The Secret Rescue (38 page)

40. Kanable
“Serves Overseas: Lieut. Pauleen J. Kanable,”
Wisconsin State Journal,
September 30, 1943.

41. Kopsco
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
27.

42. Others who piled into the plane
Kathi Jackson,
They Called Them Angels: American Military Nurses of World War II
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006), 2.

43. “Tassy”
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
40.

44. one of five children
“Three Nurses from Michigan Reported Safe,” NPN, 1944 newspaper article, Harold Hayes papers.

45. younger brother
Willard Bette Newell, e-mail interview, December 7, 2012; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
172.

46. “Marky”
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
26; Hayes, interview.

47. Hayes
Hayes, interview.

48. sat across from
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
9.

49. Pennsylvania Railroad
William Eldridge personnel file, NPRC.

50. medics who were married
Hayes, interview; Wanetta Wolf, obituary, February 12, 2006, http://www.clinehansonfuneralhome.com/sitemaker/sites/clineh0/obit.cgi?user=wanetta; Kristin Zeiber-Pawlewicz, e-mail interview, June 19, 2012; Elva Brooks, e-mail interview, January 20, 2013.

51. easygoing
Kristin Zeiber-Pawlewicz, e-mail interview, June 19, 2012.

52. whose brother had been taken prisoner
“Adams, Brother of Wake Captive, Lost Near Italy,” NPN, 1943 newspaper article, Harold Hayes papers.

53. Abbott had switched places
Abbott,
Out of Albania,
9.

54. Rutkowski had learned
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
26.

55. roughly two-hour flight
Hayes, interview; Agnes Jensen, statement, Roll A6544, AFHRA.

56. Simpson… had also boarded
Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
10.

57. Bari was open
Charles Thrasher, statement, Roll A6544, AFHRA.

58. Shumway secured
Hayes, interview.

59. Around eight thirty a.m.
Several passengers, statements, Roll A6544, AFHRA. Though the Missing Air Crew Report listed 9:00 a.m. as the departure time, and Thrasher’s statement gave 7:30 a.m., several of the passengers, including Dawson, Kanable, Owen, and Jensen, said the plane took off between 8:15 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
13, said the plane was flying with two others that morning. Though Lieutenant T. E. Yarbrough described piloting one of those planes in a letter to Mangerich many years later, neither Mangerich nor Hayes remembered seeing any other planes flying with them that morning. Lieutenant Joseph Rogers, the other pilot mentioned by Yarbrough, mentioned the flight in a family history and included a newspaper reference, but no other sources could be found.

60. within fifteen minutes
Hayes, interview.

61. paged through magazines or books
Ibid.

62. Watson read a book
Lois Watson McKenzie, lecture, Nurses in War symposium, Washburn University School of Nursing, February 7, 1991, McKenzie family papers.

63. control tower at Bari
Missing Air Crew Report No. 1147.

64. classified as confidential “
Pilots’ Information File,” War Department, April 9, 1943, PIF 3-3-1.

65. [experiences during flight]
Hayes, interview; Charles Thrasher, statement, Roll A6544, AFHRA; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
11–19; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
10–14; McKenzie, lecture, Nurses in War symposium, 1991; Eugenie Rutkowski to her daughter, undated and unpublished letter.

66. IFF
Hayes, interview; “Pilots’ Information File,” War Department, April 9, 1943, PIF 1-3-2; Geoffrey Perret,
Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in World War II
(New York: Random House, 1993), 74; Frederik Nebeker,
Dawn of the Electronic Age: Electrical Technologies in the Shaping of the Modern World, 1914–1945
(Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009), 455.

67. “Look out there!”
Hayes, interview.

68. both experienced swimmers
Ibid.

69. airfield
Charles Thrasher, statement, Roll A6544, AFHRA, identified the location of the airfield as Fushë-Krusjë.

70. forgotten to switch the fuel tanks
Hayes, interview.

71. “What’s that plane doing?”
Ibid.

72. “Butcher Bird”
Winchester,
Aircraft of World War II,
94–95.

73. less than a few hundred feet from the waterline
Hayes, interview.

74. black eye
McKenzie, lecture, Nurses in War symposium, 1991.

Chapter 4

1. picked up Shumway
Hayes, interview.

2. shot of morphine
Ibid.

3. [crash aftermath]
Ibid.; Charles Thrasher, statement, Roll A6544, AFHRA; Agnes Jensen Mangerich,
Albanian Escape
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999), 11–19; Lawrence O. Abbott,
Out of Albania,
ed. Clinton W. Abbott (Lulu Press, 2010), 10–14.

4. [crash site]
Peter Lucas and Edi Kurtezi located the crash site near the village of Çestie in the mid-1990s with a map from Lloyd Smith showing the general location. Lucas wrote of it in his book
Rumpalla: Rummaging Through Albania
(Xlibris, 2002). With this information and confirmation of the location from a document found in the German archives, the author visited the crash site in March 2012.

5. sandals made of old tire carcasses
Hayes, interview; H. W. Tilman,
When Men and Mountains Meet
(1946), collected in
The Seven Mountain-Travel Books
(1983; repr., London: Bâton Wicks, 2010), 349.

6. [Albania during World War II]
“Implementation Study for the Over-all and Special Program Pertaining to Albania, Office of Strategic Services,” December 30, 1943, RG 226, entry 116, box 1, folder 1, NACP; Roderick Bailey,
The Wildest Province: SOE in the Land of the Eagle
(London: Jonathan Cape, 2008); Bernd J. Fischer,
Albania at War: 1939–45
(West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1999); David Smiley,
Albanian Assignment
(London: Sphere Books, 1984); E. W. (“Trotsky”) Davies,
Illyrian Venture: The Story of the British Military Mission to Enemy-Occupied Albania 1943–44
(London: Bodley Head, 1952); Tilman,
When Men and Mountains Meet
.

7. “personally cut the throats”
Smiley,
Albanian Assignment,
56.

8. [Albanian history]
Miranda Vickers,
The Albanians: A Modern History
(London, Tauris, 2006); Raymond Zickel and Walter R. Iwaskiw, eds.,
Albania: A Country Study
(Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1992); “Albania,”
Britannica Online Encyclopedia.

9. Baggs asked Gina
Hayes, interview.

10. Draža Mihailović
“Dragoljub Mihailović,”
Britannica Online Encyclopedia.

11. “my dear”
Hayes, interview.

12. shoot down their plane
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
27; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
20.

13. Albanian Vocational School
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
43; Joan Fultz Kontos,
Red Cross, Black Eagle: A Biography of Albania’s American School
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), 17–58.

14. offered to lead them
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
23; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
20–21.

15. IFF
Hayes, interview; “Pilots’ Information File,” War Department, April 9, 1943, PIF 1-3-2; Perret,
Winged Victory
, 74; Nebeker,
Dawn of the Electronic Age
, 455.

16. activated a charge
Hayes, interview.

17. “Hey, Baggs, hurry it up!”
Ibid.

18. coats
Ibid.

19. transport Shumway
Ibid.; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
23; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
21.

20. carried the machine gun
Hayes, interview.

21. small stone hut
Ibid.; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
23.

22. two-story house
Hayes, interview; Mangerich,
Albanian Escape,
23; Abbott,
Out of Albania,
23.

23. Gjolen
“Economic, Social, Political Conditions of Towns and Villages which the Party Passed Through,” Roll A6544, AFHRA.