My friend Caroline Miller, who loves history as much as I do, but knows a great deal more about it than I do, has uncovered another fascinating story.
This time it is a little-known incident from World War II. Thirteen Army flight nurses were in a C-47 that went down behind enemy lines in Albania. They and their support team survived the crash landing, then hiked through the mountainous terrain for two months before being rescued by British secret service and American OSS operatives.
It's a hair-raising tale of 30 American service members dodging opposing partisan groups, including one that collaborated with the occupying German Army.
It is also the story of Albanian citizens, most of them Muslim, who risked their lives to help the Americans escape. They gave them food and took them into their homes.
A book was written about this 1943 adventure several years ago. The author was one of the nurse survivors, Agnes Jensen Mangerich, who told her story to Evelyn Manahan and Rosemary Neidel. The title is "Albanian Escape: The True Story of Army Nurses Behind Enemy Lines."
What caught Caroline's - and my - attention was that one of the nurses, 2nd Lt. Wilma Lytle, was a native of Northern Kentucky. The book lists her home as Butler, Ky., but Caroline learned that she was actually born in Pendleton County in 1912. Her father, Jesse Lytle, is from Johnsville, here in Bracken County.
Actually, in going over the roster, no fewer than four of the survivors were from Kentucky, but I couldn't find even one from Ohio or Indiana.
One thing became crystal clear as I read the book. Although aircraft today are much more reliable than those of the 1940s, it is also true that passengers had a much better chance of surviving a crash back then.
For instance, when the C-47 carrying 26 passengers and four crew members crash-landed in a corn field in rugged Albania on Nov. 9, 1943, all 30 people aboard survived. In fact, only one person, a crew member, was injured. He had a banged-up knee.
That's not all. A year or so later, when the author, Nurse Jensen, was back in the States on a war bond tour, she was in another C-47 flying over Iowa when one of the two engines conked out. Once again, the pilot had to put the airplane on the ground, where it skidded to a halt against a tree. And again, everyone survived with only minor injuries. Nurse Jensen said, "This one was a lot easier. Everyone on the ground spoke English."
You will not be surprised that everything did not go smoothly for the Americans when they were stranded in Albania. The war there and elsewhere in the Balkans was particularly vicious. The occupying Germans responded to attacks by partisans with a campaign of terror. They took hostages and shot them in retaliation for almost anything. Sometimes they put them in buildings, then sent fire to the buildings.
It has also been well documented that partisans sometimes made war on one another. Some were communists, some were nationalists, some favored the Italians, others collaborated with the Germans, most favored the Allies. The Americans had no idea which group they were dealing with.
The crash survivors trekked through a full-blown blizzard, they shivered in unheated rock houses or choked in homes heated by smoky fireplaces. When they ate, it was greasy mutton and cornbread. It was all the Albanians had and the Americans were grateful to get it.
Thinking of all the recent problems in Albania, one has to wonder if the current citizens of that troubled country know anything about the connection they had with the USA a lifetime ago.
For my part, I'd like to know something about Lt. Lytle's life after WWII. Did she come back to Bracken County? Did she marry? Any children? Perhaps someone reading these words will know.
An observation: I thumbed through the book and came to pictures of the young women after their rescue. They are pretty. Every one of them. If Hollywood ever decides to do their story, they will be hard put to find actresses attractive - and brave - enough to portray them.(CincyPost)
No comments:
Post a Comment