Operation HALYARD

Operation HALYARD

History

By August 1944 with numerous allied raids against Ploesti oil fields in Romania (operation Tidal Wave) taking off from Italy across Yugoslavia, that is for the most part over Serbia, ever larger group of downed airmen was rescued by royalist Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland often refereed to as Chetniks of DraÅ¾a MihaloviÄ‡.

At that time MihailoviÄ‡ troops were fully engaged in battle with communist Yugoslav Partisans often in cooperation with Germans in Montenegro (operations RÃœBEZAHL and DRAUFGÃ„NGER) and in southern Serbia (KAMMERJÃ„GER and TRUMPF). Partisans were under orders by Tito to breakthrough into Serbia in order to link up with Soviet army advancing through Romania. MihailoviÄ‡ key field commanders LukaÄeviÄ‡, JovanoviÄ‡, ÄŒaÄiÄ‡ and SimiÄ‡ already signed truces with Germans who become their sole supplier of weapons and ammunition since allied aid was completely cut off from Chetniks several months earlier and everything including close air support being redirected to support Partisans. By 9 September Partisans would defeat main Chetnik formation 4th Group of Flying Corps at Jelova Gora south west of UÅ¾ice and nearly captured MihailoviÄ‡ two days later forcing him to start his withdrawal to Bosnia. Final blow to MihaloviÄ‡ would come on 13 September with King Peter calling over BBC all Serbs, Croats and Slovens to join Tito targeting directly quisling formations but indirectly Chetniks as well.

Under these conditions it would be impossible to move safely such large number of men south through the front line which would mean also handing them over to the Partisans for escort to the sea from where they could be transferred to Italy via by now regular supply routes used by airmen rescued by Partisans (over a thousand during the war). This was also last barging chip or card to play for MihailoviÄ‡ if he wanted to get back on the wining side before his isolated force was completely destroyed.

Mission

Lieutenant George Musulin was parachuted on the night of 2 August followed by Lt. Nick Lalich on 9 August and on the following night 16 C-47's evacuated allied airmen from improvised airfield near Pranjani. Chetnik commander in charge was Zvonimir VuÄkoviÄ‡.

During next three months 3 more airlifts were organized in north west Serbia and northern part of central Bosnia, last one from filed at BoljaniÄ‡ village near Doboj on 27 December on which Lalich also left.

According to Lalich report from 10 January 1945 total of 417 airmen were rescued out of which 343 Americans.

Some times referred to as Operation Air Bridge.

Post war

After the war operation faded in obscurity with MihailoviÄ‡ being sentenced to death for war crimes, treason and collaboration and new communist Yugoslavia becoming US ally after split between Tito and Stalin.

Legion of Merit was posthumously awarded to MihailoviÄ‡ by president Harry S. Truman due to the efforts of Major Richard L. Felman and his friends on the recommendation of General Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was presented to MihailoviÄ‡'s daughter Gordana on May 9, 2005.

Operation become one of the favorite topics for Chetnik revisionist in their attempts to exonerate Chetniks especially after breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991 with SOE Cairo operative James Klugmann becoming main scapegoat for writing "false pro-communist" reports to Churchill and accusing MihailoviÄ‡ of collaboration. In fact it was the other way around, Klugmann was writing his reports based on few information he was receiving indirectly from code breakers at Bletchley Park while Churchill and only few other individuals had the privilege of reading decrypted Axis messages in full and SOE reports were simply used to hide real source of intelligence.

Reference

Tomasevich, Jozo: The Chetniks: War and Revolution in Yugoslavia, 1941-1945