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Old 24th February 2005, 01:54
David_Isby David_Isby is offline
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Location: Washingtin - Inside the Beltway
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David_Isby
This is the first-person account I mention that did not get published:


Squadron Leader Leslie York, RAF, flew in a “Dakota” of the 60th TCG on an escorted multi-aircraft daylight mission into an airfield in Yugoslavia in the summer of 1944.

Flying in comfortable passenger aircraft over enemy territory gives an extreme but false impression of immunity to danger. This is partly because in the transports there is a room to walk about, light to ready by and time in which to take coffee. A British Army major and myself, who flew to Yugoslavia as passengers, enjoyed these pleasures as we crossed over German slit trenches and the dark Bosnia pine-woods. The major pointed out enemy positions to me as we came to the mountains but there was no incident. On previous occasions when flak had opened up the fighter escort had immediately swooped down and reduced them, thus discouraged other ground gunners. Cattle scattered as we formated into landing pattern for the airstrip but no other sign of life or movement distinguished this minute green valley from any other. Indeed, for a full minute after getting out of the “Dakota” I could not be certain that this was the rendezvous, for the valley seemed deserted.

Then suddenly the Yugoslavs came toward us, running out of cover in the copses—the Partisans dressed in drab British battle suits and starred caps, mixed with scores of peasant girls in their traditional costumes and kerchiefs. While they took the arms and supplies out of the aircraft the wounded were brought up. Some were lifted on pack ponies and lifted down to the ground, some walked, or, if they were one-legged, hopped with the aid of sticks, others were marched on litters borne shoulder-high by the teams of girls-bearers who had in some cases carried them thus for a great distance through the ravines and over the mountains.

I met there a Royal Yugoslav air gunner who had baled out of a [USAAF 376th BG] Liberator turret. That, he told me, had been all there was to leave. His aircraft had been damaged by shellfire and he found himself at 10,000 feet spinning down in his turret. The rest of the Liberator had gone. By good luck the ledge on which his parachute was stored was still with him. On the airfield comforting the people we had come to rescue I found him. For most of them ours were the first airplanes they had seen at close quarters and their apprehension of air travel was as great as their joy at being saved.

These were mountain Partisans and many of them had never seen the sea. One young boy whose leg had been torn open was more concerned with wondering what the Adriatic would be like than he was about either the air passage or his wounds.

The tremendous emotion of the scene of the airfield did not hinder the smooth marshalling and emplaning of the wounded. The shepherd mothers who had to watch their sick children leave them were crying but there were no withdrawals and the planes filled with their quotas.

Peasant girls in red dresses and string shoes who were staring at the protecting fighters weaving overhead stood next to their father, an aged Partisan, who, they told me, was dying of consumption. A blinded woman, a man with stomach wounds from a mine, and a child whose rough bandaging had stuck to his leg injuries were carried into the same plane to complete the load and the door was closed.

Some American air crewmen who had parachuted into Yugoslavia were also evacuated. Some of them had been waiting a long while for rescue and they were wild with joy. In they aircraft they told me the first things they intended doing when they arrived back in Italy. One was going to cable his wife. Another was first going to be deloused and have a hot bath. A third said he had dreamed for a month about a small bar of milk chocolate. I produced one from my emergency rations and they fell on it like kids, breaking it into minute pieces and giving the Partisan stretcher cases first choice. The Dakota crew gave up their own rations to them and as we passed over the Dalmatian islands we all settled down to tinned bacon and eggs, biscuits and cheese. The rest of the voyage was taken up signing things. He signed everything the Americans had, from short snorters and pictures of their wives to a pair of crutches made for a rescued navigator by the Partisans who had found him. While this was going on most of the Yugoslavs in the aircraft who could sit up were staring in silence at the sea below us.

A RAF medical officer and orderlies were waiting with ambulances as soon as we touched down. The Americans were greeted with cans of beer, while the Partisans found old friends. From the beginning to end it was a remarkable trip and a very moving experience for all of us.
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David Isby
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