GOGANOVIĆ AND CAPELLO - SERB AND AMERICAN PEOPLES HAVE HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS

WASHINGTON, APRIL 24 /SRNA/ - The President of the Haliyard Mission Foundation John Capello accepted the invitation of Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik to attend the marking of this mission's anniversary in Boljanić outside Doboj, Deputy Minister of Defence in the Council of Ministers Aleksandar Goganović told SRNA.

In a conversation with Capello, during his official visit to Washington, Goganović pointed out that this mission connects the Serb and American peoples throughout history.

He announced that this mission anniversary will be marked even more in the coming period as one of the missions where the Serb people showed courage and helped the American people.

"We have agreed that someone from the new US administration will come to the anniversary marking of the mission this year in order to raise this event to an even higher level. I sent an invitation on behalf of President Dodik, but also of the Republika Srpska Government, for Capello to attend the marking in Boljanić and he accepted the invitation," he pointed out.

The Haliyard - Air Bridge operation carried out by the forces of the Yugoslav Army in the homeland, under the command of General Dragoljub Draža Mihailović, rescued more than 500 pilots were rescued in while sixty allied aviators in Boljanić.

The Air Bridge Operation was the largest operation to rescue US soldiers outside the front lines in 1944 and 1945.

In mid-October 1944, under pressure from partisan forces, the High Command of the Yugoslav Army in the homeland moved from Serbia to eastern Bosnia, and an airfield was established on Mount Ozren, near the village of Boljanić outside Doboj, from October 22 to November 1, 1944.

On November 1, 1944, a plane with the head of the US military mission, Colonel Robert McDowell, Captain John Milodragović and Lieutenant Michael Rajačić, flew from that airfield to Italy.

On December 27, 1944, Captain Nik Lalić and radio-telegrapher Arthur Gibilian flew to Italy from the airfield in Boljanić.

The last evacuation from Mount Ozren took place at the end of February 1945 in very cold weather. Then the remaining Americans were evacuated in two C-47 transport planes accompanied by several fighter planes.

In 2021 in Boljanić, the President of the Haliyard Mission Foundation John Capello presented the award posthumously to the commander of the Ozren Chetnik Brigade of the Yugoslav Army in the homeland Cvijetin Todić for rescuing allied pilots during this operation.

The award was then received by Cvijetin's grandson Darko Despotović, who emphasized that Serb heroes must not be forgotten and that the Chetnik movement in the Ozren area prevented the genocide of Serbs in World War II.

The marking of this historical event of republican importance is organised by the Republika Srpska Government's Committee nurturing the tradition of liberation wars.