Gregory A. Freeman

I was fascinated to read the description that this is the unknown story of over 500 airmen who were rescued from capture in WWII. You bet I'd never heard of any such initiative so got a great deal on Kindle for the book.

The USAAF airmen were lost on the many raids on Ploesti in Rumania. These oilfields were Hitler's main abundant source of fuel so it was a prize for the Nazis to keep and the allies to destroy. Once Italy was invaded the trip was easier for the Americans, but certainly not show more easy or close, and many raids were made on the facility at considerable loss to the US - as most heavy bombings were. Many aircrew bailed out and landed in Yugoslavia - which at the time while fighting the Nazis were also involved in a civil war between Tito's communist partisans and Milhailovich's royalist democrats. The latter and dirt poor peasants in the mountains tended to the American airman moving them around the mountains ending up in one mountain top hideout, giving them their last clothes and meagre rations.

While this was happening traitors in the Britsh forces loyal to communism (think Philby etc.) kept the news quiet and discredited and eventually convinced the Brits, and then the Americans, that Milhailovich were Nazi collaborators. Eventually brave and dogged OSS operators in Italy dug the story out and landed in Yugoslavia to mount a rescue operation. This involved peasants clearing a mountain top runway where in the summer of 1944 C47s landed one night and took out 48 of then over 200 Americans. The next morning US fighters came over the attacked a nearby Luftwaffe air base while more C47s took out the remaining airmen. By the time Italy was pacified 542 airmen were rescued with no loss of allied life. Remarkable.

But what was equally remarkable but depressing was how it was kept a secret - to save British and overall allied embarrassment on how they'd supported delivering Yugoslavia into communist and Stalin's hands. Pres. Truman awarded Milhailovich the highest non-American medal he could in 1948 after lobbying by numerous OSS vets of Yugoslavia but it was kept quiet. Meanwhile, Milhailovich was already dead after being executed by Tito in 1946.

in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of V-E Day US vets returned to the mountain top they'd left from and were honoured by 50 000 Serbians. Who honoured the Serbs though? It makes one weep.

A great and important book and beautifully written, A quick read but no means short on content. Too bad about the ending but it is N/F.

@GregoryAFreeman show less

1967 - The aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was preparing to launch attacks into North Vietnam when one of its jets accidentally fired a rocket into an aircraft occupied by pilot John McCain. A huge fire ensued, and McCain barely escaped before a 1,000-pound bomb on his plane exploded, causing a chain reaction with other bombs on surrounding planes. The crew struggled for days to extinguish the fires, but, in the end, the tragedy took the lives of 134 men. For thirty-five years, the terrible show more loss of life has been blamed on the sailors themselves, but this meticulously documented history shows that they were truly the victims and heroes. show less

I picked this book up on the basis of my admiration for the author's account of the flight-deck disaster on the "Forrestal" and due to having a lingering real-time awareness of the insurrections on the "Kitty Hawk" and the "Constellation" (I was 14 at the time). The story that Freeman tells is a product of the generally ugly period of the early Seventies and those issues of cultural, social and political authority which continue to plague American politics. While Capt. Marland Townsend of show more the "Kitty Hawk" and his executive officer Benjamin Cloud showed a lot of character in trying to personally master the violence that broke out on their ship, events could have been even worse if one angry sailor had just decided to strike down either Cloud or Townsend, leading to the naval equivalent of an Attica massacre at sea (Townsend's big fear). Having just finished this book I'm still processing the meaning of it all. While I'm inclined just to regard this event as a symptom of its time, that the chiefs, the division officers and the higher command staff didn't really seem to be on the same page before events boiled over is the question I'm left with; perhaps it's just a matter of Townsend & Cloud inheriting a bad situation and not really having the time to put their own stamp of authority on the ship but one does wonder what the hell happened to the concept of chain of command instead of the two top men on the ship running around and trying to sort out the mess on the fly. Freeman also adopts a breathless tone in this book that I didn't find in "Sailors to the End" and it kind of bugs me, particularly when I tripped over some dumb factual errors such as crediting with F4 Phantom with a three-man crew and implying that VFP-63 operated Phantoms at the time (when it was the RF-8 Crusader). show less

"The Forgotten 500" provides interesting insights into Nazi-occupied Yugoslovia in WW II, while telling a little known story of a rescue of hundreds of downed airmen behind enemy lines. The book may not be quite as "breathtaking" as the book jacket implies, but the details of the airmen rescued and the Serb people who helped protect them at their own peril is an excellent story. Freeman also includes details of other behind the scenes players, and discusses how poor political decisions led show more to Allied forces being duped into believing that General Draza Mihailovich was collaborating with German forces, and therefore abandoning support for him in favor of Communist leader Tito. The results of that decision had long lasting implications in post-war Yugoslovia. All in all, "The Forgotten 500" tells a good story, shows what dedicated people can do to overcome bureaucratic bungling and poor political decisions, and also provides background on the ethnic rivalry and diversity in the Balkan region. show less