DODIK: WE WILL PRESERVE MEMORY OF HEROIC HALYARD OPERATION

DOBOJ, OCTOBER 3 /SRNA/ - President Milorad Dodik said today in Boljanić on Mount Ozren, where 60 Allied pilots were rescued 82 years ago in Operation Halyard, that there are plans to build a memorial airfield where a gliding competition would be held once a year, thereby reviving and preserving the memory of the event.

"We plan to build a makeshift memorial airfield here, where a gliding competition would be held, so that in this way we can revive and preserve the memory of the rescue of the Allied pilots," Dodik told reporters.

Noting that communism inflicted enormous damage on the Serbs by undermining their identity and suppressing historical events such as this one, Dodik reminded that the rescue of the pilots was a forbidden subject here, as was the story of Brod na Drini, where 6,000 Serbs were killed, as well as many other sites of mass killings.

"If we had had that awareness, perhaps everything would have looked different, and the breakup of Yugoslavia would not have been so bloody and so bad for us. We will see what comes next, but what matters is that we commemorate this day and preserve this site," Dodik said.

He reminded that local residents, ordinary villagers from this area, built a makeshift airfield where planes landed and from which 60 pilots were flown to safety.

Dodik noted that it is less well known that Dragoljub Mihailović, commander of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland, was also here and that, according to accounts, he boarded a plane on two occasions to travel to the United States, but decided against it because his sense of duty to remain with the soldiers of his homeland army was stronger.

"The question is what might have happened if he had gone; perhaps history would have taken a different course. The fact that US President Harry Truman awarded him the highest decoration in 1948 shows the status he enjoyed in the United States," Dodik said.

The 82nd anniversary of the rescue of Allied pilots on Mount Ozren in Operation Halyard, carried out by members of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland, was commemorated today in Boljanić near Doboj.