Lalich became a key figure in the war in Europe, leading the Halyard Operation. This operation involved going into enemy territory in Yugoslavia and rescue downed Allied pilots. In four months of operation in 1944, Lalich and his crews rescued …

The aircraft were quickly loaded with 20 American airmen, one American citizen, two Yugoslavian (Chetnik) officers, four French, four Italian army personnel, and two remaining Halyard team members, Lalich and his radio operator, Arthur Jibilian. Lalich tried once more to persuade Mihailović to accompany them to Italy.

2006年8月23日 · Captain Nick A. Lalich, a WWII American O.S.S. Officer, was instrumental in setting up and successfully carrying through the "Halyard Rescue Operation" (Halyard Mission) in Nazi occupied Yugoslavia in 1944, during which over 500 American airmen along with a couple hundred other Allied airmen were safely evacuated from behind enemy lines and ...

2024年4月4日 · Operation Halyard, known in Serbian as Operation Air Bridge (Serbian: Операција Ваздушни мост), was an Allied airlift operation behind Axis lines during World War II. This mission was launched by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor to both the U.S. Special Operations Forces and the Central Intelligence ...

2017年3月22日 · After the first part of the operation, Lt. Musulin was replaced by another officer of Serbian descent, Captain Nick Lalich, who organized the evacuation of another 207 airmen. The second part of the operation, codenamed Ranger, took place in September, on the eve of the Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia.

2018年10月30日 · His second mission was Operation Halyard. The three-man team were disguised as Serbian nationals and worked with local laborers as well as the airmen under Captain Leo Brooks, himself a downed aviator who had assumed command of the Allied airmen, to improve the British landing strip near Pranjani.

Operation Halyard evolved in wake of the Allied bombing campaign to destroy Nazi Germany's vast network of petroleum resources in occupied Eastern Europe. The most vital target of bombing was the facilities located in Ploesti, Romania, which supplied 35 percent of Germany's wartime petroleum.

Musulin left of Pranjani on 29 August in the aeroplane which delivered McDowell, and Musulin’s replacement, Captain Nick Lalich, had reached Pranjani by air on 10 August. On the eve of the arrival of Soviet forces in Yugoslavia during September 1944, the command of what was now the Yugoslav army, along with the 'Halyard' and 'Ranger' missions ...

With members of mission, 20 US Airmen were evacuated. Mission was great success, it managed to evacuate more than 420 US and Allied personnel, without losses. Nick Lalich, Arthur Jibbylian, US Airmen and Chetniks in Boljanić, before planes arrived. Halyard mission arrives in Bari, greeted by ACRU commander George Kraigher (first on the left).

The mission of George Vujnovich, my father, and Nick Lalich, Art Jibilian, George Musulin, Richard Felman and other members of Operation Halyard to tell the story of over 500 airmen shot down over Yugoslavia, their rescue by Draza Mihailovich's resistance forces and local Serbian farmers, and their successful evacuation by the OSS has been ...