Support for Resistance Movements

Following the German victories in Europe, patriotic elements arose in virtually every occupied country. The Allies encouraged these groups, popularly known as the "underground" or as "partisans," to organize, gather intelligence, and resist. As early as 1940, the British government established the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to aid them. Later, in 19 42, the Americans followed with their own Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The activities of both of these organizations came to be called "special operations."

In the Mediterranean theater, special operations started slowly. Before September 1943, the Allies conducted them on a limited scale, flying only a few missions into France. But Allied agents, acting with the French resistance, soon pressed for more. Faced with expanding special operations, the RAF formed the 334th Wing in November 1943 to command almost all special-duty aircraft in the theater.

The Balkan Partisans

When Baker arrived in the Mediterranean at the end of 1943, he ex pressed an interest in special operations and arranged for an American unit, the 122d Liaison Squadron, to participate. Additionally, in February 1944, two squadrons of the 62d Troop Carrier Group arrived in Brindisi, Italy, to support the Balkan partisans. Flying C-47s, they airdropped guns, ammunition, dynamite, food, clothing, and medical supplies to the partisans waiting below. When landings became possible, gasoline, jeeps, and even mules were quickly unloaded. In a typical mission, the Americans dropped thou sands of pounds of ammunition and supplies, several SOB/OSS agents (called "Joes" and "Janes"), and hundreds of thousands of leaflets.

The C-47s solved a critical supply situation that the RAF 334th Wing, always short of aircraft, could not solve. Flying sorties in central and southern Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and northern Italy, often in dangerous winter weather, the Americans dropped nearly 400,000 pounds of supplies and leaflets and numerous personnel in February and March 1944. A few weeks later, the original squadrons wearily welcomed their relief when four new C-47 units of the 6Oth Troop Carrier Group took over. The cargo pilots faced harrowing problems. They flew mainly at night and frequently had difficulty spotting the primitive landing strips in narrow valleys surrounded by peaks and ridges. Many of these fields could be approached from only one direction and failure on the first attempt could mean a wrecked aircraft and death. Despite the dangers, the number of night landings and escorted daylight sorties steadily increased. Between April and October 1944, the 60th Troop Carrier Group made more than seven hundred landings, almost all in Yugoslavia. Much of that support went to Marshal Tito (Josip Broz), a Yugoslav partisan leader locked in a savage struggle with the German invader. One typically dangerous mission involved delivering twenty-four mules and twelve 75-mm guns to Tito's partisans in Montenegro. Flying on instruments through terrible weather, the pilots slipped between two jagged peaks to a safe landing.

In October 1944, the AAF assigned heavy bombers to augment the transports, and the 885th Bombardment Squadron began flying to distant points in northern Italy and Yugoslavia. Until the end of the war, American units continued supplying partisan bands wherever they fought, from remote mountains and valleys to the teeming cities of Belgrade, Zagreb, and Sarajevo.

The Italian Resistance

The Italian resistance movement differed from its Yugoslav counter part. In Italy, partisans took a supporting role while Allied and Axis forces fought on major battlegrounds along a well-defined front. The anti-fascist guerrillas harassed German lines of communication, protected Allied agents, gathered information, and helped downed airmen evade capture.

After the invasion of southern France, the United States increased its support for the Italian partisans. flying first from North Africa and later from Italy, the 885th Bombardment Squadron dropped tons of supplies to resistance forces in the Po Valley. Supply drops increased dramatically when the 62d and 64th Troop Carrier Groups joined the effort. Partisan at tacks on the enemy also increased. field Marshal Kesselring reluctantly diverted nearly 40,000 troops from his crumbling front to suppress the guerrillas. Although the Germans killed or captured hundreds of partisans, they were unable to crush the resistance movement. American-supplied partisans continued fighting Germans in northern Italy until the war ended.

Evacuation from Enemy Territory

As the tempo of Balkan operations intensified, the MAAF faced the problem of evacuating increasing numbers of downed Allied fliers. Many aircraft did not return after missions against heavily defended targets. Fortunately, some aircrews parachuting from damaged aircraft or surviving crash landings came under the protection of the underground, which fed them, cared for their wounds, hid them from the Germans, and frequently helped them reach the Adriatic coast. When possible, partisans led downed airmen to secret airstrips where special operations aircraft flew to them to safety.

In late July 1944, Eaker directed the Fifteenth Air Force to form Air Crew Rescue Unit No.1, an outfit specifically devoted to rescue and evacuation. During the night of August 2/3, in a mission typical of many flown until war's end, the unit dropped a field party fifty-five miles south of Belgrade, where roughly one hundred airmen had assembled. The rescuers immediately set to work on a landing strip. Six days later, C-47s evacuated nearly three hundred men there.

Later in August, when Romania abruptly left the Axis and joined the Allies, the Fifteenth Air Force learned of more than one thousand American airmen held in prison camps near Bucharest. The POWs faced imminent deportation to the Third Reich. Hurriedly converting 56 B-17s into transports, the Italy-based fifteenth Air force mounted Operation Re union. As the newly converted transports touched down near the camps, the former prisoners surged forward, happily crowded into the B-17 s, and were flown to safety.

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The special operations units, using equipment and techniques adapted to their peculiar operational problems, took on a certain aura that distinguished them from normal combat units. Bombers and fighters made headlines, but the work of special operations personnel remained secret and apart. The looks of relief on their passengers' faces kept morale high and added immeasurably to the pride they felt in flying these dangerous but unsung missions.