Diplomats honour US and British soldiers in Slovak National Uprising

US Embassy's charge d'affaires Natasha Franceschi, British Ambassador Nigel Baker and Defence Ministry's state secretary Marian Majer commemorated the legacy of American and British special forces operatives who supported the Slovak National Uprising in 1944 in the village of Polomka (Banská Bystrica region) on Wednesday. In August 1944, teams from the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and British Special Operations Executive (SOE) personnel arrived in central Slovakia to work with Slovak resistance fighters in liberating Slovakia from Nazi occupation. As the uprising faltered, Tri Duby airfield was lost and Banská Bystrica was bombed, forcing the U.S. teams to flee to the mountains. After Christmas in 1944 they were captured in the hills above Polomka, and were later tortured and executed in a Nazi Concentration Camp at Mauthausen.