Accident of Fate: A Personal Account, 1938–1945

16. Airmen

FI 154 16 AIRMEN The aspect of my year as a Partisan that ills me with the greatest pride is my participation in numerous “search and rescue” operations to recover downed Allied airmen. For the irst few months of 1944, my only direct view of Allied operations came when the weather was good: I would look up and sometimes discern formations of little silver birds glistening in the sun, making their way majestically across the sky. For the most part, these were squadrons of US warplanes: four-engine Liberators (B-24s) and Flying Fortresses (B-17s) on their way from their bases in North Africa and Italy tobomb targets in Austria(now part oftheGerman Reich)and Romania— in particular the oil ields at Ploesti. To me, they were spaceships from another world, the free world; I gazed at the silver birds longingly and wished that I could somehow transport myself into one of them. On especially clear days, I could also distinguish tiny dots, which I assumed to be ighter planes, escorting the bombers. But as far as I was aware, neither the ighters nor the bombers took part directly in Partisan–German hostilities; I never saw them challenged by German planes or attacked by anti-aircraft ire. Once they reached their targets, however, the planes were engaged by the Luftwafe and shot at by German anti-aircraft batteries, often sufering hits. If an aircraft was severely damaged, its crew had instructions to attempt to make it back over Yugoslavia and crash-land or bail out over Partisan-held territory. Certain areas changed hands frequently, so crews were briefed before every mission as to which areas had come more or less securely under Partisan control. My region in the Kordun was considered one of these, and Allied aircraft in distress often headed towards us. Everyone at the animal hospital was therefore constantly on the alert for the sound of 81118 001-226.pdf_out 6/17/114:15 PM K 154 7A 155 16 AIRMEN low-lying aircraft or for the sight of descending parachutes. As soon as there was a sighting, the race against the Germans to reach the downed airmen would commence. The Germans and Ustashe had mechanized means of transportation and always made a special efort to capture or kill these airmen, often iring at them as the parachutes were coming down; it was vital that we locate them irst and whisk them away as quickly as possible. As I was the only Partisan in the immediate area who knew some English,Iwasplacedinchargeofthesearchpartiesforairmenbailingout in the vicinity. I was also made responsible for caring for others rescued nearby until they could be evacuated from Yugoslavia to the Allied bases in southern Italy. Between April and December 1944, I was able to rescue or assist approximately ifty downed airmen, as well as some Allied prisoners who had escaped from German or Ustashe captivity. I was so happy to meet these emissaries of the West that I asked them to leave me their names and addresses, in the hope that one day, if and when I inally made it to the free world, I might already have a few friends there. As there was practically no paper available, certainly not for private ▴ Pages from my passport where rescued airmen and escaped POWs left their names 81118 001-226.pdf_out 6/17/115:11 PM C M Y K 155 FI 156 16 AIRMEN use, I asked the airmen and others to write down their names on the only sheets I possessed: the pages of my expired Hungarian passport. I have treasured that document and its sixty-some names to this day (see Appendix for full list). I was always fascinated by the apparent innocence and bright-eyed naïveté of these Allied airmen, in particular the Americans. No matter howexhaustedorraggedtheywerewhenwepickedthemup,theyseemed to preserve a sort of immaculateness that insulated them from the harsh realities into which they had descended. They were brave, technically skilled professionals who executed their missions without linching, many of them losing their lives in the process; but if they made it back to base unharmed, they could take a shower, change into clean clothes, and eat and sleep in peace and relative comfort, never having to contend with the destruction and sufering faced by those on the front line. Thus, if and when they had to bail out, and they landed in Partisan territory, it...