HALYARD MISSION FOUNDATION

WWhile visiting 449th Veteran Tony Orsini in New Jersey when Teresa Andreaka and I were on the Maximum Effort Tour (MET), Tony said he was in the book The Forgotten 500. I didn’t know much about the story from WWII and decided to purchase the book. Sure enough, there was our Tony Orsini in the book detailing Operation Halyard.

In the spring of 1944, the USAAF intensified the bombing of targets in Bulgaria and Romania, with the result that American aviators were being forced to bail out of damaged aircraft over Yugoslavia in increasing numbers. Chetniks under the control of Draža assisted the downed Allied airmen, and the local Serbian people took them into their homes, fed and protected them. Hospitals for sick and wounded airmen were established in Pranjani village.

Operation Halyard (or Halyard Mission) was an Allied airlift operation behind axis lines in German-occupied territory of Yugoslavia to rescue these aviators. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) started drawing up plans to evacuate downed aviators in July 1944. By December 1944 they had rescued more than 500 men. It was the largest rescue operation of American Airmen in history.

A grand total of 432 U.S. and 80 Allied personnel were airlifted during the Halyard Mission. 417 of these airmen were evacuated from Pranjani Village where the airmen and locals constructed an airstrip in a field near the village. And 41 of those rescued airmen were from the 449th Bomb Group.

The Halyard Mission Foundation was established in 2015 and has completed construction of a permanent memorial site on Galovica Field, Serbia, the location of the first rescue missions during the Halyard Operation. The goal of the foundation is to educate, commemorate and increase awareness of the Halyard Mission and the role the Serbs played in the success of the mission.

The 449th has partnered with the Halyard Mission Foundation in their endeavor of Finding 500. They want to connect with all family members of rescued airmen to keep them informed of activities and include them in projects to commemorate this important mission with historic research, preservation of information and documents. We look forward to helping connect the Halyard Mission Foundation in Serbia with the families of the forty-one 449th rescued airmen.