By the end of the year, the OSS had twenty-five boats in the port of Bari, with as many as twenty making runs at any one time, all carrying crucial supplies ultimately bound for Yugoslavia. Under Major Tofte’s direction the decrepit fleet of “battered, leaking fishing schooners” made more than sixty voyages through enemy waters without losing their cargoes even once. Operation Audrey would later be called “quite remarkable since the unseaworthy fleet sailed in seas which the Royal Navy would not risk.”
ITALY AND YUGOSLAVIA AREA OF OPERATIONS
Hayden and Taylor piloted many of the craft in the OSS fleet on a countless number of covert missions across the Adriatic. Taylor, MU’s only operative in the Mediterranean Theater, would work closely with the Special Operations branch of OSS. Eventually he was named OSS’s operations officer in the Mediterranean. As operations officer, he was “responsible for the activities of SO, MU, Schools and Training, Operational Supply, and Field Photographic (before its transfer to Intelligence). His responsibilities included planning and coordinating SO and MU operations, and establishing and maintaining adequate training sections for all types of instruction except communications.” With Taylor’s appointment, the lines between the Maritime Unit and Special Operations continued to grow blurry—and they would remain that way for some time, largely because there simply weren’t enough bodies for all the duties.
Unfortunately, because most of the craft depended on wind power, the vessels averaged only seven knots, or around eight miles per hour. With the partisan main supply base on Vis about eighty miles away from Bari, it was a hazardous, approximately ten-hour journey through hostile waters. Hayden described the perils of making a daily run: “By plunging through the Allied minefield late of an afternoon a schooner always had a fighting chance of reaching Vis at dawn—barely in time to be backed into a precipitous cove where she could be hastily camouflaged with pine boughs festooned in her rigging, unloaded the following night, the camouflage repeated, and then driven toward Italy as soon as the weather served.” The fighters on Vis would then pack the supplies into small fishing boats, which would take on the dangerous task of getting the materiel to the mainland.
Most of the boats used to deliver cargo from Bari to the partisans were similar to the caïque craft used in Greece—in fact, many of the boats actually came from British contacts in Greece. Though useful, the slow, aging craft weren’t suitable for all OSS missions. Taylor thought that relying solely on the British to supply boats for various OSS missions was unwise and “repeatedly asked the Maritime Unit in Washington to supply him with fast surface craft.” OSS headquarters agreed, but it took considerable time for the bureaucrats to locate suitable vessels.
The first to arrive were two eighty-five-foot Army Rescue craft, and with the boats came additional MU men. After long delays, the two boats finally made it to Naples, Italy. There one of the boats, P-568, needed additional repairs and was delayed in dry dock. Lieutenant Ward Ellen, Taylor’s fellow instructor from Area D, successfully sailed the other vessel, P-584, all the way from Cairo to Bari, where it joined the fleet used for ferrying cargo to Yugoslavia. Ellen would later help establish and oversee a maintenance base in Monopoli, Italy, just up the coast from Bari. This base would soon become unexpectedly important to Allied operations in the region.
*The official announcement came on September 8, 1943.
11
“THE LITTLE PEARL HARBOR”
DECEMBER 2, 1943, THE PORT AT BARI, ITALY
OSS officers and partisans alike ran for cover as the roar of more than one hundred German bombers filled the overcast skies above Bari. Water splashed as boat crews hastily jumped into the sea, knowing that their ships would be prime targets of the attack. “A mob of Italian stevedores ran madly” away from the boats at the dock, trying to avoid being hit. An air siren wailed, and soon the sound of exploding bombs thundered as the Luftwaffe crews dropped their payloads in the crowded harbor. Gun crews from three of the ships at port “pumped tracers over each other’s heads with no effect whatever.” Screams joined the din as the explosives fell on the twenty-five Allied ships in the area. Seventeen sunk almost immediately, while seven others burned. Shrapnel soared through the air, tearing into people and objects indiscriminately, and one of the nearby buildings caught fire. The attack was over in minutes, but the horrors were just beginning.
Unbeknownst to the civilians and military in the port, one of the ships carried liquid death in its belly. The American freighter John Harvey was secretly carrying mustard agent, in violation of international agreements. The devastating impact of mustard gas in World War I had convinced the world’s powers to ban its use. However, President Franklin Roosevelt had covertly ordered the shipment of one hundred tons of mustard agent in hundred-pound bombs to Italy.
When the German bombs fell on the John Harvey, the ship’s hold immediately exploded with devastating violence, killing all those who knew of the existence of the banned chemical ordinance. Deadly mustard liquid and gas flew high into the air and then slowly settled back down into the harbor, coating everything and everyone in the vicinity. When the injured began to arrive at Bari’s hospitals, doctors and nurses treated them for conventional burns, not realizing they had been exposed to mustard. They failed to remove the chemical-soaked clothing, so the chemicals continued to penetrate and burn the patients’ skin. Soon victims began complaining that their eyes burned. Then their skin began to blister. Shocked, the physicians searched for the cause. Eventually one of the American doctors interviewed some longshoremen, and one mentioned the possibility that he might have unloaded mustard. The military began treating its patients for exposure to the chemical, but they failed to share their knowledge with the civilian hospital. More than a thousand civilians perished in what became known as “The Little Pearl Harbor.”
For Hayden and everyone else except Taylor, the air raid was an unexpected baptism by fire. Still Hayden noted that the attack was over so quickly that “there was hardly time to be scared.” He attempted to take his cues on how to respond from the Yugoslav partisans, who were used to these types of raids. He recalled, “We were trapped on the end of a dock, and eighty partisans from Yugoslavia went right on with what they were doing in spite of the commotion, loading ammunition, blankets, and high-octane gas into a pair of wooden schooners. The leader of the Yugoslavs, a man named Stipanovitch, fired at the low-flying German planes with a machine pistol. ‘Bloody fucking buggers!’ he yelled over and over again in a deep voice that boomed through a broad mustache.”
Hayden started to run for cover behind a nearby latrine. He thought better of it and recovered enough dignity to light a cigarette. The watching partisans noticed. “Hamil-tone!” hollered Stipanovitch, using Hayden’s recently changed name. “Give to me please one nice cigarette if you will.”
The movie star handed over a cigarette and noticed Stipanovitch’s hands remained perfectly steady as he lit it. “Some fucking welcome for you, eh Hamiltone?” the Yugoslav continued in his booming voice. Then he turned to a young, one-legged boy standing nearby and threw his pistol at him. “Here boy!” he growled, “Cool this bugger off.” Hayden was tremendously impressed by the partisans, “whose spirit made anything he’d seen before sophomoric.” He would have the chance to interact with them again frequently over the coming months.
Taylor and Ellen arrived on the grisly scene shortly after the attack. They assisted with the massive cleanup, and later, with the relocation of the base to Monopoli. Somehow the Yankee survived the carnage unscathed and would be put to use on an important mission.
12
THE ULTIMATE RESCUE
NOVEMBER 8, 1943, THE SKIES NEAR BARI, ITALY
Twenty-six American nurses and medics sat tensely in the back of the C-53D Skytrooper plane, which was a variant of the famous C-47 transport.* They were en route from Sicily to Bari, carrying out their duties to evacuate the critically wounded from the front lines. Injured soldiers had been piling up in Bari, and they need
ed to be moved to more secure locations. Since their arrival in the Mediterranean region a few months earlier, the men and women of the 807th had saved many lives, transporting hundreds of wounded soldiers from combat hotspots to safer venues for medical treatment.
Peering out the rectangular windows of the bird, the anxious pilots and passengers nervously watched the sinister-looking clouds in the distance and the massive tornado-like waterspouts racing across the Adriatic directly toward the plane. The pilot frantically radioed the tower at Bari for instructions and an updated weather report. However, in a shocking oversight, he lacked the proper codes to identify his incoming flight as “friendly,” placing its passengers in serious danger of being shot down by area defenders who could mistake his approach for that of an incoming enemy aircraft.
The pilot turned the big bird northwest, away from the impending danger, toward the heel of Italy’s boot. Once there he could safely follow the coastline to Bari. Soon heavy fog engulfed the plane, precluding visibility. The crew managed to finally establish radio contact with Bari, and the tower agreed to turn on the homing beacon for ten minutes. But the crew’s relief was as short-lived as their luck. Much to their dismay, the C-53 suddenly lost all contact with Bari, as the plane’s radio communication and magnetic compass simultaneously failed.
Flying blind, the pilots attempted to find a place for an emergency landing. Through a break in the fog, they observed an airfield and moved in to take a closer look. Their hope of a safe landing turned to terror when they made out the black swastikas adorning the wings and tails of enemy fighter planes lining the airstrip. A sharp crack of anti-aircraft fire sounded over the dull drone of the engines. The pilot and copilot desperately hauled back on the wheel, pushing the C-53 upward and into the cloud cover. Now flying at over eight thousand feet, the crew and passengers felt a sudden drop in temperature, as biting, frigid air entered the cabin. The plane seemed doomed, as its wings began to ice because the ground crew had neglected to reinstall the rubber de-icing boots normally fitted on each wing.
Suddenly, a German Focke-Wulf 190 bore down on them, aiming to destroy the defenseless cargo transport. Knowing he couldn’t possibly outrun the German fighter, the pilot’s only chance to save the plane and its passengers was to duck back into the dense clouds and attempt to elude the enemy’s guns. But hiding the C-53 in the cover of the clouds only exacerbated the icing problem. For fifteen tense minutes, fear gripped the pilots and passengers alike, as the ailing transporter lumbered from one cloud formation into another, engaged in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the nimble German fighter plane.
But now the crew faced yet another peril: the plane was nearly out of fuel. In a last ditch attempt to find a safe area to put down, the captain lowered his altitude. As the pilots’ visibility improved, they saw sharp craggy mountain peaks directly ahead of the C-53. Desperate, they scanned the unfamiliar landscape feverishly searching for a place—any place—to land. The pilots headed the plane in the direction of a patch of flat ground next to a small lake that offered the best chance for a successful emergency landing. The plane descended, and the pilots lowered the landing gear and, with a combination of skill and sheer luck, deposited the plane onto the tiny field. Both men applied the brakes as the lake loomed in front of them. The dry, open pasture soon gave way to mud, and the wheels sank into the soupy mess, abruptly halting the momentum of the big bird. The nose tipped forward, and the plane’s tail jerked upward, violently throwing the crew and passengers forward. The C-53 hopped up briefly, shuddered, then collapsed like a dead beast into the thick of the marsh.
Miraculously, everyone on board survived. However, the pilots had inadvertently landed the medics and nurses of the 807th smack in the midst of an Albanian civil war. German forces occupied the nation and were actively engaged in an antipartisan operation designed to clear the countryside of opposition to the Third Reich. They found themselves surrounded by hostile forces intent on eliminating them.
It would fall to Jack Taylor, Sterling Hayden, and Lloyd Smith to get them out.
WHEN THE OSS HEARD about the downed aircraft, they quickly began plotting a rescue operation. “It was learned that several of the nurses were in poor physical condition as a result of hardships they had endured while traversing difficult mountainous country behind the German lines in Albania,” Allied reports noted.
With rescue by air seeming impossible, the Maritime Unit became the natural choice to conduct the rescue operations. Hayden explained, “When the brass in this outfit heard about that they became all fired up—one man in particular who had just arrived from the States.” This major called the OSS agents into his office and told them they were going to rescue the nurses. Although the officer had no combat experience—he had recently been the credit manager for a restaurant chain—he had planned out the mission in intricate detail, “like we were holding up a bank.” Hayden, Taylor, and the others agreed to the mission, but only if they could have a larger role in the planning.
That task fell primarily on Taylor’s shoulders. As MU’s representative in Italy, Taylor had started to wear many hats, including that of operations officer. Although a gifted planner, Taylor despised sitting behind a desk and yearned for adventure. The mission into Albania would give him a chance to do both. And the mission would pose plenty of danger—an earlier British attempt to make contact with the nurses had already failed.
As in Egypt, a lack of high-speed boats plagued the Italian MU section. To evacuate the nurses from Albania, Taylor had a few craft at his disposal—the Yankee, the Maryk, and a British MBT boat. Initially crewed by partisan personnel, the vessels would eventually be manned by MU staff as they filtered into the theater. Hayden and Taylor, who were the most experienced seamen of the lot, would skipper the boat for the rescue mission.
But before they could get the nurses out of Albania, someone first had to get into the country and find them. For this task Taylor chose Lloyd Smith, the Special Operations operative who accompanied Hayden on the trip from Cairo to Italy. He would infiltrate the country and make contact with the survivors of the crash.
Rough seas delayed the mission twice. In early December, Taylor, Smith, and Hayden set out in the underpowered craft. Smith was armed only with Taylor’s .357 Magnum, which he won in a poker game en route to Italy. Moving through the German-infested waters of the Adriatic, they dropped Smith off at the small Albanian port of Seaview. At the same time, Taylor and his crew delivered some badly needed supplies to the Albanian partisans fighting the Germans. While Smith searched for the medical team, Taylor and Hayden planned to conduct numerous dangerous additional supply runs over the coming months.
Meanwhile Smith linked up with fellow Secret Intelligence (SI) agents who had been working in the country along with elements of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), including future actor and star of The Guns of Navarone Sir Anthony Quayle. With zero knowledge of the culture or language, Smith (with an assist from the British) somehow had to locate the nurses, who were in hiding nearly a hundred miles away. He would need to traverse treacherous mountains and survive the cauldron of an active civil war raging among the various resistance groups within the country.
Like most insurgencies, the Albanian resistance was divided into several major groups each with their own agenda: the Nationalists (also known as Ballists), the Royalists (Zogists attempting to restore King Zog I who had fled the country in 1939 after the Italians invaded), and the Communists. Elements of the Albanian establishment openly collaborated with Germany. Communist partisans, allied to the Soviet Union, refused to cooperate with the other factions and often fought against the other resistance groups. Smith would have to navigate through this cultural and ethnic jungle, and of course, he would need to avoid the Germans.
At first, guides provided by the SI men helped guide him through the hostile territory. Smith constantly found himself negotiating for his life with the violent groups. He wasn’t afraid to pull out some big names to accomplish the
mission. At one point he encountered a large group of heavily armed Ballists (whose ever-so-welcoming-to-foreigners motto was “Albania for the Albanians, Death to the Traitors”). He recalled, “I arrived at the small town of Dukati and was met by fifty armed Ballists, who tried to persuade me not to enter partisan territory.” Smith implored the armed fighters to let him through, saying that he was on a mercy mission, stating, “We have people in your country that are by themselves; they are not soldiers but medical personnel. Right now, our President knows that they are in your country. I am sure that he trusts you people. He expects your help.”
The mission did indeed have a high profile, and President Roosevelt was briefed on it. Smith’s name dropping worked, and the Ballists provided him with three guides. They trekked deeper into partisan territory that was occupied by Germans who were actively trying to crush the insurgency. Once there, he had several close calls, including numerous occasions when he and/or his guards were almost taken prisoner. But Smith and his small group of guides always seemed to be one step ahead of the Germans. Smith recalled one such incident: “It was still raining and since my clothes were wet, I decided to stay in Dhermi that day. I received word that over a hundred Germans were making a house-to-house search of a nearby village for Partisans and weapons. Suspecting that Dhermi would be next on their list, I moved to a house at the extreme western end of the town and made ready for a fast getaway. Before they arrived, I moved to a cave and spent the remainder of the night sleeping there with a shepherd and his flock. This is standard operating procedure with the Germans. They move into a village, kill a few Partisans, and after a few days move out again.”
First SEALs Page 8
