[Karadjordje]

The Following is a letter written by US Army 1st Lieutenant John E. Scroggs of Kansas City Missouri, which was written to Yugoslav ambassador Fotitch at the time of General Mihailovic's trial. Scroggs was one of the 500 Allied airmen the Chetniks rescued from behind enemy lines in WWII

"Those of us who know the real circumstances in Serbia are enraged at the unfair attacks on the Cetniks and their leaders. If only someone could open the poor blind eyes of the spoiled American public, a wonderful group of people might recieve their due recognition. Unfortunately, those of us who lived with these people are few and far between, but believe you me, never will we forget how the men and women of Serbia unquestioningly risked their very lives for us, clothed us, and gave us shelter when they themselves were ill-clad, cold and hungry...I vowed to myself that if I could ever possibly begin to repay these people for all they had done for me, I wouldn't hesitate to do so. Unfortunately, what little I might be able to do would not even pay the interest on my debt to the Serbian people. I suffer with them in their present plight, and in the injustice rendered to them by the American press as well as the American and British governments."

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

'Operation Halyard'

Serbian Chetnik leader Draza Mihauilovic, 1937

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.

Rescue remembered

Tipp man uses peace talks as occasion to remember Serb saviors from World War II

By Mary McCarty
Dayton Daily News

"Curtis 'Bud' Diles has a Lincoln Town Car with 'Purple Heart' vanity plates.

He has a loving 47-year marriage and a comfortable, healthy retirement. He has four children and 12 grandchildren he can barely talk about without busting up with pride.

He has, in short, a full life. The one thing that has eluded him - and consumed him these 51 years - is the chance to repay the Serb Chetnik soldiers and villagers who saved his life after his bomber was shot down over Yugoslavia in 1944.

'When you owe your very life to a group of people, you don't forget,' Diles said of his 50-year quest.

Now, with the peace talks taking place in Dayton, the 70-year-old Huber Heights man hopes the Serb people can attain the same peace and prosperity they enabled him to enjoy. And he hopes to unload some of his burden of gratitude.

'For 50 years I've wrestled with an old Underwood, wadding up reams of paper trying to write my story,' Diles said. 'When I heard the peace talks were coming to Dayton, I thought, maybe now I'll get the chance to tell my story.'

Diles was one of more than 500 U.S. airmen who owe their lives to Gen. Draza Mihailovich and his Serbian Chetnik Resistance Army. 'Operation Halyard,' as it was called, was the largest rescue in history of U.S. airmen from behind enemy lines. Over a six-month period, U.S. intelligence worked with Mihailovich to rescue the fliers shot down in the Serbian mountains.

The Chetnik leader was executed by Yugoslav dictator Josip Tito in 1946. The survivors of his rescue mission, however, have worked tirelessly to preserve his memory. A Tucson-based organization, the National Committee of American Airmen Rescued by General Mihailovich Inc., has been fighting for decades to erect a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

This week, the group mailed a letter to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, thanking him for his people's sacrifice during World War II and offering 'heartfelt prayers' for the peace process.

'Many Serbs were killed in saving American airmen,' said the organization's president, Maj. Richard Felman of Tucson. 'Now that they're in trouble, we'd like to do what we can.'

For 18 minutes on Sept. 8, 1944, however, Diles thought he wouldn't make it to see 20.

It was the young airman's 17th mission in three weeks from his base south of Rome. This one was supposed to be a 'milk run;' the men were told by intelligence to expect no anti-aircraft fire. 'We thought we'd drop our bombs and be back in time for supper,' Diles recalled.

Diles was the nosegunner on a brand-new B-24 bomber that had just bombed its target, a bridge over the Danube River in Belgrade. Suddenly, anti-aircraft fire burst with a force that shook the entire airplane.

'The bombardier was behind me, and he caught a piece of flak through the nose. All I could see was blood. I put his hand on his rip cord and shoved him in through the nose hatch. I didn't even know if he was conscious. I went right behind him.'

As he parachuted 18,000 feet to the ground, swinging wildly in the wind, Diles pondered the Danube below him - and pondered the different ways he would die.

'When death is a certainty, you don't panic. Even though I was oscillating back and forth, it felt absolutely still. I wondered: Would the Nazis shoot me down? Would our own plane's propellers chew us up into hamburger? Would the Serbs or Croatians capture me? We had been told the Serbs would cut our ears off and give them to the Nazis.'

Diles landed in a cornfield with a force that nearly knocked him out. Almost immediately, he was surrounded by Serb villagers and soldiers who whisked him away from the German Stuka dive bombers buzzing the treetops, looking for the plane's crew.

For nine days, his Serb protectors moved Diles and 23 fellow airmen - including six from his nine-man crew - from farmhouse to farmhouse. A Life magazine photographer snapped them sleeping in a hayloft.

To avoid German patrols, they traveled on horse-drawn carts away from highways and main roads.

'There was plenty of dance and food and song, and each of them treated us like royalty,' Diles recalls.

The prospect of death was never far away.

'Our closest call came when a German convoy got past the guards and approached our horse-drawn cart. I heard the Chetnik guard say fini in French, and I thought that meant we were finished. I saw a German tank with a machine gun mounted in front of the cab, pointed right at us, and I expected them to start firing.'

But the Germans, who were evacuating Greece, moved on, and 'we all ran into the hills like scared rabbits.'

Twice the Chetniks found an airfield and radioed for a rescue, and twice they were nearly overtaken by German troops. Finally, on Sept. 17, two C-47 cargo planes landed in a tiny field north of the town of Valjevo. In takeoff, one plane hit a haystack; another dragged tree limbs. 'It was touch-and-go,' Diles recalled. 'We could hear the machine-gun fire in the background of Serbs fighting off Tito's Partisans, who were trying to keep us from getting off the ground.'

The men cheered as they crossed the Adriatic Sea, figuring they were 'home free.'

Diles flew 17 more missions before returning to a career as a machine operator in his hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio. He met his wife, Inez, there. Twenty years ago Diles joined the Techmet Co. in Tipp City (now LaserMike Inc.), a laser-scanning manufacturing corporation co-founded by his brother Paul.

Over the years, Diles has been pained by the American abandonment of Mihailovich - whom he describes as a 'Lincolnesque figure' - as well as the failure to honor his memory.

Diles has tried to do his bit. His correspondence about Mihailovich and letters to Serb people crowd six feet of shelf space in his study.

'There were 8,000 soldiers assigned to protect Allied servicemen. I believe the Serbians thought the Americans would come to their rescue when they found out what they'd done. Well, Americans never did find out. Now it has no meaning; it's ancient history.

'When I heard about the peace talks, I thought, 'Here's a chance for me to get my opinion to someone who will hear me and listen.'

'After all, I wouldn't be here without the Serbs or Mihailovich. And not only am I here, but my four children and 12 grandchildren.'"

Karadjordje