In July 1944, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) drew up plans to send a team to the Chetniks force led by General Draža Mihailović in the German-occupied Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia for the purpose of evacuating Allied airmen shot down over that area.

[4] According to historian Professor Jozo Tomasevich, a report submitted to the OSS showed that 417[5] Allied airmen who had been downed over occupied Yugoslavia were rescued by Mihailović's Chetniks,[6] and airlifted out by the Fifteenth Air Force.

The 15th Air Force bombed targets in Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, the Independent State of Croatia, the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania.

[citation needed] All flights targeting the oilfields and refineries in Romania, near the town of Ploiești north of Bucharest, passed over the Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia.

In January 1944 Major Linn M. Farish and Lieutenant Eli Popovich had parachuted into Partisan HQ at Drvar to arrange assistance in rescuing American flyers.

Following a meeting with Tito on 23 January 1944, orders went out to all Partisan units to do everything possible to locate downed airmen and conduct them safely to the nearest Allied liaison team.

The British, who considered that part of the world within their sphere of interest, had shifted their support to Tito and were determined to sever all ties with Mihailović lest they offend the Communist leader.

Prior to World War II, Kraigher had played a key role in developing a Pan American Airways air route from Miami to the Middle East via Brazil and West Africa.

Musulin, as Lieutenant Nelson Deranian, chief of OSS Special Operations Branch (SO) Bari suggested, possessed "the rugged character required to meet the hardships involved".

According to Professor Kirk Ford, the airmen assembled at Pranjani awaiting evacuation represented a potential source of intelligence, particularly concerning Serbia: They had witnessed the civil war between Chetnik and Partisan forces and had experienced the full range of Chetnik-German relations, from open hostility to wary tolerance and at times accommodation.

Captain Nikola Petković's 4th Battalion of the Gruža Brigade opened fire on German armored vehicles to lure them away from the portion of the village where the aviators were hiding.

[20][need quotation to verify] The 1st Dragačevo Brigade of the First Ravna Gora Corps engaged German forces attempting to capture an American aircrew bailing out over the Čačak - Užice road.

He intended to meet with British political leaders to influence them to change Winston Churchill's decision to abandon Mihailović and support Josip Broz Tito.

Staff headed by the Ambassador Konstantin Fotić, forwarded the report to the US Army so that the families of airmen could be informed, especially their mothers, who had in some cases been notified that their offspring were "missing in action".

On 15 July 1944, while returning in a severely damaged airplane (B-17G, 840th BS, 483rd BG, 15th AF, Sterparone, Italy) on a mission to an important enemy oil refinery in Ploiești, Captain Leo C. Brooks was forced to bail out over Yugoslavia (Ljig, Serbia).

In conjunction with the Chetnik area commander, he determined the best policy to follow in quartering and protecting the men and in effecting a high degree of camouflage discipline.

These three men (OSS team, 1st Lieutenant Musulin, Master Sergeant Rajacich, and Navy Petty Officer Jibilian) had been sent in as an Allied mission from Italy and had brought along a radio.

After setting up an improvised radio station with the new equipment, Captain Brooks left one officer in charge of the construction work necessary at this particular field, gave him detailed instructions on how to complete the project, and procured for him through the Chetnik Army commander a large number of Yugoslav laborers.

OSS intelligence agents Captain George Musulin, Lieutenant Michael Rayachich, and Sergeant Arthur Jiblian and their radio equipment descended by parachute; they were there to set the operation up.

They were;[25] the president of the Independent Democratic Party Adam Pribićević, Supreme Court judge Dr. Vladimir Belajčić, Captain Zvonimir Vučković, and Ivan Kovač, a Slovene who taught King Peter II before the war.

They were accommodated in the houses of Luke Panić and several prominent farmers in the village of Boljanić, and rescued by the Chetnik Ozren Corps' Major Cvijetin Todić.

For King and Fatherland – Freedom or Death!Two C-47s, one piloted by Colonel George Kraigher, (a pioneer in the development of Pan American World Airways),[31] the other by First Lieutenant John L. Dunn, left Italy at 11:00 on 27 December 1944.

It is the subject of the 2007 book The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II, by author Gregory A. Freeman.

Because of this operation, and due to the efforts of Major Richard Felman, United States President Harry S. Truman posthumously awarded Mihailović the Legion of Merit for his contribution to the Allied victory during World War II.

[33] On September 12, 2004, five years after the NATO armed conflict against Yugoslavia, four American veterans, Clare Musgrove, Arthur Jibilian, George Vujnovich and Robert Wilson, visited Pranjani for the unveiling of a commemorative plaque.

Ambassador to Serbia, Cameron Munter, visited Pranjani and presented the citizens of the area with a proclamation signed by the Governor of the State of Ohio expressing gratitude to the Serbian families that rescued hundreds of U.S. airmen whose aircraft had been shot down by Nazi forces in World War II.

[35][36] Vujnovich trained the volunteers who carried out the rescue, teaching them how to blend in with other Serbians, by mastering mundane tasks conforming to local custom, such as tying and tucking their shoelaces and pushing food onto their forks with their knives during meals.

The project will include an effort to educate both the Serbian and American public about the Halyard Mission, through photographic exhibitions, an internet presentation and the production of a documentary movie.

Similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., one wall of the Pranjani center will include the names of all the Allied airmen that were rescued during the Halyard Mission and the Serbian families that hid and cared for them.

The Library will be built immediately adjacent to the primary school and Pranjani church, which was the place used for ceremonies of friendship and cooperation by citizens of the area, the Ravna Gora movement (Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland), and the U.S. mission.