Harold Hayes, the last survival of a group of doctors and nurses who
stayed for nine weeks in Albania, under the Nazi regime, during WWII,
has died today at 94.
Some of the Albanian partisans who helped the American doctors were executed by the Nazi. And after the war, they were executed by communist dictator Enver Hoxha.
The 30 members of the medical group survived thanks to the assistance received by Albanian partisans.
In 1943, Hayes and 12 other doctors, 13 nurses and 4 crew members, boarded a two-motor plane headed to Sicily, for giving help to Italian military.
Bad weather forced them to change course, until they came under attack by German warplanes. The pilot succeeded with an emergency landing in Albania.
They were declared lost in battle, but by the end of November, British Intelligence learned they were all alive and well.
They were evacuated by boat on January 1944, while three nurses who remained behind left on March 1944.
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