Rescue Behind Enemy Lines

By March 1946, news of Mihailovich’s capture and impending trial for alleged war crimes by Yugoslavia’s Tito-led communist government reached Halyard participants in the United States. Outraged and strongly convinced of Mihailovich’s loyalty to the Allied cause, the former airmen reunited to mount a public campaign to clear the Chetnik leader’s name. They contacted newspapers and magazines, speaking out about their experiences in Pranjani; they protested outside the Yugoslav consulate in New York City; and they staged a highly publicized trip to Washington, D.C., where they met with congressmen in an effort to declassify the government records documenting Operation Halyard, thus providing evidence of Mihailovich’s cooperation with the Allies. A meeting with Secretary of State Dean Acheson secured State Department aid in forwarding the airmen’s testimonies to Tito, but Tito refused them. Mihailovich was tried and convicted, executed by firing squad on July 17, 1946, and buried in an unmarked grave.

For nearly sixty years, the airmen involved in Operation Halyard believed they had failed in their effort to bestow widespread recognition on Mihailovich for the part he played in their rescue. But in reality, their voices were heard. In 1948, urged on by a group of military officials, President Truman awarded a posthumous—but secret—Legion of Merit to Mihailovich for his contributions to the Allied cause, including Operation Halyard. “Through the undaunted efforts of his troops,” the accompanying citation read, “many United States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control.”

The award, like the government reports of the OSS operation, remained classified for decades. The exact reason is still unclear. The American and British governments, concerned about maintaining their relationship with Yugoslavia during the cold war, feared that making the award public would anger Tito. The State Department might also have been concerned about potential damage to American prestige in Italy, where Italian-Yugoslav tensions ran high over the disputed territory of Trieste. But a breakthrough came in 1997 when the British declassified their wartime reports of Halyard, and Mihailovich’s Legion of Merit was released from the National Archives soon afterward. On May 9, 2005, a group of Halyard participants, including George Vujnovich and Arthur Jibilian, traveled to Serbia to formally present the award to Mihailovich’s daughter, Gordana, bringing the operation’s story to completion.

Operation Halyard fought opposition from the outset—from the State Department, from communist sympathizers in the SOE, even from Churchill himself. It was an operation that seemed condemned from the start, but through the collaborative efforts of the Chetnik army, the Fifteenth Air Force, and the OSS agents and airmen who remained dedicated to the operation long after the last man had been airlifted out of the Balkans, Halyard defied the odds to become one of the most successful rescues in air force history.