STATEMENT OF COLONEL ROBERT H. McDOWELL
TO COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO CASE OF DRAJA MIHAILOVICH

I. PERSONAL BACKGROUND

The undersigned, as part of a total 25 years residence in the Near East and adjoining countries, acquired a broad general knowledge of Yugoslavia. Prior to the recent war, as a professor at the University of Michigan, he taught Modern Balkans History. During the war he has been concerned with Balkans intelligence since [the autumn of I942; has been in close touch with all Allied groups covering this area; and has had access to all pertinent material.

The undersigned was employed by the Army because of his broad and intimate background of experience and study and because he had established a certain scholarly reputation for objective approach to and consideration of research problems. The Army record of Ithe undersigned demonstrates that in war service this objectivity and balance have been maintained.

The undersigned was sent on a mission to General Mihailovich~in August, I944, and left Mihailovich territory on I November, I944. During this interval of almost constant travel in Western Serbia and Eastern Bosnia the undersigned, the U. S. officers attached to him and the rescued U. S. airmen who were encountered were all given complete liberty of movement and of access to the population. Unlike the situation which prevailed where U. S. officers were attached to Yugoslav Partisan Headquarters, the U. S. personnel in Mihailovich territory on the one hand were permitted to be present at important staff conferences, on the other hand could pick Etheir routes their night's lodging, and their associates, unaccompanied by Mihailovich officers or men.

Finally, it should be emphasized that the undersigned has been a lifelong liberal, at times labeled as a "pink" or Communist.

In I942, before Tito received general recognition, he advocated military aid to the Partisans on the same basis as to the Nationalists. After the mission to Mihailovich, he volunteered to return to Yugoslavia for further investigaftion in the company of Partisans and Allied officers who supported the Partisans. This offer was refused.

2. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS

a. The undersigned has seen and heard of absolutely no evidence serving to connect General Mihailovich personally, or officers under his direct command, with any form of collaboration with the Germans. This evidence includes not only personal observation but the totality of the documents seen and conversations held with U. S., Allied, and even enemy, personnel. This includes very highly placed and responsible British officials.

On the other hand, a very substantial body of evidence supports the conclusion, to which the undersigned completely subscribes, that General Mihailovich, a known bitter anti- Nazi before the war, devoted himself wholeheartedly to the task of driving the Germans and their satellites out of Yugoslavia. That he accomplished relatively little toward this end was due to circumstances beyond his control, particularly the civil war fostered by the Yugoslav Communist Party.

b. The evidence on which General Mihailovich is accused in part is false, in part is a distortion of truth. His accusers, whatever the mouthpieces they find, are the few Yugoslav Communists who, by deception, have prostituted and destroyed the popular resistance movement which they led and who, during the war, were repeatedly proved guilty of gross falsehood and misrepresenltation.

The real crime for which General Mihailovich is accused is that in the minds of 80 per cent of the Yugoslav population he became, and remains, the symbol of the simple, sturdy Yugoslav peasant resistance to tyranny, whether foreign or domestic.

c. The nature of the movement led by General Mihailovich is widely misunderstood outside the country. As the General repeatedly emphasized to the undersigned, the Nationalist movement of resistance against the Axis invasion came into being spontaneously all over the country. As in the American Revolution, the primary loyalty of the followers in each district was to the local leader, of whom there were, and are, thousands. The role of General Mihailovich was to attempt to co-ordinate all activities, and the General was sincerely embarrassed by the propaganda outside the country which misrepresented his position. This form of organization gives strength to a movement‹since its roots are so widespread‹but is also a source of weakness in that co- ordination and discipline suffer. General Mihailovich was in full control of only his own small force and of the forces of a few other leaders. He was in partial control of numerous bands, whose leaders accepted the broad strategy laid down by the General, but had no control whatsoever of other bands of Chetniks.

d. The term "Chetnik" is equivalent to guerrilla. There were Chetniks serving Mihailovich, but Chetnik bands also were raised by the Serb Puppet (sovernrnent, by the Germans, and by the Italians, and some bands accepted no higher sponsorship.

e. In addition to the Axis-sponsored bands, various resistance leaders, including both Communists and Nationalists, at various times made accommodations with the Axis authorities. As stated above, neither Mihailovich or those directly under his command can be accused of such accommodations. But certain leaders, Communist as well as Nationalist, made truces or agreements not to operate in certain areas, or exchanged supplies for munitions, etc. German au~~thorities constantly worked to bring about an increasing measure of collaboration. The Yugoslav Communist leaders today ignore their own record of accommodation and occasional outright collaboration with the Axis, and impute to Mihailovich actions with which he was not concerned.

f. The relative contributionsfto the Allied cause made by the Nationalists and Mihailovich on the one hand and by the Partisans ond their Communist leaders on the other, is a moot point. The evidence on both sides possessed by the undersigned may be summarized as follows:

( I ) Throughout the period of Axis occupation of ithe Balkans, on the average, Axis troops were concentrated as heavily in Nationalist territory as in Partisan territory.

(2) Axis reprisals against Nationalists, and particularly against men known to be loyal to Mihailovich, on the average were heavier than were those directed against Communists. There is ample evidence that over-all the Germans were more fearful of, and displayed greater venom against Mihailovich than Tito; Mihailovich Serbs suf fered greater reprisals than did Czechs or Western European resistance groups.

(3) Mihailovich was particularly active against the Axis during I94I and I942, when he made a very real confirmed, contribution to the Anglo-American campaigns in Africa through harassing of German lines of communication. During I943 and the first half of I944, the strength of German reprisals led him to adopt a more cautious policy, similar to that ordered by the Allies for other resistance groups in Europe. At the same time the Nationalists suffered constant attacks on the part of the Communist-led bands.

(4) When the undersigned reached Mihailovich Headquarters in August, I944, a general Nationalist mobilization had already been ordered. The undersigned was shown the plans and orders issued for an all out attack on Axis forces and, along with the other U. S. officers, personally witnessed the troop dispositions made for this offensive. The evidence was unmistakable that General Mihailovich has disposed his forces properly for a major effort against the German garrisons, depots, and lines of communication, but in doing this had been obliged to leave his rear and left flank exposed gto attack on the part of major Partisan concentrations which only recently had been attacking the Nationalists.

Insofar as the small group of American officers were able to cover the front and make observations, during September the Nationalist forces engaged German and Bulgarian forces tto the extent of their capability in equipment. Axis movements were thoroughly disrupted and considerable quantities of munitions and prisoners were taken.

At this moment the Communist-led forces of Marshal Tito attacked the Mihailovich forces on a broad front. This attack was personally witnessed by the undersigned and his staff. In a*acking the Mihailovich forces, the forces of Tito passed through the German line of garrisons on the Zap Morava River and ignored the Germans in favor of this attack against men already engaged against Ithe Germans. Thereafter the principal effort of Tito's forces in Western Serbia was directed not against the Germans but toward the capture of General Mihailovich and rthe American Mission. These series of attacks forced General Mihailovich to retreat into Bosnia.

(5 ) There is good evidence, including the observations of a U. S. officer attached to the undersigned, that the forces of General Mihailovich, during October, were reorganized in Serbia and during that month, as well as subsequently, made a very substantial contribution to the defeat of German forces, including joint operations with the Soviet forces, until Communist intrigue and attacks led to their dispersal.

(6) The communiques issued by the Communist-led Yugoslav forces consistently presented a false picture of military operations. In Cairo during the first half of 19 ~~4, the undersigned was directly concerned with an Allied committee to evaluate the state of Axis lines of communication in the Balkans. This group had at its disposal all sources of information. The Communist communiques of their operations against German communications proved themselves so consistently untrustworthy that their evidence was finally deemed worthless.

As a result of the above experience the undersigned maintained a group of personnel to evaluate these Communist communiques on the basis of their own evidence. This long range study revealed that Communist claims of territory liberated in Yugoslavia and of defeats of Axis forces were consistently contraJdicted by subsequent co?rz muniques. It was evident that they were put out as propaganda, and they put in serious doubt all Yugoslav Communist claims of contribution to the Allied cause other than those actually witnessed by Allied officers.

Prior to the departure of the undersigned behind the lines in Yugoslavia, he was shown the official maps of the Yugoslav Communist Headquarters, showing the respective territory held by Mihailovich and Tito. The area into which the undersigned planned to drop to make contact with Mihailovich was shown as part of a laroer area of Western Serbia allegedly liberated and held by Tito's forces. The U. S. Air Rescue Mission and the undersigned with his group landed in this area and traveled all over Western and much of Central Serbia. Outside of the German held towns the whole countryside was held by the forces and administration of Mihailovich. There was no evidence that Communist control had ever been established in this area.

Subsequently, when the undersigned retreated into Northeast Bosnia with Mihailovich, he found all that area, outside the Axis held towns, held by Mihailovich forces. The population, as in West Serbia, openly wore the royal insignia, and there were Nationalist hospitals and schools. Yet at the very time the undersigned was traveling around this area, he listened to American broadcasts quoting the Yugoslav Communist communiques in statements describing their "liberation" of this area.

Subsequently again, in the Bosna River basin around Doboy, the undersigned spent some weeks traveling freely and meeting everywhere a joint Nationalist administration set up by Serbs, Croats, and Moslems in opposition to the German puppet regimes. During this period the undersigned again heard the broadcasts of communiques claiming Communist led operations in this area.

The undersigned is convinced by all the evidence that the rank and file of the movement led by Tito and the other Communist leaders sought to resist the Axis just as did the Nationalists. Hovvrever, the actual resistance offered to the Axis was strictly limited bv the Priority imposed by the Gmmunist leaders to the civil war and the effort to destroy the influence of Mihailovich. Under the circumstances no group of Yugoslav resistants was able to make a substantial contribution during I944 and I945.

3. GERMAN OFFICIALS AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF MIHAILOVICH

Much has been made of reports of visits to the Headquarters of General Mihailovich on the part of a certain Herr Starker, a German Foreign Office employee, in the fall of 1944. The following is the true account of this incident. German officials made a contact with the undersigned for the purpose of discussing the surrender of German forces. As is now well known there were many such German contacts during the last months of German resistance, and they had little significance due to the Nazi unwillingness to realize that the Allies were serious in their demands for unconditional surrender. The undersigned was instructed to listen to and transmit any German offer. General Mihailovich was most unwilling to have any contact with Germans but agreed to Starker's coming, on the insistence of the undersigned. The undersigned had two interviews with Starker. As the General was with the undersigned both prior to and after these interviews, there could have been no opportunity for the General to have had private meetings with Starker During the period covered by these meetings the Yugoslav Communist efforts to capture Mihailovich were so constant and severe that it must have been evident to the Germans that the General was in no position to aid them or to accept aid from them. The undersigned is convinced that this incident is simply an example of the effort made today to destroy the reputation of General Mihailovich by the distortion of facts.

ROBERT H. McDowELL, Colonel, GSC.

(Printed Report of the Commission of Inquiry, pp. 12-16)