The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All for the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

A writer with decades of experience in journalism, Freeman tells the stories of the men he interviewed and of the people they remember from Operation Halyard. Freeman himself plays no role in the narrative.

The OSS agent who commanded Operation Halyard from the Fifteenth Air Force base in Bari, Italy, Vujnovich serves as perhaps the book’s central figure. Vujnovich provided Freeman with numerous recollections and also supplied 25 of the book’s 38 black-and-white photographs.

A Pittsburgh native, Vujnovich first appears briefly at the end of Chapter 1, where Freeman introduces him as the operation’s control agent. Vujnovich does not appear again until Chapter 6, where Freeman describes Vujnovich’s years of study in Yugoslavia, as well as his meeting and falling in love with Mirjana Lazic.

With the help of the American consulate in Belgrade, Vujnovich married Mirjana, and together the newlyweds left Yugoslavia for Hungary and then flew to Bulgaria before crossing the border into Turkey. From there, the couple traveled to Jerusalem, where they spent a year working with British intelligence officials. In May 1942, the Vujnoviches arrived in Cairo, Egypt, just ahead of advancing German armies led by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.