The Secret Rescue

by Cate Lineberry

  Hayes spent the morning camped out on the bridge talking to the helmsman. They were soon joined by the captain and another crewman, who said, “Sir, it’s time to splice the main brace!” referring to the nautical tradition of giving an extra drink to sailors after they had completed the dangerous task of fixing the main brace of the sail if it was broken in battle or a storm. The skipper replied, “Yes it is. Since today is a special occasion we’ll put in a double splice!” The crewman opened a locker at the back of the bridge and removed a glass and a small cask of rum. He then filled the glass and handed it to Hayes. “Since you are here, you get the first splice!” he said. Hayes took a sip and, though it was as strong as the raki he detested, he happily toasted their freedom.

  When Hayes returned to the enlisted men’s quarters, he found most of the men from the 807th and several crew members talking. The radio operator who had let him sleep in his bunk tugged on Hayes’s sleeve and asked, “How about giving me your jacket?” Hayes, who’d become so protective of his belongings while in Albania, immediately said no, but Owen told him, “Go on! Give it to him. You can always tell the supply officer you lost it in Albania.” Within a few minutes, all of the 807th men had given their jackets to the crew members who wanted an American coat. It was a gesture of thanks for what the men had done for them, and they were feeling generous now that they were on their way back to Allied lines. They may also have passed on the lice they still carried.

  Shortly after, someone announced that they were entering Bari’s harbor, the site of the German attack in early December and their original destination on November 8. The men joined nurses—some of whom had dabbed on their last bits of makeup—on deck, and the helmsman guided the boat into a dock. As the boat approached, the party saw their commanding officer, McKnight, along with dozens of military photographers and a host of other people waiting to greet them.

  While the boat was being secured to the dock, the Americans thanked Duffy, Bell, Smith, and the boat crew for all they had done for them and said their goodbyes. They were so excited to get off the boat when it was time to leave that they forgot to salute McKnight as he greeted them.

  Without delay, the entire group was put in a fleet of new staff cars that were usually reserved for officers. Duffy and Bell found a military truck waiting to take them to SOE’s new Bari headquarters, and Smith found his way to OSS headquarters in Bari.

  The Americans were driven immediately to the 26th General Hospital, which had only been open since December 4, two days after the attack on Bari. Because much of the equipment for the hospital had sunk with the Liberty ship Samuel J. Tilden, the 26th had to open using a hundred borrowed beds.

  Thrasher and Baggs were immediately escorted to another area to be debriefed, and the nurses and medics never saw them again. The rest of the party, still wearing lice-infested clothes, were put into a small room with enough chairs for each of them to sit. A lieutenant colonel soon arrived and announced that he was a G2 officer, or Army Intelligence officer, and explained that they were being detained in the hospital while decisions were made as to their next assignments. Theater policy dictated that anyone who had been in enemy territory for more than eight days would be sent back to the States rather than risk being treated as a spy if caught again behind enemy lines. In the meantime, he said, the nurses and enlisted men would be housed in an isolated ward.

  He then picked a nurse and a medic to be the first to be debriefed. The two were sent with an escort to an interrogation room, while Hayes, Jens, and the others signed papers indicating they understood that, to protect their benefactors and future downed troops, they could not reveal where they had been or who had helped them. When Jens was called in, she took from her coat pocket the diary she’d kept to help her remember the names of the villages. When she’d finished with it, the officer insisted on keeping it, though he said it would be returned after the war.

  When half the party had been interviewed, the officers decided that the stories were consistent enough that they wouldn’t need to continue. The lieutenant colonel returned to the room where the main party was seated and pulled out a map that had been created from the interviews. He showed them that the distance between the crash site and Seaview was about sixty miles, while their estimated route was about three hundred forty miles. Given the mountainous terrain, the Intelligence officer surmised they had walked two to three times that amount—roughly six hundred fifty to one thousand miles.

  The officer also explained that, because of their journey back to allied lines, they were now members of the unofficial Late Arrivals Club. The Club was originally created by a British public relations officer in the Royal Air Force in July 1941 during the desert campaigns in the Middle East. British personnel who were forced to abandon their aircraft, who were shot down, or who crash-landed in enemy territory and returned to their squadrons on foot were issued a badge with a winged boot on it and a membership certificate to the “club” detailing their journey. The certificate came with the words, “It is never too late to come back.” Covered in the media, the badge soon became legendary, and when an unknown American evader returned to England and started wearing it in 1943, others followed. The AAF never approved the designation, so the unofficial members had to wear a winged-foot pin under their lapels. The intelligence officer then showed a pin to the Americans and gave them the name of a jeweler in Ohio who sold the pins for less than two dollars.

  Even more important to the group, the officer told them that when President Roosevelt learned that thirteen nurses were trapped in Nazi-occupied Albania, he’d insisted on daily briefings on what was being done to rescue them.

  Late that afternoon, Smith had just finished writing his report on the evacuation at OSS Bari and was shaving in the bathroom when he was surprised by a visit from OSS director “Wild Bill” Donovan. Donovan congratulated him on the success of the evacuation and told him he was sending him back to Albania to rescue the other three nurses. Before he left, Donovan added that when he got back to Washington he would personally tell President Roosevelt of Smith’s achievements in helping to save the party.

  The following day, when a medical officer examined the men and women who were still in seclusion and unable to let even their family members know they were safe, he diagnosed Cruise with pneumonia. Jens had a boil on her leg that needed treatment, and Zeiber was also ill, but the others were in good shape considering all they had been through. For the next five days, the men and women were sequestered in the two-room ward, and though they were served many of the foods they had craved in Albania, it took them several days before they could eat more than three or four bites without feeling full. The men had been given razors to shave, but some decided to keep their new goatees and mustaches and showed them off in photos taken by Army photographers.

  On January 14, while Jens, Cruise, and Zeiber remained hospitalized, the others were released and flown back to their headquarters in Catania. Hornsby of the 802nd was allowed to stay with the 807th for a few days while the squadron celebrated.

  Not everyone was happy to see them. When Owen, Wolf, and Hayes arrived at their old quarters, they found it occupied. One of the men asked the three medics, “What are you doing in here?” After Owen explained it was their room, someone responded that it wasn’t anymore. It wasn’t the homecoming they had expected. A better reception came the following day when they joined the rest of the 807th at the officers’ villa and celebrated with food and dancing—though the knowledge that three of the nurses were still missing overshadowed the party.

  The AAF kept the story of the Americans’ return from the papers through January as Hornsby was sent back to the 802nd, and the nurses and medics finally were allowed to write letters to their families to let them know they were safe. Cruise, Jens, and Zeiber were released from the hospital in Bari over the next few weeks and sent back to the 807th in Sicily, while MacKinnon, the medic from California, was admitted to the Catania hospital for dysentery, and Kanable, the nurse from Wisco
nsin, suffered from malaria.

  On January 26, most of those who’d been in Albania and were well enough to travel flew to Casablanca, Morocco, for the first leg of their journey back to the States. From there, they joined whatever flights were available and were soon separated. Though they would forever be bonded by their shared experiences during their sixty-three harrowing days in Albania, this was the last time many would be in one another’s presence. Some assumed they would see each other again at Bowman Field, but only a few ever did.

  CHAPTER 16

  Left Behind

  The three nurses separated from the others in the attack on Berat on November 15, 1943, were thirty-two-year-old Ann Maness, a tall, blue-eyed redhead with freckles; thirty-year-old brunette Helen Porter from Hanksville, Utah, who had been reassigned to the 807th at the last minute with Jens; and thirty-one-year-old Wilma Lytle, also a brunette, from Butler, Kentucky. They had last seen the others in their group the night they watched an Italian movie in Berat on their seventh day in Albania. A guide and two medics had escorted them to their assigned home after the movie, and they’d all had a glass of raki together with their hosts before saying goodnight.

  When the three nurses awoke to the sound of gunfire the next morning, their hosts, a married couple named Nani and Goni Karaja, motioned for them to come down to the basement, which they used as a cellar to store the wine they made and sold. Nani’s stepmother, whom they called Mama Ollga and who always dressed in black, and Nani’s seven-year-old nephew, Koli, also lived with the couple and huddled with them in the basement throughout the attack.

  Several hours later, when the streets had quieted, the family and nurses came upstairs and learned the Germans and the BK had won the battle. The nurses watched in horror through the window as German vehicles passed along the main road of the town. As they wondered what had happened to the rest of their party, they also wondered what would happen to them.

  In an effort to protect their hosts, the nurses decided they should give themselves up and tried to convey their intentions to the family, but the family refused to let them surrender. Instead, Nani went to get his brother Kiçi, who had worked as a waiter in a hotel in Boston before the war and spoke some English. Kiçi was also the father of Koli, the seven-year-old boy who lived with Nani and Goni because the couple did not have any children of their own. When Nani returned with his brother, Kiçi told the Americans that he knew a high-ranking member of the BK who he thought might be able to help when some calm was restored to the town. Kiçi then left the house to see if he could learn what had happened to the rest of the Americans. When he returned, he brought the three nurses the good news that the other Americans had gotten out by truck before the Germans arrived.

  Later that afternoon, two German soldiers, one of whom spoke Albanian, entered the house and searched it. When they saw the nurses, they pointed at their clothes and asked them what type of uniform the women were wearing. Unsure of what would happen next and most likely terrified, Maness replied, “Infermiere,” the Albanian word for nurse. One of the soldiers picked up the box of airplane spotter cards used to help teach military personnel types of planes that Maness had been using earlier to play solitaire. He looked at the B-25 on the cover of the box for a moment, put it down, muttered something, and left with the other soldier, leaving the nurses to wonder why they’d been spared.

  While the nurses waited downstairs, the women of the house, Goni and Ollga, cried as they followed the soldiers upstairs. The soldier who spoke Albanian patted Goni on the shoulder and, to her surprise, told her to keep the nurses inside and to feed them. What the Albanian women and the nurses didn’t realize was that because Nani and Kiçi were in the wine-making business and had done business with some of the Germans, Kiçi had been able to speak with them and convince them to overlook their guests.

  A day or two later, Kiçi returned with his friend from the BK, who reassured the nurses that they were safe and would be taken care of. That afternoon, a hole barely large enough for an adult to squeeze through was dug between Nani’s house and his cousin’s house next door. The nurses were told that if the Germans came to search the house, they were to crawl through the opening and hide in the adjoining house.

  It wasn’t long before the nurses also received a visit from Kadre Çakrani, the BK commandant of Berat, who came to see if they needed anything. The nurses asked for some clothes, which they were given, and they also received deliveries of sugar and rice. Çakrani told them that if they needed anything else, they were to send Nani and he would make sure they got it. The commandant was true to his word, and he even returned several times to check on them.

  The days, however, soon turned to weeks, and the nurses grew restless in the small home that lacked plumbing or running water. They played bridge and helped with housework to pass the time. They even spent part of every evening next door listening to the radio before going to bed on pallets in the living room next to Mama Ollga. Kiçi and his family came almost every day to see them, and someone let them borrow an Albanian–English dictionary, which they pored over in an effort to communicate better with their hosts. They even taught Nani’s nephew, Koli, the lyrics to the popular British World War I song “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” The nurses were well fed and were free to go about the house, but the days were long.

  Occasionally Nani was alerted that someone was coming to search the house. At that point, the nurses would retreat to the wine cellar and stood ready to flee to the neighbors’ house through the small opening, but there was never a need. Eventually the commandant arranged for a notice to be placed on the house indicating that it was reserved for his use.

  By early December, however, the commandant ordered the family to tell their friends who had heard about the nurses that they had left Berat. He also told the American women that they were now to hide whenever they heard anyone approach the door. The isolation was difficult, but at Christmas, Nani’s cousin’s daughter next door sang carols to them, and Kiçi brought them each a pair of socks and a cake to celebrate. The nurses spent New Year’s Eve watching through a window as German soldiers moved into a jail across the street from them.

  On January 6, 1944, three days before the large party of Americans was evacuated at Seaview, SOE officers Victor Smith and Alan Palmer tried unsuccessfully to get the three nurses out of Berat. As they tried to make their way through a BK village, a local leader betrayed their plans to the Germans. The men were warned ahead of time and were able to narrowly escape capture in an ambush before returning to their mission.

  Lloyd Smith received his orders to rescue the remaining three nurses about three weeks later. When he left on his mission, code-named Churn, he thought he had been promoted to the rank of major, but promotions were slow during the war, and his was delayed until the summer. Two other men, a wireless operator and a cryptographer, were scheduled to accompany Smith into Albania, but by the time they arrived in Bari, Smith had already departed for the country, taking the American boat Yankee from Brindisi to Seaview on February 2. He would have left even sooner if naval operations hadn’t held up the boat.

  Smith arrived at Seaview around eleven o’clock that night and was rowed to shore before he climbed the steep path to the caves. At the base camp, he found McAdoo, the American officer who had established a network of informants along the coast while operating out of Seaview. McAdoo told Smith that several prominent BK members were working to deliver the three nurses to the coast within the next ten days and suggested he wait at the caves to see what happened before venturing to Berat.

  Ten days later, as the winter weather continued to make the men in the caves miserable, more Italians arrived at Seaview hoping to be evacuated. The nurses still had not arrived, and local BK representatives were now telling the Allied officers that they were worried that Seaview and Grama Bay, another base camp, would soon be attacked. Quayle, the officer in charge since Field had been evacuated after his fishing accident, had established Grama Bay shortly after hi
s arrival to ensure that his men had two bases from which they could operate. Grama Bay, which was also dubbed “Sea Elephant,” was a half day’s journey to the south of Seaview and was as lice-infested and barren as the other. The members of the BK were convinced the Germans knew of both camps and would attack.

  Smith set out on a reconnaissance mission to the north of Seaview to find possible hideouts and new bases and came across a group of Germans living in a house north of Orso Bay near Vlorë. He posted shepherds as guards to alert him and the other men if the Germans moved south toward them. When he returned from his reconnaissance mission, he learned that Skender Muço, the BK member from Vlorë who had promised to deliver the nurses, had told McAdoo he was unable to do it. “The situation was rather critical at this time because we were expecting the Germans any day,” wrote Smith. “I did not care to risk leaving the base, pick up the nurses, and return to find it in German hands.”

  On the night of February 13, McAdoo and Orahood, the wireless operator involved with the evacuation of the larger American party, left Albania by boat on the orders of Fultz, the head of OSS Albania in Bari. During the evacuation, three Italians drowned when the canvas boat carrying them to the larger boat capsized from the violent surf.

  Needing help, Smith was able to convince Hodo Meto, a BK member from Vlorë who spoke English and whom Smith had met on his previous mission, to come to Grama Bay later that month and assist him with the evacuation of the three remaining nurses. Meto was one of the men who had worked with Karapiçi and McAdoo in creating an intelligence network along the coast.

  With Meto translating, Smith wrote a letter to Midhat Frashëri, the leader of the BK, and Kadre Çakrani, one of his top men and the commandant in Berat. Smith already had intelligence that the nurses were in the care of these two men. In his letter, Smith informed them of his mission and reminded them “that several members of their organization had promised to bring the nurses to the base and had done nothing, that the United States Army knew the nurses were with them and under their care and if they were not evacuated within a certain length of time [Smith] would be asked for reasons and would be obliged to state that [his] failure was due to a lack of cooperation on the part of [the BK].”