Correcting the Lies about a Great WW II Hero

The other day I received an e-mail from a reader that told me the Legion of Merit would be presented to the World War II Serbian leader, Draza Mihailovic. I tried, with no luck, finding out when and where that would take place, and whether it was true, as I had been told, that there were efforts to block the presentation.

Few Americans, especially young Americans, have ever heard about Mihailovic and his men who, at huge risks to themselves, saved the lives of over 500 Americans and 250 Allied personnel from behind enemy lines. It's been covered up for political reasons. During World War II, when the Soviet Union under Stalin was fighting Hitler on the Allied side, it was Winston Churchill who thought it best to side with the Croatian Communist leader, Josip Tito rather than with the Serbian leader Mihailovic. Churchill thought giving in to Stalin on the Yugoslavian issue would lead to world peace after the War. As a result, the Serb Draza Mihailovic, who saved hundreds of Americans, was executed by the Communist Croatian dictator Josip Tito on July 17, 1946.

Of course, sacrificing Mihailovic and the Serbs didn’t lead to world peace. It did lead to the Serbian contribution to World War II being almost totally forgotten. And, with the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 by NATO and the Clinton Administration, based on lies about Serbs killing “100,000 Albanians,” the true history of the Serbian historic struggle for liberty was even more deeply buried under a barrage of anti-Serb propaganda. It appeared to me at the time that Clinton thought that using the US Air Force to support the KLA, which the US State Department listed as Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, would somehow lead to better rapport with the Muslim World.

I wrote about Clinton’s support of Muslim terrorists in 1995-96 when he lifted the NATO arms blockage of Bosnia to allow fundamentalist Muslims from Iran and the Sudan to arm their friends. And who do you suppose it was that financed the purchase and shipment of those weapons? A name that comes to mind is Osama bin Laden who was headquartered in the Sudan until May or June 1996. In February 1996 I wrote about the ethnic cleansing of Serbs (who are Christians) from Bosnia: “In 1991 the population of Sarajevo was 525,980. It was 49% Muslim, 29.9% Serb, 6.6 Croats and 14.2 other. More than 155,000 Serbs and 262,000 Muslims lived in Sarajevo and its suburbs before the war. Today, the Associated Press reports, "only about 30,000 Serbs in a population of "300,000 remaining" inhabitants." -It would seem that most of the 262,000 Muslims are still there, and 125,000 of the 155,000 Serbs are missing.”

We have already forgotten what happened in 1999. Does anyone really care any more about what happened to hundreds of American Air Force men who were shot down by Nazi aircraft more than 60 years ago? To me, this is still a matter of American honor. Can’t we at least set the record straight and honor Serbs who risked everything to save the lives of our own pilots in the 1940s? Can’t we now look at what has happened since Clinton’s effort to pacify Muslim fundamentalist terrorists and question what our official anti-Serb policies have done to strengthen terrorists and destroy worldwide American credibility?

Perhaps, the best way to explain this is in the words of Major Richard J. Felman USAF Retired, who was the keynote address at the 50th D-Day/Normandy commemoration in Chicago on June 6, 1994. Major Felman, who died in late 1999, was one of those hundreds of airmen saved by Mihailovic and his Chetniks. Major Felman said about the first public recognition of “the greatest rescue of American lives from behind enemy lines in the history of warfare”:

“Today is the first time in fifty years that the American airmen and the Serbian Chetniks are gathered in one place. …This is a tremendous event. ..if these Chetniks hadn't risked their lives, the airmen you see in this room wouldn't be here...the airmen that they saved across the country wouldn't be here...neither would their children or their grandchildren, who today can walk freely in this country. …Nobody else, in the entire history of the United States government has ever said that...” Major Felman, flying with a B-24 bomber over southern Europe had been told in a briefing mission they would be “flying over Yugoslavia that day, and to stay away from the Serbian people, because the Serbian people would cut off the ears of American airmen! …If you get shot down in Yugoslavia, stay away from the Chetniks. Look for the people with the red star on their hats...Tito's Communists...'”

“I parachuted down from 20,000 feet, the next thing I know, I was in Serbia, among the Serbian Chetniks, and the first thing I did was reach for my ears... Not only did they not cut them off, as you can see, but they grabbed me up, kissed me, put me on their shoulders like a conquering hero... “Since that time, to expose this treacherous propaganda lie, the American airmen have been doing every possible thing we could to expose the thoroughness with which the truth was manipulated by the Communists during World War II. Let me give you a concrete example: I don't believe what I read in the papers...I know what I see...

“Let me tell you some techniques of Communist propaganda. I went on some raids with General Mihailovich and the Chetniks...We raided a few German garrisons, forts...very successful...We came back. The next day or so, we turn on the shortwave radio. BBC from London says: 'Tito's Partisans just completed a successful raid at such and such a village' -- the place that we went to just the night before...That's how the truth was manipulated. Now, let me tell you, how would you feel -- I just saw something, and the news reports say 'this didn't happen, something else happened...' --

"The very friendly people that we were with, that were saving our lives, were abandoned by the Allies, because of the - can I use the term - screwed up Intelligence of the British.”

Today we want to spread truth and freedom around the world. Can we do that when we, ourselves, don’t really know the truth of our own history?

Note: To support the Legion of Merit being awarded to Mihailovic contact: Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns: fax 202 647-4780 or via Secretary Condoleeza Rice's office at 647-2283 or by e-mail on the State Department website: http://contact-us.state.gov/ .

Through the undaunted efforts of his troops, many United States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control. General Mihailovic and his forces, although lacking adequate supplies, and fighting under extreme hardships, contributed materially to the Allied cause, and were instrumental in obtaining a final Allied Victory.
March 29, 1948
HARRY S. TRUMEN
President Truman awarded Mihailovich the Legion of Merit, the highest combat award the U.S. government can give to a foreign national, but it was kept secret for decades because of pressure from the State Department.

In a letter, American President Richard Nixon said about General Draza:

General Draza Mihailovich was a patriot, a brave soldier and a gallant ally of the United States and every nation that went to war in the early forties to destroy the tyrannies that sought to enslave our world.

Hundreds of American pilots owe their lives to General Mihailovich and his forces and, the American people will never forget that debt.

As long as there are patriots in any nation, the name of General Mihailovich will be remembered and revered."

In telling about General Draza Mihailovic, Ronald Reagan said:

"... I believe that the spirit in which you have gathered here to honor the memory of General Mihailovich, the faithful allied commander and the first anti-Nazis leader in Europe, is shared by the great majority of Americans.

The ultimate tragedy of Draza Mihailovic cannot erase the memory of his heroic and often lonely struggle against the twin tyrannies that afflicted his people, Nazism and Communism. He knew that totalitarianism, whatever name it might take, is the death of freedom. He thus became a symbol of resistance to all those across the world who have had to fight a similar heroic and lonely struggle against totalitarianism. Mihailovich belonged to Yugoslavia; his spirit now belongs to all those who are willing to fight for freedom.

I wish that it could be said that this great hero was the last victim of confused and senseless policies of western governments in dealing with Communism. The fact is that others have suffered a fate similar to his by being embraced and then abandoned by western governments in the hope that such abandonment will purchase peace or security.

Thus, the fate of General Mihailovich is not simply of historic significance--it teaches us something today, as well. No western nation, including the United States, can hope to win its own battle for freedom and survival by sacrificing brave comrades to the politics of international expediency.

......... it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that both freedom and honor suffer when firm commitments become sacrificed to false hopes of appeasing aggressors by abandoning friends."

DRAZA MIHAILOVICH the Hero, as told by Major Richard L. Felman U.S.A.F., Retired in his Book:
American war vetran Major Richard Felman, author of "Mihailovich & I", wrote and published his work as an extraordinary gesture of gratitude and Appreciation for General Draza Miahailovich and his loyal Chetniks who rescued, sheltered and saved him and other American airmen from the Nazis and their fascis collaborators - Croatian Ustashas and Muslim fundamentalists- during the bloody World War II in occupied Yugoslavia.

In his book he praises not only the paramount role of General Mihailovich and the courage of the Chetnik fighters, but also the hospitality of the Serbian people and their passionate quest for freedom.

Major Felman's book is a testament not only to the Resistance Movement under the banner of Draza, but of the undeniable truth of the great contribution of the Serbian people to the Allied Forces and their victory over Nazism and Fascism.

A special place is given to the Allied pilots (Americans in particular) who survived the Nazi attcks after parachuting into the contryside of Serbia and their mentors- Draza's Chetniks. Major Felman emphasizes the fact that this rescue mission greatly endangered Draza's soldiers and Serbian civilinan population- especially the peasants- as Nazi reprisals were imminent. Some 500 American pilots found safety and fredom, as they were transfered in the second half of 1944 into Allied bases in newly freed territories in neighbouring Italy.

There, they shared their experiences and told their stories of bravery, rescue, and Serbian peoples' enormous suffering under the Nazi- Facist occupation, to their supiriors and comrades alike. ronically, by this hour the very same Allied Forces had already betrayed Draza and his Chetniks as well as the freedom loving Serbian people.

It was taken care of -- in 1948...

"Mihailovich, after being captured by the Yugoslav communists, was tried by a kangaroo court in Belgrade on fabricated charges, sentenced to death, and executed on July 17, 1946. He was 53 years old. There would be no marker, no headstone, no grave in all of Serbia.
Two years after his death, U.S. President Harry Truman, under the advisement of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, posthumously awarded General Mihailovich the Legion of Merit, the highest combat award our nation can bestow upon a foreign national:
"LEGION OF MERIT -- CHIEF COMMANDER"
"General Dragoljub Mihailovich distinguished himself in an outstanding manner as Commander-in-Chief of the Yugoslavian Army Forces and later as Minister of War by organizing and leading important resistance forces against the enemy which occupied Yugoslavia, from December 1941 to December 1944. Through the undaunted efforts of his troops, many United States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control. General Mihailovich and his forces, although lacking adequate supplies, and fighting under extreme hardships, contributed materially to the Allied cause, and were instrumental in obtaining a final Allied victory."
March 29, 1948. Harry S. Truman
See http://www.snd-us.com/Liberty/sm_1774.htm
This doesn't reflect well on Mary Mostert's ability to research and report the truth...

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