95-year-old Queens man gets Bronze Star for WWII mission

The U.S. government yesterday honored the World War II architect of a mission to rescue more than 500 U.S. bomber fliers shot down over Nazi-occupied Serbia - the largest air rescue of Americans behind enemy lines in any war.

George Vujnovich, 95, of Queens, is credited with urging the so-called Halyard Mission in what was then Yugo- slavia. Yesterday, he was awarded the U.S. Bronze Star Medal at Manhattan's St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral.

Vujnovich received a standing ovation from a crowd of several hundred church members, supporters, friends and officials. "Better now than never," says Vujnovich, a retired salesman.

Vujnovich was an officer of the OSS, the precursor of the CIA, when about 500 pilots and other airmen were downed over Serbia in the summer of 1944 while on bombing runs targeting Hitler's oil fields in Romania.

The airmen were hidden in villages by Serbian guerrilla fighter Draza Mihailovich, whom Yugoslav communist officials considered to be Germany's collaborators. It was no small feat to convince American officials to allow Vujnovich to work with Mihailovich on the mission, dubbed Halyard, meaning a rope used to hoist sails. "Vujnovich is the one who sold the mission to U.S. officials, he pushed hard," said Lt. Col. Steven Oluic, a former West Point professor who prepared the award submission.

On Aug. 2, 1944, three OSS agents strapped with radio transmitters were airdropped near Mihailovich's headquarters to set up the operation.

Dozens of U.S. military cargo planes then flew in to pick up the airmen, using an airstrip that Serbian villagers helped build.