811.2360H/8–3046: Telegram
The Ambassador in Yugoslavia (Patterson) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 30—11:36 a.m.]
856. Arrived Belgrade 5 p.m., 29th. Remytel 24, midnight from Bled.44 Following is text my letter August 24 to Marshall Tito.
[Page 934]“Excellency, On Thursday, August 22, in a conference with you, and again in your note to me of August 23, we were assured that nothing had been found of the personnel of our plane shot down on August 19.45 What are the facts? On the 23rd of August my party, assisted by your officers, found them to be as follows:
A Yugoslav militia patrol arrived on the scene of the crash an hour and a half after it happened. They waited until late on the following day for a superior investigating commission, but none came. They then decided on their own initiative because of the odor of the remains, to bury what could be found of the occupants. With the aid of some German prisoners they gathered the remains in a box and carried them to the nearby village of Koprivnik. There in a corner of a churchyard near a rubble heap they buried them in a manner fit rather for paupers than for officers and soldiers of a friendly nation.
These facts are corroborated by the statements of your army and militia officials. We are profoundly shocked by this seemingly casual treatment of our unfortunate men. Although all this took place very near to you, Marshal, you apparently were not informed.
We have immediately exhumed this common coffin, separated the remains and set about assembling other remnants still being found near the scene of the crash, for the purpose of removing them to Belgrade for proper burial in your military cemetery. We expect that you will furnish a guard of honor and escort from the Yugoslav Air Force to accompany these remains from Kropivnik to Ljubljana and remain with them there until I can personally transport them in my plane to Belgrade. We also expect that you will render every assistance possible to facilitate our carrying out this program.
Respectfully yours”
Repeated Paris for Secretary 100.
- The reference presumably is to Ambassador Patterson’s unnumbered and undated telegram printed in the Department of State Bulletin, September 1, 1946, p. 418, regarding his visit to the scene of the crash of the C–47.↩
- For Ambassador Patterson’s report on his conference with Marshal Tito on August 22 and for text of Marshal Tito’s letter of August 23 to the Ambassador, see ibid., pp. 418–419.↩