The forgotten 500
I’m near finished with a book right now about Yugoslavian peasants helping doomed US airmen during WWII. Posting here because this kind of stuff is how much of the rest of the world thought of the US for a great many years. Of course not everywhere.
Nowadays America is quickly pissing away our reputation amongst the rest of the world and of course I am well aware we’ve made really big mistakes on backing the wrong people in internal conflicts in other counties or regions. And of course our motives haven’t always been exactly altruistic.
The Forgotten 500. The OSS parachuted a team into Yugoslavia to rescue 500 downed airmen from the the Ploesti bombing runs. I knew about Ploesti but didn’t realize how long the effort went on and how many planes and men were involved. It reinforced some of the stuff I’d heard about and some of it was pretty new to me.
I hadn’t really thought about it but the Germans occupied a lot of land, stretching their forces thin. They had about 100 divisions on the French coast, a bunch in Norway and Finland, I knew about that but didn’t think about all the troops in the Balkans, etc. it cut into how many could be deployed to the Russian front. Also,the friction between the British/commonwealth countries and the US is downplayed by our version of history. I always knew Monty was a dick but it really permeated things. And, the communists really had infiltrated everywhere. I think it took a few years for other countries to see the Russian version of communism in action for them to lose their enthusiasm for communism. All that stuff was playing out later in the war. And I don’t think the American army got the respect it deserved till the Battle of the Bulge.
The OSS guys organized the downed fliers and villagers to clear off a plateau near the village. It was the only suitable site within a 14 hour walk. Pretty much cleared and leveled it by hand. A couple ox carts and some crude hand tools. Had to chop down and clear 50 yards of forrest; the C-47s needed a minimum of 700 yards to land an take off. They could only load a dozen men per plane; also only carried half the usual fuel. Had to keep them as light as possible
A half dozen C-47s were sent the first night, 2 had to turn back. They lined the field with hay bales and set them on fire to guide the planes in. It was touch and go but managed to get those 4 planes loaded with 4 dozen men and out of there. It was so close the head of the OSS team radioed back to Italy they weren’t going to try any more night landings. Of course the men were crushed.
The next morning they heard a rumble and the sky was full of a swarm of fighter planes. They strafed and bombed everything German for miles around while the next batch of C-47s came in. The Germans never discovered the operation because that’s the way they did it from them on. The fliers were so grateful for the villagers help they took their boots and jackets off and tossed them out of the planes for the villagers almost none of whom had real shoes.
I realize now there might be a more appropriate forum to post this. Maybe there is one specially about WWII. I’m sure if that’s the case I will get repeatedly reminded/corrected about it. But my point is as stated in the beginning. The US was seen as bold and brave and willing to help those in need.
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