General Draza Mihailovich
Lt. Colonel Albert B. Seitz [American Office of Strategic Services OSS]
''As we proceeded out over the Adriatic my mind flashed back to one incident which will always have great meaning for me. Before I was leaving my tour of Serbia, the Minister [General Mihailovich] had expressed a desire to do something to honor America saying 'Here we have Slava, the day of our patron saint. What is America’s slava?'
"I thought for a moment and said, 'We have four great days: Christmas, New Years, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving. Christmas we love because it is the day of Christ. New Years we enjoy because we look with hope to it, but on its Eve we celebrate, sometimes not too wisely but too well, and often the day itself finds us with aching heads. Independence day would be wonderful except for the sadness of sacrifice and mourning that sweeps the South from the cause of our Civil War. Thanksgiving is our day, our Slava, because that day we give Thanks to God for our founding Fathers and the beginning of our country and freedom.'
"Mihailovich replied, 'Good, we would honor America and on the Eve of that day each mountaintop of Serbia will have a fire lighted by our peasants.'
"On Thanksgiving Eve three Americans standing in a tiny village high in the Serbian mountains saw a huge fiery “A” come into being. Then another, and one after another the other fires appeared until eleven peaks were outlined.
"This I remember. A magnificent tribute to America from a truly great man."
Lt. Colonel Albert B. Seitz, OSS
American liaison officer
with General Draza Mihailovich
WWII
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