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

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The astonishing, never-before-told story of the greatest rescue mission of World War II—when the OSS set out to recover more than 500 airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia.

“An amazing, riveting tale of unsung heroes who went above and beyond.”—James Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers

During a bombing campaign over Romanian oil fields, hundreds of American airmen were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Local Serbian farmers and peasants risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers while they waited for rescue, and in 1944, Operation Halyard was born. The risks were incredible. The starving Americans in Yugoslavia had to construct a landing strip large enough for C-47 cargo planes—without tools, without alerting the Germans, and without endangering the villagers. And the cargo planes had to make it through enemy airspace and back—without getting shot down themselves.

Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time ever. The Forgotten 500 is the gripping, behind-the-scenes look at the greatest escape of World War II.

Review

Praise for The Forgotten 500

“A literary and journalistic achievement of the highest order, a book that illuminates, thrills, and reminds us that heroes sometimes do live among us. It will take your breath away.”—Gregg Olsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Deep Dark

“The daring rescue effort to save hundreds of downed airmen in dangerous enemy territory is an amazing but unknown WWII adventure story. Told in riveting detail for the first time, The Forgotten 500 is a tale of unsung heroes who went above and beyond.”—James Bradley, New York Times bestselling author of Flags of Our Fathers andFlyboys

“The operation’s story is an exciting tale...Evoking the rescuees’ successive desperation, wild hope, and joy, and their gratitude to the Serbians who risked their lives to help, Freeman produces a breathtaking popular account.”—Booklist

“[F]ascinating...full of romance, action, and adventure...This untold story of World War II has finally been told with skill and grace.”—America in WWII magazine

“Greg Freeman has written a riveting account of the greatest escape during World War II. It is a remarkable adventure story of courage and daring that is superbly told.”—Anthony C. Zinni, General USMC (Retired)

“This is an exciting, powerful story of escape and rescue. It has been buried for too long.”—Tony Koltz, New York Times bestselling author of The Battle for Peace

“[A] gripping, true-life narrative of one of the most heroic and inspiring—but virtually unknown—military operations of World War II....Freeman chronicles it with a master’s touch for detail. Although this book reads like a fast-paced novel, it is based on scores of probing interviews and meticulous archival research. The Forgotten 500 is destined to become required reading for serious students of the Second World War.”—Malcolm McConnell, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of American Soldier

About the Author

Gregory A. Freeman is an award-winning writer and a leader in the field of narrative nonfiction. Known for books that make a true story read like a gripping, fast-paced novel, his works include The Forgotten 500, The Gathering Wind, Sailors to the End, Troubled Water, and The Last Mission of the Wham Bam Boys. He lives in the Atlanta area.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

One of the last untold stories of World War II is also one of the greatest. It’s a story of adventure, daring, danger, and heroics followed by a web of conspiracy, lies, and cover-up.

The story of Operation Halyard, the rescue of 512 Allied airmen trapped behind enemy lines, is one of the greatest rescue and escape stories ever, but almost no one has heard about it. And that is by design. The U.S., British, and Yugoslav governments hid details of this story for decades, purposefully denying credit to the heroic rescuers and the foreign ally who gave his life to help Allied airmen as they were hunted down by Nazis in the hills of Yugoslavia.

Operation Halyard was the largest rescue ever of downed American airmen and one of the largest such operations in the war or since. Hundreds of U.S. airmen were rescued, along with some from other countries, right under the noses of the Germans and mostly in broad daylight. The mission was a complete success, the kind that should have been trumpeted in newsreels and published on the front page of the newspapers. But it wasn’t.

It is a little-known episode that started with one edge-of-your-seat rescue in August 1944, followed by a series of additional rescues over several months. American agents from the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor of the CIA, worked with a Serbian guerilla, General Draza Mihailovich, to carry out the huge, ultrasecret rescue mission.

These are the tales of young airmen shot down in the hills of Yugoslavia during bombing runs and the four secret agents who conducted their amazing rescue. These are the stories of young men—many of them first-generation Americans, the proud, patriotic sons of European immigrants—who were eager to join the war and fight the Germans, even finding excitement in the often deadly trips from Italy to bomb German oil fields in Romania, but who found themselves parachuting out of crippled planes and into the arms of strange, rough-looking villagers in a country they knew nothing about. They soon found that the local Serbs were willing to sacrifice their own lives to keep the downed airmen out of German hands, but they still wondered if anyone was coming for them or if they would spend the rest of the war hiding from German patrols and barely surviving on goats’ milk and bread baked with hay to make it more filling.

When the OSS in Italy heard of the stranded airmen, the agents began to plan an elaborate and previously unheard-of rescue—the Americans would send in a fleet of C-47 cargo planes to land in the hills of Yugoslavia, behind enemy lines, to pluck out hundreds of airmen. It was audacious and risky beyond belief, but there was no other way to get those boys out of German territory. The list of challenges and potential problems seemed never ending: The airmen had to evade capture until the rescue could be organized; they had to build an airstrip large enough for C-47s without any tools and without the Germans finding out; then the planes had to make it in and out without being shot down.

The setting for this dramatic chapter in history is a region that, for modern-day Americans, has become synonymous with brutal civil war, sectarian violence, and atrocities carried out in the name of ethnic cleansing—an impression that, though it may ignore the region’s rich cultural history, is not inaccurate. Serbia covers the central part of the Balkan Peninsula, also known as the Balkans, a region in southern Europe separated from Italy by the Adriatic Sea. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; Albania and the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Montenegro, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the west.

Throughout history the area has been neighbor to great empires, a proximity that contributed to a rich mixture of ethnicities and cultures, but also to a long history dominated by wars and clashes between rival groups of the same country. The fractious nature of the region even led to the term “Balkanization” or “Balkanizing” as a shorthand for splintering into rival political entities, usually through violence. The word “Balkan” itself is commonly used to imply religious strife and civil war.

The former Yugoslavia is a region seemingly in a constant state of flux. During World War II, Serbia was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, which then became the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1945. In 1992 the country was renamed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro from 2003 to 2006. When Montenegro voted independence from the State Union, Serbia officially proclaimed its independence on June 5, 2006.

Serbian borders and regions are determined largely by natural formations, including the Carpathian Mountains and the Balkan Mountains, which create the mountainous region that formed a hurdle for crippled American bombers trying to return to their bases in Italy, but which also sheltered downed fliers from the German patrols hunting them.

From the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo, which set off World War I, to the Nazi occupation in World War II, the region was in the center of global conflicts while contending with its own internal strife. The former Yugoslavia is a mix of different ethnic and religious groups, including Serbs, Croats, Muslims, and Slo- venes. Throughout history, ancient and recent, most of the fighting in the region has been a struggle among these groups for the control of territory. After World War II, the Bosnian Muslims were strong supporters of Communist leader Josip Broz Tito, partly because he was successful at keeping the ethnic groups peaceful—just as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini made the trains run on time. Serbs were the most populous ethnic group in the former Yugoslavia, with a national identity rooted in the Serbian Orthodox Church.

After World War I, the Serb monarchy dominated the new nation of Yugoslavia. During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies were killed by Croat Fascists, called Ustashe, and by Germans. Some Muslims fought for the Nazis, while many other Muslims and Croats fought for the Partisans led by Tito. Serbs supported the exiled royal government.

These age-old hatreds and ethnic disputes erupted in 1992 to cause the bloodiest fighting on European soil since World War II. More than two hundred thousand people, most of them civilians, were killed and millions more were left homeless. As the fighting raged and the world learned of atrocities committed against civilian populations simply for being of the wrong ethnic background, European nations responded with numerous peace proposals that produced no peace. Then the United States moderated peace talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. The talks led to a November 21, 1995, peace accord that relied on sixty thousand NATO troops to stop the killing.

The Bosnian war of the 1990s was particularly vicious. While Serbs are generally considered the aggressors in the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s, there also are legitimate charges that Croats and Muslims operated prison camps and committed war crimes. Some critics accused former Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic of looking the other way while his Muslim soldiers committed war crimes in retaliation against Serb attacks. Many Serbs acknowledge the well-documented atrocities committed by Bosnian Serb militia against Muslim and Croat civilians, but they also argue that Serb civilians were the victims of similar crimes and that the Western media coverage was skewed by a bias in favor of the Muslim and Croat sides.

The Dayton accord did not completely end the violence in the region. Between 1998 and 1999, continued clashes in Kosovo, a province in southern Serbia, between Serbian and Yugoslav security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army prompted a NATO aerial bombardment that lasted for seventy-eight days. The peace among Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in the area of the former Yugoslavia still is a fragile one.

American fliers who parachuted out of their bombers over Yugoslavia in World War II had little idea of the complex, troubled history of the country in which they were about to land, or of the international disputes in which they were about to become entangled. They sought refuge and a way back home, and they were humbled by the outpouring of support from the poor Serb villagers who risked their own lives to help the Americans drifting down out of the sky.

As the world came to know only the modern-day violence of the Bosnian wars, there was a small band of men who knew that the people in that distant country had once done a great service to the American people and to many young men who were scared, tired, and hungry. They held on to that story and told everyone they knew, yet the story slowly died with the forgotten 500.

Only a handful of the rescued airmen and OSS agents are still alive to tell the stories, their health and memories fading fast. But they insist that the world know the truth of what happened in Yugoslavia in 1944, including the series of almost unbelievable coincidences and near misses—everything from an improbable meeting with a top Nazi officer’s wife to a herd of cows that show up at just the right moment—that made their rescue possible.

They never forgot, and they refuse to let the story die with them.

Review:

4.5 out of 5

90.77% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, Relatively Unknown Aspect of the WWII European Air War

A.C. · June 10, 2025

5.0 out of 5 stars True tales of downed bomber crewmen who, with aid of Serbian Chetniks and OSS were rescued in WWII

M.T. · April 1, 2025

During WWII, perhaps the most dangerous job in the Army was to be a Bomber Crewman in Europe. Only 1 in 7 men made 25 missions. Each B-17 and B-24 had a crew of 10-12 men. Over 7 thousand American bombers were shot down in Europe. More Army Air Corps men were killed attempting to bomb enemy targets than the entire US Marine Corps lost in the war. This book tells of the men who managed to bail out over Yugoslavia and were protected by the Serbian royalist Chetniks - NOT Tito's communist Partisans. A US Army Air Corps commander and the OSS managed to rescue more than 500 US and Allied crewmen by flying into Serbia with C-46 transports and out to Allied bases.

4.0 out of 5 stars PREVIOUSLY OWNED BOOK

P. · April 20, 2025

This was a previously owned book. It is in fairly good condition, I have no complaints.

5.0 out of 5 stars a staunch friend of the United States hated the Nazis and wanted to free his country from ...

M.N.V. · June 30, 2016

The Forgotten 500ByGregory A. FreemanEvery once in a while you discover a book that envelopes your emotions and you wonder how those events could happen. This is one of those stories, a true story.During WWII one of the Nazis’ main sources of fuel was an oil refinery in Ploesti, Romania. The Allied Powers made it their mission to destroy this refinery by sending countless missions from Brindisi, Italy, over Yugoslavia to Ploesti to bomb the facility. In the course of these missions, many B24 bombers were shot down and hundreds of Allied flyers (mostly Americans) were stranded behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia, a country that most did not know the language or customs.At that time in Yugoslavia there were two ruling factions. Draza Mihailovich, a staunch friend of the United States hated the Nazis and wanted to free his country from their grasp. Josip Broz Tito, a communist and ally of Russia also hated the Nazis, wanted to get rid of them and, interestingly enough, the two men hated each other. You had a dramatic triad, Mihailovich and Tito, each commanding thousands of soldiers fighting each other for control of Yugoslavia and each fighting the Nazis, their common enemy.Flyers would parachute into Yugoslavia, not having any idea how they would be received by the populace and wondering if they would be turned over to the Nazis. Much to their surprise and relief villagers would welcome them, hide them in their homes and share their meager supply of food. These villagers would risk their lives guiding them through the mountains of Yugoslavia to the troops of Mihailovich. English speaking Yugoslavians were few and far between and most communication was with gestures and pantomime.After days and, sometimes weeks, the group would reach Pranjane, Yugoslavia and be united with other flyers. This was Mihailovich’s accumulation point and ended up holding approximately 500 airmen. They would spend months with nothing to occupy their time and no communication with the allies.During this time, on a political front, Mihailovich was falling out of favor with the British because of the machinations of a Russian mole named James Klugman placed high in British intelligence. This had the effect of spoiling his relationship with the Americans, as well, though totally unfair. The few Americans who had spent time with Mihailovich behind enemy lines and had made it back knew the truth and were a small group trying to salvage the relationship and put together a rescue for the downed flyers.After several failed attempts to land an initial team at Pranjane to help prepare for the rescue as a combined British and American effort, the Americans decided to go it alone because of their belief of British sabotage. The Americans were able to land the team and, using the men there, built a runway in the mountainous region with hand tools which was no small effort. C-47 cargo planes were the ones chosen for the exfiltration and required a landing strip of 700 feet. The one built was exactly 700 feet with trees and mountains all around it. There was no room for error.Considering the fact that each plane only would hold 12 passengers and held just enough fuel to make the round trip from Brindisi to Pranjane, it is no small miracle that between August 9, 1944 and December 28, 1944, the Americans rescued over 500 airmen, 345 of them Americans with no fatalities. This, despite the fact they were flying over enemy territory in slow planes, easy targets for German Messerschmitt fighters.The trumped up case of Mihailovich collaborating with the enemy got worse because of Klugman and other communists in the ranks and he was cut off from the United States. Despite this, he remained a friend to the end and saw to it the airmen were protected at Pranjane through the entire operation.Not much longer the war ended and Tito gained control of Yugoslavia. He still hated Mihailovich and had him executed. Though Mihailovich was a friend to the very end, we aided in his execution and the eventual Communist control of Yugoslavia. Not our finest moment in history.Winston Churchill was later quoted saying that his handling of Yugoslavia was his biggest mistake of the war.In 1997 declassified British papers confirmed the Klugman/Mihailovich story and the truth was official. Mihailovich deserved much better.Sixty years after this travesty on May 9, 2005 the Legion of Merit was presented to Gordana Mihailovich for the actions of her father for the United States in WWII,In writing a review, it can be hard to decide what to include and not to include. It is a review, after all, not the book itself. Gregory Freeman has so much in this book that is not in this review and does a great job in telling this story that every American should hear. I appreciate him writing it.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read

R. · May 15, 2025

Excellent book for those interested in history

5.0 out of 5 stars Political Intrigue and a Daring Rescue

C.G.W. · April 3, 2025

Against a backdrop of political intrigue between the Americans and British and factions within Yugoslavia during World War II, a daring rescue was planned for hundreds of Allied airmen during World War II. It HAD to be done correctly the first time - and it was. This untold story is one that should have come to light years ago - but didn't because of politics.

5.0 out of 5 stars WWII, American and Chetnik heroes in Yugoslavia

N.H. · April 8, 2025

This true story from World War II is an incredible account of heroes and bravery against “all odds”. This was secreted away for decades for many reasons and it took an act of Congress to start revealing this to the public.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read and Important History Lesson

S.D. · September 30, 2012

It's both a thrilling adventure and a depressing look into British and American duplicity and stupidity in dealing with Stalin at the end of WWII.During late days of WWII Yugoslavia was occupied by the Germans but two bands of "patriots" occupied much of the countryside. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of Allied airmen had crash landed or bailed out over Yugoslavia. About 500 were being protected by General Mihailovich and his patriots. Civilians faced death or torture if the Germans even suspected that someone in the village had assisted the airmen to evade capture. Opposing Mihailovich were both the Germans and Gen Tito.With the war nearing its end the Soviets were looking to assure their control over Eastern Europe at the end of the war. Tito was their guy. Unfortunately British intelligence, foreign service and Churchill's staff were heavily infiltrated with Communists. Only many years after WW2 would the extent of the infiltration become evident with the defection of Burgess, McClean and Philby to the USSR. The evidence against others was overwhelming. In the US there situation was the same with Roosevelt's staff and State Dept filled with Russian agents and sympathizers including Alger Hiss.A plot was hatched by Stalin to discredit Mihailovich by accusing him of collaborating with the Germans. If he could be removed the USSR would gain control of Yugoslavia. After many attempts to contact the allies, an improvised code was used to send a message to an Army Air Force group that would be able to decode it. The message informed the Americans that there were several hundred US airmen, injured and near starvation, under the care of Mihailovich. It was not that he was denying food to the Americans but rather that there was no food for anyone.Decoded the message created a real problem for the communists in the Churchill and US governments. They had been accusing Mihailovich of delivering American airmen to the Germans but in fact he was trying to save far more than the allies thought existed. The book details the betrayals in the attempts to get team into hookup with the Americans. The author believes that British intelligence attempted to sabotage the effort but it's very possible that both British and American traitors were involved. After several efforts an all American effort resulted in success in getting agents on the ground with Mihailovich's forces. However, they were instructed to promise nothing, offer no help and just get the airmen out.The operation was a success but Mihailovich was betrayed by the allies and left to a terrible fate.This is a great book and should open eyes to an important part of American history that's not taught in our schools. Operation Halyard as this was called was matched with other operations designed to assure Soviet control at the end of the war.Secret Betrayal details the little known tragedy associated with Operation Keelhaul and related operations which delivered to several million patriots and former German POW's into Soviet hands to assure Russian control of Eastern Europe and their own territory. It included those who had fought on our side during the war as part of the governments in exile.The lucky ones were exterminated as they were passed into Russian control or committed suicide on the way , the unfortunates went to the Gulags, a near certain death sentence but far worse than death by a bullet.

Great book

E.C. · June 22, 2025

Découverte

m. · April 10, 2019

J'ai découvert un événement peu/pas connu. L'attitude des alliés vis à vis des partisans ou résistants yougoslaves est survolée mais n'est pas le but du livre. En revanche les mouvements de soutien au départ des Etats Unis dans l'immédiate après guerre est une découverte. Mais il reste encore tant de choses à découvrir sur cette époque. Anecdotique.

Good book

M.F. · July 21, 2024

Started to read book at Airbnb we rented. Happy that Bolo had it.

A true saga of the peopole who have been forgotten ...

d.c. · June 28, 2018

A true saga of the peopole who have been forgotten, but who can forget their sacrifice and contribution they made to the humanity! A gripping saga from the first page to last.

Una storia interessante, ma il libro è noioso...

f. · January 3, 2020

Il libro descrive una storia interessante, probabilmento poco nota al grande pubblica (compresa me stesso).Invece la scrittura è poco appassionante, non riesce a coinvolgere il lettore, a mio parere.

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

Name: The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II
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SKU: U0451224957
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