On October 15, 1951, CIA's "Chestnut Team" of five men parachuted into Albania shortly after midnight on Mli Grab (hill 1275), approximately three kilometers away from their scheduled drop zone. The terrain was mountainous and wooded with no reasonably safe landing zone. The leader, Sal Kepi, hesitated before jumping after realizing this was not the scheduled drop zone. Still, when the number two man asked why he was delaying his jump, he responded by immediately jumping. The others followed him down.
The team landed on the side of a snow-covered mountain. Sal Kepi sprained both heels; Mitar Hagjija landed in a tree. The other three men landed without casualties. The bundles landed about a mile away; several had landed on trees and were left where they had fallen. It took the men approximately two hours to assemble. Afterward, the leader, who was the only team member familiar with the drop area, told his men that he was not altogether familiar with this present location.
The team walked in single file, headed by Sulejman Elezi, who took over the lead because of the foot injuries suffered by Kepi. The latter was Immediately behind Elezi. At 6 a.m. October 15, while still walking in single file, the team was fired upon by the Communists. The battle lasted until 4 p.m. October 15, when they managed to escape the area. It was believed that one of the Communists was wounded. Duka's clothing' was hit by a bullet, but there were nobody injuries. At this point, the three men who managed to escape lost all contact with the other two men. What happened to them was not known
On October 16, they went to a small isolated house to ask for food. A woman came to the door but refused to give them any help. She told them that although she was not a Communist, she and her family would be in danger if the three men remained. She asked them to leave. They only managed to rescue a little food from their bundles and were hungry. The woman refused to take any gold or dollars and did not assist them further.
On October 16, while only one kilometer from the border, they came across two sleeping soldiers. Because they did not know how far from the border they were, they proceeded quietly. A short time before this, the men waded across a small river (name unknown). Here, Ilias Jonus lost his forged identification papers as well as his gold pieces. Duka and Hagfifa managed to save their documents, although Hagfifals papers were slightly damaged by water.
They crossed the border into Yugoslavia about three days after making their landing in Albania.
They continued their trip to the Greek border and made their crossing on October 30, near Kastrican, Greece. The crossing took place without incident. The Greek border patrol attempted to interrogate the men (through an Albanian interpreter), but the attempt stopped when Liman Duka, the spokesman, refused to answer anything. They immediately gave themselves up to the Greek authorities by using the code password.
A later CIA report criticized this operation:
The report indicates that almost from the time the team landed, their efforts were directed wholly at survival and evasion. Aside from the fact that three of the five members of the team were recovered, no other tangible results are indicated and the mission should probably be termed a failure in terms of men lost and time and money spent
