AMERICAN AIRMEN RESCUED IN
CROATIAN AND BOSNIAN
PARTISANS IN
WORLD WAR II
BY
ADAM S. ETEROVICH
KOREAN WAR VETERAN
VOLUNTEER 4 YEARS
1996
After World War II the Department of the Air Force made public top
secret files pertaining to American military air operations in and over wartime
Austria, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. Many American bombing missions were
to Romanian oil fields and refineries. Losses were extremely heavy.
Air Force archives reveal a total of approximately 2400 American Air
Force crewmen rescued in
Slovene Partisans claim up to 700 American crewmen rescued from Slovene
territory. There is no documentation of Partisan airfields located in
Serbian Chetnik Royalist and Fascists forces rescued approximately 500
American airmen. This figure is valid and documented. The commentary of
American Air Force Intelligence in this study is interesting and revealing.
Croatian, Bosnian and
Hercegovinan Partisan rescue of American crewmen would be at least 1600 out of
2400 rescued based on available documentation.
Many Croatians lost their lives and families, homes and farms in
assisting American crewmen; there is no other country in Occupied Europe that
can claim air rescues of American crewmen in the numbers rescued by Croatians.
The US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was created during WWII and
later became the CIA.
I had the opportunity to meet three individuals who served in the
It would be interesting to know how many were recruited within the
Croatian and Slovene American community. I am certain this information is
available but buried in Air Force or OSS Archives.
By 1942-1943 at least one third of
Croatian, Bosnian and Hercegovinan Partisans held down up to 12 German,
Italian and other Fascist divisions in
There was no other liberated territory in
Archives and reports are stored at Maxwell Airforce Base and at the
Office of Airforce History in
I have started a computer list of American crewmen rescued in
The following includes Personal
Accounts, Air Force Commentary, New York Times Newspaper Reports and Air Force
Bibliography:
PERSONAL ACCOUNT
A letter written to Tony Bazdarich of
My dear brother:
As agreed when you were last in Zadar. I am sending you a description ot
what happened on the occasion when that American pilot was saved:
In 1943, in the night between December 22 and 23, a young Amencan pilot
took off from the American air base either in
Since this area was controlled by the Germans and the Serbian Chetniks
from Smokovic, heavy fighting erupted between the Chetniks and Germans on one
side, and partizans on the other. Partizan forces, led by the veteran
resistance flghter from Knin Ive Zivkovic, well known at the time, who was then
commander for the territory of Northern Dalmatia, succeeded to get to the
American pilot first and save him, and thru their connections to bring him to
Novigrad to safety with a Croatian family, headed bv Joso Radosevic, that the
partizans knew they could trust.
The pilot was an experienced man, so he had stayed under his plane while
the fighting had gone on, and then was happy when Croatian partizans saved him.
In the Radosevic household he was well received, and was offered whatever was
available in the house in those days of war and food shortage. He liked bread
and milk best of all. There he remained hidden all through the Christmas
holidays, because the Germans had Novigrad under their control at the time, and
he had to be protected with all due secrecy.
In the night of December 28, 1943, this pilot was to be taken to the
I want to stress that this pilot did not wish to give us his name or
address in the
As an epilogue to all this, it is important to stress that commander
Zivkovic, who saved the pilot, was a staunch Croatian, and that the units that
took part in this action were the mostly Croatian units that were operating in
this area.
There, dear brother, I have described to you everything that happened on
that occasion and I would like you to make this report known as best you can,
stressing especially the significance of Croatian units, in order to counter
the claims of the Serbian Chetnik lobby that they were the only ones who were
saving American pilots.
I and my Ankica are as usual, we are waiting all the time to return to
our Novigrad for good, and I think that it won't be long now.
Greetings and love from your brother,
Milivoj
PERSONAL ACCOUNT
I as a veteran of World War II and a Life Member of the D.A.V. Your name
and address was given to me recently by my good friend and fellow war buddy
Doid Raab. We both served in the ETO with the 450th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force,
based in
While on a bombing mission to
Weary, tired and a hungry bunch of aviators, we stopped at a British
Mission in the town of Petrovac, the C.O. was a Britlsh Major Rogers who was
later replaced by a British Major Satow sent down from Drvar. We stayed there
-(I have a separate story too tell about this at a later time).
How does one adequately show their sincere appreciation or how to thank
those most courageous people - the partisans. I sure would like to try if at
all possible.
Perhaps you could furnish me with a point of contact (name, address, and
title, if any) to whom I could correspond with, I would be most appreciative
for this very large favor.
Looking forward to hearing from you real soon. MERRY XMAS AND HAPPY NEW
YEAR.
Sincerely,
John F. Barnacle
PERSONAL ACCOUNT
WWII Bombardier Thanks
Croatians
John M. Bauman, a member of CFU Lodge 210 from
Robert R. White. Midland 42-17 (17 Dec 1942), flew 50 missions with the
376th Bomb Group, 514th Bm. Sqdn. Bob has publicly taken issue with the
government's ''hands-off" policy toward the Yugoslavian matter. In a
letter-to-the-editor printed in The Sun Herald (Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss.) of 25
November 1991, Bob reminds the world that the citizenry of Split, Croatia
provided one of only two World War 11 safe-havens for U.S. fliers in trouble He
wrote that his unit struck targets the width and breadth of Europe but always
kept in mind the last-ditch sanctuaries of Switzerland and Split, Croatia.
About
PERSONAL ACCOUNT
AMERICAN FLIER TELLS OF RESCUE BY CROATIAN PATRIOTS
BY EDD JOHNSON
Field Publications 1944
Certain precise details are deemed omittable.
For example the
"Chuch told about it sitting in a little
restaurant in downtown
A Jinx Factory
"This particular target always had been a
jinx factory for me." Chuck began. addressing himself to Alice Doggett
formerly of radio station WRUI ,
We were ramming through black clouds when we
collided with another plane of the formation. They tell us you can't open the
door against a slipstream but I kicked her open and my buddies wouldn't believe
it until later they found the GI shoes hanging in the door.
It was the first time I had ever hit the
silk" Chuck said. ''I was plenty scared.
I had seen a house and tried to slip the chute
toward it. I didn't give a damn whether the Germans were there or who you just
want somebody who will look after you.
I banged up mv right knee when I landed right
in the front yard of this peasant's hut—away up on a hill.”
A Good Strong Drink
"This old man comes running right out and
helps me to get out of the chute. He saw I couldn't walk very good and he just
picked me up piggyback and carried me into the house. The old lady already was
getting the bed ready.
"They wanted to know whether I was
English or American. I couldn't understand anything else and they couldn't
understand me.
"The old man put me down on the bed and
told the old lady to start fixing me something to eat but I couldn't eat.
The old man motioned like this and said 'raki!
raki!'(plum brandy) I figured that was something to drink and it was. It's
awfully strong stuff and he poured me a big waterglass full. I drank it right
down but I still couldn't eat so he motioned again and I nodded my head and he
poured me another big waterglass of raki.
"The old couple kept motioning for me to
take it easy and trying to do things to make me comfortable like putting hot
compresses on my knee."
Chuck went on:
"A little after noon the Partisan boys
got there. They couldn't talk English but they smiled and patted my shoulder
and motioned that I should put myself in their hands and they sure were right'
"They saw I was unable to walk so they
put me in a wagon and we moved over goat trails to a little village. When it
was dark the Partisan boys returned w ith some others.
"Meanwhile, the old man in this first house
had come along to the second hideout and brought some raki. He had got me kind
of tight by the time the others arrived. and I almost forgot about my knee, but
the Partisan boys saw that it was all swelled up and they said the others would
go on and I would catch up with them.
"Outside I could see figures moving. They
were the scouts and escorts waiting to take the other boys over the back
trails. So we said goodbye.
NO SEX EQUALITY PROBLEM AMONG
TITO'S PARTISANS
Chuck lighted up, shifted the knee that was
banged up when he bailed out after a midair collision over the snow-streaked
"You see they got both men and women
fighting in the Partisan armies. and they eat and sleep and fight
together—absolutely equal.
"It was at the end of the fourth day that
I first really took notice of it. The escort that brought me and my buddies out
of the hills stopped at a barn on the edge of a little village. Sleeping on the
floor of the barn were four Partisan boys and three Partisan girls Iying side
by side in a row.
Rules Are Strict
"Nobody thought anything about it. They
are all considered soldiers together and all are governed by the same strict
rules. While you're fighting as far as sex is concerned—absolutely nothing
doing. If a fellow disobeys and gets a girl in a family way they just take him
out and shoot him.
"One of the cutest Partisan girls I
met." Chuck said "was a soldier girl who came to one of the parties
they threw for us. It was a party every night after we got into safer
territory. She had killed I don't know how many Germans and so they had made
her a lieutenant. She wasn't 16 yet.
"The way they've got it organized if
you're a soldier your job is just to fight and nothing else. Soldiers don't get
paid much of anything. Nobody's got much money to speak of. Nobody cares much
about money. They've got a barter system.
"A barber cuts your hair and if you've
got eggs or potatoes to give him in return you give them to him. There are some
rich people. but they share up , too.
PERSONAL ACCOUNT
A typical story was that of the crew downed
over
Early the next afternoon, the farmer took Smit
to a Yugoslav Partisan house about fifteen minutes walk away, here a meal was
waiting for him. Here he was told to throw his badges of rank into the fire, in
case he fell into the hands of the enemy. Then the farmer took him a few miles
north, to a cluster of houses near a main road and handed him over to two
Croatian girls who were waiting. The girls took him to a farmhouse a few miles
farther north dangerous trip, since the Germans were on the lookout for
escaping crews and were machine gunning the main and secondary roads. They
spent the night at the farmhouse.
AIR FORCE COMMENTARY
MAJOR GENERAL TWINING EXPRESSES HIS THANKS TO
The High Command of the AAF,February 7, 1945
(UNN)
Major General Nathan F. Twining, Commander in
Chief of the 15th Air Force recently addressed the following message to the
people of
“Fourteen months ago the American Alr Force
started flights across
Today instead of being German prisoners of
war, they are free fighters, owing to the friendly attitude and bravery of men
and women of
Disregarding. your own lives and the security
of your families, you saved hundreds of lives of our airmen giving them food,
medical aid and shelter. You walked for miles over difficult terrain, across rivers
mountains, through rain and mud, but you always brought our airmen to a safe
place "As the Commander-in-chief of the 15th AAF and in the name of the
fathers and mothers of my airmen I am expressing the gratefulness of America
for your valiant deeds. Our deepest thanks go also to all those who burned our
dead and sent me their personal belongings.
"Your bravery, patriots,who have acted under serious dangers
regardless of your own security, has won the hearts of our airmen for you and
has created respect for yourselves and your country."
FASCIST FORCES
There are a variety of Quisling and German
controlled troops in
BEHAVIOR WITH THE PARTISANS
When you are with the Partisans, don’t discuss
politics or controversial military matters with them. Above all, don’t call
them Communists. In the first place the statement was not true. The Partisans
rightly boast that all political parties and sections are to be found in their
ranks. Secondly thet are sensitive on the point, since it is in the line taken
by their enemies, the Serbian Chetniks, and by German propaganda in the
country.
AIR EVACUATION
In
LETTER OF GENERAL EAKER
On 13 July 1944 Lt General Ira Eaker of the
Mediterranean Allied Air Forces sent a letter to General Wilson, Supreme Allied
Commander, Mediterranean Theater.
Request approval for the following plans:
Make up a unit of twelve to twenty officers
and men, to include a Flight Surgeon and
medical personnel, to expedite the assembly and passage to the Balkans,
principally
It is clearly understood that the activities
of this American unit will be non-diplomatic and non-military. It will will be
devoted entirely to rescue purposes; its activities will be coordinated with the Balkan Air Force. I have discussed
the subject with the Balkan Air Force commander, with General Devers and Mr.
Murphy, all of whom agree with me that the project is feasible and necessary.
Before the Air Forces had established
themselves in
But by late spring of 1944, the situation had
reached emergency proportions. Until then, the Escape and Evasion sub-sections
in Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces had handled the rescue of American airmen,
using techniques developed earlier by the British. The Escape and Evasion
staffs concentrated primarily on briefing crews and providing escape
intelligence such as the following:
ESCAPE INTELLIGENCE: ESCAPE BULLETIN NO.29
23.April 1944
RECENT INFORMATION ON
1. GENERAL: The most important fact about
2. PARTISANS AND CHETNIKS: The National Army
of Liberation does not, as is generally supposed, consist of scattered guerilla
bands living in the mountains and woods, and carrying out haphazard raids on
the enemy’s communications, but is in fact a well organlzed force, which completely
controls large areas of Yugoslavia and has, almost unaided, forced the Germans
to withdraw into the main towns and confine their activities to keeping open
the roads to the towns which they occupy. The latest infomlation gives the
number of Partisan divisions as 26 and the total number of troops as 250,000.
In this
connection, it is well to remember that TITO's strategy involves a readiness to
abandon any area at any time rather than risk his valuable troops in a last
man-last round defense of it. Many parts of the country have been captured,
evacuated, and recaptured two or three times in the past two years by the
Partisans. This is particularly important in relation to evasion tactics.
The Serbian Chetniks number about l5.000 men, and are confined chiefly to the
forest and hills of
As a result of all of this, there are many
more Allied Military Missions with the Partisans than with the Chetniks. In
most cases, no doubt, Chetniks would be willing to help American or British
soldiers, but there would always be the risk of running into those Chetniks who were cooperating with the Germans.
RESCUE BY C-47’S
This message was being transmitted in a code
Oliver had devised, using references known only to himself and members of his
squadron. Decoded, it meant:
150 Americans
are in
By the time ACRU got set for the rescue,
Oliver's group had built up to 225 Americans.
On the night of l0 August, four C-47s landed on the 1700-foot strip, left
supplies, and took out 48 men most urgently in need of aid. On ll August the rest were picked up by 12
C-47s, escorted by Fifteenth Air Force fighters, and flown to Bari. In all, 268 men had been brought out, mostly
Allied fliers. This exploit set the pattern for later ACRU operations. By 1
October 1944, 1088 Allied flyers had been rescued from
Conditions on the ground remained rugged.
Medical treatment was poor, so the guides made every effort to move the injured
as quickly as possible to evacuation points and to give them high priority. Croatian women, barefooted or with
inadequate shoes, often carried injured American flyers as much as ten miles
over rocky, mountainous terrain. Uninjured men however seemed to thrive
under these primitive conditions and generally returned in good health.
NEW YORK TIMES NEWSPAPER REPORTS
TITO FREES ALLIED FLIERS
June 23, 1944
_PARTISANS RESCUE 10 HELD BY
NAZIS IN HERCEGOVINA
LONDON, Tuesday, June 20, 1944 —Ten Allied
airmen were freed from Nazi captivity in a Yugoslav Partisan offensive gaining
momentum in Hercegovina, a communique broadcast from Marshal Tito's Yugoslav
headquarters said last night.
The bulletin, recorded by the Ministry of
Information, said the Germans were bringing up reinforcements in the Lika
district and reported fierce fighting in Korenica.
An enemy armored train was said to have been
destroyed in ATTACKS on Axis communications in
AMERICAN CAPTAIN LEADS PARTISAN UNIT
March 6, 1944
Commands Operations of Troops on
Striking at the fishing
TITO’S PARTISANS PRAISED
YANK CORRESPONDENT SAYS THEY WELCOME ALL FOES
OF GERMANS
January 18, 1945
American soldiers are interested in the
campaigns of the Partisan forces in Yugoslavia and these underground fighters,
in turn, will welcome to their ranks all who are willing to unite with them
against the Germans, S/Sgt. Walter Bernstein, field correspondent of Yank, the
Army weekly, told members of the Overseas Press Club yesterday at luncheon at
110 West Fiftyseventh Street.
Sergeant Bernstein and S/Sgt. Barrett McGurn,
who recently returned from fourteen months service in the Pacific theatre, were
presented by Col. Franklin S. Forsberg, officer in charge of the publication,
as exponents of "a new kind of journalism" which, he said, is
developing out of this war.
Sergeant Bernstein told of a colmplete
underground railway that had been constructed to take out grounded American
pilots while under constant attack. ''Cordons of Partisan troops were formed to
protect the fliers in a running attack which lasted three days," he said.
ALLIED PLANES EVACUATE 900 WOUNDED PARTISANS
August 23, 1944
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN Aug.
23— Wave after wave of Dakotas flew across hundreds of miles of German-held
territory in broad daylight yesterday and landed on an airstrip in
This biggest evacuation flight of its kind
ever made was carried out in response to an emergency appeal from the
Partisans.
Although the unarmed, slowmoving planes flew
close to the battle raging in the Yugoslav valleys, not a plane was lost.
Spitfires and Mustangs escorted the relief planes.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT HAILS YUGOSLAV UNIT
October 6, 1943
Takes Part in Activation of Forty Air Officers
and Dedication of Bombers
The forty Yugoslav officers and enlisted men,
trained in the United States, stood on the apron in front of the operations
building with the four bombers, painted in desert tan, as the President
reminded them that "always we are comrades in arms," and wished them
good luck.
"May these planes fulfill their mission
under your guidance," he said. "They are built with two great
objectives. The first is to drop bombs on our common enemy successfully and at
the right points. The second is to deliver to your compatriots in
AIR FORCE BIBLIOGRAPHY
101-121. After October 1944, the records combine ACRU
totals with totals from other sources so exact numbers rescued by ACRU cannot
be given. According to 622.01-l, a grand
total of about 2350 AAF CREWMEN came back from
Fifteenth Air Force, History, 4v. Volume II gives some background information on
Partisan Resistance in
Construction at
Bombing of
MTO Air Operations May 42: Special Operations - Air. This document actually
covers a period from I942 to 1945. It contains considerable information on
Allied missions and the evacuation of partisan.
May 1942.
15th AS "Collection of Operations,Plans, Directives, etc. 2v. Contains a three page
"Plan for the operation of ACRU," dated 31 Jul 1944. Feb 1943- Apr
1945.
Troop Carrier Operations, 1944. [HQ 12AF]. Balkan operations'included. One
mission in support of escape parties and Allied Missions in
HQ 15AF: Miscellaneous Intelligence Reports. Besides
scattered information on the Partisans, it contains messages like: ''Have 26
American airrmen for evacuation. Landing ground will be serviceable tomorrow
afternoon. Can you pick them up. Request reply." (RAF Araxos to 15th,
Escape, Evasion, Repatriation [15th AF] Important source. lncludes a partially revelant
history: "Narrative History of Escape, Evasion, Repatriation." Also
contains assorted escape intelligence, including much on
The History of the l5th AF. Vol I contains a section "The Recovery of
Aircrews,"--a good short overview,
but no details Nov 1943-May 1945.
Evaders: 15th Air Force. Contains escape intelligence-some on
Narrative
Special Operations: AAF Aid to European
Resistance Movements. Contains an informative section, "Evacuation of
Allied Aircrews,"(pp 129ff) 1943-45.
The History of the
Escape Briefs. Contains information on
contracts between aircrews and Partisans--like target information provided by a
pilot (not named) assisted by the Partisans (whether airevaced is not said).
1943-45.
15th AF: Escape, Evasion , Repatriation. Contains accounts of men picked
up by Chetniks and Tito's partisans and
later evacuated. Jan-Aug 1944
Donovan, W.I.: Letter To General Arnold. On aid to resistance groups in
France and Balkans. Donovan wants more
air support. 25 Feb 1944.
Allied Aid to Partisans in
15th AF: Escape,Evasion, Repatriation. Contains short personal narratives, including many from
15th AF: Escape, Evasion, Repatriation. Personal Details of Returned PWs.
Short personal'narratives with lots of details, hand written on forms. Oct-Nov
1944.
15th AF: Escape, Evasion, Repatriation. Mostly statements, reports. They
contain considerable information on airevac from
History of Special Operations (Air) in the Mediterranean theatre. Contains considerable material on