Partisan attacks on airfields

[cpaige5@hotmail.com]

Can anyone provide any details about plane losses/damaged on any attacks in USSR/Balkans? There must have been some in the east with such a high number of partisans in the forests.

[Boris Ciglic]

Speaking of Yugoslavia, there were numerous very successful attacks on airfields, the most notable being the raid on Rajlovac by Partisan 1. krajiška brigada (Kraina Brigade) on 10/11 August 1943 when 17 aircraft were destroyed and 17 damaged.

[Larry deZeng]

All Yugoslavia:

Agram-Gorica
1-2 Dec 43: airfield attacked by 300-500 Partisans but repulsed after 6 hours by heavy fire from machine gun emplacements; 3 Germans and 2 Croatians KIA, plus many enemy KIA and WIA.
19 Dec 43: airfield attacked again by a sizeable Partisan force – 1 x Cant 1007 burned out and 4 barracks burned down; casualties among Croatian Legion and German liaison/instructor personnel; airfield temporarily evacuated on order of Koflug 6/XVII due to inability to defend it.
19 Jul 44: Partisans attacked and blew up the airfield bomb dump containing c. 850 tons of bombs.

Agram-Pleso
6 Feb 45: airfield infiltrated by Partisan commandos – 6 Dornier (Do 17s?) bombers blown up.
18 Feb 45: airfield infiltrated by Partisan commandos again – 3 Ju 52s blown up.
23 Feb 45: airfield infiltrated by Partisan commandos yet again – 2 Fi 156s blown up along with 24 tons of bombs.

Agram-Stadt (Borongaj)
28 Dec 44: airfield attacked by Partisan assault commandos – 5 transports, including a Ju 52, blown up or burned.
11 Apr 45: airfield infiltrated by Partisan commandos –1 Do 17 blown up.

Banja Luka - Zalužani
20-21 Sep 44: airfield captured by elements of the Partisan 5th Assault Corps and held until early October – 5 serviceable and 6 unserviceable aircraft were taken along with 200 Croatian Air Force prisoners. Although 37 aircraft and 800 personnel managed to escape before Zalužani was overrun, the decision was made to close it after it was retaken on 4 Oct 44.

Samobor (a.k.a. Sveta Nedelja)
29 May 43: landing ground attacked by c. 200 Partisans – 2 aircraft and all of the gliders were destroyed and many of the buildings burned down. Taken prisoner were 4 officers, 30 soldiers and 70 glider school students.

Sarajevo-Rajlovac
10/11 Aug 43: night partisan attack by 500 men from the 1st Partisan Border Brigade – 1 x Do 17Z from 15.(kroat.)/KG 53, 2 x Ju 52s belonging to FFS C 1 and 1 x W 34 from Verbindungsstaffel 58 destroyed or severely damaged on the ground. Additionally, 11 x Do 17s and 1 x Bristol Blenheim I belonging to the Croatian Air Force destroyed or damaged. (German reports)

As for Russia,

Nikolajew/Ost I
10 Mar 42: sabotage by partisans – 2 x Bf 109 E-7s from 2./JG 77, 1 x Bf 110 C-5 from 4.(F)/Aufkl.Gr. 122, 3 x Ju 87s from St.G. 77, 1 x Fi 156 from Flugbereitschaft IV. Fliegerkorps destroyed or damaged.

Plus numerous others..............

[Laurent Rizzotti]

About the sabotage action in Nikolayev, please see this former thread:
http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=24634

Some losses were reported before the 10th of March, so the sabotage probably took place earlier.

[Maxim1]

Concerning USSR, check the following link ("The partizan sky", parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5):

http://olga-tonina.narod.ru/luft_raznoe/partizan.pdf

It's in Russian, though.

[sidney]

I would like to add a few notes to this most interesting discussion if I may.

Technically speaking, all those military airfields attacked by the partisans in Yugoslavia were on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (i.e., Nezavisna Država Hrvatska), today's Republic of Croatia and Republic Bosnia and Hercegovina (Banja Luka - Zalužani and Sarajevo - Rajlovac). I hope that I am not nitpicking here.

This one is I feel more to the point - Agram-(Velika) Gorica and Agram-Pleso in my opinion refer to the same airfield, today's Zagreb International Airport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagreb_Airport

I would rather refer to the 1st Partisan Border Brigade as the 1. Krajiška brigada (Kraina Brigade) as given in post No.2. "Krajina" was a military zone established by the Habsburg Empire along the border with the Turkish Empire on the Balkan peninsula starting from I believe 17th century. The term is not necessarily synonym with the word "border".

Regards,
Sinisa

[Boris Ciglic]

When you come upon Velika Gorica and Pleso in documents from the time, those are not the same airfields. There were four major air bases in Zagreb area: Borongaj, Pleso, Kurilovec and Velika Gorica. The last three mentioned were connected and you could get from one to the other through Kurilovec, but they were considered different airfields. And there were many Partisan attacks outside so-called Independent Croat State as well.
On 18/19 July 1941 rebels destroyed five booty aircraft collected at Topola airfield near Jagodina in Serbia. On 29 February 1944 a platoon of 2. južnomoravski odred (South Morava Detachment) set on fire eight Gustavs which force-landed at Ravne auxiliary airfield a week earlier. On 25 May 1944 11. srpska brigada (Serbian Brigade) stormed Leskovac airfield and reported destruction of seven aircraft.
In Slovenia, on 7 July 1943 2. odred of Cankarjeva brigada (2. Detachment of "Ivan Cankar" Brigade) attacked Cerklje and reported that one plane was set on fire and four more damaged. Slovenian Partisans were active even out of Slovenia, Briško-Beneški odred (Briška-Beneška Detachment) storming Campo di Fortuna Belvedere near Udine on 13 March 1944 and reporting destruction of nine aircraft.

[sidney]

Well... those attacks listed in Larry de Zeng's post No.3 all happened on the territory of the Independent State of Croatia. Like it or not, the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia ceased to exist in April 1941, and the Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija (skraćeno DFJ) dominated by the Yugoslav communists was yet to be proclaimed in 1945.

The information on the three interconnected airfields in the same locality at Velika Gorica I find interesting.

So, on 29 February 1944 a platoon of 2. južnomoravski odred (South Morava Detachment) claimed to have set on fire no less than eight Gustavs? That sounds pretty catastrophic loss for, supposedly, the Germans (i.e., 66.66% of a Staffel strength). Can someone give the unit and particular aircraft details?

[Boris Ciglic]

Gustavs belonged to III./JG 27, possibly 9. Staffel. They were forced to land there during a transfer flight on 23 February and at least one of them was damaged. Planes were left under guard, but obviously not strong enough.

[sidney]

Post Nos. 3 and 6: Apology for the input on the Pleso and Velika Gorica airfields. Was sure that the two names refer to the same military airfield.
Post Nos. 7 and 9: Thank you for the info, highly valued.