[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 132 (Tuesday, September 28, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1763]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  HONORING CAPTAIN GEORGE M. VUJNOVICH

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. DAN BURTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 28, 2010

  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, as cofounder and cochair of the 
Congressional Serbian Caucus, I rise tonight to honor an outstanding 
Serbian-American, Captain (Ret.) George M. Vujnovich, who was recently 
awarded the Bronze Star Medal, for his heroic actions during World War 
II.
  The Bronze Star is awarded to military service personnel for bravery, 
acts of merit or meritorious service. When awarded for bravery, it is 
the fourth-highest combat award of the United States Armed Forces. 
Captain Vujnovich's participation in the planning and execution of 
Operation Halyard--one of the most successful air force rescue missions 
in history and an operation so secret that the records were only 
declassified in 1997--certainly exemplifies the heroism required to 
receive this prestigious military honor.
  Captain Vujnovich served with the Office of Strategic Services, the 
predecessor of the modern Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, and the 
wartime organization charged with coordinating activities behind enemy 
lines for the branches of the United States military. Operation Halyard 
evolved in the wake of the Allied bombing campaign to destroy Nazi 
Germany's vast network of petroleum resources in occupied Eastern 
Europe. The most vital target of bombing was the facilities located in 
Ploesti, Romania, which supplied 35 percent of Germany's wartime 
petroleum. Beginning in April 1944, bombers of the Fifteenth Allied Air 
Force began a relentless campaign to blast the heavily guarded 
facilities in Ploesti in an attempt to halt petroleum production 
altogether. By August, Ploesti was virtually destroyed--but at the cost 
of 350 bombers lost, with their crews either killed, captured, or 
missing in action.
  The assault on Ploesti forced hundreds of Allied airmen to bail out 
over Nazi-occupied eastern Serbia, an area patrolled by the Allied-
friendly Chetnik guerrilla army. When the Chetnik commander, General 
Draza Mihailovich, realized that Allied airmen were parachuting into 
his territory, he ordered his troops, as well as the local peasantry, 
to aid the aviators by taking them to Chetnik headquarters in Pranjani, 
Serbia, for evacuation.
  General Mihailovich's attempts to alert American authorities to the 
situation regrettably initially failed to produce action. Fortunately, 
fate would have it that when Mirjana Vujnovich, a Serb employee of the 
Yugoslav embassy in Washington, DC, heard of the trapped airmen, she 
immediately wrote to her husband, Captain Vujnovich, stationed in Bari, 
Italy. As an American, descended from Serb parents, Vujnovich knew the 
region intimately and also knew how to escape from Nazi-occupied 
territory: he had been a medical student in Belgrade when Yugoslavia 
fell to the Axis powers in 1941, and he and his wife spent months 
sneaking through minefields and begging for visas before they finally 
escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe.
  Captain Vujnovich made it his personal crusade to get the airmen 
home. From the outset though, Operation Halyard encountered opposition 
from Allied leaders--from the U.S. State Department, from communist 
sympathizers in the British Special Operations Executive, SOE, even 
from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill himself. It was an 
operation that seemed condemned from the start, but Captain Vujanovich 
persevered rather than let the mission die. His persistence eventually 
won out. Within only the first two days, Operation Halyard--which 
officially ran from August 9, 1944, through December 27, 1944--
successfully retrieved 241 American and Allied airmen. By the time the 
Operation was officially ended, Vujnovich's team had airlifted 512 
downed Allied airmen to safety without the loss of a single life or 
aircraft--a truly impressive accomplishment.
  Captain George Vujnovich's recognition as a hero and valued asset to 
this country and the United States Air Force is long overdue. Frankly, 
had the records of the operation not remained sealed until 1997, I feel 
certain Captain Vujanovich would have received this honor years ago. 
Nevertheless, the decades do not and cannot diminish the valor and 
patriotism of this extraordinary man. I ask all my colleagues to join 
me now to honor this Serbian-American hero, to thank him for his 
dedicated service to our country and to congratulate him for winning 
the Bronze Star. Captain Vujanovich, I salute you.

                          ____________________