse. While fighting he sent broadcasts to the British and helped them in their war against the Nazis. In the area where Yugoslavia operated, no Jews were found who had to be rescued. The few Jews remaining in the area may not have dared to identify themselves as Jews.

Dan Lanner

Was born in Austria ,parachuted in 1944 in Yugoslavia on purpose to enter Austria ,and fought through the war with Tito partizans , after the war joined the Israeli Armed Forces and ended up as General .

נולד באוסטריה בשם ארנסט לינר, היה חבר בארגון הנוער הציוני בלאו וייס. בשנת 1938, לאחר סיפוח אוסטריה על ידי גרמניה הנאצית נמלט מהמדינה. בשנת 1940 עלה לארץ ישראל, ונמנה עם מקימי קיבוץ נאות מרדכי. בשנת 1941 התנדב לפלמ"ח וגויס למחלקה הגרמנית, שהתאמנה לפעולות מאחורי קווי האויב. בשנת 1944 הוצנח על ידי הבריטים ביוגוסלביה, שם לחם בשורות הפרטיזנים של טיטו. לאחר תום מלחמת העולם השנייה חזר לארץ ישראל. בשנת 1946 עבר קורס מפקדי מחלקות של הפלמ"ח. בהמשך מונה למפקד הגדוד הראשון של הפלמ"ח

Shalom Fintschi + (1954)

Born in: Karaka, Bosnia Herzegovina

On: 12/03/1916

Army service: United Kingdom SOE

Position: Paratrooper

Died in memorial disaster Kibutz Maagan 1954

He was born in Kreka, Bosnia, March 12, 1916. At an early age he joined the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement in Yugoslavia. He studied the profession of jesting at the request of the movement, and was a member of the movement's chief leadership in Yugoslavia. Joined the Yugoslav Army, and after his release, underwent training at the Hashomer Hatzair agricultural farm prior to immigrating to Israel.

In 1939, illegal immigration rose independently. He joined the training in Kibbutz Sarid, and worked in paving the road to Bisan (later Beit She'an) and other roads in southern Israel.

In 1941, he volunteered for the Palmach, passed a commander's cum laude course, and, thanks to his occupying personality, recruited many to the Palmach ranks.

In 1942, he and two other friends, Dov Glazer and Moshe Sela, set out to plow the lands of the Kibbutz designated Gat's existing foundation, near the Arab village of Iraq al-Manshiya, and formed friendships and mutual respect with the Arab community. After three months, the rest of the kibbutz joined a permanent settlement, after a long stay of several years of training and waiting in Kfar Saba.

On February 6, 1943, he volunteered SOE Palestine - parachuting beyond enemy lines, with the intention of the Jewish community to help save the Jews of Europe occupied by the Nazis. He was chosen from among hundreds of volunteers for the paratrooper group of the Jewish Yishv, numbering 37 men and women recruited into the British Intelligence Corps. The Brit SOE assigned him and his friends to act as informants in the occupied countries: to report on what was happening in real time through a wireless device they had, to report and rescue allied pilots whose aircraft were dropped in those countries. For this purpose he was trained in operating a wireless device and gathering information in enemy territory. His cover name was Beno Pink.

He gone through parachute training in RAF Ramat David and RAF Fayida Egypt and then (Carthage), Tunisia. There he was on standby for the Yugoslavian missions which were repeatedly cancelled due presonal security reasons. Fintschi was transferred, along with the group of Palestine paratroopers to the city of Bari and the island of Vis, near Croatia, which which was freed from the German occupation. Island of Vis served also as an emergency base for 15th Air Force planes returning from missions over Germany , Austria , Romania and Bulgaria.

In July 1944, after about a year and a half of training and waiting, he parachuted into Mikleuš in Croatia, and from there he walked 150 km through areas controlled by the Germans, to the village of Vučani in the Moslabina region of Croatia, where he joined the partisans. At some point he also joined the SOE Capt.Maurice Sutcliffe's team which included also Abba Berditchev.

First, kneeling from left , Croatia 1944 along with Capt.Sutcliff and Berditschev

In the Moslava region, the partisans move between the mountains and the villages, fighting and evading the Germans. Participated in battles, and radioed details to what was happening to SOE Cairo. He met American pilots whose aircraft were hit by the Germans AA, and luckily parachuted into territories that were then under the control of partisans.

First right kneeling with Capt.Sutcliffe's team

On March 27, 1945, before the end of the war, when news of the rapidly advancing Red Army and the retreating Germans arrived, he left with the commander of the British mission in Croatia Capt.Sutcliff on a plane carrying wounded to Italy, terminated his service in the British army and returned to Kibbutz Gat.

Upon his return, the kibbutz was chosen "to Mukhtar" who maintained contacts with the surrounding Arab villages. In 1946, he married Zehava Kuhn, a refugee from Croatia, who was rescued on the Kastner lifeboat that arrived in Switzerland, and from there immigrated to Israel, joining her friends from the movement who were on Kibbutz Gat.

On November 11, 1948, as commander of the kibbutz, he hosted the southern front commander of Yigal Alon during his historic meeting with Gamal Abdel Nasser, later Egypt's president, in negotiating a ceasefire agreement with the Egyptian army in the Fallujah pocket near Kibbutz Gat.

In 1950, he and his family set out on a mission in France to La Roche near the city of Lyon, to a farm intended for the absorption of youth from North Africa and their training for work and settlement in Israel.

On July 29, 1954, he along with his other ex SOE friends was killed in the Maagan disaster, at a memorial ceremony for the paratroopers held on the shores of the Sea of Galilee in Kibbutz Maagan, when a Piper Cab which spread greetings on the occasion, crashed into the crowd.

OSS / OSE Aid to the Chetniks

The British recognized the Yugoslav government-in-exile and were anxious to help the Cetniks, but could not provide more than token support. The Special Operations Executive (SOE), charged with encouraging resistance throughout Europe, had only four B-24s earmarked for supply operations in Yugoslavia and Greece. Between March 1942 and January 1943, these aircraft flew twenty-five sorties, mainly to Greece.

Adding fourteen Halifax bombers to the SOE's air fleet in February and March 1943 permitted more support for the Yugoslavian resistance. By midyear, the aircraft of 108 Squadron, based in Tocra, Libya, had dropped some twentythree tons of materiel to the Cetniks. Meanwhile the British grew impatient with reports of fighting between the Cetniks and Partisans and with the lack of Cetnik action against the Germans. In May Prime Minister Winston Churchill decided to send a mission to the Partisans in order to gather reliable information about their effectiveness. F. W. D. Deakin, leader of the mission to Tito, arrived in the midst of a major Nazi offensive, Operation SCHWARZ. He shared the Partisans' hardships as they struggled to evade the powerful attack and came to admire their courage.

Soon British communications intercepts (ULTRA) confirmed Deakin's impression that the Partisans were doing the bulk of the fighting in Yugoslavia. Operation SCHWARZ, the Germans reported in coded Enigma messages, had left 5,697 Partisans killed but caused only 15 casualties among the Cetniks. This information prompted the British to begin airdrops to the Partisans on June 25, 1943. That summer Churchill ordered a high-level representative sent to Tito. "What we want," he wrote, "is a daring Ambassador-leader with these hardy and hunted guerrillas."

On September 19, Brigadier Fitzroy Maclean--"a man of daring character"-parachuted into Tito's headquarters in western Bosnia. Maclean arrived less than two weeks after Italy had surrendered to the Allies. At first, the Partisans gained substantial territory and a good deal of military equipment from the defeated Italians.

But the Germans responded with a series of offensives that regained much of the lost territory, especially along the Adriatic coast. Partisan control of the coast 6 between October and December 1943, however, enabled the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)-the American counterpart of the SOE-to ship more than 6,000 tons of supplies across the Adriatic, from Bari, Italy, to the island of Vis off Yugoslavia's Dalmatian coast, and to return with several thousand sick and wounded Partisans. Although short-lived, it was an impressive supply operation, especially when compared to the limitations of aerial resupply.

OSS officers consult with Cetnik leader Mihailovic

Capt.Lalich (mid) Jiblian and Carpanter OSS

During this three-month period, only 125 tons of supplies were air-dropped to Partisans and Cetniks. Meanwhile, British disillusionment with the Cetniks deepened. Brigadier Maclean thought that the time had come for the Allies to shift all support to the Partisans. '"e were getting . . . little or no return militarily from the arms we dropped to the Cetniks," he observed, "which had hitherto exceeded in quantity those sent to the Partisans."

In fact, arms delivered to the Cetniks were more likely to be used against the Partisans than against the Germans. "On purely military grounds," Maclean concluded, "we should stop supplies to the Cetniks and henceforth send all available arms and equipment to the Partisans." This shift in Allied policy was confirmed at the Teheran Conference.

A secret "military conclusion," initialled on December 1, 1943, called for support of the Partisans with supplies and equipment "to the greatest extent possible." Also, shortly after the first of the year, the British ordered their liaison officers to cease contact with Mihailovic's forces. "We have proclaimed ourselves supporters of Marshal Tito," Churchill told the House of Commons, "because of his massive struggle against the German armies.

The Army Air Forces Behind Nazi Lines

Throughout 1943, the British conducted aerial resupply of Yugoslav, Albanian, and Greek resistance groups. In January 1944, however, Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker decided that Americans should "get some credit in delivering knives, guns, and explosives to the Balkan patriots with which to kill Germans." The wishes of the newly appointed commander of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces led to the assignment of two troop carrier squadrons from Twelfth Air Force to the Balkans supply effort. On February 9, the 7th and 51st Troop Carrier Squadrons of the 62d Troop Carrier Group were placed on detached service with the 334 Wing of the RoyalAir Force (RAF).

These Army Air Forces (AAF) squadrons, with an authorized strength of 24 aircraft,arrived at Brindisi on the southeastern coast of Italy on February 12. "Brindisi is a quiet town," observed a member of the 7th, "with one treelined main stem." There were many British soldiers and airmen in town, but few Americans. Two cinemas offered entertainment, along with service clubs that featured

tea, biscuits, and sandwiches. Evenings were a bit livelier: the airmen could drink the local wine while listening to Italian bands.

As it turned out, there was ample time for leisure activities because the weather caused numerous sorties to be canceled. The story of the 7th Troop Carrier Squadron was typical. The squadron's pilots and navigators flew for three days with RAF crews for familiarization. On the afternoon of February 16 operations orders came down from Group: four C-47s would drop on targets in Yugoslavia codenamed STEPMOTHER and STABLES. The designated pilots and navigators studied detailed maps and located the drop zones. At 1930

hours, the crews were briefed on the mission by British officers. RAF navigators would fly with their American counterparts to assist in locating the targets. The four C-47s were loaded with their cargo, and the crews were tense with excitement. At 2145 hours, however, Group informed the flyers that the mission had been canceled because of poor weather conditions. "Everybody was plenty browned off," commented one squadron member.

Unfortunately, the weather failed to improve. Missions were scheduled, aircraft loaded, and crews briefed, but cancellation followed cancellation. "We've been here at Brindisi just about two weeks now," lamented one airman on February 23, "and have yet to complete a tactical mission." The next day the situation changed, when two C-47s dropped 4,496 pounds of propaganda leaflets (called "nickels") over Balkan Area Served by AAF.

With all the preparation, the leaflet drop seemed anticlimactic, as it was only necessary to find the country, not pinpoint a drop zone. Late in the month, 7th Squadron received orders to infiltrate a group of American meteorologists and equipment into Yugoslavia. The AAF wanted better weather data both to assist bombing operations by the Fifteenth Air Force against enemy targets in Central and Eastern Europe and to improve the efficiency of resupply efforts in the Balkans.

Soon after the Teheran Conference, OSS recruiters went to Cairo to interview meteorologists from the 19th Weather Squadron. Six officers and fifteen enlisted men volunteered for the hazardous duty and were given nine days of jump training at the British parachute school at Ramat David, Palestine.

Operation BUNGHOLE

Codename for the first insertions,got underway on February 23. Two C-47s, piloted by 7th

Squadron Commander Maj. Paul A. Jones and Capt. John A. sixty miles to the north, where they prepared to drop two three-man weather teams into western Bosnia. Having waited for a break in the cloud cover over the target area,they left Bari at 1115 hours on the 27th and crossed the Adriatic with an escort of twenty-four P-47s. The pilots made landfall on the Dalmatian coast, just south of Mibenic, then proceeded inland. Flying through heavy snowstorms, they soon reached the area of the drop zone, northeast of the town of Prekaja and close to Tito's headquarters at Drvar. Captain Walker

could not locate the target due to the heavy cloud cover and returned to Bari.

Major Jones, however, managed to let down through the overcast. Breaking out at 3,000 feet, he spotted eleven signal fires in the shape of a "V"-the required recognition signal. Jones then made four circling passes, dropping the meteorologists and their equipment. Landing safely in the snow, the weather team--consisting of Capt. Cecil E. Drew (forecaster),Sgt. Joseph J. Conaty, Jr. (observer), and a radio operatormade contact with local Partisans and were escorted to Drvar, where they would be attached to OSS mission CALIFORNIA. Soon the team began taking four observations a day, which were coded by means of two cipher pads and transmit10 ted to Bari. The OSS later deployed six more meteorological teams to the west and northwest of Drvar.

Also in late February, the 51st Squadron conducted Operation MANHOLE, a special mission to transport Russian military representatives to Yugoslavia. Air staff planners at 334 Wing ruled out an airdrop or landing on the newly opened but snow-covered strip at Medeno Polje, ten miles north of Drvar in western Bosnia. Instead, they launched a daytime glider mission. At 0945 hours on the 23d, three C-47s from. the 51st departed Bari, each with a Waco CG-4A glider in tow. Escorted by thirty-six fighters, the transports proceeded to the reception area at Medeno Polje.

Despite near-zero visibility, the gliders-and their cargo of twenty-three Russians and six British officers-landed safely. The three C-47s then successfully dropped 10,500 pounds of supplies for the mission. AAF resupply operations began in earnest in early March 1944. Every night C-47s flew missions to Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece, dropping supplies,leaflets, and people (known as "Joes"). Returning to Brindisi after a long night,the aircrews received "a good hooker" of straight rye whiskey,were debriefed by intelligence officers, then were served a breakfast that often featured fresh eggs, a wartime rarity.

During six weeks of detached service with 334 Wing in February and March 1944, the two squadrons of the 62d Troop Carrier Group completed eighty-two sorties and dropped 374,400 pounds of supplies to resistance groups in the Balkans. "We delivered the goods," summarized the 7th Squadron's historian, "at the right place, on time, to the right people, well behind Nazi lines of defense.

Rescuing Downed Airmen

"Operation Halyard "

Evacuation of downed Allied airmen became a priority for the 60th Group during the summer of 1944. In May, the Fifteenth Air Force began a major bombing campaign against the Ploesti oil field in Romania-the source of more than onequarter of Germany's petroleum.

By August, 350 bombers had been lost. Many of the crews survived: some came down in Partisan-held territory, while others found refuge in Serbia with General Mihailovic's Cetniks. 28 OSS officers already had secured Marshal Tito's cooperation to retrieve downed airmen. In January Maj. Linn M. Farish and Lt. Eli Popovich had parachuted into Partisan

headquarters at Drvar to arrange assistance in rescuing American flyers. Following a meeting with Tito on January 23, orders went out to all Partisan units to do everything possible to locate downed airmen and conduct them safely to the nearest Allied liaison officer. Popovich, an engineer, then supervised the construction of an airstrip at Medeno Polje, north of Drvar.

In mid-April, Farish and Popovich parachuted into Macedonia, landing near Vranje (north of Kumanovo), close to the Bulgarian border. They had a threefold mission: to arm and supply Partisan units, to report German troop movements,and to evacuate Allied airmen. Having secured the cooperation of the local Partisan leader, who turned over to them

four airmen who had been sheltered in the area since the first Ploesti raid in August 1943, the two OSS officers made their way north to contact Petar Stambolic, commander of Partisan forces in Serbia. With the enemy in pursuit, the journey took two weeks. Stambolic immediately pledged his support.

On the night of June 16, after much hardship, Farish and Popovich evacuated thirteen American flyers from an airstrip in the Jastrebac Mountains, north of Prokuplje. While operations in Partisan-held territory were hampered only by the enemy, efforts to retrieve aircrews from Cetnikcontrolled areas ran afoul of the tangled web of Balkan politics. The British, who considered that part of the world within their sphere of interest, had shifted their support to Tito and were determined to sever all ties with Mihailovic lest they offend the Communist leader.

American attempts to maintain contact with the Cetniks had been rebuffed by London. Nonetheless, Maj. Gen. Nathan F. Twining, Commander of the Fifteenth Air Force, was determined to rescue his downed airmen. On July 24, 1944, thanks to the efforts of Twining and several OSS officers, General Eaker directed the Fifteenth Air Force to establish an Air Crew Rescue Unit (ACRU). This independent organization of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, attached to the Fifteenth Air Force, would be responsible for locating and evacuating Allied airmen throughout the Balkans. Having neither an "intelli29 gence" nor a "liaison" function, it softened British objections about contacts with the Cetniks.

Donald Smith(right ) 451st BG with a Chetnik, June 1944

Selected to head the ACRU was Col. George Kraigher of the AAF Transport Command. This proved an inspired choice. Kraigher had flown for the Serbian Air Force in World War I. As operations manger for the Brownsville (Texas) Division of Pan American Airways in the 1930s, he pioneered instrument flying on the Brownsville-Mexico City route. Transferred to the new Pan American Airways-Africa Project in 1941, Kraigher played a key role in developing the air route from Miami to the Middle East, via Brazil and West Africa. When this route was turned over to the military in 1942, he accepted a commission in the AAF. Taking over the rescue unit, Kraigher immediately formed two parties. One would work with Tito's Partisans; the other would go to Mihailovic's Cetniks. George S. Musulin, an OSS officer who had led a liaison mission to Mihailovic and one of the foremost advocates of maintaining contact with the Cetnik leader, was named commander of ACRU #1 (known to the OSS as the HALYARD Mission).

OSS Col.Kraigher

OSS Col.Kraigher(left) airlifting US airmen , Bucharest , Aug.1944

On the evening of August 2/3, 1944, after several abortive attempts, Musulin and two enlisted men parachuted into Mihailovic's headquarters at Pranjane, fifty-five miles south of Belgrade. Musulin learned that some 250 Allied airmen awaited evacuation. As nearby German garrisons no doubt would soon learn about his mission, the OSS officer realized he had little time to waste.

Unfortunately, the only available airstrip was on a narrow plateau on the side of a mountain, and it was far too short for C-47 operations. Using 300 workmen and sixty ox carts, the Cetniks managed to lengthen and widen the dirt strip to 1,800 by 150 feet. Though the airstrip was still marginal, there was no choice but to attempt the evacuation.Six C-47s from the 60th Troop Carrier Group left Italy on the evening of August 9. Two planes turned back with engine trouble, but four managed to land on the tiny strip. Restricted to twelve evacuees per aircraft, the group departed around midnight, carrying out the first forty-eight airmen.

OSS Capt Nick Lalich (center )

The War Diary of the 10th Troop Carrier Squadron rightly termed the operation "extremely hazardous"-one that called for "the utmost in flying skill and teamwork." 30 Just after dawn, six more C-47s arrived, with an escort of twenty-five P-51s. While the fighters attacked targets in the local area to give the impression that a normal air strike was in progress, the transports landed, picked up another group of joyful evacuees, and departed. An hour later, a second wave of six C-47s and fighters showed up and repeated the process. In all, the morning's work brought out 177 American airmen, plus a few other Allied personnel. A delighted Colonel Kraigher seemed to be "floating around in the air four feet above the ground." Three more missions were flown to Pranjane, two in August and one in September 1944, retrieving another 75 American airmen.

September also marked the beginning of a major Partisan offensive against the Cetniks. This forced the Air Crew Rescue Unit to locate a new landing site to evacuate airmen who continued to fall into the hands of Mihailovic's hard-pressed followers. The experience of Sgt. Curtis Diles, a B-24 nose gunner of the 455th Bomb Group, was typical of many during this period. On September 8, just after a bombing run on a bridge north of Belgrade, an antiaircraft shell exploded under the flight deck and severed the B-24's control cables.

Nine crew members managed to bail out: one man was immediately captured by the Germans, and Cetniks picked up another whose knees were full of shell fragments and took him to a hidden hospital. Sergeant Diles and three others landed close together and were welcomed by local Cetniks "with open arms." Three days later they were joined by three more of their crew members. The group then traveled together until they reached an emergency landing area at Kocevljevo on September 17.

Gen.D.Mihalovic

Along the way, Diles became impressed with his treatment by the Cetniks. He even had the opportunity to speak (through an interpreter) with General Mihailovic. The Cetnik leader seemed to be a humble, honest man, genuinely concerned about his people. One could tell by the tone of his voice, Diles recalled, that he spoke with conviction. On the afternoon of the 17th, two C-47s arrived to pick up Diles, his six fellow crew members, and thirteen other downed airmen.

The tiny emergency strip, located on a meadow, had a downhill slope that ended in a stand of trees. Happily, both aircraft managed to land safely, and Sergeant Diles and his companions were soon on their way to Italy. The last HALYARD mission took place on December 27. Two C-47s, one piloted by Colonel Kraigher and the other by 1st Lt. John L. Dunn, left Italy at 1100 hours. Escorted by sixteen P-38s, they reached an emergency landing field at Bunar at 1255 hours.

Spotting a hole in the overcast, Kaigher led the way to land on a 1,700-foot strip that was frozen just enough to support the weight of a C-47. The airmen were met by Capt. Nick Lalich, an OSS officer who had replaced Musulin as head of the HALYARD mission in August. The transports were quickly loaded with twenty American airmen, one U.S. citizen, two Yugoslavian officers, four French army and four Italian army personnel, and two remaining HALYARD team members. The aircraft took off at 1315 hours, marking the end of an extraordinarily successful project: between August 9 and December 27, a total of 417 personnel had been flown out of Serbia, including 343 American airmen.