April 24th, 1944
Operation Plunder - The Heer rebels
Danube and Sava valleys - The Allied stranglehold around Pécs continues to tighten little by little. Confronted on its right with the ever more intense assaults of the 1st Australian Armored - which has now crossed the Drava river and advances, covered by the 107th RALCA and a good part of the allied air force, facing the unfortunate 199. ID - and harassed on its left by the 6th Armoured - which crossed the Danube in force towards Dunaszekcső now that it knows that its flank is perfectly secure - the 1. Panzer does its best without being able to change the fate of the weapons.
Seizing Nagyharsány from Beremend and neglecting the massifs of the Bisse region to cross the small Hegyadó patak at Szava instead, the Australians charge north, forcing Walter Krüger to redeploy the bulk of his unit to cover Walter Wißmath's infantry, threatened by overruns. In doing so, the armored and mechanized units are exposed to the Allied air force and left the field free for Vyvyan Evelegh, whose tanks did not meet any real opposition, except the debris of a territorial Honvèd. Well of course, the latter is very thinned out since April 13th and does not seem, in any case, to be very motivated to fight non-communists... In other words, she doesn't count. The Humbers run across the plain and soon take Himesháza and especially Bóly, making the defense of Mohács impossible.
Little by little, the Heer retreats... The Balkan Air Force, as well as the French 155 mm, render all the positions of this agricultural plain virtually untenable without heavy losses, if not without risk of encirclement. Mohács is occupied in the evening. The whole sector from Beli Manastir to Villány is already lost. The Allies have paid a price, but they had indeed conquered a 50 km long and 30 km wide strip between Danube and Drina... And while Landsers and Panzers are now fighting a hopeless battle on a Keszü- Egerág-Olasz arc, Maximilian Von Weichs wonders if it was reasonable to hold on to this sector, as it was the only way to hold on to this sector, which is eating up all his reserves. Until the arrival of the 19. PanzerGrenadier Brandenburg, he requested from Berlin the right to withdraw to Szigetvár and (especially) to the Mecsek Mountains, immediately north of Pécs. There, his forces will be able to hold in good conditions, and to rally for the next round...with the reinforcements that will eventually be sent to him, right!
At the same time, on the 6th Australian side, things are also a bit agitated.
While Jack Stevens thought he was quietly covering the flank of the rest of the ANZAC while waiting for the arrival of the XIIIth Corps, he sees the three divisions of the LXVIII. Armee-Korps (Hellmuth Felmy), reinforced by the 117. Jäger of Karl von Le Suire!
Obviously, the Australian infantry division (certainly fresher and in better shape than its opponents, but still!) will have difficulty to settle the score of all these people... On the other hand, it can violently harass and bombard with artillery of the moving columns between Stružani and Slavonski Brod. This is what it does with the support of the 5th "Bosnian" Corps of the AVNOJ, not warned but very observant and delighted to be able to continue to play the spoilsport in the sector of Slavonski Brod in front of the Black Legion, while his comrades of the 6th "Slavonic" Corps continue to harass with the success that we know.
The Australians - seasoned professionals though they may be - are not in the mood to do the Germans and their Croatian allies any favors. Terrible discoveries were made in the region, all along the road from Belgrade to Tenja and Dakovo. Obviously, Bubanj and other horrors are not isolated incidents. Aussies and Partisans assault the German troops coming from the Sava river, making them lose a lot of time on the road to Našice... In the evening, the German troops obviously continue to cross. But the Australian vanguards would be towards Garčin, busy pressing stragglers and columns of infantrymen right under the noses of the Ustasha - who are thus obliged to come out of their passivity to pretend to help their generous sponsors... The retreat of the 20. Armee is definitely an ordeal!
Further south, the XVIII. Gebirgs-Armee-Korps of Julius Ringel tries to continue its maneuvers... On the banks of the Tinja, the attempts of the 264. ID (Otto Lüdecke) and 162. ID (Johann Fortner) were not successful. Threatened with encirclement by the 10th Armoured on their northern flank, the two German divisions try to withdraw to the higher ground in the sectors of Gradačac and Modriča, while the Allied tanks target Šamac, believing they are on the heels of Hellmuth Felmy's corps. Obviously, the information provided to Horace Birks is somewhat out of date...
Having seen that his opponent is not in Šamac and furious at having been played like that, the British man turns his tracks in front of the Sava and runs downhill towards Modriča - he then runs into 264. ID. The latter gains enough time to allow the 162. ID to finish crossing the Bosnia river - then it withdraws to the west, on the hills and into the river gorge at Babešnica, where Lüdecke hopes that it will not be followed.
And he is not wrong! Because rather than running for nothing in the hills, the Allied tanks are now preparing to cross the Bosnia river northwards at Odžak, to support the 6th Australian. On the other hand, behind them, the 4th Indian Division (Arthur Holworthy) and the 32nd Army Tank Brigade (Brigadier A.C. William) have finished their sweep - they are now marching toward Gradačac, where they could arrive as early as tomorrow. So the German infantry is not out of the woods! Finally, on the side of Charles Bullen-Smith's 51st Highlands Infantry, the situation remains calm. Assuring the junction with the Greek troops, this division has passed Caparde and is now arriving towards Kalesija, on the road to Tuzla.
Operation Veritable - The one nobody wanted
Eastern Bosnia and Montenegro - The French 2nd Army kept its word. It now holds the Tuzla-Sarajevo-Mostar line, which had been set by General Montgomery as the Veritable's minimum advance allowing Plunder to proceed in peace...Well, to be precise, it is close to that line - and only in the northern sector, still. But since this is what the Briton is interested in...
Taking advantage of the fact that the 164. ID (Karl-Heinz Lungerhausen) is now defending in the Tuzla sector, the 1st Greek Corps advances without further opposition. The 1st ID (Vasileios Vrachnos) is somewhere in the Tišča valley, near Jansen on the road to Kladanj. As for the 6th Mountain Brigade (colonel Pafsanias Katsotas), after having gone up to the sources of the Povlenska River up to Kraljevo Polje, it should reach Sokolac tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, thus completing the envelopment of Sarajevo from the north-east. Obviously, the Allied high command - and in particular Sylvestre Audet - can only be delighted. But this breakthrough had no chance of becoming decisive, given the terrain of the region...
About fifty kilometers further south, after the destruction of the Goražde lock, the 7. SS-Gebirgs-Division Prinz-Eugen continues its retreat towards Sarajevo, leaving behind only - and according to local tradition - a landscape of devastation, misery and death. The SS, experienced in the delicate exercise of massive "anti-terrorist reprisals", had to deal with a strong party... But they learned very quickly - for example, that it was better for their health to move at night. This precaution allows the 13. SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgsjäger Rgt Artur-Phleps as well as the 14. SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgsjäger Rgt Reinhard-Heydrich to redeploy to Foča and Podgrab more or less as planned - although the Rgt Artur-Phleps will only be fully deployed there until tomorrow, along with all the colorful gear of the 105. SS-StuG Abteilung (Hauptsturmführer Mühlenkamp). They will meet their dear colleagues of the 7. SS-PanzerGrenadier Rgt (Alfred Wünnenberg), of the SS Polizei, which had just replaced the 27. SS-Gebirgsjäger Rgt (Desiderius Hampel), which had gone to Mostar to join the rest of the Handschar.
With two complete and more or less concentrated divisions (Prinz-Eugen and Polizei), Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger thinks he could hold the Sarajevo lock for a long time, leaving Mostar to the Croats - with the reinforcement of the Handschar if necessary. He is all the more certain that his Cossack and Dutch comrades would soon cross the former northern border of Yugoslavia in the region of Maribor. They only lost a little time because of the detour they had to make through Bratislava and Graz - the fault of the Heer, who let those damn English advance along the Sava river. Anyway... With these formations, it should soon be possible to send the Handschar to the front to animate the ungrateful mass of the Ustashi.
On the other side of the front in question, the various Allies are quite divided on the next steps. The Franco-Greeks, still bound by a precise plan of operations and supply constraints, simply plan to continue sliding westwards, falling back on the west, falling back towards Pale and Trnovo in order to get even closer to Sarajevo. On the other hand, the Partisans, lighter, knowing the terrain and more... enthusiastic about the continuation of the operations, envisage to break through the enemy's position south of the Treskavica mountains and up to Konjic, in order to cut the link between the Bosnian capital and Mostar, as a prelude to a real encirclement of the city. This is operation Sarajevo, decided by the AVNOJ high command alone - but its methods and objectives are not necessarily contradictory to those of the Allies.
Also, after long discussions and in the absence of a supreme authority able to arbitrate between the two parties, both plans were implemented. The 3rd Mountain Brigade (Colonel Thrasyvoulos Tsakalotos) will start to move up towards Pale with the full support of the 8th "Dalmatian" Corps (Commander Vicko Krstulović, Commissar Ivan Kukoč) to join, eventually, the 6th Brigade. The 13th ID (Charalambos Katsimitros) will descend to Foča, still accompanied by the 12th "Vojvodina" Corps (Commander Danilo Lekic Spaniard, Commissioner Stefan Mitrović) - a unit with which it cooperates fraternally, which is not without causing some concern to the staff of the 2nd Greek Corps. Finally, in the center, the 1st "Proletarian" Corps (Commander Koča Popović, Commissioner Mijalko Todorovic) and especially the 3rd "Bosnian" Corps (Commander Kosta Nađ, Commissioner Osman Karabegovic), just reformed and coming from the reserve, will go around Foča through the mountains of Ustikolina to Pendičići, to implement Operation Sarajevo through mountain roads that were impassable for the Allied units. As for the 192nd DIA (Léon Jouffrault), it will continue to support and supply the Greeks, while waiting for an inevitable redeployment as part of the replacement of the 2nd Polish Corps.
This double solution shows well that the concord between the royalist or republicans of the "Fabvier" army and the professionals of the insurrection of the AVNOJ is significantly lacking. In reality, without going so far as to speak of a real disagreement, the two armies do not agree on anything: tactics, methods, objectives. Only one point brings them together: to defeat the German (and the Croat). On this point, it is necessary to agree that the titists have experience in Yugoslavia - to the point of becoming somewhat arrogant. And in leaving, Koča Popović, leader of the famous 1st "Proletarian" Corps, even said to his...cobelligerents: "We suggest your forces follow us - but you'll have to hurry, because the enemy may well reoccupy positions we've cleared in our path!"
As for an objective assessment of the forces involved, the Titists are not much more talkative. Between bravado, enthusiasm and honesty, Kosta Nađ will thus declare:
"The Germans have better armed and more robust forces [in pitched battle] than ours. We have lost a little less than two-thirds of our numbers - but you only have to consider us at full strength." In any case, Nađ is not going to sulk in his pleasure of going before the French - he has forgotten nothing of the prisons on the road to Spain in 1936, nor of the camps after his second crossing of the Pyrenees, in 1939, as a captain of the Republican army and leader of the last International Brigades at the time of the fall of Catalonia. In other words, in the center of the Bosnian front, operations are not likely to settle any time soon.
In the Kolašin sector, on the other hand, the situation is evolving very quickly. The poor locality, already suffering from the harshness of the Ustasha occupation, now sees more than four large Allied units attacking a reinforced Croatian army corps! Nevertheless, contrary to appearances, the forces are not balanced: the soldiers of the NDH, partly worn out by the fighting, partly inexperienced, fight with their backs to the wall, without any clear way of withdrawal and above all without air and armor support. Moreover, they were threatened in their rear by the Montenegrin agitations of Krsto Popović's Greens and Sekula Drljević's National Army - the two factions put a strain on an already insufficient supply when it is not random.
The I Ustasha Corps did not stop there, for lack of anything better, at the level of Bakovići - if only to allow the 373. ID Tigar divizija (Nikolaus Boicetta) to hold, while the latter is already threatening to give way in the vicinity of Smailagića Polje to the Tunisians of Colonel Roux and that the Czechs of the 1st ID of Alois Liška are scratching two kilometers on the road south. The 5th Greek ID (Georgios Stanotas) is still a little far away - it is thus satisfied with artillery shellings and probing, which is still tolerable... On the other hand, Ivan Brozovic's three divisions (which are now only two, even by local standards) can't do anything, or very little, against the armored columns of the 1st Brigade of Colonel Socrates Demaratos, who start in the evening to try to force the passage... There follows a night of confused and violent actions, where everyone does not want to give up what has become, unfortunately for Kolašin, a strategic position.
Operation Veritable - Uncertain Allegiance
East of Kolašin (Montenegro) - The cannon thunders over the region, and this is the moment that the two main Montenegrin factions - the Greens and the National Army - choose to come out of the woodwork, who to recover food and ammunition in the less well-guarded depots, who to... to do the same, but also to strike against the despised Croats, responsible for so many deaths and likely to destroy Montenegro tomorrow if we let them do it. The troops of Sekula Drljević and Krsto Popović thus regain the initiative in the valleys of the Tapa and Morača rivers, causing chaos in the Croatian supply columns and strongly hinder the ongoing redeployment of Ivan Markuli's III Corps to Šavnik...
Finally, the two factions meet in the Medjurecje sector, already ravaged by Nikolaus Boicetta's legionnaires. Popović, who had never collaborated much with the Axis, has little regard for Drljević - a traitor, whose ways are well known. Everyone knows what happened to the late Pavle Đurišić. His instincts did not deceive him, when he refused his supposedly sincerely extended hand last month! The small region soon becomes the scene of a succession of clashes and merciless, hateful and violent fights as it seems that only the Balkans know how to produce them. By doing so, they necessarily lighten the pressure they exert on the back of the NDH. But this is not going to save the Croatian army - not to mention the hostages in the gymnasium. And naturally, under these circumstances, the talks with General Borisav Ristic will have to wait.
Operation Veritable - The Eagle and the Checkerboard
Montenegro and northern Albania - The difficulties are definitely piling up for the KLAK of Ivo Herenčić. While he must already face, alone or almost, a very strong offensive in northern Montenegro, the Isthmus of Bar has been the theater of a general and particularly violent assault. The 392nd ID Plava divizija of Artur Gustovic, now blue with blows and no longer with inexperience, which is constantly losing men under the bludgeoning of the air force and the navy, does not stop retreating in the face of the rage of his opponents, who are going to take every position with a very professional methodical vigor! The sanctuary of Sergius of Radonezh falls, the Poles advance towards the village of Tudjemili, continuing on the cliffside in a north-westerly direction, scorning the isolated defenders on their right.
The Croatian infantry, scattered, is forced to climb the slopes of Mount Rumija under machine-gun fire, to face, exhausted, the 5th ID of General Bronisław-Duch. Not to mention the SAV-42s of the Maczek brigade - the Ustasha have only a few anti-tank equipment... But they still have many wooden bunkers and other entrenchments in the sector, not all of which have been spotted and which must be discovered and reduced one by one. Moreover, the Croats have some rare Sdkfz 251 offered by the Germans, whose discretion under the trees allows them (for the moment!) to escape the fate promised by their delicate nickname of "rolling coffins". On the other hand, mines and barbed wire are missing... Even if, on the other side, the Poles also have difficulties to bring up their supplies - especially ammunition and water.
Meanwhile, high above the carnage, Major Le Gloan laughs: "Oh it's not true! Poor things..." His NA-102 patrol of the 39th EC Bourgogne has just seen the ZNDH mission requested by Ivo Herenčić and sent by Vladimir Kren in spite of common sense. In all, 4 Fiat BR.20, 4 G.50 and... two CR.42 - opponents that bring back his best memories of 1940 to a French pilot of the time. No Bf 109 - the Ustasha air force general preferred to cynically spare his only valid fighters. In minutes, the formation is massacred without sparing: 3 BR.20, 1 G.50 and a biplane are shot down (the others were clever enough or lucky enough to escape). The Shield of the Mediterranean takes down the CR.42 - a sordid detail: the pilot did not jump, no doubt because of the lack of a parachute.
In summary, the day is catastrophic for the KLAK, which has no solution... except to clear the road to Pogdorica in front of the 3rd AVNOJ ID north of Lake Scutari. And even then, the Devil's Division would probably arrive too late. A final counter-attack is therefore improvised in the direction of the Mejdurec canyon, which will be launched during the night... All this in front of a Johann Mickl, who can only repeat: "I told you so!" This undoubtedly relieves the German's irritation, but does not help matters. The final outcome is without a doubt inevitable.
Air warfare
Current affairs
Balkans - Today, the weather is "flyable" everywhere in the region. The Balkans Air Force takes advantage of it to multiply the sorties, for ground support purposes of course, but also for more distant missions. Thus, the Havocs of the 20th EB Gascogne hit the station of Varaždin, on the axis Nagykanizsa-Zagreb - General Weiss and Air Marshal Tedder have a lot of ideas ! - while the Beaumont IIs of Squadron 69 fly up the Danube, both for reconnaissance purposes and to destroy the river traffic. It is because the fights of these last days have marked the allied decision-makers! It is out of the question that, tomorrow, the Axis could once again move its PanzerDivisions from one side of the beautiful blue river to the other with impunity. Of course, the ferries of the region are paying for this decision - the Croatian monitors, fortunately for them, are still too far upstream, well beyond Slavonski Brod, to be seen.
As for the French Havoc, due to lack of opposition - the ZNDH has only 10 modern fighters (from 1940!) and it is not the Luftwaffe or the MKHL that will help it! - they will ravage the local railway installations with impunity and even bomb the bridge over the Drava. The bridge as well as the installations are not likely to be used again any time soon!
During the night, the Bomber Command Home, reinforced by three Halifax squadrons based in Italy, attacks Vienna, aiming at the Wien Stadlau railway station, north-east of the city. "Bomber" Harris loves to vary the angles of approach of his strikes, which suited his flow strategy well, designed to saturate opposing defenses! Of course, Vienna is a bit more defended than Croatia... The III/NGJ 1 and the Flak - as well as, undoubtedly, errors of navigation - cause the loss of five four-engine planes. Major Werner Hoffmann is at 31 victories.
But the train station is devastated... as well as the surrounding area. Hundreds of civilians are killed.
The nights follow one another and are similar...
18th Allied Armies Group
Monty in Hungary
Danube Valley - The heavily escorted Humber jumps over the bumps in the road as the dedicated Freddie De Guincamp stumbles over the names on his map.
- We're heading toward... Alsomee... Also-me-holy-jack... Alsómiholjác, Sir!
- We'll have to find some codenames for the locations around there. I don't have time to waste on spelling. Anyway, we're British. We didn't invade the rest of the world to speak their languages!
In his passenger seat, Bernard Law Montgomery may be humorous, but it's only an appearance, even though his troops finally entered (and entered quite well!) Hungary, the Englishman feels he has some reasons to be worried. First of all, Plunder may have been a success, it did not destroy the forces of the 20. Armee as expected - these are again in line against him, and they even seem to be already in the process of recovering. This is evidenced by the attempt that was fortunately countered with efficiency in the last few days... Secondly, the losses have been heavy - and morale can be affected. And as, on the side of Grenade as well as Veritable, its so brave allies did not totally fulfill their objectives either, far from it, Monty finds himself having to improvise a follow-up to his plan, which was carefully prepared but launched way too early, due to the fault of a damn old admiral...
Since the beginning of his career, and despite the fact that some people like to portray him as a kind of diva locked up in his ivory tower, Monty likes to command from the front. And he even more so today, because he has to estimate losses, gauge difficulties, evaluate potential, accelerate the supply by using his authority on the spot... and above all, perhaps, to try to raise the mood of the Tommies, by showing how much he cares about them. That's Monty's agenda for the next few days.
.........
"Montgomery liked to inspect the troops to share his experience. So, to an anonymous soldier at attention, he would say, "You. What is your most valuable asset?" "My rifle, sir." "No, it's not. It's your life and I'm going to save it for you. Now you listen to me..." This was followed by a camouflage or tactical tip, in which he emphasized his concern for air or artillery support. Although certainly not disinterested, these moments were invariably, according to historian Richard Lamb, "successful beyond belief." Educated by the First Conflict and the failings of generals such as Haig, Montgomery knew how to build his popularity through speeches, camaraderie, understanding and a desire to dispel fear."
(Alistair Horne, Monty, the lonely Leader, Macmillan 1994)
.........
As to what happens next, the 18th AAG leader will soon make his decision, in consultation with Richard O'Connor.
But before that, he will have to pass, unfortunately, through Tenja and Dakovo - new discoveries of mass graves, and the Briton wants to make sure by himself that the Yugoslavs are not exaggerating. The little Serbian king will still demand answers!
.........
"At the beginning of April 1944, the Allied forces liberated mainly transit camps, often abandoned for a long time and where the mortality rate had been lower - their discovery had a much lesser impact than other sites, past or future. However, Dakovo had experienced an epidemic of typhoid fever that killed at least 800 people, buried in pits around the site, forming a mass grave. And the mistreatment also took their toll... Still in Dakovo, the Ustasha once amused themselves by throwing pieces of bread in front of starving children. The time for these to seize them, they unleashed on the unfortunates dogs of war as hungry as they were. It is said that one of them, ferociously bitten by a hound, would have been locked up by an Ustashi with his predator in a barracks. And the barbarians dance in front of the door to the sound of an accordion to cover the cries!
It is thus regrettable, because of the terrible attention that still today concentrates the site of Jasenovac, to have left in the shade the memory of such places of suffering. In fact, today, only small steles mark these sites. The one in Dakovo is completed by a cemetery. Unfortunately, it is also located next to a gas station which the Croatian government has, curiously, authorized to be built."
(Robert Stan Pratsky, The Liberation of Greece and the Balkans, Flammarion, 2005)
.........
Finally, it will be the turn of those pesky Polish stubbornnesses: Montgomery plans to personally go to Montenegro to say goodbye to them. With a smile - they seem to be making an effort at the moment, he owes them that.
AVNOJ
The final battle
Slovenia - The SS-Freiwilligen Gebirgs-Brigade Karstjäger has finished with the unfortunate region of Petrina. Assured of its rear, it relaunched its attack towards Delnice, against a "Slovenian" 7th Corps (commander Rajko Tanasković, commissar Jože Brilej), which had to start giving in, for lack of energy and ammunition. Three kilometers are lost, they fight in the woods at Donje Tihovo, coming up from the small Kupica... For Standartenführer Hans Brandt, victory seems imminent.
.........
Croatia (northwest) - A break for the Ustasha National Guard! After four days of uninterrupted or almost uninterrupted fighting against the 10th Corps "of Zagreb", the Hrvatsko domobranstvo is not far from exhaustion. Vladimir Matetić's men seem to have succeeded in defeating - or at least pushing back - the NDH troops in pitched battle. In itself, this is nothing new... But the relative balance of the past, which allowed Zagreb to keep vast territories under its control for so long, seems to be in question, between moral failure, manpower crisis and the near absence of German support. In fact, the Croatian army has only recovered a dozen kilometers in four days... And now, it also begins to lack ammunition!
Indeed, facing successive ambushes in the woods, the soldiers of the Croatian National Guard have sometimes been victims of panic attacks mixed with frustration, during which they launched into intense sequences of blind firing, in an attempt to scare off their camouflaged opponents. This tactic, since dubbed the "minute of madness", can be useful with good logistics and overwhelming firepower - both of which the NDH army does not have.
A new setback, therefore, to announce to Ante Pavelic. This is very humiliating for Krilnik Ante Vokić, who thus sees his troops and (perhaps) part of his illusions decay.
.........
Croatia (north), Sava Valley - Petar Drapšin's 6th "Slavon" Corps maintains pressure on the left flank of the Croatian V Corps, taking advantage of the ongoing events towards Slavonski Brod, where Slavko Rodić's 5th "Bosnian" Corps seems, all things considered, having won the battle and managed to convince the capitalists to come and support it. This is undoubtedly exaggerated - and Drapšin does not see that the German columns, which were moving towards his left, which soon plan to pass a little to the east of his position, around Čaglin.
Thus, the fight continues all day for Lužani between the 12th "Slavonic" Division and the 6th Croatian ID of Colonel Ivan Sarnbek. Without the Ustashi managing to retake the city. But without Drapšin realizing that by turning his back on the front, he put his 6th "Slavonic" Corps in a delicate position.
.........
Croatia (west), between Gospić and Knin - Return to calm - or perhaps to inertia. Andrija Hebrang readily tells his subordinates that he fears that the Handschar, which is gathering in the Mostar region (the Partisans have quite an intelligence service!), will not relax to come and hit him tomorrow like a snake. In reality, the Axis believes it has achieved its immediate goals - the current events in the south-east mean that there are really other things to slaughter. Nevertheless, the 4th and 11th "Croatian" Corps of the AVNOJ, it is once again defensive, consolidation and... training of new recruits.
Discreet (but authorized) assistance
Over Bosnia - New airdrops this day, in particular for the partisan corps in northern Montenegro and Central Bosnia. The 2nd French Army believes (rightly) that the Axis is particularly weak in these sectors, but unfortunately it did not have the means and the specialized troops to exploit this opportunity. So, if it is for the right cause...
A sound of trumpet
AVNOJ-controlled areas in eastern Bosnia and northern Montenegro - The liberation of Goražde by "the popular forces of the National Committee for the Liberation of Yugoslavia, supported by the armies of the United Nations" - important details for an organization that is still trying to consolidate its legitimacy... - is widely announced through all the channels open to the Titists. It is true that the NKOJ does not have, strictly speaking, a Ministry of Information or Propaganda... But on the other hand, it has many ways that allow it to spread its good word - notably its network of political commissioners as well as its embryonic administration, supported by the General Delegation for the Administration of the Liberated Yugoslav Territories of Ivan Šubašić.
In addition, the Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Vlada Zecevic - who is himself was a clergyman - is also the administrator of the Department of Religious Affairs of the AVNOJ. He knows how to address religious people of all stripes to get any useful message across.
An orthodox Serb speaking to Bosnian imams - what better symbol of concord and trust in the new, liberated federal Yugoslavia!
NDH
Precautions
Croatian Government Palace (Ban Jelačić Square, Zagreb) - As the cannon thunders along the Sava River, Poglavnik Ante Pavelic is also worried - and his Minister Andrija Artuković with him. Both of them (obviously) do not doubt the quality of their army and the final victory of the Axis. Nevertheless, in the (purely theoretical) possibility that the current "temporary setback" will be prolonged, or perhaps even worsens, it might be a good idea to take some precautions with regard to certain particularly sensitive installations, which are now only 100 kilometers from the front. Others, less notable, are already the talk of the enemy press!
So, as Pavelic says, "Our Croatia should not be subjected to slander like the Reich in Poland. You will do what is necessary, if necessary, to remove any problematic traces. Fire - the purifying element since time immemorial!"
Obviously, Artuković hurriedly forwards these instructions to the Ustaška nadzorna služba - the Ustasha Supervisory Service. A delicate institution whose name is not a cover-up, but rather a hiding place for horror. This service will pass on to Miroslav Filipović, the commander of Jasenovac.
But in the meantime, there is no question of stopping the activity of the death camp - the killing must continue! Even though the question of... the erasure of Jasenovac - in circumstances that we hope will be a little more controlled than in Bubanj - is now clearly posed in the minds of Croatian officials.
