There is a local angle to the article on the rescue of American fliers in Yugoslavia during World War II.  Famed IU swimming coach James “Doc” Counsilman was the pilot of one of the B-24 Liberator bombers mentioned in the article.   Counsilman’s plane was brought down over Yugoslavia on the return trip from bombing the oilfields in Ploesti (Romania).  He managed to belly-flop (land without wheels) on a field.  He and his crew were then rescued by the partisans, and all of them eventually made it safely back home.  Counsilman once told me that aircrews were instructed not to talk politics if brought down over Yugoslavia, or they might end up dead by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.  This was due to the intense rivalry between Mihailovich’s and Tito’s partisan groups –a war within a war.  I see now that Counsilman’s rescue was part of George Vujnovich’s “Halyard Mission”.  Without Vujnovich’s persistency, IU’s stellar swimming program might never have come to be.

Jesus Dapena

Bloomington