AMERICAN CHETNIK: How did Ruth Mitchell end up in Serbian hills and why did she defend Draza until the end of his life (PHOTO)

Ruth Mitchell was born in 1888 in Milwaukee, in American federal state Wisconsin, from a mother Harriet Danforth and John Lendrum Mitchell, who will become few years after her birth a US congressmen and then a senator.

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She was born in a wealthy family; her grandfather was rich banker and a railroad tycoon Alexander Michel.

She had two sisters and a brother; John was a airman who died over the sky of France in 1917, during the first world war, while William, called Billy, became a general and a fiery spokesman for the strengthening of American air force, because it often carries the name of its father.

After college, she married three times. She has a daughter and a son from her first marriage (her son will die in 1941 on the same way her brother did, only above Egypt), she entered the second marriage in the twenties of the past century (formally they divorced upon return from Europe in 1943), and she started the third in 1944.

Rut Mičel, Amerikanka u četničkim redovima. Foto: illinois.edu

But, she had an anxious, adventurous spirit. She inherited enough money not to work to the rest of her life, but that wasn't her style. She decided to be a reporter.

She arrived to Balkan in 1938, to cover the wedding of King Zog I of Albania for the "London News Illustrated", but, instead of returning home (or at least to England), she decided to remain in our climate.

And where is better in our region than in Belgrade? Precisely this is where she settled, in the gorgeous capital city, the capital of the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia. She traveled around a lot, but this is where she lived.

Američka ilustracija iz Drugog svetskog rata. Srbija uništava Hitlera. Foto: illinois.edu

She rode with chetniks for the first time in the middle of 1940, and via the Duke Kosta Pecinac. What started as a report, turned out to be a cooperation and eventually membership. Ruth Mitchell became a chetnil. She said that she was accepted only because "she knew how to ride and because she had four feet" and because "She was ready to die like a man".

However, with the WWII breaking out on the territory of our kingdom, she soon switched sides, of you can say that, and rode with Draza Mihajlovic. She was arrested while she was mapping the positions of German artillery around Dubrovnik for Draza in in May 1941, only one month after the April war.

There are, however, some irregularities and inconsequence in her story about prewar and wartime activities.

Četnici u "Marvelovom" stripu tokom Drugom svetskog rata. Foto: illinois.edu

First of all, how she could become the member of chetniks before the war, if the institutions of the country still existed and they functioned? There were some rules and regulations, and she was not only a woman, but also a foreign citizen. Pictures in chetnik uniforms are not good enough proof on their own, that depends on the context where they were created, and we do not have the context. Photos look like she just dressed up and took a photo. And one more thing: where did she show that she is prepared to die like a man when she was arrested when the war started?

Second, she claimed that she worked like a chetnik associate and a courier for a year before the arrest by the Gestapo. Again, why did she do in the peacetime situation, what kind of need did chetniks have from her help?

Third, in May 1941, chetniks of Draza Mihajlovic were still unorganized group. Actually, at the beginning of the month, Draza arrived on Ravna Gora accompanied by seven officers and 24 non-commissioned officers that he gathered along the way. The rumor of upraising still hasn't echoed the country. Draza at the moment did not have any network Ruth could be a part of. And for the most of all, Draza hasn't imposed himself yet as the undisputed ruler of Yugoslav royalists.

Rut Mičel, Amerikanka u četničkim redovima. Foto: illinois.edu

Lets not go into if the mapping of the German artillery around Dubrovnik was any concern of Draza in May 1941, let us wonder if in that moment there was even Mihajlovic for who she might work for?

Forth, Dubrovnik was under Italian occupation, and Germans arrived in 1943, after the break of the fascist Italy, and it occurred with the allies landing on the coast of Sicily and the south of Italy. Of what kind of German artillery in the deeply occupied Italian zone is she talking about?

Alright, maybe it was Italian artillery, but she was arrested by the Gestapo, there is no suspicion in that as well as her staying in German concentration camps. But, what is Gestapo doing in Dubrovnik? How did Italians allow their presence there? Why didn't the Germans ask for her?

Rut Mičel, Amerikanka u četničkim redovima. Foto: illinois.edu

Wasn't she arrested somewhere else, but it was more glamorous to say Dubrovnik then lets say Mladenovac? Besides, her memory of Belgrade bombing, described in the book "Serbs chose war", put the capital definitely at the start of the war.

Lets make something clear, we have no intention to claim that she is making up individual parts and to magnify her on role, but some logical questions must be asked and where are they leading, aside her love for Serbia.

Either way, she passed through 12 German camp during her 13-14 months of imprisonment; some of them were on Balkans, some were in Germany. The only thing that saved her from execution was the fact that she was American and they were not in war yet, and after that, she was convicted for execution, but the Swiss government intervened and she was exchanged as a war prisoner.

Rut Mičel, Amerikanka u četničkim redovima. Foto: illinois.edu

The following year, she published the mentioned book "Serbs chose war" where she described her chetnik activities and life in camps.

After the WWII she defended Chetniks in American media, talked beneficially about Draza during his trial in Belgrade, called him the "greatest patriot of war", she attacked Tito and claim that he claimed chetnik victories as his own and that he only managed to stay in power thanks to the Croatian Ustashas.

When Dragomir Jovanovic, puppet mayor of Belgrade during the war, at his trial accused her that she has been seen with the Gestapo, she replied that it happened only when she was arrested and convicted for her Chetnik activities.

Rut Mičel, Amerikanka u četničkim redovima, sarađivala je sa srpskim patriotskim organizacijama u SAD. Foto: illinois.edu

It is impossible to untangle what is truth and what is a lie in this.

At the end of the forties and the start of the fifties, help was gathered for Serbian war orphans and se cooperated with our patriotic organizations in America.

in 1955 she moved to London where she allegedly lived in the apartment where lord Byron lived, and to eventually settle in Lisbon suburb Belash. This is where she died in 1969 from a heart attack.

(Telegraf.co.uk / O.S.)