Free Republic

George Vujnovich, an American intelligence agent who led the largest air rescue of Americans behind enemy lines during World War II, died last week at the age of 96, according to media reports. In 1944, the Serbian-American officer in the Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency) organized successful efforts to insert a team into what was then Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia and rescue more than 500 pilots and airmen who had been downed trying to cross the territory to bomb Hitler’s oil fields in Romania, according to an obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The airmen had been hidden...

NEW YORK — The U.S. government has recognized the World War II architect of a mission to rescue more than 500 U.S. bomber fliers shot down over Nazi-occupied Serbia — the largest air rescue of Americans behind enemy lines in any war. George Vujnovich, a 95-year-old New Yorker, is credited with leading the so-called Halyard Mission in what was then Yugoslavia. The 95-year-old New York City man was awarded the Bronze Star in a ceremony Sunday at Manhattan's St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral. He received a standing ovation from a crowd of several hundred.