The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II by Gregory A. Freeman

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  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
  • Pub. Date: August 2007
  • ISBN-13: 9780451222121
  • Sales Rank: 16,314
  • 336pp
 
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Synopsis

An astonishing, never-before-told story of the Second World War, based on newly declassified documents and exclusive interviews.

In 1944 the OSS set out to recover more than 500 airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia. Classified for over half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time.

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Biography

Gregory A. Freeman is an award-winning writer with over 25 years in journalism. He is the author of Sailors to the End: The Deadly Fire on the USS Forrestal and the Heroes Who Fought It.

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Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World Wby Anonymous

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January 01, 2008: Just finished a great book called ?The Forgotten 500? by Gregory Freeman. It recounts a risky rescue mission launched during WWII to save over 500 American and Allied flyers who had bailed out over Yugoslavia. The airmen were saved by the local Serbia people. The Serbs saved them from the Nazis at great personal risk. And fed from their meager rations. Many Serbs died for harboring US airmen. The leader of the Serbs was an anti Nazi guerilla Draza Mihailovich. With the help of Mihailovich?s fighters a high mountain plateau is turned into a small landing field. The OSS in spite of British opposition mounts a rescue mission that involves landing C-47s on the short runway. The runway was prepared by the local peasants and downed airmen using rudimentary farm tools. The airstrip was only 12 miles from Nazi encampments. It is an exciting and tense drama. The book also recounts how the US and it?s allies turned their back on Mihailovich. Primarily because of the disinformation provided by communists and their sympathizers in both US and British ranks. He points out ?Far more numerous than the Communists, and infinitely more numerous that the committed agents, were the muddleheaded liberals who shares a nebulous feeling that they too were serving the cause of progress. This book is a must read for anyone interested in WWII missions or how the US lost the Eastern block to Stalin.

Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World Wby Anonymous

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November 11, 2007: I do not typically read books about war and anything historical. I picked this book up because I had heard that one of the men written about in the book was from my hometown. I could not put this book down once I started it. For someone who doesn't have extensive knowledge of World War II, this book was written in such a way that was easy to understand and left you wanting to know more about this time in our history. For those who like to read about World War II, this is a story that hasn't really been told before.