[3] In 1941 he witnessed the bombing of Belgrade by Nazi Germany prompting him and Mirjana to flee to Budapest, Hungary.

When they arrived there it was not long before the Nazi Afrika Korps led by Erwin Rommel began to push into Egypt.

While in Cairo, he landed a job with Pan American Airways who then relocated him and his wife to Ghana to a United States controlled air base there.

The Army recognized his Serbian background and experience in Yugoslavia and recruited him to help the US assist resistance efforts in the Balkans.

[4] In the summer of 1944, US bombers went on a bombing run to take out Nazi oil fields in Romania but many were shot down over Yugoslavia.