Operation Reunion

Daring POW Rescue from Romania

By: Robert J. Goebel

Narrated by: Gary Goebel

In the middle of August 1944, the Soviet Red Army crossed the eastern border of Romania and threatened the entire position of the Axis in the Balkans. On August 23, Romania's King Michael summoned the head of the government to the royal palace and asked him to break with the Germans and negotiate surrender terms with the Soviet Union. Shortly thereafter, Michael took Romania out of the war and issued an ultimatum that the German forces leave the country within three days. The German commander responded immediately by bombing the royal palace, government offices, and other targets in Bucharest. Amid this military and political chaos, the guards at the prisoner-of-war camps abandoned their posts, and the question of what was the best course for the Allied prisoners was discussed at great length by the prisoners themselves.

Hanging in the balance were the lives of more than 1200 Allied airmen who had crashed or bailed out over Romania and were now trapped in the midst of a war hundreds of miles from friendly territory. Dire action was needed to settle the dire situation. The senior American airman came up with a plan to be flown to Italy aboard a Romanian Air Force airplane, and his arrival there triggered one of history's great and novel mass evacuations.

The late American fighter ace Robert J. Goebel wrote the definitive account of Operation Reunion, and it is proudly presented here.

©1991 Robert Goebel Family Trust (P)2016 Robert Goebel Family Trust

One of the Most Detailed Accounts

Would you listen to Operation Reunion again? Why?

Yes, it's the most concise and detailed account of the effort that I've encountered

Who was your favorite character and why?

The Romanian fighter pilot (I won't try to spell his name) who liaised between the Romanian forces and the Fifteenth Air Force. He seemed charismatic, skilled, resourceful and genuinely committed to saving the American POWs.

Have you listened to any of Gary Goebel’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Mr. Goebel is not a professional narrator or actor, but rather is a retired fighter pilot. His father was a renowned Mustang ace and also the author of this work. Mr. Goebel's performance is workmanlike. His voice is not dramatic, but it is clear and more than adequate to tell this story well. His effort to get this story out to a greater audience is commendable.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It's just less than an hour in length, so it was easy to do.

Any additional comments?

This is not a long story, but at the price, it was worth it to me.

Nice story, but we need more history

I enjoyed this story-- I was curious about this as I have listened to and read I Live Again, by Ileana, Princess of Romania and Archduchess of Austria who in later life became Mother Alexandra and learned of the daring rescue from her book.

The story follows a great, factual line, and has insights to the players, such as when the Romanian pilot and the Americans encountered possible enemy confrontations and he deviated a bit from the planned path to see if he had live fire in his plane or if the Americans had shorted it, and reveals how everyday Romanians risked their safety to hide American POWs in their homes to get them out of their country.

I cannot give the story 5 Stars. I know that this is just about Operation Reunion, but there is more that needs to be presented, otherwise most people will only think that Romania had sided with the Germans first, then when weakened, sided with the Allies. There needs to be a foreword that goes into detail about the history of Romania and Russia and why Romanians could not have sided with the Allies in the beginning-- Soviet Russia was a hungry wolf eyeing the delicate and productive little country in the Carpathians, and WWII was an excuse to take it, either at the start or as a "spoils of war" when they would punish the land for fighting them. The Allies wanted Russia to occupy and protect Romania (true, we didn't have the resources to spread) if she sided with the Allies, and Romania knew that she would lose her autonomy if they did that. Romania did not want to be anyone's enemy. The POWs were afraid of the leaving Germans, but they also needed to fear the Soviets. I wonder what happened to those who assisted the POWs in escaping-- Soviet Russia might have loved to have gotten American POWs and extracted information from them, so it wasn't wise for the Allies to wait and find out. There are a few follow ups on some of the helpers, but we may never know the stories of the anonymous helpers who then waited anxiously for the Allies to return and help Romania become free.