Free The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman Page B

bear hug, almost lifting the bewildered American off his feet. Wilson didn’t quite know how to respond as the man kissed him on both cheeks, his beard scratching the airman’s face. The Yugoslav was all smiles as he shook Wilson’s hand and slapped him on the back, saying, “Americanski!” over and over. Wilson could only manage a weak smile because he was exhausted from the ordeal on the plane, plus he didn’t really know what was going on. But when he saw the man gesture to a girl nearby who was carrying a wooden cask, he perked up at the sight. He was desperately thirsty and wanted nothing more at that moment than a drink of water.
    The girl ran over and handed him the cask as the big man smiled and gestured for him to drink. Wilson pulled out the wooden plug and turned the cask up, drinking deep before he realized it wasn’t water but what the locals called rakija , a strong plum brandy. Wilson choked and coughed as the man laughed and the girl smiled at him.
    The brandy helped quench Wilson’s thirst somewhat, and the resulting buzz took the edge off the rest of his discomfort for a while. He wasn’t at all sure what these people were going to do with him, but they did seem happy to help him so Wilson began to relax a bit after the terrible ordeal he’d been through. He sat and rested while the others talked excitedly, looking toward him often and gesturing in a way that made it clear they were discussing him. Before long, the burly man who had hugged him gestured toward a nearby path and helped Wilson stand up, saying something that Wilson understood to mean they were leaving. He walked with a small group of men for a short while, coming upon a building that Wilson took to be some sort of military site, east of a fairly large town called Jagodina and southeast of Belgrade, the national capital. There were several men with rifles standing guard, and Wilson could see boxes of ammunition and other supplies.
    The group rested for a long time, the Yugoslavs talking but Wilson not understanding anything. Then he noticed another group approaching the building, and as they came closer he could see that one of the group was not like the others. He was wearing a flight suit. It didn’t take long for Wilson to recognize one of his crewmates from the B-17 and he rushed out to greet him. Over the next eight hours, several more groups straggled in with an airmen or two in tow, until eight of the B-17’s crew were gathered together again. Only the pilot and copilot were still missing, and Wilson suspected that was because they had bailed out much later and farther away than the other crew.
    The plane’s radio operator, Norman Brooks, had broken his ankle on landing, but otherwise the crew were in pretty good shape considering the ordeal they had been through.
     
     
     
    The same scenes were repeated all over northern Yugoslavia throughout much of 1944. Mike McKool, a Texas native, was a machine gunner on a B-17 when he bailed out over Yugoslavia on July 4, 1944. His story was similar to those of the other fliers: His bomber was on a mission from Manduria in southern Italy to the oil fields of Ploesti when two engines went out on the return flight over Yugoslavia. Two German fighters had been waiting in the area for damaged bombers and attacked, destroying a third engine and prompting the crew to bail out near Lapovo, about eighty miles south of Belgrade. On landing, McKool immediately found a hole to hide in but watched with trepidation as fifteen to twenty people came running toward him with pitchforks and sickles. McKool worried that he was about to be hacked to death by angry villagers, but they threw down their farming tools when they got to McKool and hugged him tightly, fighting one another for the chance to kiss him on the cheek. McKool was still bewildered by the warm welcome when two men with rifles came running up, shouting to the crowd urgently. Whatever he was saying, McKool understood that Germans were