Draft:Joseph Veselinovich

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Joseph Veselinovich (Kingdom of Serbia, 28 March 1915 -- St. Louis, Missouri, United States, 26 September 2005) was a Serbian American member of the Office of Strategic Services assigned to the Communist Partisans in Yugoslavia during World War II to facilitate the evacuation of U.S. and Allied airmen in Operation Halyard.

According to Veselinovich, the self-styled Marshal Tito caused more suffering and unnecessary deaths than the Nazis inflicted during the Second World War and after, so he wrote in his reports at the HQ back in Bari, Italy upon completing his last mission. Veselinovch went on three secret missions to the Partisans in war-torn Bosnia. 

Military Career

A native of  Serbia who came to St. Louis, Missouri with his parents in 1929, Veselinovich spent four years in the U.S. Army's Office of Strategic Services before being discharged at the end of the war. Veselinovich first parachuted into Nazi-occupied Kingdom of Yugoslavia in May 1944, to establish contact with the Partisans and organize supply lines for evacuating hundreds of American and Allied airmen. He succeeded in his task with the aid of two women Partisans who gathered enough locals to build a makeshift airport in the mountain fastness near the Hungarian border, only six miles from German lines, for U.S. planes to fly supplies to Tito's men and airlift the wounded MIAs ta U.S. base in Bari.

During the eight months in Bosnia with the Partisans, He was under constant surveillance since the Partisan commissar labeled him an adversary of Tito and his communist followers. He went on the record when he returned to his HQ in Bari, Italy that he never once saw Partisans fighting the Germans:

"In the eight months I spent in Yugoslavia with the Partisans, I never once saw them fight the Germans. I heard a continual stream of anti-capitalist propaganda and saw incessant fighting by Partisans against Yugoslav peasants to force them to accept Communism."

Joseph Veselinovich 

Geisha Mission (OSS/SOE)

Between May and October 1944, the Geisha Mission, led by First Lieutenant Robin Norwell and Second Lieutenant Joseph Veselinovich, arrived among the Croatian Partisans in the Independent State of Croatia. Of all the OSS team members, Veselinovich was questioned by a Partisan Commissar who was curious to know if the Americans had a mission with the Chetniks. Veselinovich gave a diplomatic answer but the Commissar assured him that he knew that there was one, and he even named names of the leading American operatives, singling out Nick Lalich in a most threatening manner. He and the other operatives were constantly under surveillance by OZNA and were labeled as adversaries of the Communist-sponsored version of the so-called National Liberation Movement (NLM).

Soon after, Norwell, Veselinovich, and other OSS and SOE members were withdrawn by the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces for being anti-communist.

In September 1944, the German command at Belgrade contacted Robert H. McDowell and declared that German forces in Yugoslavia were willing to surrender to the Americans and Chetniks but not to communist forces of the Soviet Union and Josip Broz Tito's Partisans. McDowell reported this to Allied headquarters which immediately ordered him to break off his contacts with the Germans. That was when all Allied support went in favor of Josip Broz Tito.

After the war, Veselinovich went back to civilian life in St. Louis, Missouri.

Joseph Veselinovich died on 26 September 2005. A private service was held at the Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Church, 1910 Serbian Drive, in St. Louis, Missouri. He was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Lemay, Missouri..