In 1944, as the Allies advanced into fortress Europe, the 15th Air Force launched nearly 20,000 sorties into Eastern Europe to degrade Hitler's war machine. To do this, they had to fly over Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia.
As many as 1,500 pilots and airmen were shot down during these dangerous flights. Serbians who had been resisting German forces since 1941 risked their own lives to rescue American aircrews and hide them from patrolling Nazis.
By August 1944, hundreds of other downed aircrews were being sheltered by the Serbian guerillas. The OSS devised a plan to evacuate the Allied pilots in a daring mission coordinated with the Serbian resistance; codenamed operation Halyard.
On August 10, unarmed American C-47s flew numerous sorties deep into enemy territory and landed at an improvised airfield built and protected by local serbians (this team was known as the Halyard team) near the village of Pranjani. The operation lasted until December, where a total of 432 U.S. and 80 Allied personnel were secretly airlifted back to Italy; becoming the largest rescue operation of American airmen in history. #ww2 #secretsquirrel #pilots #guerrilla #zerofoxtrot #stayzero #missions