http://www.nytimes.com/1964/08/31/sloyaks-acclaim-4-us-veterans.html?mcubz=0&_r=0

DAVID BINDER; Special to The New York TimesAUG. 31, 1964

DONOVALY, Czechoslovakia, Aug. 30—Four World War II American combat intelligence men met in this windswept mountain hamlet on the weekend for the first time since they fought with Slovak partisans 20 years ago.

The reunion came about as a result of the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Slovak national uprising, sponsored by Czechoslovakia's Communist Government.

President Antonin Novotny and Premier Khrushchev, making a 10‐day visit to Czechoslovakia, attended observances yesterday in Banska Bystrica.

The four Americans, still lean and tough‐looking in their midforties, were put up in the Sports Hotel at Donovaly, the place where they had last seen each other.

That was on Oct. 31, 1944, about a month after they had been flown in from Bari, Italy, with 15 others from the Office of Strategic Services.

Loaded down with munitions and bazookas, they had landed at an airfield at Tri Duby, which had been liberated by the Slovaks from the Nazi occupiers.

Mission Was Training

Their mission was to train the partisans in demolition and the use of antitank weapons and to fight alongside them. But powerful German armored columns moved into Slovakia at the start of the uprising and the partisans were pushed into the hills.

“All of us were captured eventually,” said William A. McGregor, a 43‐year‐old former captain who now lives in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Fourteen of the Americans were tortured and executed by the Nazis. One other survivor, Kenneth Dunlevy of Adelphi, Md., did not get to the celebration. Mr. Dunlevy managed to elude the Germans until April, 1945, along with Sgt. Steve J. Cattos, 45, of Pittsburgh, Pa., who was on hand today.

Mr. Catlos, a stocky man with dark blond hair, recounted: ”We went all up and down these damn hills from here to Budapest.” That was a distance of more than 100 miles.

“We spent Christmas, 1944, in a hunting lodge with a Slovak girl and a soldier,” he added.

One Spoke Slovak

The only person in the group who could speak Slovak was John Schwartz, 44, of Massapequa, L. I., an acting lieutenant in those days.

He was captured while escorting a group of American fliers toward the Allied lines.

The fourth member present for the ceremony was Capt. Kenneth Lain, 42, of Champaign, Ill. “I was heading for the Russian lines when they got me,” he said.

The four men found many of their Slovak comrades in the area this weekend. The biggest surprise was to find their former translator, John Surovec.

“He saved an American airman's life,” Mr. McGregor recalled. “I am going to propose to the Secretary of Defense that our Government give him a medal.”

The Czechoslovak’ Government presented to the four Americans the medal commemorating the Slovak uprising, which started Aug. 29, 1944. Each also received a mountaineer's ax, the symbol of the Slovak partisan commander's authority.

Steven John Catlos (1919)