Forgotten Fifteenth Page 18

  Before the Allied landings on the Riviera, the 885th launched a major effort. On the night of August 12–13 the squadron sent eleven B-24s to the Rhone Valley and along the coast, navigating beneath a moonless sky to drop 33.5 tons of supplies, 225,000 leaflets, and eighteen agents. It was a stellar performance, bringing the squadron a Presidential Unit Citation.

  In October 1944, the 885th moved from Blida to Brindisi in southeastern Italy, sharing a field with British and Polish B-24 squadrons. The special operations crews supported resistance forces in Yugoslavia, Greece, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, France, and northern Italy—nearly the entire Mediterranean Theater. It was a huge task for such limited assets. But help was on the way.

  With Allied armies advancing throughout northwest Europe, special operations units had less to do. Therefore, in December the Eighth Air Force’s 859th Squadron got “the word,” which was received with mixed emotions. The squadron diarist recorded,

  In the early part, there were rumors circulating that the outfit would move to Italy to continue the Carpetbagging operations into Eastern Europe. Everyone’s morale at that time had reached a low point, but with the advent of the rumor . . . morale in both the ground and flying personnel raised itself to a level which, while not the highest, at least gave some indication of the squadron’s attitude during the period of operations inactivity. No weight was passed on the rumor until about a third of the month had passed. At that time training for bombing at high altitude was discontinued and preparations and plans for the move were formulated.28

  On December 17—the forty-first anniversary of the Wrights’ triumph at Kitty Hawk—an advance echelon of fourteen officers and thirty-two enlisted men departed Britain for Brindisi, sixty miles up the coast from Bari. The balance of the squadron followed in fifteen C-47 transports while maintenance men flew in their assigned B-24s. The medical department had room only for minimal supplies: some aspirin tablets, sleeping pills, and half a gross of condoms.29

  It was a memorable flight, permitting the aircrew and passengers to gawk at the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Coliseum in Rome. But the sight-seeing ended abruptly. The 859th’s tent area was found to be uninhabitable, and it took several days to correct the problems. Some one hundred officers and nearly four hundred enlisted men needed accommodations, so fliers spread sand and gravel, laid boardwalks, erected a shower, and built an acceptable latrine. Then they started flying.

  As the Fifteenth prepared to combine the two squadrons into a special operations group, the 859th’s first missions launched on December 29 with six sorties, including the CO, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard M. McManus. All completed their missions over Yugoslavia, drawing congratulations from Colonel MacCloskey of the 885th, who was supervising Carpetbagger missions in the area.

  Two days later—New Year’s Eve—six Liberators took off for Italian destinations. Four sorties failed because of weather, mechanical problems, and lack of “reception committees” at the appointed drop zones. The squadron nevertheless resolved that “the months to come would add a new record to our chapters of Carpetbagging and Supply Dropping.”30

  The Italian climate proved obstinate. The 859th spent nearly half of January on the ground but averaged nine sorties each flying day.

  In late January the two spec-ops squadrons formally became the Fifteenth Special Operations Group under Colonel MacCloskey, who had sent the initial congratulatory message to the 859th. Relations between the two squadrons, however, were strained. The 859th men complained about MacCloskey’s heavy hand. Once he became group commander, the former commander of the 885th Squadron was seldom seen on the 859th’s turf.

  The 859th, moreover, considered the 885th’s operating area—mainly southern France and western Austria—“milk run” territory. The 859th, by contrast, had “plenty of room—the eastern slopes of Austria plus Yugoslavia, Albania, the rough box canyons of the Alps, Moravia, Montenegro, etc.” The 885th, nevertheless, had previously covered all the Mediterranean Theater’s spec-ops territory by itself.31

  One veteran’s recollection of Colonel McCloskey was, “We terrified him.” On a rare tour of the 859th’s compound, he dressed down the gate guard for sloppy procedure, ordering the GI to shoot at the next person who failed to stop when challenged. With that, the group commander visited the newly constructed pine outhouse.

  The next visitor was an elderly Italian woman returning some laundry. She spoke no English and had no way to respond when challenged. Seeing the guard draw his pistol, she turned and fled—toward the privy. Following orders, the guard squeezed off a round which, as intended, missed the old woman but, not as intended, struck the outhouse. The .45 bullet punched through the fresh wood, passing between the colonel’s knees, lodging in the throne and sending splinters into the colonel’s exposed thigh. “The medic happily reported that blood had been drawn, although there was some regret that the barrel of the .45 had not been a trifling to the right in its aim.”32

  The 859th CO, Leonard McManus, decided to keep the same guard post because otherwise an errant bullet might strike the squadron day room.

  In March 1945 the Fifteenth Special Group was redesignated the 2641st, apparently because there were not 2,640 other special groups in the AAF. Both spec-ops squadrons continued flying as before but with greater coordination as Germany withdrew from the Balkans. In a sixty-day period in early 1945, the group flew 209 successful sorties to the Balkans and 152 in Italy, dropping nearly thirty-five tons of “nickels.”33

  February brought much improved weather, permitting 240 sorties, but tragedy struck on the ninth when First Lieutenant Robert W. Maxwell’s Liberator disappeared over Yugoslavia. Though new to the squadron, his crew was capable and well liked. “A depressed feeling of sorrow for him was felt in this squadron for quite some time.”34

  The group received a Distinguished Unit Citation for missions into northern Italy’s Po Valley the night of February 17–18. In twenty-six days that month, it delivered thirty-four agents and one thousand tons of supplies, weapons, and ammunition. In 486 attempted sorties, the crews made 354 successful drops, or about 14 per day. The 72-percent completion rate would have been higher if intended recipients had responded to aircrew attempts to contact them at the drop zones.

  As Allied armies slogged northward, the Carpetbaggers required fields closer to their new operating areas. They sought bases on the Tyrrhenian coast, opposite Corsica. In late March 1945 both squadrons moved four hundred miles north to Tuscany, settling near Rosignano, south of Pisa, at a Twelfth Air Force transport and bomber base. Accommodations were much improved over the squalor of Brindisi. The airfield featured a large castle, which became squadron and group headquarters, and morale picked up in the pleasant surroundings. Operations resumed on April 1. Meanwhile, the first crews to complete Italian tours rolled out, encouraging those still flying.

  And there was flying aplenty. The special operations group flew multiple missions daily, dropping supplies to units ahead of the advancing Fifth and Eighth Armies in the Po Valley, and night missions resumed for resistance forces in Austria and Czechoslovakia. But the job was costly, as the 859th lost three crews that month. One pilot, Captain Walter L. Sutton, was on his second European combat tour. Replacements arrived from regular B-24 groups and were integrated into the squadron after training in Carpetbagger operations.

  At month’s end Leonard McManus completed his tour and was relieved by Captain Albert Baller. Missions continued during the first week in May, which brought joyous news—Germany capitulated in Italy, and two of the missing 859th crews were reported safe and en route to the United States. Most of the third crew returned from captivity, having fetched up in France.

  Two weeks later the squadron vacated Rosignano, alighting at Gioia del Colle, west of Bari, and encamping on a dusty, barren baseball field. “There was no joy at being back in southern Italy,” the diarist complained.35

  The agents dropped behind enemy lines included native Germans and other Europeans (often Jewish refug
ees) willing to work for the Allied cause. Secrecy was paramount. Pilots and navigators were not permitted to meet their passengers and seldom saw them. Only the jumpmasters in the rear of the aircraft had personal contact with the agents and knew them only by a nom de guerre. The agents’ apparent courage was genuine, as capture inevitably brought torture or worse. Sergeant Frederick Mayer was betrayed by a shady contact in Austria. Stripped naked, he was flogged with a whip while insisting he was an innocent Frenchman. Finally confronted with his betrayer, he employed cool logic to convince his captors that the war was ending, and not favorably for Germany.36

  At its height, the 2641st consisted of thirty-four aircraft flown by forty-eight crews, and in its active period—January to May 1945—seven planes were lost and thirty-five fliers killed. (Losses of the two squadrons prior to forming the group were not included.) During the last thirteen months of hostilities, the 885th alone logged some 2,800 sorties, dropping 501 agents, 4.7 million tons of supplies and weapons, and 177.6 tons of leaflets. More than 1,260 flights went to Italy and 831 to France, with the balance spread among the Balkans, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and one to Germany.37

  The Carpetbaggers did their job and did it well, often under perilous conditions at night and in mountainous terrain.

  BRINGING THEM BACK ALIVE

  Though only marginally a Fifteenth Air Force operation, the sustained campaign to retrieve downed fliers from enemy territory benefitted thousands of Twining’s men.

  In 1944 and 1945, Balkans operations centered on Yugoslavia, mainly supporting Marshal Tito’s Communist guerrilla army, the Partisans, who afforded a large, well-organized opposition to Axis forces, including rescue and return of downed Allied airmen.

  Foremost among Tito’s rivals was General Draža Mihailović, who established a liaison office in Italy. Twining was advised by the theater commanders to avoid any sign of favoritism between the competing Yugoslav leaders, leaving it to the Office of Strategic Services to handle the touchy internal feud. Mihailović’s largely royalist Chetniks offered a conservative foil to the Communist Partisans. For several months the Allied Mediterranean command tried to remain neutral, but the British eventually leaned toward Tito and severed relations with the Chetniks in May 1944. Nevertheless, Mihailović’s forces continued to support the Allied airlift.

  As the air war progressed that summer, Eaker’s command recognized that a growing number of Strategic Air Forces fliers remained at large in the Balkans—as many as 1,100. Previously the Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces’ escape and evasion sections had dealt with the situation as best they could, usually employing methods developed by the British. In January 1944 the OSS had dropped two officers into Partisan territory to meet with Tito and make arrangements. The meeting was eminently successful: Tito ordered Partisan units to cooperate with the Americans, especially with Lieutenant Eli Popovich, an engineer. He oversaw construction of a clandestine airfield north of Drvar in western Bosnia and Herzegovina. Other fields followed.38

  Then in July, Eaker proposed to the Mediterranean Theater commander, General Maitland Wilson of Great Britain, that a unified airlift be established to return downed fliers to Allied control. He proposed a unit of perhaps twenty men, including medical personnel, to expedite their recovery. “It is clearly understood that the activities of this American unit will be non-diplomatic and non-military,” Eaker wrote. “It will be devoted entirely to rescue purposes; its activities will be coordinated with the (RAF) Balkan Air Force.” Eaker had consulted with Wilson’s American deputy, General Jacob Devers, and diplomatic representatives, “all of whom agree with me that the project is feasible and necessary.”39

  Eaker’s letter led to establishment of the Air Crew Recovery Unit (ACRU) at Bari, reporting to MAAF headquarters but administered by Twining’s command. Thus began Operation Halyard. Most of the airlift was provided by a C-47 group from XII Troop Carrier Command, but coordination between the two air forces generally was efficient.

  Eaker’s handpicked leader of ACRU was a remarkable officer. Colonel George Kraigher had flown for Serbia in the Great War, later worked for Pan American Airways, and helped establish Pan Am’s wartime African service. Because of his ties to the Partisans, he narrowly escaped capture when Germans attacked Tito’s headquarters in May 1944. He and the marshal piled onto a C-47 flown by a Russian crew, alighting at Bari to continue the war.40

  Airfield construction was key to the operation. Lacking heavy equipment, the Yugoslavs used hand tools and ox-drawn wagons. Usually working at night, the guerrillas downed trees, leveled terrain, and provided security. That summer there were sixteen or more landing strips in Partisan territory, each capable of handling C-47 Skytrain transports.

  Halyard quickly became a multinational operation, involving the Army Air Force and OSS; major Yugoslav factions; the Royal Air Force and Special Operations Executive, as well as American rangers. Coordination was essential, so communication was at a premium. Reliable radio contact between OSS field teams and Bari was established in August, and thereafter the ACRU became increasingly active. From early August to late December, the ACRU flew seven evacuation missions from three Chetnik-controlled airstrips in Serbia and Bosnia, mostly from Pranjani. Of the 417 evacuees, 351 were AAF and RAF personnel.41

  In August, however, the Allies formally recognized Tito as leader of the Yugoslavian resistance and dissociated themselves from Mihailović. Throughout most of the rescue period Twining recommended that aircrews opt for Partisan rather than Chetnik areas, as there was greater opportunity for rescue and evacuation in areas under Tito’s control. But at least a few fliers had semantic problems. One B-17 gunner, looking down at the Bulgarian mountains, declared, “If we have to bail out I sure hope we find some of them Protestants.”42

  A Fifteenth man who spent two weeks with the Partisans described his experience with a co-ed guerrilla force:

  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 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 sixteen yet.43

  By October 2, 6,941 Allied airmen had been evacuated from the Balkans, including 1,088 from Yugoslavia, about three-quarters of them from Partisan areas. Partisans in Slovenia returned 303 American and nearly four hundred British fliers, along with others. As Twelfth Air Force transports cycled in and out of Balkan airstrips the total of AAF men returned from Yugoslavia alone grew to approximately 2,400.44

  Not every downed flier was eager to return to Italy. The Thirty-first Fighter Group’s Fred Trafton was known as a free spirit, a flight commander who “directed traffic” in combat. On April 23, two days after making captain, he claimed three planes to make ace, but he was downed and wounded. The New Hampshire flier was rescued by Partisans including a female guerrilla who spoke no English but didn’t have to. Trafton later credited her with telepathic powers, and she “took real good care of him.” On two occasions Trafton was ordered to board a C-47 taking Americans to Foggia, but he declined the offer for obvious reasons. Finally, in late July, as his friends later noted, “girlfriend or no girlfriend, third time was the charm.”45

  Not all downed airmen were flown to safety. Among the exceptions was Tom Rowe, a Chicagoan with a troubled conscience. Though married with two daughters, he was unhappy wearing the uniform of a doorman at the Palmer House. In 1942 his wife conceded that he should exchange hotel livery for olive drab, so he enlisted in the army. His ambition to become a paratrooper clashed with the needs of the service, and he became an expert aircraft mechanic. That rating put him in the top turret of a B-24 as a flight engineer in the 461st Bomb Group at C
erignola. Upon arrival, Lieutenant Robert Crinkley’s crew was told that the men should consider themselves already dead.

  The crew’s fourth mission was Blechhammer. On November 20, Crinkley’s Liberator ate a load of flak and, separated from the group, diverted to Yugoslavia. After bailout the crew reassembled and was scooped up by Partisans. The Americans were granted an audience with Tito himself, who asked, “Did you bomb Berlin?” The fliers were trying to explain about Blechhammer when they were told that the marshal knew no other English.46

  Unlike most fliers, who were airlifted to safety, Crinkley’s men were succored by British operatives with a boat. Boarding the undersized yacht at Zara (today Zadar), the Americans had a scare when a cruiser passed close by during the night, but it turned out to be British. The clandestine boaters made port the next morning at Ancona, an RAF base. The fliers were impressed to note a bar complete with sofas but enjoyed the hospitality only briefly before being flown to Bari. Tom Rowe was treated for a flak splinter in a leg but recovered to join another crew and, wounded again, completed his tour. At war’s end he was in charge of military prisoners in a stockade previously run by a corrupt officer who used his position to work the black market.

  By April 1945 there were thirty-six landing sites and 322 drop zones in Partisan areas, and at war’s end some 125 ACRU personnel worked in Partisan territory. ACRU teams rescued 5,718 Fifteenth Air Force fliers from Yugoslavia and eleven other nations including northern Italy. It was a remarkable feat, representing one-fifth of all AAF fliers reported missing in the theater. Additionally, many of Tito’s wounded were airlifted to Italy.47

  The successful completion of Operation Halyard and related missions attracted little notice, even after V-E Day. But to thousands of Mediterranean Theater airmen, the clandestine airlifts from enemy territory represented salvation on angels’ wings—even the olive-drab airfoils of Douglas C-47s.