By Bob Tedder • Some book reviews deserve to start by recalling the movies of our youth. I remember when our fathers, young men 20 years removed from their own World War II experiences, would pack kith and kin into their secondhand automobiles and head uptown to the Gilmont. There, in the hushed recesses of Claude Gray’s domain and in glorious technicolor, war was a heroic endeavor. Projected as daring behind-the-lines crusades, these epics were at best loosely based on reality. Sinatra rode “Von Ryan’s Express” behind enemy lines, Peck assaulted “The Guns of Navarone” and McQueen’s motorcycle out-jumped the Nazis in “The Great Escape.” Quiescent for decades, Spielberg’s 1998 resurrection of the genre, “Saving Private Ryan,” has now surpassed its own 20th anniversary.
So perhaps it’s time for Hollywood to go behind the lines again. I recommend Gregory A. Freeman’s 2007 publication “The Forgotten 500” as the perfect vehicle for a cinematic return to those heady days.
All the elements of a great movie are present. Freeman’s book details the rescue of more than 500 downed United States airmen from German-occupied Yugoslavia during World War II. This amazing feat was accomplished clandestinely and audiciously over a scant two-day period. Clandestine, because it was formatted and executed by Yugoslavian partisans and the OSS, the United States’ precursor to the CIA. Audacious, because it involved a daylight multiplane air evacuation from an improvised airstrip surrounded by German occupation forces. There is much more to this book than a screenplay outline and it has an appeal to both historian and non-historian alike.
For those knowledgeable of the Allied bombing objectives of World War II, Freeman’s background material is familiar territory. Likewise his discussion of British and communists’ geopolitical perfidy. However, it is Freeman’s bottom-up approach to history that is the book’s strength. If you already know Patton, Eisenhower, Churchill or Zhukov, take the time and meet Freeman’s cast of characters. Musgrave, Musulim, Orsini, Lalich and Mihailovich – five of “The Forgotten 500” – are as equally human and noteworthy as the grand marshals of history. (A special thanks to Bruce Haywood for providing the review copy of this book, which is now safe behind the lines at the Speckled Paw.)