World War II Rescued American Airmen Defend Serbs [WARNING-GRAPHIC PHOTOS]

National Committee of American Airmen ^ | April 9, 1999 | Richard L. Felman

[Karadjordje]

Source of the Washington Times article (Author is Ben Barber): http://netjazz.net/news1a.htm (<- click)

Karadjordje

[CobaltBlue]

>>spout racist crap<<

Serbians are a race? Who knew?

[Karadjordje]

Some people are really racists - ask your own generals

COLONEL FONTENOT CAUSED NUMEROUS PROTESTS

New York, Washington

Colonel Gregory Fontenot, commander of the First brigade of the First
US Armored Division, whose units are among the first to come to Bosnia
in a considerable number, gave interview to "The Wall Street Journal".

Speaking about "the parties in Bosnia", Fontenot said: "They
think there that I believe them nothing - and that is right. They are 
the people who were killing children and women, attacking their
neighbors. I to offend them? Hell, they offended me by the need to go 
to Bosnia because of their fighting". The article quotes Col
. Fontenot, addressing two of his Afro-American soldiers, to say: 
"It'll be interesting to hear what all you'll see. Croats are racists.
They kill people for their color".

US Gen. Nash, one of the leading IFOR's officers, said he was 
"disappointed and very sad" when he read the Fontenont's statement. "
I will investigate the details" Nash says. Sources in Washington claim 
that Nash sent Gen. Brig. Stanley Cherrie to the area where Fontenot 
is at the moment, to find out the details. The State Department high 
official told journalists: "Those are very serious statements, which 
cause great concern. If those words were properly reported, they are a 
wrong estimation, an extremely wrong estimation... The direction of 
his comment is completely wrong and unacceptable".

President of Croatian Brother Community, gathering Croats in the USA, 
Bernard Luketich, sent a letter to the US President Bill Clinton, 
demanding Fontenot either excuse for his words, or be removed from the 
position, as he badly insulted Croats, including the US Croats. Also 
the National Federation of the Croats in America (NFCA) sent letters 
to president Clinton and editorial of "The Wall Street Journal", 
protesting due to claims on the racism of the Croats.
A.S.
TWRA, Dec 29, 1995

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

"A German tank rolls through a small village, and the peasants rush out, lining the road with their right arms raised in a Nazi salute as they chant 'Heil Hitler.' Mobs chase minorities from their homes, kicking them and pelting them with eggs as they flee into the woods. Europe in the 1940s? No. Croatia in the 1990s."

The Washington Times, "Pro-Nazi extremism lingers in Croatia", 15.06.1997

No, No, that is not true - CNN never reported about this - Am I right?

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

"I (NBC correspondent) was at dinner with a kind Kosovo Muslim family the other night when talk turned to the German NATO troops that rolled into town to make the city the headquarters of its peacekeeping district. The patriarch of the family, a man old enough to remember the last time German troops rolled into Prizren, said they all felt safe now. 'The German soldiers are excellent,' he said. Then he added, 'I should know, I used to be one.' Then he raised his arm in a Nazi salute and said, 'Heil,' and laughed merrily.

NBC, June 18, 1999

No, No, stop this please! This is not true!

Karadjordje

[I got the rope]

whew, your going down in flames...bookmarked....BTTT!

[CobaltBlue]

1) Is it acceptable to kill innocent men, women and children based on their religion?

2) Is it acceptable to kill innocent men, women and children based on what their countrymen did to your countrymen decades ago?

3) If you answer to #1 and/or # 2 is "yes," would Jesus agree with you?

[joan]

1997 ...AS SEEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE MAJORITY WORLD

BOSNIA Recently released secret documents reveal that in the first days of the war, Muslim paramilitary leaders murdered scores of Bosnian Serb civilians in Sarajevo.

"First days of the war" would be around April 1992 - how can one say that the Serbs reacting to these kind of actions by the Muslims - is based on simply WWII history. Muslims and Croats were acting afresh and clear and present danger, not that of the past, was the situation for Bosnian Serbs.

Sarajevo was advertised by the media as being multicultural, but liquidating the civilian Serbs of that city at the get go and at that pace already, is genocidal.

[Conservative til I die]

Of course they don't worship idols....

Judging by the rest of your post, you seem to idolize the Church itself. In your opinion, has the Orthodox Church or anyone associated it in it's 1000 year (not 2000 year) history, done *anything* wrong?

[Karadjordje]

CobaltBlue wrote:
Srebrenica did happen, too.

Of course it happened. But can you tell me what happened in detail?

Read this article from the Australian newspaper The Age about how western media lies about Srebrenica massgraves:

"I lied to my viewers, Carleton admits

Krista Hughes
March 1 2002

Veteran reporter Richard Carleton yesterday admitted he misled and lied to viewers of the 60 Minutes current affairs program by showing footage from another mass grave to illustrate a story about the Srebrenica massacre.

Mr Carleton and the 60 Minutes team are suing the ABC, former Media Watch presenter Paul Barry and then executive producer Peter McEvoy for defamation over two Media Watch segments in July 2000.

Mr Barry said a 60 Minutes story to mark the fifth anniversary of the massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica in Bosnia had used the same footage and interviewed the same people as an earlier BBC documentary.

'Perhaps it's plagiarism, certainly it's lazy journalism,' Mr Barry said.

Cross-examined by Terry Tobin, for the ABC, Mr Carleton conceded he had knowingly used footage of victims being exhumed from a mass grave far away from Srebrenica to illustrate the Channel Nine report.

Asked by Mr Tobin if he had misled viewers, Mr Carleton said: 'In the technical meaning of the word misleading, yes.'

Asked if had he lied, he said: 'If I take the word lie to mean misled, yes, I misled, in the technical sense and in the sense that meaning (is) lie, yes, I lied.'

Mr Carleton denied he had behaved unethically as a journalist and said the footage had enhanced viewers' understanding of the 1995 massacre.

The ACT Supreme Court also heard 60 Minutes had broadcast footage taken from the BBC documentary of a man showing how he was forced to lure his family to their deaths.

Mr Carleton said he was not aware the footage had been lifted until after the show went to air and the process of suing Media Watch had begun.

Producer Howard Sacre - also suing along with executive producer John Westacott - had told him: 'We have got a bit of a problem here.'

'I f----- up,' Mr Carleton quoted Mr Sacre as saying.

He said Nine's tape with the same footage had gone missing.

But documents tendered to the court showed Mr Carleton sent a fax to the Bosnian man employed as 60 Minutes' local liaison in May, 2000 - a month before the 60 Minutes team went to Bosnia - with a list of 17 shots from the BBC program he wanted him to obtain.

Mr Carleton told him he should not pay too much for the lure footage because under Australian copyright law, 60 Minutes could show a small amount of footage recorded off-air from the BBC program.

The hearing is continuing."

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/02/28/1014704981577.html (<- click)

Crazy Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

CobaltBlue wrote:
1) Is it acceptable to kill innocent men, women and children based on their religion?

NO it isn't, this would be a cerical-fascist or a fundamentalist islamist crime. Read Tudjman's statement mentioned in the Jerulasem Post or the quotes of Alija Izetbegovic's book 'Islamska declaracija" again.

CobaltBlue wrote:
2) Is it acceptable to kill innocent men, women and children based on what their countrymen did to your countrymen decades ago?

NEVER! Serbs can forgive.

CobaltBlue wrote:
3) If you answer to #1 and/or # 2 is "yes," would Jesus agree with you?

I answered both with no.

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

Thank you very much for your post!

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

DestroyEraseImprove wrote:
"Some Serbs see the world in four dimensions. The three you mentioned plus the historical perspective. How many dimensions of the world are we getting from CNN? I mean , have you ever heard of CNN telling the real story about Srebrenica, the surounding vilages, Nasir Oric and his minions killing and rampaging there for years?"

Hello DestroyEraseImprove!

CobaltBlue never accused "the most barbaric atrocities of the war" (that says the Canadian paper The Ottawa Citizen! Look here (<- click)) comitted by Nasir Oric's Muslim Islamist Mudshahedin fighters on over 1,000 Serbian Civilians!

greetings

Karadjordje

[DestroyEraseImprove]

1) Is it acceptable to kill innocent men, women and children based on their religion?

No.

2) Is it acceptable to kill innocent men, women and children based on what their countrymen did to your countrymen decades ago?

No.

It was not about what these countrymen were doing decades ago, but what they were doing at the begining of the 1990's. The unconstitutional declaration of independence in Croatia and Bosnia, against the will of the Serbian people in these Republics. Degrading the Serbian nation from the status of a constituent nation to a marginal minority. Finally establishing artificial borders between Serbs and Serbs (just think of the Drina) und thus carving up the coherent areas with majority serb population in the former Yugoslvia. In regard to everything mentioned above, the memories of WWII and the genocide experienced by the Serbs did play a significant role in shapping their political and military attitude towards their enemies in the 1990's. And don't forget the 500 years of ottoman occupation and muslim oppression. Never again.

[Karadjordje]

1941 - Grand Mufti visits Adolf Hitler in Germany in person

A picture taken in 1943 of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini reviewing Bosnian-Muslim troops - a unit of the "Hanjar (Saber) Division" of the Waffen SS which he personally recruited for Hitler.

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini and Nazi authorities

Look how the Bosnian Muslim SS Hanshar Nazis burned Serbian villages and slaughtered Serbian civilians like 1992 in Srebrenica:

"Hajj Amin made an especially important contribution to the German war effort in Yugoslovia where the Bosnian Muslim SS units he recruited (in particular the Handzar Division) brutally suppressed local Nazi resistance movements. The Mufti's pamphlet entitled, `Islam and the Jews´, was published by the Nazis in Croatian and German for distribution during the war to these Bosnian Muslim SS units. This hateful propaganda served to incite the slaughter of Jews, and (Serb) Christians as well. Indeed, the Bosnian Muslim Handzar SS Division was responsible for the destruction of whole Bosnian Jewish and Serbian communities, including the massacre of Jews and Serbs, and the deportation of survivors to Auschwitz for extermination."

Source: http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/arab_anti2.html (<- click)

"To show gratitude towards his hosts, in 1943 the Mufti travelled several times to Bosnia, where on orders of the SS he recruited the notorious `Hanjar troopers,´ a special Bosnian Waffen SS company which slaugh-tered 90% of Bosnia's Jews and burned countless Serbian churches and villages. These Bosnian Muslim recruits rapidly found favor with SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who established a special Mullah Military school in Dresden."

Source: http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/arabnazi.html (<- click)

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

The Following is a letter written by US Army 1st Lieutenant John E. Scroggs of Kansas City Missouri, which was written to Yugoslav ambassador Fotitch at the time of General Mihailovic's trial. Scroggs was one of the 500 Allied airmen the Chetniks rescued from behind enemy lines in WWII

"Those of us who know the real circumstances in Serbia are enraged at the unfair attacks on the Cetniks and their leaders. If only someone could open the poor blind eyes of the spoiled American public, a wonderful group of people might recieve their due recognition. Unfortunately, those of us who lived with these people are few and far between, but believe you me, never will we forget how the men and women of Serbia unquestioningly risked their very lives for us, clothed us, and gave us shelter when they themselves were ill-clad, cold and hungry...I vowed to myself that if I could ever possibly begin to repay these people for all they had done for me, I wouldn't hesitate to do so. Unfortunately, what little I might be able to do would not even pay the interest on my debt to the Serbian people. I suffer with them in their present plight, and in the injustice rendered to them by the American press as well as the American and British governments."

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

'Operation Halyard'

Serbian Chetnik leader Draza Mihauilovic, 1937

President Truman awarded Mihailovich the Legion of Merit, the highest combat award the U.S. government can give to a foreign national, but it was kept secret for decades because of pressure from the State Department.

Rescue remembered

Tipp man uses peace talks as occasion to remember Serb saviors from World War II

By Mary McCarty
Dayton Daily News

"Curtis 'Bud' Diles has a Lincoln Town Car with 'Purple Heart' vanity plates.

He has a loving 47-year marriage and a comfortable, healthy retirement. He has four children and 12 grandchildren he can barely talk about without busting up with pride.

He has, in short, a full life. The one thing that has eluded him - and consumed him these 51 years - is the chance to repay the Serb Chetnik soldiers and villagers who saved his life after his bomber was shot down over Yugoslavia in 1944.

'When you owe your very life to a group of people, you don't forget,' Diles said of his 50-year quest.

Now, with the peace talks taking place in Dayton, the 70-year-old Huber Heights man hopes the Serb people can attain the same peace and prosperity they enabled him to enjoy. And he hopes to unload some of his burden of gratitude.

'For 50 years I've wrestled with an old Underwood, wadding up reams of paper trying to write my story,' Diles said. 'When I heard the peace talks were coming to Dayton, I thought, maybe now I'll get the chance to tell my story.'

Diles was one of more than 500 U.S. airmen who owe their lives to Gen. Draza Mihailovich and his Serbian Chetnik Resistance Army. 'Operation Halyard,' as it was called, was the largest rescue in history of U.S. airmen from behind enemy lines. Over a six-month period, U.S. intelligence worked with Mihailovich to rescue the fliers shot down in the Serbian mountains.

The Chetnik leader was executed by Yugoslav dictator Josip Tito in 1946. The survivors of his rescue mission, however, have worked tirelessly to preserve his memory. A Tucson-based organization, the National Committee of American Airmen Rescued by General Mihailovich Inc., has been fighting for decades to erect a memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

This week, the group mailed a letter to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, thanking him for his people's sacrifice during World War II and offering 'heartfelt prayers' for the peace process.

'Many Serbs were killed in saving American airmen,' said the organization's president, Maj. Richard Felman of Tucson. 'Now that they're in trouble, we'd like to do what we can.'

For 18 minutes on Sept. 8, 1944, however, Diles thought he wouldn't make it to see 20.

It was the young airman's 17th mission in three weeks from his base south of Rome. This one was supposed to be a 'milk run;' the men were told by intelligence to expect no anti-aircraft fire. 'We thought we'd drop our bombs and be back in time for supper,' Diles recalled.

Diles was the nosegunner on a brand-new B-24 bomber that had just bombed its target, a bridge over the Danube River in Belgrade. Suddenly, anti-aircraft fire burst with a force that shook the entire airplane.

'The bombardier was behind me, and he caught a piece of flak through the nose. All I could see was blood. I put his hand on his rip cord and shoved him in through the nose hatch. I didn't even know if he was conscious. I went right behind him.'

As he parachuted 18,000 feet to the ground, swinging wildly in the wind, Diles pondered the Danube below him - and pondered the different ways he would die.

'When death is a certainty, you don't panic. Even though I was oscillating back and forth, it felt absolutely still. I wondered: Would the Nazis shoot me down? Would our own plane's propellers chew us up into hamburger? Would the Serbs or Croatians capture me? We had been told the Serbs would cut our ears off and give them to the Nazis.'

Diles landed in a cornfield with a force that nearly knocked him out. Almost immediately, he was surrounded by Serb villagers and soldiers who whisked him away from the German Stuka dive bombers buzzing the treetops, looking for the plane's crew.

For nine days, his Serb protectors moved Diles and 23 fellow airmen - including six from his nine-man crew - from farmhouse to farmhouse. A Life magazine photographer snapped them sleeping in a hayloft.

To avoid German patrols, they traveled on horse-drawn carts away from highways and main roads.

'There was plenty of dance and food and song, and each of them treated us like royalty,' Diles recalls.

The prospect of death was never far away.

'Our closest call came when a German convoy got past the guards and approached our horse-drawn cart. I heard the Chetnik guard say fini in French, and I thought that meant we were finished. I saw a German tank with a machine gun mounted in front of the cab, pointed right at us, and I expected them to start firing.'

But the Germans, who were evacuating Greece, moved on, and 'we all ran into the hills like scared rabbits.'

Twice the Chetniks found an airfield and radioed for a rescue, and twice they were nearly overtaken by German troops. Finally, on Sept. 17, two C-47 cargo planes landed in a tiny field north of the town of Valjevo. In takeoff, one plane hit a haystack; another dragged tree limbs. 'It was touch-and-go,' Diles recalled. 'We could hear the machine-gun fire in the background of Serbs fighting off Tito's Partisans, who were trying to keep us from getting off the ground.'

The men cheered as they crossed the Adriatic Sea, figuring they were 'home free.'

Diles flew 17 more missions before returning to a career as a machine operator in his hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio. He met his wife, Inez, there. Twenty years ago Diles joined the Techmet Co. in Tipp City (now LaserMike Inc.), a laser-scanning manufacturing corporation co-founded by his brother Paul.

Over the years, Diles has been pained by the American abandonment of Mihailovich - whom he describes as a 'Lincolnesque figure' - as well as the failure to honor his memory.

Diles has tried to do his bit. His correspondence about Mihailovich and letters to Serb people crowd six feet of shelf space in his study.

'There were 8,000 soldiers assigned to protect Allied servicemen. I believe the Serbians thought the Americans would come to their rescue when they found out what they'd done. Well, Americans never did find out. Now it has no meaning; it's ancient history.

'When I heard about the peace talks, I thought, 'Here's a chance for me to get my opinion to someone who will hear me and listen.'

'After all, I wouldn't be here without the Serbs or Mihailovich. And not only am I here, but my four children and 12 grandchildren.'"

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

American President Richard Nixon

In a letter, American President Richard Nixon said about Serbian General Draza:

"General Draza Mihailovich was a patriot, a brave soldier and a gallant ally of the United States and every nation that went to war in the early forties to destroy the tyrannies that sought to enslave our world.

Hundreds of American pilots owe their lives to General Mihailovich and his forces and, the American people will never forget that debt.

As long as there are patriots in any nation, the name of General Mihailovich will be remembered and revered."

Karadjordje

[Karadjordje]

Ronald Reagan 39th President: 1981-1989

In telling about Serbian General Draza Mihailovic, Ronald Reagan said:

"... I believe that the spirit in which you have gathered here to honor the memory of General Mihailovich, the faithful allied commander and the first anti-Nazis leader in Europe, is shared by the great majority of Americans.

The ultimate tragedy of Draza Mihailovic cannot erase the memory of his heroic and often lonely struggle against the twin tyrannies that afflicted his people, Nazism and Communism. He knew that totalitarianism, whatever name it might take, is the death of freedom. He thus became a symbol of resistance to all those across the world who have had to fight a similar heroic and lonely struggle against totalitarianism. Mihailovich belonged to Yugoslavia; his spirit now belongs to all those who are willing to fight for freedom.

I wish that it could be said that this great hero was the last victim of confused and senseless policies of western governments in dealing with Communism. The fact is that others have suffered a fate similar to his by being embraced and then abandoned by western governments in the hope that such abandonment will purchase peace or security.

Thus, the fate of General Mihailovich is not simply of historic significance--it teaches us something today, as well. No western nation, including the United States, can hope to win its own battle for freedom and survival by sacrificing brave comrades to the politics of international expediency.

...it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that both freedom and honor suffer when firm commitments become sacrificed to false hopes of appeasing aggressors by abandoning friends."

Karadjordje