The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

This brief chapter describes several ways in which the British appear to sabotage Operation Halyard. For political reasons, British agents at Bari are also involved in the operation: Musulin’s team is ordered to execute the rescue mission without altering Allied policy toward the warring parties in Yugoslavia. Multiple attempts to fly into Yugoslavia fail for reasons such as bad weather and antiaircraft fire, but Musulin begins to suspect that the British are working against his team. On one attempt, the British pilot flies to the wrong coordinates. Musulin then notices that the British crew includes one of Tito’s Partisans. On the fifth and final attempt, the British pilot once again flies Musulin’s team to the wrong location. Musulin finally demands an all-American crew, and Vujnovich agrees.

In Pranjane, having received no word of an Allied rescue operation, Richard Felman decides that the airmen must take a calculated risk and send a message to Bari. Thomas Oliver works with a group of airmen, including radio operators, to devise a slang-filled code that the Germans cannot decipher. Letters in the code correspond to information that only those stationed in Bari could know: an Officers’ Club bartender’s place of birth, for instance.