The Ploesti old fields in southeastern Romania were a vital strategic bombing objective for the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II. Located 35 miles north of the capital Bucharest, Ploesti had formerly supplied one-third of Germany’s oil. The U.S. had targeted Ploesti to deprive the German military of petroleum. The U.S. first bombed Ploesti on June 12, 1942 during the HALPRO bombing raid. Then on August 1, 1943 during Operation Tidal Wave, a major bombardment was launched.

The Soviet Red Army advance on Yugoslavia and the capital Belgrade in 1944 was launched from Romania. Russian troops had captured Ploesti on August 30, 1944. But before its capture, Ploesti remained a major bombing target for U.S. forces.

The captain, 1st Lt. Edwin Kieselbach, second from right kneeling, and gunner S/Sgt. Bruce Tuthill, first on right standing.

On August 26, 1944, a U.S. B-24 Liberator crew conducted a bombing mission in Romania. On its return flight, it was shot down over the village of Vratnica in the former Yugoslavia, then occupied and annexed by Bulgaria. The Liberator bomber crashed in the wooded hills overlooking the village. Civilians from Vratnica were able to help the survivors and to bury those who were killed.

Vratnica was a village located in northwestern Macedonia at the border with Kosovo and Metohija. It had been part of Serbia after the First Balkan War in 1912. Before 1912, it had been part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, the region known as Turkey in Europe. In 1915, it was occupied by Bulgarian troops during World War I. In 1918, it became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In 1929, the name of the country was changed to Yugoslavia. Vratnica was made a part of the Vardar or Vardarska Banovina from 1929 to 1941. Vratnica was part of a region called Southern Serbia or Stara Srbija, Ancient or Old Serbia. Claims were made on the area by Serbia and Bulgaria who fought three wars over the region, in 1913, 1915, and 1941. After 1945, Vratnica was part of the Republic of Macedonia created by the new Communist regime under Josip Broz Tito. In 1992, Macedonia seceded from Yugoslavia. A dispute remains with Greece over the name of the country because there is a region in Greece called “Macedonia”. Greece, thus, objects to the use of the name. Internationally, the country is officially known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRM).

Edwin Kieselbach is standing, center, and Bruce Tuthill is kneeling, first on left.

During World War II, Vratnica was occupied by Bulgarian troops who seized large swaths of territory in Macedonia which were annexed. Albanian nationalists and separatists also seized Vratnica and incorporated the village and surrounding area into the Nazi-fascist Greater Albanian state for a brief period during World War II. During the 2001 Albanian insurgency, Vratnica was again attacked and besieged by Albanian separatists of the so-called National Liberation Army.

The U.S. Army Air Force launched its attack on Ploesti from bases in Bari, Italy. The Liberator crew that crashed in Vratnica was part of the 15th Air Force, 455th Bomber Group, 732 Bomber Squadron, based in Bari, Italy.

The captain, 1st Lt. Edwin Kieselbach, survived the crash and Bulgarian imprisonment as a POW.

The captain of the bomber crew was 1^st Lt. Edwin Carl Kieselbach of Ravenna, Oklahoma. The rest of the crew was made up of eight members:  2nd Lt. John T. Edwards, the co-pilot, from of Gleason, Tennessee, 1st Lt. Richard T. McCauley, the bombardier from Providence, Rhode Island, T/Sgt. Edward Ambrosini, the radio operator and gunner from Brooklyn, New York, Sgt. David C. Koblitz, the engineer and gunner from Erie, Kansas, S/Sgt. Willis C. Stephenson, the assistant radar operator and Ball Turret gunner from Topeka, Kansas, S/Sgt. Bruce B. Tuthill, the assistant engineer and gunner from Seaford, New York, S/Sgt Harold L. Viken, the armorer and nose gunner from Denver, Colorado, and S/Sgt William M. Rhodes, the tail gunner from Cray Court, South Carolina. Their aircraft was a Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bomber named “Our Love” with the Airframe designation #42-78240.

Their bombing objective on August 26, 1944 was a train depot marshaling yard in Bucharest, Romania from where oil was shipped. It was also a hub for troop movements and weapons transports. Four squadrons participated in the attack. Each squadron had up to nine bombers. The bomb payload was three tons for every plane.

S/Sgt. Bruce B. Tuthill, the assistant engineer and gunner, was killed and buried in Vratnica.

Over the target, the Our Love Liberator crew was attacked by anti-aircraft. The plane was hit. One of the engines was damaged. This resulted in the plane losing speed and falling behind while the rest of the squadron headed for the Bari base. The bomber was now descending and vulnerable to attack by German fighter planes. Five German Messerschmitt ME 109 fighters attacked the plane with machine guns. The tail and waist gunners were hit. The co-pilot was also injured and died from his wounds.

As the plane flew lower, it sought to avoid the Shar Planina range of mountains by flying over valleys. This allowed anti-aircraft batteries to zero in on the plane. The captain ordered the crew to bail out. The bomber’s two vertical tail assembly rudders were struck which put the plane in a spin. The crew used the bomb bay door to jettison equipment and ammunition and to parachute out of the badly crippled plane.

The captain hit a tree but managed to land safely on the heavily wooded mountainside just over the village of Vratnica. He had suffered a shoulder injury. The turret gunner, however, was killed when he struck the mountain. Both Tuthill and Koblitz had been ejected from the plane and had died instantly on impact. The body of Koblitz was found in a tree still strapped in the harness.

Two Bulgarian soldiers spotted the captain hiding in the woods. He was able to shoot them and flee into the mountains.

Vratnica residents carrying shotguns and pitchforks located him. One of the Vratnica residents could speak English. He told the captain that he had lived in Detroit, Michigan. The captain recalled that Bulgarian and German troops soon arrived and took him prisoner. He was taken to the Bulgarian prison camp at Shumen in northeastern Bulgaria. With Russian troops advancing on Bulgaria, the guards fled, allowing the captain to escape. He managed to get to Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Cairo from where he was returned to the air base in Italy.

There were three survivors of the crash, Kieselbach, the captain, Richard McCauley, the bombardier, and Edward Ambrosini, the radar operator. The rest were killed. Vratnica residents were able to bury those who were killed in the village cemetery. From here they were moved to Belgrade and finally returned to the U.S.

On Wednesday, November 26, 2014, on the 70^th anniversary of the crash, a memorial plaque was placed in the Vratnica cemetery to commemorate the crew. The U.S. Ambassador to Macedonia, Paul Wohlers, commended the residents of Vratnica at the unveiling:

“The residents of this small village risked their lives when they decided to bury the killed airmen and help the survivors. The United States of America and the families of the US pilots will be eternally grateful for what they did.

Today we honor the memory of those who perished in the fight for freedom and we honor the friendship between the people of Macedonia and the USA. The Americans and the residents of Vratnica were close friends and allies back in 1944 and the USA and Macedonia are even more so today.”

In 1941, a German film, Menschen im Sturm, People in the Storm, Ljudi u oluji, an anti-Yugoslavian and anti-Serbian film, was made in Germany to justify the invasion, destruction, and subsequent dismemberment of Yugoslavia. The film starred Olga Chekhova or Tschechowa and Gustav Diessl. The plot of the movie centered around the alleged persecution of the German minority, volksdeutsche, in Yugoslavia by the Yugoslav, particularly Serbian, leaders during the March Crisis in 1941. It was in German and Serbo-Croatian, made by the German production company Tobis Filmkunst. It was directed by Fritz Peter Buch. The screenplay was by Georg Zoch from an idea by Karl Anton and Felix von Eckardt.

The film is set in Yugoslavia in March, 1941. It is during the period of the crisis with Germany. The film opens with a scene of Yugoslav leaders meeting behind closed doors in Belgrade. The pro-German Regent Prince Paul government is overthrown in the March 27 coup. Peter II is proclaimed king. Yugoslav leaders wish Peter II (Petar drugi) a long life as they stream out of the room.

The major scenes take place along the Slovenian border with Austria in the Upper Cariola region of Slovenia. Austria was annexed to the Third German Reich in 1938. Until now, the Slovenian landowner Alexander Oswatic, played by Gustav Diessl, and his ethnic German wife Vera, played by Olga Chekhova, have never experienced any conflict or been in danger in Yugoslavia. But when their region is plagued by clashes between Serbs and ethnic Germans, they feel threatened and are concerned for the German minority. Everything changes for the worse.

Olga Chekhova plays the protagonist in the film. She was a major German film star in the Third Reich during the 1930s and 1940s. She was born in Russia. He father was an ethnic German. Her husband was the nephew of Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.

Siegfried Breuer played Yugoslav Hauptmann or Army Captain Rakic. Franz Schafheitlin was the Yugoslavian Commissioner or Kommisar Subotic. Kurt Meisel plays Yugoslav Oberleutnant Dusan.

Yugoslav troops are shown harassing an ethnic German farming family. The soldiers sieze livestock and intimidate the ethnic Germans. This is all in the wake of the new anti-German policies of the Yugoslav regime controlled by Serbs.

Vera and her family begin to experience the anti-German measures. In one scene, her daughter, Marieluise Kornberg, played by Hannelore Schroth, is listening to a radio program from Vienna but is pressured to turn it off.

Yugoslav royalist troops wearing French Adrian helmets are shown marching against the volksdeutsche community in one scene. The film depicts the charged atmosphere following the March 27 coup when an anti-German regime under Peter II replaced the pro-German regime under the Regent Prince Paul. There were news accounts at the time of ethnic Germans fleeing to Austria as refugees because of the anti-German government. There were expressions of anti-German sentiment in Yugoslavia. The film exaggerates and magnifies these cases.

Yugoslav troops are shown searching ethnic German houses in Yugoslavia. Ethnic Germans in Yugolavia are forced to flee towards the Austrian border.

Vera decides to help Yugoslav citizens of ethnic German origin, the volksdeutsche, who are threatened with persecution. Her daughter accuses her of being a “cosmopolitan”, a euphemism for a Communist. Vera lacks any ethnic consciousness about her own people. She turns into a champion for the German cause after witnessing the persecution of the ethnic German population in royalist Yugoslavia. She manages to seduce a Serbian captain to such a degree that she is able to extract confidential plans and information from him. She is able to turn the information over to the ethnic German community.

Vera joins forces with the teacher of the local ethnic German school, Hans Neubert, played by Heinz Welzel, and together they help numerous ethnic German citizens escape from Yugoslav forces. In one scene, an elderly Croatian druggist, Paulic, played by Rudolf Blumner, is depicted as friendly and tolerant, wishing peace for everyone. He is subsequently brutally murdered by Serbian thugs because of his support of Germany.

The Serbian commanders grow suspicious and put out a spy to determine the source of the leaks in their own ranks. Only by a hair does Vera escape discovery. She is finally found out and flees in a horse-drawn coach with her daughter. They are pursued by Yugoslav military forces on a motorcycle. The Yugoslav pursuer is killed just before they reach the German border. Vera herself had been struck by gunfire and is seriously wounded. She dies as they reach the German border but she dies happy as a German patriot and savior of the persecuted German community in Yugoslavia. The film ends here on a note of triumph and national victory.

The film is similar to the 1941 German film Heimkehr or Homecoming which focused on the alleged persecution of the German community in Poland. The film sought to rationalize and to justify the German destruction of Poland in 1939 by alleging that the Polish government sought to destroy the ethnic German minority in the country. This was the same paradigm used in Menschen im Sturm.

Part of the film was shot in Croatia. The German film crew and cast arrived in Zagreb in July, 1941 to begin shooting the film. The NDH was allied to Germany and was part of the Axis. The NDH thus highly supported the production of the film. NDH Poglavnik Ante Pavelic reportedly met with the German film crew. Ustasha NDH Education Minister Mile Budak was photographed on the set of the film, which was entitled Ljudi u oluji in Croatian. Budak was photographed with Olga Chekhova and other cast and crew of the film.

The film had its premiere in Zagreb in March, 1942. The film was a huge box office hit in the NDH. Ante Pavelic reportedly claimed that a character in the film was based on him. There is a Croatian character in the film named Paulic. Paulic is the Latin form of the name, the root being “Paul”, or “Pavle”. In Croatian and Slavic, the name is Pavelic. Paulic is the pro-German druggist in the film who is murdered by Serbian thugs. The NDH regime highly endorsed the movie.

The film was released on December 19, 1941 in Germany. In Italy, it was entitled Uomini nella tempesta. It was a popular movie in Germany, Italy, and the NDH. It was banned after the war in Communist Yugoslavia.

The film was not much different from the wartime movies made in the United States, Great Britain, or the Soviet Union. They were all Manichean, black and white, and one-sided, subjective movies that divided the world into Us and Them. “We” were always good. The “enemy” was always evil. It was always Good versus Evil. And those that made the movies were always on the side that represented good. In this respect, Menschen im Sturm is the same as the movies made in the Allied countries, only from a German perspective. The film presents a view of Yugoslavia from the perspective of Nazi Germany.

In 1941, a Soviet film short was released on Yugoslavia entitled A Hundred for One, 100 za Odnogo or Sto za Odnogo in Russian, Sto za Jednog in Serbian, Hundert für Einen in German, by Austrian-born Soviet director Herbert Rappaport. The film drama was on the German occupation of Yugoslavia. The plot revolved around the German policy of shooting 100 civilians for the death of a German soldier in Yugoslavia. The film was released on August 11, 1941 in the Soviet Union. This film was also released in the United States on July 3, 1942 under the title This is the Enemy as part of an anthology. The film was also released in Mexico as Este es el enemigo on February 17, 1943. This segment was part of the series Boyevoy kinosbornik from 1941 as No. 2. This was a film collection for the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union approximately an hour in length usually consisting of two approximately thirty minute film shorts.

In the prologue to the segment, the following appears on the screen in Russian: “Son for father, brother for brother, bitter is the German retribution.” The scene is a town in Yugoslavia under fascist occupation. The back of the helmet of a German soldier on sentry duty is shown. Then German troops are patrolling a street in the town. A man and his two children peer out of a window and then close the shutters.

In a German occupied town in Yugoslavia, a couple is walking on a deserted street. They are stopped by two German soldiers. They are accused of violating the 10:00 PM curfew. The German soldier is shown moving the hands of the clock to 10:10 PM. One soldier accosts the woman. They both eventually sexually assault her. One of the soldiers is knocked out cold. Her companion attacks the other soldier. The soldier wrestles him to the ground and pulls out his dagger. The woman takes the gun from the other German soldier and shoots the soldier attacking her companion in the back. He is killed. They then flee. The other soldier rouses himself and fires his weapon to alert other German troops.

The commanding German officer decrees that for the death of the German soldier, one hundred civilians will be executed. German troops begin rounding up civilians in the town, men, women, and children. A woman nursing a child is also taken into custody.

The civilians are being shown marching off to the execution site in the woods led by German troops. In two scenes, a German officer is heard counting off the number of civilians to reach the number of one hundred. The commanding officer follows the civilians to the execution site in a vehicle.

The couple who killed the German soldier witness the plight of the hostages and surrender. They both confess to the killing. The commanding German officer strikes down the man. He is determined to go through with the executions.

The civilians take shovels from the truck and begin digging their own graves. Making prisoners dig their own graves was something German troops did routinely in the Soviet Union but was not a feature of the Yugoslav conflict. They devise a plan to attack the German troops. They use the shovels to attack the soldiers. One of the German soldiers shoots the elderly man. He is then shot by the woman with a rifle. The hostages are able to kill the German troops. They shout slogans of defiance as they battle against fascism, emerging victorious. A guerrilla war is to be conducted. The Russian word for “guerrilla” is used, “Partisan”. In the final scene, the woman who appeared earlier is shown nursing her child. The film has a triumphant and a victorious ending.

The segment was written by Yevgeni Ryss and Vsevolod Voyevodin. The film featured Lev Bordukov, Boris Poslavsky, Larisa Yemelyantseva, and Elena Kirillova. The cinematography was by Khecho Nazaryants. The art direction was by Semyon Mejnkin. The sound was by Ilya Volk. The film was made by Lenfilm Studio. The alternate title was Victory Will Be Ours, Part 2, or Pobeda budet za nami, seriya 2. A translation of the Russian title of the series is: A Collection of Films for the Armed Forces #2.

The Yugoslav segment A Hundred for One was released in the U.S. on July 3, 1942 as part of the anthology This is the Enemy. Two U.S. posters for the 1942 American release were also produced as 14″ x 22″ theatrical window cards. The segment on Yugoslavia, A Hundred for One, was illustrated in the top right corner of one of the posters and was featured extensively in the second. Archer Winsten, the film critic of the New York Post, wrote a positive review for the film: “It is the immediate duty of every American to see this film”.

The anthology featured seven Soviet directors: Yevgeni Chervyakov, Viktor Eisymont, Vladimir Feinberg, Ivan Mutanov, Aleksei Olenin, Tamara Sukova, and Herbert Rappaort, as Gerbet Rappaport. The other segments included “Meeting”, “At the Old Nurse’s/Saboteur”, “One of Many/Air Raid”, and “Three in a Shell Hole”. The goal of the film was to expose what the enemy was like. “What does the enemy look like? …. How does he treat women and children? See Europe’s little people holding the Hitler beast at bay!” The film starred Boris Chirkov, Vladimir Lukin, Boris Blinov, Aleksandr Melnikov and Ivan Kuznetsov. The film consisted of eight re-edited short segments from the Soviet series illustrating the Nazis, including a lead off segment called “The Hitler Beast”, which was an animated cartoon by Russian animator Ivan Ivanov-Vano. The final segment was a fantasy with the spirit of Napoleon sending a telegraph to Adolf Hitler telling him what happened when he invaded Russia in 1812. The movie was shown and promoted in the U.S. in 1942 with the tagline “The Soviet Mrs. Miniver” because both contained similar scenes and because they both sought to mobilize the country for total war against Nazi Germany depicting the enemy as ruthless and without any mores.

Mrs. Miniver came out on June 4, 1942 in the U.S. This is the Enemy came out on July 3, 1942. The Soviet segments were filmed earlier. Mrs. Miniver was an American movie by MGM directed by William Wyler about World War II in Great Britain. The Soviet segment “Saboteur” has a similar theme. An elderly woman lets in a guest into her home who is a German agent. He has a gun with him that a sleeping child in the house is able to take and hide. Eventually, the woman is able to expose the guest and to capture him. This is similar to a major scene in Mrs. Miniver where a German pilot is able to enter her home.

The Soviet Union had signed a treaty of alliance with the royalist Yugoslav government of Peter II in 1941. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were allies during World War II. The Soviet film short A Hundred for One supported the royalist Yugoslav government’s resistance against Nazi Germany. A second Soviet film short in support of the Peter II Yugoslav government would be released in 1942 entitled Night Over Belgrade or Noc nad Belgradom. A Hundred for One demonstrated the Soviet Union’s commitment to Yugoslavia as an ally during the war.

In 1942, a Soviet film short was released on the German occupation of Belgrade in 1941. The film was entitled Night Over Belgrade, Noc nad Belgradom in Russian, Noc nad Beogradom in Serbo-Croatian. The film was pro-Peter II and the new Yugoslav regime that had emerged after the overthrow of the pro-German Regent Prince Paul government. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia were allies during the war. Like Greece, Yugoslavia was resisting the German expansion into southeastern Europe. After the German occupation and dismemberment, Serbia and Montenegro remained as centers of resistance. The Soviet film highlighted this resistance to the Axis.

The film presented an anti-German perspective, showing the Germans as aggressive and brutal occupiers while emphasizing the Yugoslav guerrilla resistance. The film short was part of a Soviet film series that featured short films for the Armed Forces of the USSR, Boyevoy kinosbornik No. 8 in Russian. The director was Leonid Lukov. The writer was Iosif Sklyut. The film starred Tatyana Okunevskaya, Osip Abdulov, Pyotr Aleynikov, Ivan Novoseltsev, and Boris Andreyev. The second segment was entitled Three Tankmen featuring a trapped Soviet tank crew that is able to hold out until they are rescued.

The film was made at the Tashkent film studio in the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan in September, 1941 as German troops were advancing across the USSR and two resistance movements had emerged in German-occupied Serbia. It was released on February 7, 1942.

The first scene is of a Soviet foxhole with Soviet armored troops. They are huddled during a lull in the fighting with advancing German troops. A soldier is eating from a can on his knees with a spoon. A Soviet soldier asks that he be given bread. He announces that he is a Serb named Kotic. Another Soviet soldier is talking over the phone. “I’m listening. So. So. Yes.” The Serbian soldier was forcibly conscripted into the German Army as a “Serbian volunteer”. He has defected. He recounts to the Soviet tank crews the story of the underground resistance in Belgrade.

Billows of white smoke drift across the screen in the foreground. Belgrade appears in the background. Buildings can be seen in the distance. A song is sung in Russian over the opening credits. “For pity, Belgrade is destroyed.”

In the first scene in Belgrade, a German staff car stops at the top of stairs on a Belgrade street. A German occupation soldier opens the back door as a civilian exits the automobile and starts walking down the stairs. As he does so, he is shot dead in the back by the German officer who comes out of the car and fires a revolver. The car drives off. The prisoner dies on the steps.

In the next scene, two German soldiers are shown on patrol on a Belgrade street at night while it is raining with rifles over their shoulders with bayonets. Then three German Wehrmacht soldiers are shown walking behind two prisoners down a Belgrade street with their rifles pointed at them. The third soldier has a revolver. They then stop and execute the two prisoners by shooting them in the back of the head at point blank range. The scenes are at night. These scenes show the nature of the German occupation of Belgrade, emphasizing the brutality and the elimination of all resistance and opposition.

The three German soldiers run into two other soldiers. The first three depart while the camera follows the two as they walk down a deserted street in Belgrade.

They enter a Belgrade restaurant or cafe. They try to intimidate the proprietor Mirko. One soldier breaks off the ends of wine classes. One goes to the wine rack but the bottles are empty. Mirko brings out a wine bottle. They drink the wine. One tells Mirko that the Serbian people are swine and that the Germans are a superior race. They say that the Fuehrer has explained this. One draws his rifle and points it at Mirko threatening to shoot him. Mirko tells him that Oberleutnant Fischer, the German commanding officer in Belgrade, is a patron of the restaurant. The two German soldiers leave.

A resistance fighter enters the cafe through an opening in the cabinet bringing a message. The second resistance fighter that emerges is Kotic. They read from a proclamation. German fascism seeks the physical destruction and extermination of the Slavic peoples. This is the goal of the German war. The Germans have set up concentration camps.

In the next scene a German officer, Oberleutnant Fischer, the commander in Belgrade, who looks like Adolf Hitler, is in a room where a violinist plays for him. The song is sorrowful. The Hitler-like character complains that the song is about of crying. There is a close-up of the violinist’s face. The Hitler-like character blows smoke into his face from a cigarette to bring real tears to his eyes.

There are continuity issues with the Nazi swastika armband. In the earlier scenes, the Nazi swastika is reversed. In the later scenes, the Nazi swastika is not reversed on his left arm.

The resistance are able to infiltrate the restaurant and to seize Fischer’s gun. They are able to capture Fischer and to use him to gain entrance in the Radio Beograd studio.

The entrance gate to Radio Beograd is shown in an exterior shot with a German sentry at the gate. Mirko and the other resistance fighters are able to get past the German guard at the Radio Beograd studio because they recognizes Fischer. They enter the building and seize the German soldier at the studio wearing headphones and a reversed Nazi swastika armband.

The Joseph Stalin-like character Mirko makes a speech over the radio exhorting Serbs, Croats, and Montenegrins to resist the German occupation in a radio address. The German fascist plan is the extermination of all the Slavic peoples, Russians, Ukrainians, and White Russians. Hitler and Mussolini seek to destroy the Slavic peoples. The Soviet Union and the Red Army are now fighting Hitler. “Krov za krov, smert za smert.” “Blood for blood, death for death.”

A German truck transporting troops is shown hitting a land mine and being blown up.

The Tatyana Okunevskaya character sings a song over Beograd Radio exhorting the people to resist. German troops and Fischer hear the message. German troops are sent to take the radio station. Tatyana Okunevskaya is shown next to the studio microphone singing. In the background, German troops can be seen through the glass window as they enter the studio to stop the broadcast. One soldier shoots the Tatyana Okunevskaya character in the back. Her eyes close as she falls back dead. Her corpse is then seen horizontally across the floor. German troops are shown looking on in the back through the glass window.

A woman carrying a lifeless child in her arms is shown moving towards the camera with billowing black smoke in the background. A girl is shown beside the body of her dead mother.

In the next scene, Serbian guerrillas are shown with rifles emerging from the debris. A man in civilian clothes is shown with a rifle. A woman is shown joining the resistance carrying a rifle. One woman is shown carrying a child in her left arm and a rifle in her right which she has slung over her shoulder. Serbian guerrillas are shown advancing with rifles over their shoulders.

Fischer is taken out of a car by Kotic and another resistance fighter. He is told that for the crimes committed by German troops the “people” or “narod” of Yugoslavia have decreed the death penalty. They both shoot him dead. He falls forward.

In the next scene a guerrilla takes off his hat. He then crosses himself. The Serbian guerrilla makes the sign of the cross by touching his forehead, then the center of his chest, then the right side to the left side. This is a custom of Serbian Orthodox Christianity. This religious imagery is unusual in a Communist or Soviet film.

The last scene shows Serbian guerrillas armed with rifles moving across a ledge as they head into the mountains.

Then there is a return to the Soviet foxhole in the USSR as Soviet troops are listening to the account by the Serbian soldier Kotic as he finishes the story of the Belgrade resistance in 1941. Then a shell blast is heard. Then the troops leave the foxhole as shells crash all around. The film ends here.

The film was made at a time when Operation Barbarossa was in full swing and the German forces were advancing all across the front towards Moscow. In the earlier Soviet film short on Yugoslavia, A Hundred For One, made in August, 1941, the emphasis was on the guerrilla resistance and German reprisals against civilians in Yugoslavia. In Night Over Belgrade, the theme of resistance is continued. As a Soviet ally, Yugoslavia, particularly Serbia and Montenegro, was supported and shown in the most positive aspect. In turn, Yugoslavia was also shown as an example of resistance and implacable determination. The Soviet Union was not alone and isolated. Yugoslavia, in Serbia and Montenegro, was portrayed as a model. The movie was made to instill solidarity and to encourage resistance in a common struggle.

Peter II first visited Detroit in 1942, at the height of World War II, when the U.S. had entered the war. The U.S. was then gearing up for total war. Peter visited Detroit as part of an official state visit to the U.S. as the exiled leader of German-occupied Yugoslavia. He was an ally who was shown the industrial capability of the country with a stopover in Detroit, the Arsenal of Democracy. Wearing a military uniform, he had been accompanied by the Yugoslav ambassador to the U.S., Constantin Fotich. He was upbeat with an expectation of eventual victory of the Allied Powers who would restore him to power.

The second visit occurred in 1959 at the height of another global conflict, the Cold War. The Josip Broz Tito post-war Communist government of Yugoslavia had abolished the monarchy in 1945. Peter was made a king without a country. He was now known as the exiled ex-king of Yugoslavia. Moreover, after the 1948 split between Josip Broz Tito and Joseph Stalin, the U.S. welcomed Yugoslavia as a potential ally against the Soviet Union in the the Cold War. Peter was forced to walk a fine line. In the second visit, the theme was support for the U.S. in the Cold War. The expectation was regime change in Yugoslavia with the return of the monarchy.

Miodrag Mijatovich, Peter, Bishop Dionisije, and Rudy Kordich.

He arrived in Detroit on Saturday, March 14, 1959 and left on Thursday, March 19, for a tour of Windsor and Toronto, Canada. He arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. He was greeted at the airport by V. Rev. Miodrag “Pop Micho” Mijatovich, the pastor of the Ravanica Serbian Orthodox Church in Detroit, Bishop Dionisije of the Serbian Orthodox Church of America, and Rudolph “Rudy” Kordich, the Ravanica Church President.

Bishop Dionisije of the Serbian Orthodox Church of America, right, and Peter.

His tour was sponsored by the Serbian Orthodox Church of America. The event was in the context of the Cold War conflict against Communism and the overthrow of the Communist governments of Eastern Europe. At that time, Peter was living in Monaco.

A press conference was held at the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel after his arrival. He later attended a dinner sponsored by Detroit Edison president Walker L. Cisler on Saturday at the Detroit Athletic Club.

On Friday, March 13, 1959, the day before his arrival, The Detroit News featured an anticle, “Yugoslavia’s Ex-King to Begin Visit in City”, by James K. Anderson, which detailed his itinerary in Detroit. He is to begin a five day visit as “a geust of the city’s Serbian community”. This is his second visit to Detroit. He visited during World War II “before he abdicated in favor of the Communist leader of Yugoslavia, Marshal Tito.” The term “adbdicated” is incorrect. Peter did not give up the throne. The Communist government abolished the monarchy in 1945.

On Saturday, after his arrival at 4PM at Detroit Metro Airport and a press conferance at the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel at 5PM, he will attend a meeting at the Detroit Athletic Club hosted by Walker L. Cisler, the President of the Detroit Edison Company. On Sunday, he will go to the American Serbian Hall for mass at the Ravanica Serbian Orthodox Church. On Wednesday afternoon he will attend a dinner as the guest of honor at the Detroit Press Club. Then he will leave for Windsor and Toronto.

Peter “is the last of his Karageogevich dynasty to rule Yugoslavia.” The goal of his 1959 tour of America and Canada sponsored by the Serbian Orthodox Church in America “is to create goodwill for him and the anti-Red Yugoslav forces he represents.”

Peter was photographed dancing the “King’s kolo” in the basement hall at the American-Serbian Memorial Hall in Detroit, Michigan, at Van Dyke and Outer Drive with Mrs. Rudy Kordich, the wife of Rudy Kordich. The photograph appeared in the Detroit Times newspaper in the Monday, March 16, 1959 issue. He was also photographed with Detroit Police Officer Stanley Perich. He was also photographed at the banquet at the Ravanica Hall, at the dinner at the Detroit Athletic Club, in the back seat of a car as he traveled in the city, and on his arrival at Metro Airport.

Detroit Police Officer Stanley Perich and Peter.

Detroit was a highlight of his North American tour. Of his 1959 Detroit visit, Peter II said: “This is the greatest assembly I ever saw of Serbs in America. … This will live in my memory.” Peter toured the Henry Ford River Rouge plant, Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan, the Chrysler Plymouth engine plant on Mound, the Palmer Park Greek Orthodox Church, and the Detroit Press Club.

The banquet in his honor at the American Serbian Hall was attended by members of the Detroit Serbian community and prominent Detroit and Windsor political leaders. The attendees included Bishop Dionisije, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in North America, Rev. Miodrag Mijatovich, the pastor of the Ravanica Serbian Orthodox Church in Detroit, Walker L. Cisler, the president of the Detroit Edison Company, the mayor of Windsor, Canada, Michael Patrick, Mitchell S. Jachimski, the Secretary of the Detroit Welfare Commission and the representative of Detroit mayor Louis Miriani, Detroit City Council President Mary V. Beck, Rudy Kordich, and President Bronislaw M. Stachura and Wladislaw Rylko of the Michigan Chapter of the Polish American Congress. The attendance was 1,500.

Peter’s visit was detailed in The Detroit News in the Monday, March 16, 1959 issue, in the story “Ex-King Peter Calls U.S. Autos Much ‘Too Big'” on page 20, by James K. Anderson. The article provided a biographical sketch as well as his view on American cars. As on his 1942 visit, Peter toured the major automobile plants in Detroit.

Peter said that American cars would be much too big for the roads in Monaco. During his tour of the Ford Motor Company Rouge plant, Anderson reported that he looked so much like “an ordinary American tourist” that workers asked: “Which one is the king?” Peter stated: “Too big, too big” as the cars rolled off the assembly line. The next day he toured the GM Tech Center in Warren and a Chrysler plant.

He had arrived in Detroit on Saturday. The speech at the American Serbian Hall was on Sunday night. He toured the Ford Rouge plant on Monday. On Tuesday he toured the GM Tech Center and a Chrysler plant.

He noted that his 1959 American and Canadian tour was sponsored by Serbian religious, fraternal, and civic organizations to raise money for “Yugoslavian refugees from communism.”

The highlight of his visit was a speech delivered at the American-Serbian Hall which was quoted in the Detroit newspapers. He thanked the Serbian community of Detroit for their support. He castigated the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito, framing his criticisms within the larger Cold War conflict against the Soviet block and Communist ideology. Paradoxically, the U.S. government was economically and militarily backing the Tito regime as a bulwark against the USSR. By 1959, however, Yugoslav dependence on the U.S. had lessened due to the rapprochement between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union after meetings between Tito and Nikita Khrushchev. Peter’s supporters were now primarily Serbian. The appeal was thus to Serbian religious, cultural, and political customs and traditions. He upheld the legacy of Draza Mihailovich and the Chetnik guerrillas of World War II. Chetnik songs were sung at the ceremony.

At the American Serbian Hall on Van Dyke and Outer Drive, he saw dances and singing “reminiscent of the days when Peter’s great-great-granfather expelled the Turks from old Serbia.” Peter sang and “applauded lustily” after each performance. The “high point was reached” when Milan Tomcic, a “former Belgrade singing star, broke out with the Chetnik song, ‘Mother, I am coming home without my right hand, but my left hand will still bring death to Tito’.” Peter and the audience sang along. There were shouts of “zivio”. Everyone clapped “furiously” when the song was over.

Then Ravanica priest Pop Micho and Momcilo Golubovich, a former member of the Yugoslav Royal Guard living in Detroit, escorted Peter to the stage. Peter opened his speech by praising the Detroit Serbian community: “Thank you for keeping alive our church and religion in this blessed country. … Be good Serbs, but above all be good Americans.”

The Ravanica church choir then sang “an ancient song” that honored dignitaries with the hope of a long life. Then he danced the “King’s kolo” with the wife of Rudy Kordich. Finally, the Polish American Congress representatives presented him with a resolution.

Speaking in Serbian and wearing glasses, Peter said: “I tried always to be one of you. I love you more, than you love me. … This is the greatest assembly I ever saw of Serbs in America. I saw rich America and her beautiful cities and I saw and felt the hearts of the people. … This will live in my memory. … I saw people united against this enemy [Communism]. … And in a democracy the people have the last word. If your leaders are not united you should elect new leaders.”

A member of the audience shouted: “All they want is money.”

Peter smiled and continued: “Be good Serbs but above all be good Americans.”

Members of the audience shouted “zivio” during his speech.

Peter stated: “I will write in our national paper and maybe the American press of my impressions. … I’m going to tell you then how and what to do in our common fight against communism.”

The program lasted two hours and featured singing and dancing.

Walker Lee Cisler, the President of the Detroit Edison Company, right, and Peter.

The newspaper accounts focused on Peter’s unpretentious demeanor. When offered a cigarette which fell on the floor, Peter picked it up, saying “That’s all right.” The Detroit Times reporter Bernard Mullins in the story “King Peter has ’53 car. He’s a humble fellow” noted that he was “a humble fellow”. He looked more like a “mild-mannered bookkeeper”. Peter owned a 1953 Jaguar at the time with 135,000 miles on it. After a tour of the Ford Ford Company Rouge plant, Peter insisted that he was not interested in buying a new American car in Detroit: “No sir, I couldn’t afford it. In fact, I couldn’t even afford a trip like this. I’m a guest. Otherwise I couldn’t be here.”

Bernard Mullins wrote in the Detroit Times news article “King Peter Makes a Promise. I’ll tell how to fight Reds” that his speech at the American Serbian Hall was “the most spirited speech of his American tour.”

His financial assets and his family were described. He has savings and trust funds to support his wife Alexandra and his son Alexander. Peter recounted: “They’re both wonderful skiers. I just got a letter from my boy in which he told me he’d won a medal for skiing. I’m very proud of him. But I can’t ski myself. My hobby is skin diving.” He lived in Monte Carlo in Monaco at the time.

The Michigan chapter of the Polish American Congress presented Peter with a resolution welcoming him to Detroit and espoused the “fervent hope that both our nations will attain freedom and full sovereignty.” The snag was that Poland was a Communist “Captive Nation” but Yugoslavia, on the other hand, was a Communist nation that was an ally and a proxy of the U.S. This is missing in the news accounts of the visit.

Peter’s speech at the Hall was covered in a news article in The Detroit News, “Ex-King Peter Hailed by 1,500 at Serb Rally” by James K. Anderson. Peter was described as the “35 year old former monarch who has become to them a symbol of the hope that Red-ruled Yugoslavia will again be free.”

The activities that night were detailed: “They saw Balkan national dances and heard ancient Serbian songs.” Serbian singer Milan Tomcich sang. There were “jubilant cries” of “Zhivio Kralj”, “Long live the King”. One song sung “dated from ancient times when men like Peter’s ancestor Black George fought for their land.” Another song hailed the Chetniks. “Spremte se spremte, Chetnici”. “Prepare, prepare, Chetniks”, a song that “was revived during World War II when Gen. Drazha Mihailovich’s Chetniks were fighting in Yugoslavia.” Another song sung was “The King’s Guards Are Getting Ready” on the death of a family in the war. Peter sat in front of the stage during the festivities. The Polish American Congress presented him with a reoslution read in Polish by Wladyslav Rylko, a former Polish colonel, and in Serbian by former Draza Mihailovich adjutant Jaksa Djelevich.

Earlier that day 600 had attended a dinner held in Peter’s honor. Peter had toasted President Dwight D. Eisenhower and “this land of liberty that has been so hospitable to all our people and has given them a chance for a new life.”

Detroit political leaders portrayed Peter as an avatar of the conflict against the Soviet block and the expansion of Communism into Eastern Europe. Mitchell J. Jachimski, secretary of the Detroit Welfare Commission and the representative of Detroit Mayor Louis Miriani, called Peter “a symbol of free nations fighting communism and an important figure for freedom for all oppressed nations.” Detroit City Council President Mary V. Beck said: “I hope the dark cloud of oppression will disappear and liberty will return to the world.”

Rudy Kordich recalled meeting Peter on his first visit to Detroit in 1942. Kordich stated: “America always has a heart that beats for freedom and democracy.”

Peter and the other speakers espoused the Cold War objectives of rolling back Communism in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans. This meshed well with U.S. Cold War policy overall but was inapplicable to Communist Yugoslavia which was buttressed by the U.S.

Peter remained confident that the Tito regime would collapse and the prewar status quo would be reinstated. This, however, would not happen. Tito and his regime would outlive Peter.

In 1960, the Yugoslavian film Deveti krug or The Ninth Circle was released on the Holocaust in Croatia during World War II. The film was directed by Slovenian-born France Stiglic. It was made in Croatia by Jadran Film based in Zagreb. The film starred Boris Dvornik as Ivo Vojnovic, Dusica Zegarac as Ruth Alakalaj, Desanka Loncar as Magda, and Dragan Milivojevic as Zvonko.

The film is on the Independent State of Croatia, the NDH, during World War II. The NDH existed from 1941 to 1945. The title of the film, Deveti krug, The Ninth Circle, refers to a Croatian Ustasha concentration camp known by that name. The allusion is to Dante’s Inferno from The Divine Comedy, consisting of Nine Circles of Hell. The Ninth Circle is Treachery. The camp is based and modeled on the real Jasenovac concentration camp complex but the word “Jasenovac” is not used.

The screenplay adaptation was written by France Stiglic and Vladimir Koch based on the original story by Zora Dirnbach.

The glaring and fatal flaw of the film is that it does not refer to Jasenovac or any of the other Croatian camps that made up the system. By using the vague and obtuse term “Deveti krug” the film engages in misdirection and obfuscation. By omitting the context, the film becomes too generalized and too generic to have any meaning. The concentration camp in the film becomes a generic concentration camp, one that could be based on Auschwitz, or any of the other German camps. Without the term “Jasenovac”, the film has no meaning either within the Yugoslav context or internationally.

There is not enough elucidation or background to explain the camp. The concentration camps in Croatia were unique and remarkable historically because they were set up by the Croatian government itself. They were not German, but Croatian concentration camps. The film does not explain this crucial fact. The camp guards are Croats and wear Croatian uniforms who speak Croatian. This is evidence that they are Croatian camps. But then the slogan at the camp is ambiguous. It could imply that the camp is Auschwitz or another German camp. A slogan on the entrance to the Croatian Ustasha concentration camp named The Ninth Circle, modeled on the Jasenovac camp system, is “Rad oslobadja” or “Work makes you free”. In German, it is translated as “Arbeit macht frei”. This was the slogan not only at Auschwitz, but also at Dachau, Gros-Rozen, Zahsenhauzen and Therezienstadt. The slogan at Jasenovac was “Rad. Red. Stega.” “Work. Order. Discipline.” There is no question that the camp guards are Croatian Ustasha. This is clearly a Croatian concentration or death camp that is depicted in the film.

The plot focuses around Serbian-born Dusica Zegarac as Ruth Alkalaj, a Croatian Jew living in the Independent State of Croatia. Croatia has enacted racial laws based on the Nuremberg Race Laws in Germany.

The film opens with Ivo and Ruth playing a board game on the floor. Boris Dvornik is Ivo Vojnovic, a 19-year-old Roman Catholic Croat. His father is played by Branko Tatic. His mother is played by Ervina Dragman. Ruth Alkalaj is a 17-year-old Jewish Croat. Her father is played by Bozo Drnic. Her mother is played by Djurdjica Devic. Their families are in the room. A boy playing the game puts on his coat which has the yellow armband with the Star of David and the letter “Z”, the Croatian word for “Jew”.

The setting is Zagreb, the capital during World War II of the Nazi allied country of the Independent State of Croatia, which also consisted of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Adolf Hitler has created the NDH which was proclaimed on April 10, 1941. Ante Pavelic was installed by German forces as the new leader or Poglavnik.

The Croatian Ustasha regime immediately promulgates anti-Jewish race laws modeled on the German Nuremberg Race Laws. Serbs and Roma also targeted for elimination by the new regime. The film does not explore this issue but focuses solely on the anti-Jewish legislation.

Croatian Jews become the targets for elimination. As the NDH regime cracks down on Jewish citizens, Ruth’s parents get arrested. Ruth would be arrested next. Ivo’s parents concoct a plan to save her. They convince Ivo to marry Ruth. The marriage would be bogus and temporary to prevent Ruth from being apprehended and sent to the camps.

Ivo has a relationship with Magda, played by Serbian-born Desanka Beba Loncar. In one scene, they ride on a bicycle through the streets of Zagreb. Another concern is the stigma and embarrassment. At school, Ivo is ridiculed by fellow students for marrying in his teens.

In the next scene, Ruth is shown wearing the NDH yellow badge with a Star of David and the letter “Z”, Croatian for “Zidov” or “Jew”, as she walks with Ivo’s father. A child in the street throws her a ball. She is spotted by a Croatian Ustasha officer who notices the yellow badge. He gazes at her suspiciously.

She sees Ustasha troops put a prisoner in a truck. She sees a poster that Ustasha forces have put up of a racist caricature of a Jewish man. It reads in Croatian: “Measures against Jews can never be too harsh. Jews are worthy to be eradicated before birth.” It is an “Oglas” or “Announcement”. Ruth is shocked. Behind her German military vehicles are shown being transported by rail. The NDH Operation Barbarossa poster for the Eastern Front can be seen on the kiosk: “United Europe Against the East”. The poster reads: “Rame uz rame”. “Shoulder to shoulder.” Croatia is shoulder to shoulder with Germany and Italy in the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Ivo puts a wedding ring on Ruth’s finger as they are married at a Roman Catholic Cathedral. They celebrate at Ivo’s parents’ house by dancing. They are committed of going through the ruse.

Ivo continues to see Magda. Ruth notices that Ivo goes to take Magda on a bike ride. She is distressed. Ruth realizes that the marriage is causing problems for Ivo and his relationship with Magda. She decides to run away. She runs through the streets of Zagreb, past the Oglas poster and the War Against the East poster. Ivo runs after her and desperately seeks to find her.

It is Ivo’s father who locates her and brings her back. Ivo walks home dejectedly but finds Ruth in bed. They re-establish their relationship. They are shown playing the board game. He clutches her hand to reassure her.

As Ivo and Ruth walk through the streets of Zagreb the Ustasha officer recognizes her. He throws down the flowers she is carrying and forces her to clean his boots. He pulls the scarf from her neck and forces her to kneel down and wipe his black leather boots with it. Ivo notices what is going on. Ivo is able to intercede and to diffuse the situation because one of the Ustasha soldiers, Zvonko, played by Montenegrin actor Dragan Milivojevic, recognizes him and can vouch for him. They are allowed to walk away.

The experience bonds their relationship and they grow closer to each other. They both come to accept the necessity of continuing the relationship. But they also develop a close interpersonal bond.

Ivo witnesses armed Ustasha forces rounding up Jews as they lead them down stairs. They are wearing the yellow Zidov badge. Their IDs are checked. One of the Jews has a Croatian medal which the Ustasha soldier rips from his chest. They are hauled into trucks.

Ivo attends a rally where an Ustasha officer speaks to a crowd. The podium is draped with a Croatian flag. Zvonko and Ivo fight on the stairs. Zvonko pulls out a knife. They are pulled apart.

Ruth runs down the same stairs where the Jews were rounded up. She walks past the fountains. She throws the ball. There plaza is deserted. She goes on the swing. She plays hopscotch.

She suddenly notices a poster on the kiosk. “Oglas: Na smrt vjesanjem.” “Announcement: Hanged to Death.” She read the name: Alkalaj Daniela, Jew. She is devastated. She breaks down. She surrenders to two Ustasha policemen.

Ivo tells his parents that he is committed to look for her. He goes to a train with wagon cars. Behind the grate are prisoners, including children. The train moves on. He hangs on the sides of the train.

In the next scene he is in a swamp. He sees female prisoners digging.

He is getting closer to the concentration camp. He encounters an Ustasha in a horse drawn cart. His next stop is the camp.

He reached the entrance which has a slogan on top: “Rad Oslobadja”. “Work Makes You Free”. He meets Zvonko at the camp. There are armed guards. There is also an electrified barbed-wire fence. Zvonko takes him on a tour of the camp. They see female prisoners. There is a watchtower with a searchlight.

A gas van enters the camp. A driver opens the back door of the van. The Croatian Ustasha camp guard induces children at the death camp to enter a gas van. Children are shown before being put in a gas van to be gassed to death. There is a skull and crossbones symbol on the bottom rear fender of the van. This reveals that the van is, indeed, a gas van to kill the children.

Croatian NDH camp guards push the other children away as the gas van is filled up with children.

Ivo sees female prisoners at the camp. Camp guards grotesquely dance with them. The female inmates are dazed. Ivo notices Ruth and calls to her. Zvonko intercedes and takes him away. He confronts Zvonko, punches him in the mouth. Zvonko is knocked out. Ivo escapes.

He finds Ruth and they make a run for it. They make their way through the camp unseen by the camp guards at night.

They watch as a female inmate runs to the fence where she is electrocuted on the barbed wire fence. The searchlight from the watchtower scans the camp as they move around it trying to find an escape route.

They finally reach the fence and both climb it. Ivo helps Ruth climb the fence. She reaches the top. They appear to be able to escape. But then the guards turn on the electricity and they are both electrocuted. There is a flash of white light. This is the final scene.

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 33^rd ceremony. It was also entered into the 1960 Cannes Film Festival where it was nominated for the Palme d’Or. The film won the Velika Zlatna arena award for best film at the 1960 Pula Film Festival. The film was also released in the U.S., the Soviet Union, France, Argentina, and Hungary.

The film is an effective dramatization of the World War II period in the NDH. The major flaw of the film is that nowhere does it make any reference to the real Croatian concentration camps. The word “Jasenovac” does not appear in the film. This distances the film too much from the historical reality and the context of the events. The term “Deveti krug” is a meaningless designation that functions to distort and to obscure the actual facts. If one can get over this fatal flaw, the movie remains a powerful evocation of the NDH period.

The battle for Belgrade from October 14 to 20, 1944 was filmed for a documentary by the Central Documentary Film Studio, CSDF, in 1944 based in Moscow. This was the name of the studio in 1944. It began as an offshoot of Sovkino in 1927. In 1931 it was reorganized as the All-Union Newsreel Factory – Soyuzkinochronicle. From 1936 it was known as the Moscow Newsreel Studio and since 1940 as Central Newsreel Studio. Sergei Gerasimov was the head of the studio from 1944-1946. The studio had received the Order of the Red Banner award, Ordena Krasnogo Znameni.

The documentary opens with a panning shot from right to left showing a battlefield with Soviet troops and vehicles on the outskirts of Belgrade. There is billowing black smoke and flames from destroyed vehicles on the road. A Soviet T-34/85 tank is seen moving to the right across the road. Soviet trucks with troops with artillery attached are shown heading into Belgrade past burning vehicles.

The next scene shows tank commander Major General Vladimir I. Zhdanov of the IV Mechanized Corps with two other Soviet officers going over the plan of attack at the side of a road as a column of Soviet T-34/85 tanks pass by overhead.

A column of Soviet T-34/85 tanks slowly drive into Belgrade along a street with infantry troops on the tanks with Spagin or PPSh-41 submachine guns wearing long overcoats.

Soviet troops are shown moving up a Belgrade street as they near the city center. They are running past Soviet trucks which are pulling artillery guns in tow. Some are carrying machine guns.

In the next scene Zhdanov is being briefed on German positions by Yugoslav officers. Peko Dapcevic is pointing out a location for Zhdanov. There is a Yugoslav officer and a Soviet officer.

In the next scene Soviet officers are shown on a building overlooking the city. They are observing tank attacks in the city as T-34/85 tanks advance into the center of the city.

One scene features a long distance, high angle camera shot of Soviet tanks moving slowly up a deserted street, followed by trucks.

Soviet tanks are seen on a wooded street as Soviet troops move behind on the sidewalk. Incorporating tanks into infantry assaults in street battles in cities had become a hallmark of Soviet offensives.

Soviet artillery gunners are shown from a height scanning the Belgrade skyline to locate and pinpoint German targets.

There is a long panning shot from right to left showing the Belgrade skyline and a bridge.

A street is shown with a concrete German pillbox. Then Soviet artillery is shown blasting away at German fortified positions on the street.

A Soviet tank also fires shells at the fortified German defenses. A gaping hole is shown in a brick defensive position.

There is a return to the street scene where Soviet troops have brought up an artillery piece on the sidewalk. Machine gun crews are shown firing. A large machine gun is fired. The tank is shown firing another shell.

Soldiers shoot with rifles from a window. Wounded and killed Soviet soldiers are shown being evacuated in stretchers with a Soviet truck in the background. One unconscious Soviet soldier is carried in a stretcher by two women and a man.

Soviet officers are shown telling a Yugoslav officer where the attacks are going to occur and the positioning of forces.

A Serbian Orthodox Church is shown with a cross on top. A Soviet soldier is shown breaking down a wooden fence with the butt of his rifle. He has a tankman’s hat on.

The narrator announces in Russian that infantry are now approaching the center of Belgrade as troops are shown moving up the tree lined street. The troops on the sidewalk are wearing Soviet Red Army helmets and long coats. They have rifles with bayonets for hand-to-hand, house-to-house fighting, combat at close quarters, typical of urban warfare. Guerrillas are not going to be engaged in this type of warfare. The bayonets are clearly visible. This is a clue that the front line, first echelon combat troops are Russian Red Army infantry. They are now moving into the center of Belgrade.

There is a return to the Soviet tankman at the wooden fence where he has placed a machine gun and is firing through the opening. There is another soldier with a Soviet helmet. Another soldier is holding the belt for the machine gun. Then Soviet troops are shown moving horse-drawn artillery into the city center as they move rapidly up the street.

Soviet T-34/85 tanks are shown moving across the deserted streets of Belgrade. Then there is artillery support. Soviet troops are shown loading shells as they fire artillery at German positions. Needless to say, Russian troops were very good and effective at this type of urban, house-to-house, street warfare.

Infantry advances. Then Katyusha rocket launchers are shown firing rockets. These are the smaller BM-13 Katyushas for close quarter combat. The first Katyusha trucks fire from a grass field. The second group fires from a Belgrade street.

Destroyed German vehicles are shown. Troops are shown entering captured German bunkers and defensive positions. One German bunker has the Nazi swastika covered over with a Soviet red star or crvena zvezda.

The battle for the city is over. German POWs are shown being marched through the streets of Belgrade. A decorated Soviet officer wearing a cap is at the front of the group of German POWs being marched through the streets. Civilians are watching on the side of the road. One German POW is wearing a German helmet. The others have caps on. Soviet guards can also be seen on the side.

Then military personnel from the Milan Nedic regime are marched as POWs through the street.

Then Yugoslav Partisan troops can be seen marching in the street with weapons being cheered by a crowd. A Soviet soldier with a cap can be seen in the corner. Partisans distribute papers to the crowd.

A Soviet plane flies over Belgrade filming the city after it was taken at the Palata Albanija building in the background. The narrator announces in Russian that the city is now free.

This ends part 1 of the documentary on the battle for Belgrade. The second part is on the victory parade and the speeches made by Soviet and Yugoslav commanders at the Vuk Karadzic Monument in Belgrade.

The Vuk Karadzic Monument in Belgrade was where the podium for the victory celebration was located. Four flags were draped beneath it:  From left, the American flag, the Soviet flag, the Yugoslav flag with the Soviet red star or crvena zvezda in the center, and the British flag. These four countries participated in the Belgrade Offensive of 1944. The U.S. and UK provided air support.

The first scene in the second part on the parade and victory celebration shows a banner with an image of Joseph Stalin. In Russian is written: “Glory to the Red Army!” “Krasnaya armiya slava!” It is not in Serbian. So the victory parade is for the Soviet or Russian Red Army not for the Yugoslav Partisans.

The first vehicle is a personnel carrier like a jeep with Soviet troops. The overflow crowd cheers them on. The crowd shouts “Zhiveli!” “Long life!” Then a Soviet truck with three soldiers standing passes by. The windshield has two cracks in it.

Then five signs appear on the right in Serbian Cyrillic and in Latin. “Death to fascism! Freedom for the people (narod).” “Ziveli Crvena Vojska.” “Long live the Red Army!” “Long live the united youth!” “Zhiveo Marshal Stalin.” “Zhiveo Marshal Tito.”

The crowds are overflowing with civilians raising their hats, raising their hands, and clapping. A group of Soviet officers are shown passing by on a vehicle as they salute. One Soviet soldier is holding a Red Army banner as he passes by. Soviet trucks pass carrying artillery.

Women are shown cheering the Soviet troops. A column of Red Army soldiers march past with their rifles. Yugoslav Partisans can be seen by the crowd cheering the Soviet troops. The Soviet troops are wearing long overcoats and Red Army caps that can easily be confused with Yugoslav Partisan caps.

Soviet troops march in a column wearing Soviet Red Army helmets holding a banner with garlands of flowers and carrying rifles.

A Soviet T-34/85 tank slowly passes in the parade among a sea of people. One Soviet tankman is riding on the front of the tank and shakes hands with people along the parade route. Belgrade residents cheer on the Soviet tank crew. Then a Soviet truck pulling heavy artillery is shown.

Horse-mounted Soviet troops are shown on three horses, the first one is white, with the soldier carrying a banner. Then a column of Soviet troops on horses march past.

A Soviet soldier with a mortar being pulled in a horse-drawn cart is seen laughing. A woman is shown clapping. Then a group of army cooks are shown. One cook is shown wearing an apron and chef’s hat in a wagon with a stove.

The cameraman films from a vehicle in the parade. Soviet troops on horses are shown. The massive cheering crowd can be seen along the parade route. This ends the victory parade.

The next segment shows Red Army Major General Vladimir I. Zhdanov holding a wreath walking to the podium. This segment is on the speeches at the Vuk Karadzic statue. Again, the crowds are overflowing and at capacity. A Yugoslav Partisan soldier introduces Zhdanov. Zhdanov makes a speech to the crowd waving flags. Then Peko Dapcevic speaks. He then embraces Zhdanov. They shake hands and Dapcevic salutes. Then there is a shot of the crowds with flags.

The final scene is in Russian script noting that the commander of the Yugoslavian Army of National Liberation is Josip Broz-Tito. This ends the documentary.

Tito is not in the documentary and was not in Belgrade during the operation.

The portrayal and assessment of the battle has changed over time based on political and ideological considerations. From 1944 to 1948 the event was depicted in a positive light in Yugoslavia. Following the 1948 Stalin-Tito Split, however, the Soviet Union and the battle for Belgrade were seen in negative terms. Following the 1955 rapprochement with Nikita Khrushchev, a modus vivendi was achieved. The battle was re-evaluated in 1964 following the deaths of Vladimir Zhdanov and Sergey Biryuzov in a plane crash while en route to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the battle. Another re-evaluation occurred in 1997 when once again streets named after the Red Army and Soviet commanders were removed. In 2009, there was a move to commemorate Soviet commanders again. In 2016, the announcement was made that streets in the western New Belgrade or Novi Beograd section of Belgrade would be named after Fyodor Tolbukhin and Vladimir Zhdanov.

The 1944 documentary presents a filmed account of the battle as it occurred. It thus gives one of the clearest glimpses of what happened.

The German-led invasion, occupation, and dismemberment of Yugoslavia which began on April 6, 1941 was another triumph for the Axis. In the U.S., however, the conquest was seen as a criminal act of aggression against an American ally. The U.S. government refused to recognize the dismemberment of Yugoslavia. Instead, the U.S. threw its support behind the Yugoslav Government-in-Exile led by Peter II which emerged.

Peter II was lauded and showered with encomiums for his defiance and resistance of Adolf Hitler. This euphoria of support culminated in his invitation to the U.S.  in 1942. Another sign of the positive regard in which he was held was his appearance in an American comic book in 1941.

Peter II of Yugoslavia was featured in the American comic book Military Comics: Stories of the Army and Navy, No. 3, in the October, 1941 issue. The story was entitled “School Children Defeat Hitler. A True Story.” It was in the section Secret War News.

The script, pencils, and inks were by Al McWilliams. Military Comics were published by Quality Comic Magazines, Inc., in Buffalo, New York. The General Manager and Founder was Everett M. “Busy” Arnold. The editor was William Erwin “Will” Eisner. The Executive and Editorial Offices were located in the Gurley Building in Stamford, Connecticut. The comic book ran from August, 1941 to October, 1945.

The story recounts the March 27, 1941 coup in Yugoslavia based on U.S. media accounts of the event. The overthrow of the pro-Axis regime in Yugoslavia was particularly significant because it demonstrated resistance to Germany at a time when other European countries were joining the Axis bloc.

The introduction stated that the purpose was to tell “the true story” of the Yugoslav coup by demonstrating the popular opposition to the March 25 pact with Adolf Hitler. “The pro-Nazi Cvetkovitch government willingly sold their country to the invaders.” The lesson was that even though Yugoslavia was defeated, its people had resisted and had continued the conflict as a guerrilla war. It was an example for other countries who sought to confront Axis aggression.”In Berlin Hitler gloated and boasted to Yosuke Matsuoka, Japanese Foreign Minister, that he was invincible.” Yugoslavia showed that resistance and opposition were possible.

In the first panel, Yugoslav children are being taught German in a Belgrade grade school. One student, Milan, however, protests and walks out. The teacher exclaims that he will report them. The student declares: “We don’t want any German lessons!! Long live Yugoslavia and King Peter!!”

An  American reporter notices the student “strike” against the “enslavement of their country” and telephones his bureau chief to have the story relayed to New York immediately via Istanbul. Berlin is alarmed and calls its ambassador in Yugoslavia to stop the strike. It is setting a bad precedent in other countries. The government under Yugoslav Prime Minister Dragisa Cvetkovich arrests Milan and his friends.

Their act of defiance encourages the “secret revolutionary society” the “komitadji” to spring into action in Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia. The komitadji guerrillas, the then name for what would be termed Chetniks, proclaim that the time is right for an uprising. A member says that he will burn their membership cards. They are all regarded as dead. They have given up their lives for freedom by following the guerrilla traditions of the country.

College students march in the streets in Belgrade. They shout: “Down with the Pact!! Long live Yugoslavia and democracy!! Long live King Peter!!” The pro-Nazi government of Cvetkovich is alarmed. They order the arrest of the students. Some are killed while others are arrested by the secret police.

In Berlin, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, hands a list of the names of komitadji members to a subordinate for Cvetkovich and Yugoslav Regent Prince Paul to round up. Komitadji are arrested. The komitadji resist, however, by attacking the German Gestapo agents.

Then on March 27, 1941, General Dusan Simovich, the head of the Yugoslav Air Force and a komitadji member himself, calls a meeting to plan the overthrow of the government. He shouts: “Long live King Peter!!” An image of a red-clad woman drawing a sword from a sheath is shown under the title: Democracy strikes!”

Yugoslav Air Force Colonel Knezivich is shown waking Peter at 2:00AM to inform him of the coup. Peter jumps into action. Colonel Knezivich is a reference to Major Zivan Knezevic, a member of the Yugoslav Royal Guards, who was one of the key plotters of the coup, along with his brother Radoje Knezevic. He states that the “spineless Cvetkovich government” has not only endangered the country, but has “degraded the proud Serbian name.” King Peter “drafts a proclamation that later startles the world.” Yugoslav tanks move into Belgrade during the night. General Simovich goes to see Peter as the coup begins. Cvetkovich and his ministers are arrested and taken into custody as “traitors”.

Prince Paul is taken into custody. General Simovich takes him to the government building in a car. Belgrade residents cheer when they see Peter hurrying to the building. Peter comes face to face with Cvetkovich and Prince Paul. Peter tells them that he has decided to assume the crown and abolish the regency.  He is told: “Why, you’re just a boy!! How can you cope with an international situation!!” Peter responds: “I may be only a boy, but I’m ready to give my life to my country!!” He asks them to both resign. They do so, but Prince Paul promises to “get even”. Peter appoints Simovich as the Premier of the new government. He is asked to form his cabinet.

Peter reads a proclamation over the radio. He has taken over the crown. The regents have resigned. The Army supports him. Simovich is in charge.

In the morning, Belgrade residents are jubilant that the loyal Yugoslav Army is in “complete control” while “the people are filled with renewed hope.” Residents exclaim: “Hurrah for King Peter!!” School children and college students hang effigies of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in the streets. “Angry Serbians smash the offices of the German and Italian tourist agencies.” “Serbian mountaineers” are shown battling German “tourists”, Gestapo agents and the advance guard of the reichswehr, the Army of the Third Reich.

In the last panel, the Belgrade school children who had started the revolt hold an honor parade on the terazia in Belgrade. They have defeated Adolf Hitler by their defiance and resistance.

This was how Peter and the Belgrade coup were depicted in the U.S. The comic book portrayal in Military Comics reflected the accepted view in the U.S,, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union. The overthrow of the Cvetkovich government was perceived as a daring act of freedom and democracy. Yugoslavia had defied an aggressor. Peter had risen to the occasion and had assumed leadership in a time of crisis.

Peter arrived in Detroit by train from Washington, DC on Wednesday morning, July 1, 1942. Peter had met with FDR and Winston Churchill at the White House the previous week on Wednesday, June 24 and had delivered an address before Congress on Capitol Hill on Thursday, June 25.

He was met at the train by Michigan Governor Murray Van Wagoner and Detroit Mayor Edward Jeffries on his arrival. He would spend 18 hours in the city. He visited the armament plants in Detroit of the Big Three, GM, Ford, and Chrysler. He met with Ford Company President Edsel Ford and toured the River Rouge complex. Detroit was specially chosen by the U.S. government to demonstrate its wartime role as “the arsenal of democracy”.

Peter traveled to the Book-Cadillac in downtown Detroit where he had lunch. He was interviewed by reporters there. Peter emphasized that the reason for his visit to the U.S. was “to seek supplies for the army still fighting in Yugoslavia.” The objective was to obtain arms and equipment for the Yugoslav guerrillas headed by Draza Mihailovich who had been promoted to the rank of General and appointed the Minister of War in the London-based Yugoslav Government-in-Exile. He informed reporters that he was in constant communication with Mihailovich. Asked if the guerrillas needed aircraft, he replied that they would be of little use to a guerrilla army, especially in a mountainous area with hardly any areas to land. Delivery of weapons would have to be by air drops. The most pressing needs were food and small arms. He explained that the guerrilla forces consisted of 100,000 men, although not all are in uniform, but could be mobilized if supplies could be provided.

After his inspection tour of the plants, he traveled to the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral “Ravanica” located on Russell Street and East Warren Avenue in the Poletown East area of Detroit east of the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). Reverend Firmilian Ocokolich was the priest at the church. Peter had met him in Washington, DC where he had traveled to greet him. Peter stated that “it was in Washington that Father Ocokolich had invited me to visit ‘one of the most beautiful Serbian Orthodox churches in America—Ravanica Church in Detroit.’”

The Ravanica Serbian Orthodox Church on Russell and Warren in Detroit was photographed in 1934. This was the church Peter visited in 1942. This was the Ravanica church before the new and current church was opened in 1967 on Outer Drive and Van Dyke in Detroit. Peter visited the church a second time in 1959.

Peter recalled his visit to Ravanica in his 1954 memoirs, A King’s Heritage (New York, Putnam): “I then took time off from my inspection to visit the Serbian Orthodox Ravanica Church of Detroit where I attended a Mass celebrated in memory of my father, King Alexander.”

Peter was photographed alone holding a long candle with a burning flame with both hands during the special services held in the Serbian Orthodox Ravanica Church. Parishioners, adults and children, could be seen in the background. Peter was wearing his military uniform with the Yugoslav Air Force badge on the right on his jacket. The service was dedicated for the safety and long life of the King, for the soul of the late King Alexander, and for “the brave Yugoslavs suffering persecution and death as they resist Nazi aggression.”

Peter was photographed at a reception standing between the Rev. Benjamin I. Hoffiz of the Syrian Orthodox Church and the Rev. Firmilian Ocokolich.

Peter was shown kissing the cross which was held by Reverend Firmilian Ocokolich, the pastor of the Serbian Orthodox Church “Ravanica” of Detroit. Peter was holding a long candle in his left hand. Constantin Fotich looked on from behind in the background.

As Peter entered the full church, there were 1,000 parishioners outside. Stanley Papich, the President of the Church, gave Peter bread and salt, which was a Serbian custom. American and Yugoslav flags were arrayed in a row at the entrance.

Peter described the church: “The church was indeed very beautiful, a choir of a hundred voices was singing and many candles flickered on the altar which was banked with flowers. High at the back of the church, painted on the front of the choir loft, was a portrait of my father. As I walked with head bared toward it Father Ocokolich met me. I kissed the cross he brought to me. While I stood before the altar the pastor handed me a candle to hold through-out the service, which was deeply moving.”

Tears were seen to be streaming down Peter’s cheeks while he was listening to the choral music presentation.There was a painting of his father, Alexander, who was assassinated in 1934, painted on the choir loft at the back of the church.

Reverend Ocokolich recited the final prayer and the choir sang a psalm. Ocokolich then welcomed Peter in Serbian: “You visit to the Third Serbian ‘Ravanica’ in America will remain forever with us as our most cherished memory.

“Serbian people, who came from their old country, did not forget the religion of their fathers, nor the customs or language. As a result, they are ever thankful for the liberty which we all enjoy in this great land, building this Third ‘Ravanica,’ an exact replica of the first Serbian Ravanica in Serbia.

“Permit me, as your Serbian priest, in the name of all Serbs in Detroit, to express our desire and prayer that you return soon to our proud Belgrade to rule our homeland.

“Thank you, Your Majesty, and may the blessing of God lead you on your journey.”

After a tour of the church, Peter stated: “I believed ‘Ravanica’ to be beautiful, but did not know it was this beautiful.”

After his visit, Peter sent a check from Washington to Ravanica for the purchase of a large candle “to burn continually for all those who gave their lives in the defense of Yugoslavia.”

From the Ravanica Church, Peter went to a reception at the Book-Cadillac Hotel. He was later part of a radio broadcast at station WXYZ-Detroit, on the NBC Blue Network, to the U.S. and by short-wave to Yugoslavia.

The Detroit Free Press ran a front page story on his visit in the  Thursday, July 2, 1942 issue, “King Peter ll in Detroit on Hunt for Arms.” Two photographs showed Peter with Charles F. Kettering and Albert Bradley, the Vice-Presidents of GM: “GM officials chat with royal visitor. A second photo showed Peter driving a jeep with William Ford. The caption was: “Yugoslavia’s monarch and Henry Ford’s grandson ride a jeep.”

The focus of the article was on his tour of the munitions plants in Detroit: “The young King took it like a man. From rnldmorning until nearly midnight, Peter II of Yugoslavia was led past miles and miles of armaments and shown in intricate detail the workings of the greatest munitions machine that man has ever built. Throughout, he was unfailingly courteous and attentive. Yet there must have been many moments of bitterness for him and his warrior aides when they looked at the thundering aircraft engines, the overwhelming tanks, the cannon and the machine guns, and thought of their people struggling bare-handed in the mountains and forests back home.”

Peter stated that his objective for the visit was to obtain arms and supplies for the guerrilla resistance forces under Draza Mihailovich: “I am in the United States to seek supplies for the army still fighting in Yugoslavia and to plan the future, too. I can not say what I will get, but I can’t go back with nothing. We do not need planes, because planes cannot be landed in our mountains, but they would be useful based elsewhere and attacking the enemy. We can’t use other large supplies because there is no way to deliver them. Everything we get must be dropped to our troops by parachute. What we need mostly is ammunition.”

On his departure, Governor Wagoner told him: “God bless you.” Peter departed by train from Detroit for his next stop, Buffalo, New York, to inspect plants there.

During the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade celebrations held on October 20, 2017, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented Serbian Patriarch Irinej an icon at the Saint Sava Cathedral in Belgrade. Patriarch Irinej had also attended the Freedom 2017 celebration as a guest of honor at the Belgrade Batajnica military airport along with Serbian President Alexander Vucic, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, Defense Minister Alexander Vulin, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Chepurin, and President of the Republika Srpska Milorad Dodik. The 2017 liberation celebrations focused on the Russian support for the Serbian Orthodox Church. 

General Shoigu, accompanied by Vulin and Chepurin, presented the icon, made by the Grekov Studio of Military Artists in Moscow, to Patriarch Irinej in the Saint Sava Church. 

When he presented the painting, Shoigu stated: “Heart and soul have been put into it. I would like that a piece of our heart, our soul, would always live here”. The icon would remain in the church. 

St. Sava was completed in 2004. Work on the church had started in 1894. Construction was halted during World War II and after the war when the Communist regime assumed power. Plans to finish the church were approved only in 1986. 

The religious icon was created by the Grekov Studio of Military Art, a collective of military artists, which is part of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. The studio was established in 1934 by the Soviet military artist Mitrofan Grekov. The studio had been approved by the People’s Commissar of Defense Kliment Voroshilov. It was made up of amateur artists at first but later incorporated professionals. The original intent was to promote the Soviet Red Army and to depict Soviet battles and wartime events in a positive light.

 With the emergence of the Russian Federation, the studio has experienced a transformation. No longer ideologically based, the studio focuses on depicting periods prior to the 1917 October Revolution. From paintings on the Red Army soldier and battlefields, the emphasis has shifted to the Czarist period and on Russian Orthodoxy. Their perspective has come full circle. There has been a parallel shift in Serbia. The result has been closer ties between the Russian and Serbian Orthodox Churches corresponding to the closer political and military ties. 

Russian and Serbian religious ties had been re-established prior to the 2017 visit. Shoigu had met Irinej in 2004 when he made an official visit to Belgrade on March 23. Shoigu was received by Serbian Patriarch Pavle,  accompanied by members of the Holy Synod of Bishops, Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral, and Bishops Lavrentije of Shabac-Valjevo and Irinej of Nish. Shoigu was then the Disaster Minister of the Russian Federal Government. 

He informed the members of the Holy Synod that he had come to Serbia by directive of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He came with the blessing of Russian Patriarch Alexei of Moscow and All Russia. 

He stated that the Russian Federation strongly condemned the March 17-18, 2004 Albanian terrorist attacks against the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija and their shrines. He informed them that the Russian Government had delivered humanitarian aid “to the suffering Kosovo Serbs”. Since the arrival of the UN peacekeeping force, 112 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries had been either completely destroyed or damaged by Kosovo Albanians. 

Patriarch Pavle expressed his thanks to Shoigu for the support and assistance of the Russian people, their Church and State, given not only to the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, but also to those who have suffered during the last decade of the past century.

 Patriarch Pavle had gone to Moscow on a visit to the Russian Orthodox Church on January 20, 2002 at the invitation of the Unity of Orthodox Nations Foundation. Russian Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia and members of the Holy Synod had met the Serbian Primate at the Sheremetyevo Airport. Patriarch Pavle said that he was happy to visit Orthodox Russia: “I have come to my own people”.

 Russia has consistently supported the sovereignty of Serbia over Kosovo and Metohija and its territorial integrity. Russia has sought to safeguard Kosovo Serbs and to preserve and to maintain the Orthodox religious legacy and heritage. Russia also backs the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republika Srpska (RS) and seeks to safeguard the Serbian population in Bosnia-Hercegovina and to preserve the Orthodox legacy. 

The October 20, 2017 meeting between Sergei Shoigu and Patriarch Irinej represents the continuation and reaffirmation of the historic and traditional links between the Russian and Serbian churches. 

The October 20, 1944 liberation of Belgrade by the Soviet Red Army has lost much of its ideological context. It had been extolled during the Cold War period as a victory of Josip Broz Tito and the Partisan guerrillas. It was presented as Tito’s military defeat of Germany and the Partisan liberation of Belgrade and Serbia. But this false and grossly inaccurate picture has been replaced. Now the event is perceived as an important event in Serbian history when Russia was able to help the Serbian people to free themselves from German occupation. The focus has shifted now with an emphasis on Russia and the central role it played in that event. Gone is the emphasis on Communism and the Soviet Union and the Red Army. There has been a shift in emphasis or focus. The focus now is on the historical ties between Russia and Serbia and how the common political, military, and religious bonds have united the two countries throughout history. 

Gone are the ideological and political constraints of the Cold War when Communist Yugoslavia sought to maintain a delicate balancing act between the two superpower blocs. Ideology has been replaced by national interests and security. This change and re-evaluation has resulted in closer political, military, and religious ties between Russia and Serbia. 

The Yugoslav Detachment made up of airmen from Yugoslavia trained in the U.S., would fly missions over Greece, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia as part of the U.S. Army Air Force in 1943 and 1944.

On November 8, 1943, the Yugoslav air crews were attached to the 376th Bombardment Group, under Colonel Keith Compton, stationed in Enfidaville, Tunisia. The four planes were part of the 512th Squadron of the 15th U.S. Army Air Force. They began training missions on November 11 and participated in a bombing raid over France which was cancelled due to weather conditions. The planes were numbered 20, 21, 22, and 23. They had the Royal Yugoslav Air Force insignia and the U.S. Army Air Force star and bar symbols on the fuselage.

After a week of training the Yugoslav crews flew their first combat mission on November 15 to strike the Eleusis Airport, a German air base since 1941, located outside of Athens. The attack formation consisted of 52 other aircraft. The air field sustained severe damage in the attack by 46 B-24 Liberator bombers with an escort of Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter planes. Sixty tons of fragmentation bombs were dropped which damaged hangars and fuel stores. Six German aircraft were reported destroyed on the ground.

The group was stationed in San Pancrazio, Italy thereafter. The base was located approximately two and half miles northeast of San Pancrazio Salentino in the province of Brindisi in Apulia, southwest of Brindisi, on the south-east Italian coast. The base was south of Bari, where the headquarters of Fifteenth Air Force would be located, in the heel of the Italian boot. The airfield was constructed in 1943 by U.S. Army Engineers primarily for the use by the Fifteenth Air Force. This B-24 Liberator heavy bomber base was used in the strategic bombing of Germany. San Pancrazio was also used by tactical aircraft of Twelfth Air Force in the Italian Campaign.  The 376th Bombardment Group was assigned to the air base from November 17, 1943 to April 19, 1945, consisting of B-24 Liberator bombers as part of the Fifteenth Air Force heavy bomber base.

The second mission occurred on November 24 against targets in Sofia, Bulgaria. Two detached bombers participated, Number 22 and Number 23. The crew also consisted of one American, George Cale They attacked the railroad marshaling yards in Sofia which was seen as a key Axis communication and supply center in the southeastern European theater. After their successful bombing runs, they were attacked by pairs of Messerschmitt fighter planes. Tail gunner Vaso Benderach of Number 22 brought one of the pursuing planes down but the bomber had sustained severe damage. The plane caught on fire and spiraled out of control after one of the wings broke off. The crew was able to all safely bail out as the plane crashed over Bulgarian-occupied Macedonia. They landed safely and were taken prisoner by Bulgarian and German forces.

The raid on Sofia was made up of 60 B-24 Liberator bombers. The Allied aircraft destroyed 87 buildings in the vicinity of the Central Railway Station, killing 5 people and wounding 29. Bulgarian fighter planes shot down two bombers, losing one aircraft to escorting American fighters.

Liberator Number 22, piloted by Dragisha M. Stanisavljevich, was shot down along with  Liberator 42-41018, “Earthquake “, piloted by G.W. Gore.

The crew of B-24 Liberator, 42-73137, Number 22, shot down November 24, 1943 over Sofia, Bulgaria, consisted of: Stanisavljevich, Dragisha M.  Pilot, Yelich, Millosh M. Co-pilot, Milloykovich, Zhivko T. Navigator, also known as Milloy, Joe T., Vecherina, Dinko N. Bombardier, Timothiyevich, Miodrag M. Engineer, Halapa, Ivan M. Radio, Benderach, Vaso B. Gunner, Lakich, Ognyan I. Gunner, Korosha, Ivan V. Gunner, and the American Gunner, Cale, George.

The crew parachuted outside the town of Bogomila, in central Macedonia, west of Veles, which was then occupied and annexed by Bulgaria. Bulgarian and German troops apprehended them. They were taken to the railroad station in the town. The Germans put the pilot, Captain Dragisha Stanisavljevic, the radio operator Sgt. Ivan Halapa, and gunner Vaso Benderach on a train south to Prilep and turned them over to Bulgarian forces. Zhivko Milloykovich, Sgt. Miodrag Timotijevich, Lt. Ognyan Lakich remained in the Bogomila guard house. They were transported by rail to the prison in Prilep the following day. The rest of the crew members were picked thereafter. They were moved to Skopje and then to a Bulgarian military prison in Sofia, the capital. In January, 1944, they were transferred to the Shumen POW camp in northeastern Bulgaria. Their treatment in prison in Sofia was not as difficult as when they were moved to Shumen, where they subsisted on water and bean soup and freezing temperatures in winter. There were 450 American POWs by September, 1944 in the camp. After the Soviet Red Army advance into the Balkans, Bulgaria was forced to surrender and switch sides. The airmen were incarcerated from November 24, 1943 to September 10, 1944, when they were released to the U.S. Consul.

Liberator Number 23 was again a part of a bombing run against Sofia. During this mission, the plane was pursued by 15 Messerschmitt fighters. Gunner Dusan Lazarevic shot down one Bulgarian fighter.

On December 23, Number 21 was shot down by German fighter planes over Germany. There were no survivors. Major Dusan Milojevic was part of this bomber crew. An American navigator, Levie Vause, Jr., was also on board. German Messerschmitt fighters attacked the plane, which lacked P-38 fighters to protect it, and were able to shoot it down. The Liberator was seen heading nose down with no parachutes visible. Its propeller had been shot off.

At first, B-24 Liberator and B-17 Flying Fortress bombers flew missions into the interior of Germany without fighter escorts. The slow and heavily-loaded bombers were vulnerable targets for German fighter planes and flak from anti-aircraft batteries. Long-range fighters were subsequently added to the formations to provide protection for the exposed bombers.

On December 19, planes 21 and 23 participated in the first bombing run against Germany, targeting the Messerschmitt plant in Augsburg in Bavaria in southern Germany northwest of Munich.

The Liberators typically departed in the morning carrying 2,300 gallons of fuel and 10 bombs, flying over Italian territory in a northward descent, crossing the Alps. They dropped 500-pound bombs on the Messerschmitt aircraft factory in Augsburg, Germany. Up to 30 German fighters attacked the planes, made up of 10 to 12 Messerschmitt ME 110s and 10 to 12 Messerschmitt ME 109s and Focke-Wulfe Fw 190s. A report stated: “AA – heavy and very accurate. Very large bursts.” A 98th Bomb Group operations summary stated: “Three B-24s probably shot down, most planes holed, at least 7 men wounded and 1 man killed.”

In the December 19, 1943 Augsburg raid, 42-73089, Liberator Number 21, piloted by Dushan Milloyevich, was shot down. Liberator 42-41175, Sad Sack, piloted by D.P. Rice, was brought down by enemy fighters. Liberator 41-11779, Lil Abner, piloted by E.D. Thurman, crash landed at the base.

The crew of B-24, 42-73089, Number 21, consisted of: Milloyevich, Dushan Z. Pilot, Mucich, Dushan M. Pilot/Co-pilot, Stefanovich, Borislav V. Bombardier, pilot Dragoljub Jeremic, Intihar, Franyo F. Engineer, Tseray, Eduard S. Radio Operator, Lazarevich, Dushan S. Gunner, Ishich, Patar A. Gunner, Vidoykovich, Momchillo V. Gunner, Ognyenovich, Yovan E. Gunner. The one American who was on board the plane was Vause, Jr., Levie E. Navigator.

The ranks of the Yugoslav detachment were gradually depleted. In March, 1944, one Yugoslav crew member, Momcilo Markovic, a Bombardier, left the bomber group. Three others, Jovan Pesic, Nedeljko Pajic, and Milos Marinovic, left to join the Yugoslav Communist Partisan forces led by Josip Broz Tito. Four Slovenians from the RAF joined the detachment to shore up the depleted crews.

On March 24, Number 20 avoided a midair collision with another plane due to poor visibility because of dense cloud formations. A gunner was forced to bail out. After this near debacle, another crew member quit the detachment.

The detachment suffered another casualty in an attack on a target in Austria. Bombardier-gunner Bogdan M. Madjarevic was killed on May 24, 1944 during a bombing mission against an aircraft factory in Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

On June 16, Liberator Number 20 attacked the Apollo Oil Refinery in Bratislava, Slovakia, an independent state created by and allied to Germany under President Jozef Tiso. Germany controlled and modernized the production at the plant, known as Apolka, where diesel fuel and oil were refined to produce fuels to supply the German armed forces. Located on the left bank of the Danube River, it was attacked by waves of U.S. bombers, destroying 80% of the facility. It was reported that 176 workers and civilians were killed.

After the bombing was completed, the group was attacked by 40 enemy aircraft. Four were shot down, including one by Lt. Vuko Sijakovic of Liberator 20. Sijakovic, an Engineer, had been a pilot in the Royal Yugoslav Air Force until 1941, when he escaped capture by German troops by fleeing to Egypt with several other officers.

Disaster struck in the next bombing run. In the bombing mission on Lobau, Austria, on August 22, 1944, 42-73085, Liberator Number 20, piloted by Blagoye N. Radosavlyevich, collided with Liberator 44-40502, Bessa Me Mucho, commanded by Marshall N. Stickel, Jr. Another Liberator bomber, 44-40330, Hardway Ten, commanded by C. Andrew, crash landed during the same mission. Vuko Sijakovic was killed in the crash.

The crew of the American-staffed Liberator 44-40502 consisted of: 1/LT Stickel, Marshall N Jr., CPL Brancato, Stephen V., CPL Edwards, Horace P., CPL Jones, Robert L., CPL Catron, William H., 1/LT Good, Robert P., 2/LT Johnston, James L., CPL Newton, Lawrence D., 2/LT Scott, Douglas, and 2/LT Smith, Charles W.

The mission had originated from Bari AFB in Italy on August 22, 1944. The bombing target was Vienna but the accident occurred over Yugoslavia over Croatian territory.

The Yugoslav air crew commanded by Captain Radosavljevic took part in the aerial assault on underground oil storage tanks near Lobau, east of Vienna. It was the 200th mission of the 512th Squadron. It was the 35th combat mission for the Yugoslav Liberator 20 crew.

The B 24 Liberator, 44-40502, known as Bessa Me Mucho, under the command of American 1/LT Marshall N. Stickel, was struck over the target by several heavy shots. As a result, the damaged plane fell behind the formation. The leader of the bomber group took evasive measures to aid the crippled bomber. The other planes reduced their speed and engine power and began a descent. As they were approaching the Adriatic coast, Stickel radioed the Yugoslav Liberator to determine if they were over Allied-controlled territory. He could no longer control the flight or direction of the stricken plane. Captain Radosavljevic had his Navigator Captain Pavlovic radio back that they were exiting Axis air space. The two bombers were at a height of 12,800 feet. Liberator 31 pulled up slightly and slid to the starboard wing.

The right wing and propellers of the American bomber cut the fuselage and tail of the Yugoslav Liberator. It also broke the left wing of the bomber. The bombers crashed 12 miles northwest of Sinj, east of the village of Kijevo, south of Knin, in the Axis-allied Independent State of Croatia.

Two men were able to parachute out of the planes, one from each plane. The remaining crew members of both planes died in the crash. Yugoslav tail gunner 2nd Lt. Vojin Stojkovic parachuted to safety by escaping from the tail section.

He landed on the Dinara Mountain range separating Croatia from Bosnia-Hercegovina. He suffered a leg injury during the fall. Yugoslav Partisan guerrillas were able to locate him and transport him to Vis Island which was under Partisan control and defended by British naval vessels. He reported that he saw another flier parachute in the area west of the Cetine River. He heard gun shots. He concluded that he was killed. He was informed that he had been killed by German and Croatian gunfire. After 19 days, he returned to the base in Italy in September.

A local resident, Filip Soldic, who was seven years old at the time, witnessed the crash of Liberator 31 as it fell into a vineyard. The crew was killed instantly in the explosion. He did see, however, a member of the crew parachute out 12 yards from the plane.

The U.S. government relocated the remains of the crew members from both aircraft after the war. The remains of the Liberator 20 crew were buried in a cemetery in Zasiok. A part of the plane was also preserved. A memorial plaque erected on the site read: “Returning after an operation in the battle against fascism during the war. Died: 22 VIII. 1944. Airmen of the allied army of Yugoslav descent. Bobek Anton, Vuko Sijakovic, Radosavljevic Major and four other unknowns. This memorial was raised by the Alliance of NOR fighters of the Sinj Municipality on January 23, 1958.” This area was later flooded by the adjoining Perucky Lake.

The crew of Liberator 20 consisted of Captain Radosavlyevich, Blagoye N. Pilot, Voolich, Borivoje G. Co-pilot, Pavlovich, Slobodan M. Navigator, Tsrvenkovich, Obrad D. Bombardier, Shiyakovich, Vooko V.  Engineer, Zhivanovich, Toma M. Radio, Parapatich, Boris K. Arm, Stoykovich, Voyin P. Gunner, Bobek, Milutin A. Nose Turret, and Trampush, Emil A. Waist Gunner.

On August 27, 1944, Lt. Colonel Richard Fellows, the commanding officer of the 376th Heavy Bomb Group (H) bestowed a commendation on the Yugoslavian Air Force Detachment”

“Headquarters- 376th Bomb Group (H) AAF

It is desired to commend the Royal Yugoslavian Air Force detachment, attached to the 512th squadron of the 376th Bomb Group (Heavy) and the 15th AF for outstanding performance of duty in action in strategic support of allied forces in the Mediterranean theater.

From November 1943 to August 1944- four (4) crews made up of forty (40) Officers and Enlisted men forming the Detachment flew regular and frequent combat missions attacking vital enemy installations; exhibiting the greatest bravery, stamina and skill completing eighty eight (88) successful missions. During this period the Detachment lost three (3) of their B-24 aircraft, and sacrificed three of their four crews, all lost over enemy targets. The Royal Yugoslavian Air Force Detachments by its actions has constantly given its utmost in devotion to duty for the allied cause, and will always be worthy of emulation.

R.W. Fellows, Lt. Col.

Air Corps, Commanding

Captain Vojislav N. Skakich presented three officers of the U.S. Army Air Force, Major General N. T. Twinging, commander of the 15th U.S. Army Air Force, Brigadier General Charles F. Born of the 15th USAAF, and Brigadier General Hugo P. Rush, commander of the 47th Wing, with wings of the Yugoslav Royal Air Force on October 3, 1944.

In November, four members left the group to join the Partisans in Yugoslavia. Two Slovenians also left the group.

On November 13, the airmen were ordered by the U.S. Army to travel to Cairo where they were to be incorporated within the armed forces of the new Communist regime of Yugoslavia. Ivan Halapa, Miodrag Timotijevic, Dinko Vecherina, and Ivan Korosha followed the order.  Skakich and the remaining fliers refused. They continued on bombing missions until 1945 when after their 51st flight they no longer had to engage in combat.

Three out of the four Yugoslav Liberators were lost, two shot down and one destroyed in a collision with another Liberator.  Only Liberator Number 23 survived the war. The Yugoslav airmen had flown a total of 88 missions for the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II from 1943 to 1945.

By 1945, the Yugoslav detachment flew back to Cairo then returned to San Pancrazio in Italy. They refused to join the Yugoslav Partisans and remained in limbo until August, 1945, when they were inducted into the U.S. Army.

In October, they flew to the U.S. In July, 1947, they were able to attain U.S. citizenship after a U.S. Congressional bill was passed. They had successful careers in the U.S. Air Force. Vojislav Skakich and Milos Jelic rose to the rank of Colonel.

The airmen of the Yugoslav Detachment played a role in the Allied bombing campaign against Axis targets during World War II. The group was created by Peter II as part of the Yugoslav Royal Air Force to support the Allied operations and to provide material assistance to Draza Mihailovich and the royalist Yugoslav government forces under his command on the ground in Yugoslavia. The latter objective, however, was not realized. At the 1943 Tehran Conference, the Allied Powers would acknowledge the Communist guerrilla forces under Josip Broz Tito as the sole and legitimate resistance group in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. This created a split within the crewmen. Some did join the Partisans. But the others, who had been members of the Yugoslav Royal Air Force, refused to return to a Communist Yugoslavia under Tito. They refused to join the Communist Partisan forces. Instead, they sought and found refuge in the U.S. While their efforts contributed to the ultimate Allied victory, they also witnessed Tito assume power and establish a Communist regime in Yugoslavia. The monarchy would be abolished and the pre-war royalist government replaced. They would not return to Yugoslavia. Instead, the airmen would find refuge and success in the U.S.

Peter visited the Yugoslav airmen on Thursday, July 23, 1942 at the Smyrna air base in Tennessee. It was part of his 1942 official state visit to the U.S. He arrived at the base after a flight from New York.

Peter II and Constantin Fotich, wearing a bow tie, reviewed the Royal Yugoslav Air Force airmen. Known as Smyrna Army Airfield during World War II, it was 25 miles southeast of Nashville. The base was renamed as the Stewart Air Force Base in 1950. It was closed in 1971.

Peter described the journey in his autobiography A King’s Heritage:

“On July 23, accompanied by Ambassador Fotich and members of my party, I left La Guardia Airport in an Army transport plane for what was at the time an undisclosed destination. I was flown to the Army Air Force Combat Crew School at Smyrna in Tennessee where two hundred of Yugoslavia’s air pilots and ground staff were stationed for training, having been sent there from the Middle East.”

Peter was flown in a Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber over Nashville. His party was also flown in three other Liberators. The flight lasted an hour.

Peter noted that there was dissension in the group of airmen:

“There were old friends of mine among them who told me that things were going well. They had already completely finished their advanced training and were going on to operational training. In a month they expected to be ready to fly their planes back to the Middle East. Unfortunately it was not so. A mutiny with a political basis occurred shortly afterwards, splitting the men into two groups, with the result that more men had to be sent from the Middle East to make an effective body. I felt most distressed when I heard about this. Not only was the leader of the revolt the best of the pilots, but it seemed a great pity that men whose basic interests were so much the same should be divided in this way.”

Many of the several hundred Yugoslav Air Force crews who reached Egypt mutinied against the Slobodan Jovanovic government-in-exile. The mutineers were eventually enrolled in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. Most returned to Yugoslavia as Yugoslav crews in 1944 after the UK started training fighter squadrons for the Josip Broz Tito forces after the Allied switch to the Communist Partisans.

Peter described the itinerary of the visit:

“After I had had lunch at the Officers’ Mess with these men I was taken on a tour of the post by Major General Barton K. Yount, Commanding General of the Flying Training Command, and Colonel Umstead. I was allowed to ride in one of the Consolidated B-24 bombers used for training pilots at the school and went for an hour’s tour over Nashville and surrounding territory. I was impressed by their firing power and awed by the number of instruments which necessitated a complicated cockpit check before every take-off.

We then went on to Nashville by car.”

The agreement to train Yugoslav airmen had been reached before Peter’s visit. It was part of the wartime alliance between Yugoslavia and the U.S. A Lend-Lease Agreement was signed between the two countries on July 23, 1942. FDR pledged to Peter in several discussions that he would send supplies to the guerrillas under Draza Mihailovich. This did not occur.

After his visit to Canada, Fotich recalled in The War We Lost (1948) that Peter “flew to Smyrna, Tennessee, where a group of Yugoslav airmen were already being trained in the use of modern aircraft.” Peter submitted a memo to FDR that the Yugoslav airmen would be brought from the Middle East and used in Allied combat operations.  FDR had already given his approval in principle for the bringing of Yugoslav airmen in the Middle East to the U.S. for training. Fotich described the ultimate objective of the airmen: “After the completion of training, it was planned to use these men to fly planes which were to carry supplies and men to be parachuted into the Serbian mountains.” The objective was to supply Draza Mihailovich’s guerrillas. This never happened. The planes were used, instead, to bomb targets in Bulgaria, Germany, Austria, and Greece as part of Allied air operations.

Peter was photographed with the Yugoslav airmen at the Smyrna, Tennessee training school in 1942. Fourth from left is the Chief of the Yugoslav Military Mission to the U.S. Dragutin Savich, who had negotiated the 1941 Soviet-Royalist Yugoslav Friendship Pact in Moscow with Joseph Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov.

Peter was also photographed with U.S. Army Air Force commanders at the Smyrna, Tennessee air base in 1942 where he visited the Yugoslav B-24 Liberator bomber airmen. From left, Peter, Major General Barton K. Yount, Colonel Thomas J. Betts, the U.S. Military Aide to Peter during his U.S. visit, Colonel W.W. Welsh, and Colonel Stanley M. Umstead, the commander of the Smyrna Training School.

Peter was shown with U.S. Army Air Force commanders at a dinner held in his honor at Nashville, Tennessee during his visit to the Yugoslav airmen in 1942. Peter is eighth from right in the back row.

After his tour of the base, Peter attended a dinner in Nashville at a hotel decorated with American and Yugoslav flags, which had to be made by the hotel housekeeper because no Yugoslav flag could be procured. Peter was presented the Yugoslav flag which he kept. Peter presented General Yount with a pair of silver wings of the Yugoslav Air Force and made him an honorary member. He also presented wings to Colonel Stanley M. Umstead and to others present. “Following my visit I issued a statement thanking all concerned in the training of Yugoslav airmen.”

Peter’s tour of the Smyrna base was featured in the Friday morning, July 24, 1942 issue of The Tennessean, on page 5, under the headline: “Boy King Given Flag Here — Inspects Flying Line.

The king was gracious. He posed a number of times. Just before the guests followed the king to the table, the king seemed to tire of posing. One photographer persuaded His Royal Highness to step back for “one more shot”. As the king advanced to protest, the photographer put his hands on the royal shoulders and persuaded him to pose for the last picture.

The mayor of Nashville met with Peter at the dinner:

“Cummings at Dinner. Mayor Thomas L. Cummings, who attended the dinner, along with other local officials, said he was very favorably impressed by the youthful monarch. ‘He is one of the swellest young fellows I ever met,’ Mayor Cummings declared. ‘He is very easy to talk to.’”

The description of Peter was favorable:

“King Peter appears to be in his late twenties. After the dinner King Peter presented General Yount with a pair of the silver wings of the Yugoslavian Air Force, and made him an honorary member of the force.”

The news account elaborated on the “dinner in his honor at the Andrew Jackson Hotel last night. Immediately behind the king is the Yugoslavian flag, made by a hotel employee and presented to him last night. King Peter of Yugoslavia, fugitive from his nation since its capture by the Nazis, sits between Maj. Gen. Barton K. Yount, commanding general of the Army Air Forces Flying Training Command, left, and Col. Stanley M. Umstead … commander of the Combat School at Smyrna.”

Peter’s flight in a Liberator bomber that day was detailed: “Following the flight, his majesty told General Yount that: ‘We flew at about 1,000 feet. I enjoyed it.’

Peter’s attendance at the dinner was described:

“Leaving the post his majesty and his party were escorted to Nashville by highway patrolmen. They went to the Andrew Jackson Hotel where the King had engaged a suite, and where a dinner in his honor was held last night. National Colors. The banquet room was decorated in national colors of the United States and one Yugoslav flag, made during the day by the housekeeper of the hotel when such a flag could not be found. … The King appeared touched, and declared that he would take the flag with him to Yugoslavia once his country is wrested from the grip of Adolf Hitler. While newspaper men were not permitted to personally interview King Peter, a Tennessean reporter shook his hand before the banquet, and exchanged weather pleasantries. ‘It’s quite warm,’ the reporter told the king. The king smiled. ‘Indeed, it has been warm,’ he said.’”

After his visit to the U.S. air base and the Nashville dinner, Peter issued this statement on his inspection tour:

“It has been a great pleasure for me to see my countrymen fly your wonderful American airplanes. I am particularly happy that Yugoslav pilots have been trained in the United States and that they will eventually join hands with the Americans, the British, the Russians, the Chinese and our Allies throughout the world in winning the ultimate victory.

I wish to express my thanks to Major General Barton K. Yount, Commanding General of the Army Air Forces Flying Training Command; Colonel W. W. Welsh, Commanding Officer of the Southeast Army Air Forces Training Center, and Colonel Stanley M. Umstead, Commanding Officer of the Army Air Forces Combat Crew School, Smyrna, Tennessee, for the excellent training the Yugoslav pilots have received here.

To all Americans may I repeat the slogan of the Army Air Forces: ‘Let’s go U. S. A.; keep ’em flying.'”

From Nashville, Peter returned to the White House to meet again with FDR before his departure.

Statues to American Presidents have been erected in Albania and Kosovo following the 1999 Kosovo War that resulted in the occupation of the region by U.S. and NATO troops. The U.S. eventually engineered the secession of the province from Serbia in 2008. In gratitude, both Kosovo and Albania have glorified the U.S. and American Presidents as well as U.S. diplomats who aided in the separatist movement.

Statues have been erected to U.S. President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush, President Woodrow Wilson, and Secretary of State and 2016 U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Hilary Rodham Clinton, in Kosovo and Albania. There have also been statues to U.S. diplomats Richard Holbrooke and William Walker. Moreover, streets have been named after U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Izeir Mustafa started work on a statue of former U.S. President Bill Clinton in his studio north of Pristina in 2007. The statue was unveiled with much pomp in 2009 in Pristina.

President Bill Clinton was photographed holding up a Albanian plis or white skullcap. He was beaming and radiant in his support for Kosovo Albanian secession. A street was also named after U.S. President Bill Clinton in Pristina, Kosovo. “Bulevardi/Bulevar Bill Klinton”.

An Albanian statue to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was made in anticipation of her imminent election as U.S. President. The statue was unveiled in the Albanian town of Saranda in 2016.

At the time, U.S. pollsters predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. She received the most popular votes but lost in the Electoral College.

Hillary, a Pristina boutique, was named after Hillary Rodham Clinton, who visited Kosovo in 2010 as the U.S. Secretary of State. She was also photographed in ecstasy in front of the Bill Clinton statue in Pristina during this visit.

The statue to Woodrow Wilson is Albanian recognition for his role in World War I in espousing Albanian independence and territorial integrity. Albanian PM Sali Berisha was quoted in 2012 when the statue was unveiled.”Prime Minister Berisha expressed his gratitude to all US presidents who have influenced in Albania’s and Kosovo’s issues, and also President Wilson, one of the most important people who contributed in preserving the borders of independent Albania.

‘Today we inaugurate the statue of President Wilson, the US President that saved independent Albania, which Albania considered a big tree on which small nations have built their nests of freedom’, Berisha declared.

US Ambassador, Alexander Arvizu, thanked the Albanians for preserving the memory of President Wilson and quoted a part of his speech at the US Congress in 1918, a speech that defined the shape of future international community.

‘It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world’s peace, therefore, is our program’, Arvizu quoted.”

President Woodrow Wilson on May 6, 1919 is reported to have stated that “Albania ought to be independent” in a meeting with Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau. This was according to Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos. Wilson was “opposed to anything that would harm the Albanians in order to please Yugoslavs” in a statement from March, 1920. He opposed the British-French-Greek proposals to divide Albania in three parts as discussed at the Paris Peace Conference. He supported an independent and unified Albania that would retain the pre-war borders.

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha in 2012 when the statue was unveiled “expressed his gratitude to all US presidents who have influenced in Albania’s and Kosovo’s issues, and also President Wilson, one of the most important people who contributed in preserving the borders of independent Albania.”

This was part of Woodrow Wilson’s policy of “self-determination”, every people or nation should decide for themselves their future. The Great Powers, the Imperialist or Colonial Powers, should not make the decision, but the people who lived in those territories themselves. But where do you draw the line? The U.S. was an Imperialist and Colonial Power. Why doesn’t the U.S. allow “self-determination” to all the territories it has occupied and annexed? It was just a nice phrase. Britain and France, and the U.S., needless to say, retained their colonies and possessions after World War I, the “war to make the world safe for democracy” according to Woodrow Wilson. This was so much empty rhetoric. What it meant in practical terms was stripping Germany of territory and taking German territorial possessions around the globe and rationalizing or justifying it as “the right of self-determination”. Of course, it did not apply to Great Britain or France or the U.S. England kept India. France kept Vietnam. The U.S. kept the Philippines. And Japan, the new member of the Imperialist Club, kept Korea.

U.S. political support for Kosovo independence has been bipartisan, endorsed by both the Republican and Democratic Parties. A statue to Republican Party President George W. Bush was unveiled in Fushe Kruje, Albania. Bush visited Albania on June 10, 2007 and his administration recognized the independence of Kosovo in 2008. He also visited the U.S. military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel. A street was named after U.S. President George W. Bush in Pristina, Kosovo: “Bulevardi/Bulevar Xhorxh Bush”.

A street in Gnjilane, Kosovo, “Madeleine Albright Street”, Rr. St. Ul. “Medllin Ollbrajt”, was named after U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. The language order on the street sign is Albanian or Shqip, “Rrugë”, American English, “Street”, and Serbian, “Ulica”.

U.S. Ambassador William Walker stands in front of a Kosovo statue erected in his honor. It was his espousal of the staged and fake Racak Massacre that led to U.S. military intervention.

A statue to U.S. diplomat and envoy Richard Holbrooke was unveiled in Fier, Albania. He met with armed Kosovo Albanian secessionist leaders and engineered American intervention against Yugoslavia in 1999.

A street was also named after U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden’s son Beau in Kosovo. Biden had been one of the chief architects of the war against Yugoslavia and a longtime supporter of Albanian separatism.

This mindless glorification of America and American Presidents is part of the pet people concept. The peoples of the Balkans want to show their gratitude to a Great Power or Imperialist or Colonial Power for supporting them as their very own “pet people”. This is by no means peculiar to Albanians. Every people wallow in the pet peoples concept. Every ethnic group or nation is beholden to some person representing the Great Powers. Every Great Power has a pet people. People from those countries are glorified and worshipped in the small states. Whether it is Rebecca West or Edith Durham or Rodolphe Archibald Reiss or Joe Biden or Susan Sontag or Robert William Seton-Watson, the phenomenon is not new. Now it is the turn of the Albanians to glorify America.

U.S. Presidential support for Albanian secession has continued unabated. President Donald J. Trump sent a letter to Kosovo President Hashim Thaci to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of independence in February, 2018. Trump wrote: “We see Kosovo as an important partner of the USA. For this historic occasion, I wish all the best to the citizens of Kosovo.” Trump further noted that Kosovo “has made great strides in strengthening its sovereignty and multiethnic democracy.” The U.S. is committed to Kosovo for the long haul. Needless to say, the independence of Kosovo was totally orchestrated by the U.S.

The international recognition of Kosovo was similarly orchestrated and engineered by the U.S. Such unilateral and coerced recognition has remained highly controversial and divisive. In 2017 Suriname revoked its recognition and a petition was filed in the Czech Republic for a similar revocation. Nigeria and Uganda have also removed their names from the list of countries recognizing Kosovo. More importantly, Russia and China oppose recognition. They are the largest and most populous countries in the world respectively. They are also permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Nevertheless, the U.S. is determined to push through the independence of Kosovo. The entire independence campaign was “Made in the U.S.A.” from the start. Such unilateral secession, however, threatens the stability of international law. It set a precedent that secession could be accomplished unilaterally and by military force. Crimea was the result in 2014. It fundamentally altered international law and national sovereignty. It put the emphasis on military force and not international law. It made might paramount. Might was right.

Peter visited the West Point U.S. Military Academy in New York on Monday, July 6, 1942 during his official state visit to the United States. He and his party, which included Constantin Fotich, the London-based Yugoslav Exile Government Ambassador to the U.S., were greeted by Major General Francis B. Wilby, the Superintendent of the Academy. When Peter arrived at Thayer Gate of the Academy, named after Colonel Sylvanus Thayer, Superintendent from 1817-1833, known as “the father of the Military Academy”, he was greeted by a 21 gun salute. General Wilby then hosted a luncheon for Peter.

Peter returned to New York after an official state visit to Canada, where he met with Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King and the Governor General of Canada, the Earl of Athlone. He was greeted in the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa with an ovation.

Peter was accompanied by 17 Yugoslav government officials, U.S. military and naval aides, and U.S. State Department representatives as he ate in the lunchroom at noon.

Peter was photographed in the mess hall sitting with cadets eating lunch. At the lunch table were General Francis B. Wilby, Colonel Philip E. Gallagher, commandant; Cadet James E. Kelleher, of San Antonio, Texas, acting cadet first captain, and Cadet Rex M. Minckler, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, acting cadet regimental adjutant.

The Schenectady Gazette, in the Tuesday, July 7, 1942 issue, “King Peter Pays Visit to West Point”, noted that he “got a royal thrill bouncing at the wheel of an army jeep car.”

Peter was photographed standing with General Francis Bowditch Wilby in front of an American flag in a room at West Point as Wilby pointed to portraits of alumni of the academy by International News: “King Peter Visits Uncle Sam’s ‘Hero Factory’.” West Point, N.Y. — The pictures of the great ones of West Point including General MacArthur (behind them) are viewed by King Peter of Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia during his visit to the U.S. Military Academy. With him is Major General F. Wilby, Superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West point.”

The visit to West Point was only one highlight of his visit to New York. He would attend a New York Yankees baseball game and throw out the first ball and meet Yankees manager Joe McCarthy who would give him a signed baseball. Peter would next meet with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Nikola Tesla.

In 1948, the “Prophet of Science” comic story on Nikola Tesla was featured in the Daisy Handbook: The American Boy’s Fun and Fact Digest Featuring Captain Marvel, Robotman, Red Ryder, Da Vinci, 2-Gun Percy, Rudolph Diesel, Boy Commandos, Ibis, as issue No. 2, in March, 1948, on pages  53 through 58. The original cost was ten cents.

The story was a reprint from Real Heroes Comics, #16, October, 1946, although it is incorrectly stated to be “reprinted from True Comics by permission.

The Daisy Handbook was published by the Daisy Manufacturing Company located at 387 Union Street, Department 8, Plymouth, Michigan, USA.

The Daisy Handbook was a pocket-sized collection of black and white reprints of several comic features from comic books such as True Comics, Real Heroes Comics, and other comic books, as well as containing color ads for its own products, air rifles or BB guns.

Two issues of the handbook were published, in 1946 and 1948. The 1948 handbook was advertised as follows: “Daisy announces an entirely new 128 page, pocket size handbook including a brand new 4-color Daisy catalog.” The company manufactured primarily BB guns or air rifles. The company, founded in 1882 as the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, was the oldest and largest manufacturer of pellet and air-powered guns, ammunition, and accessories. The major product of the company was the Red Ryder BB gun which was introduced in 1938 and of which 9 million were sold. The company also manufactured air rifles, pistols, carbon dioxide or CO2 pistols, slingshots, and branded apparel.

Ed Smalle did the pencils and inks. Ed Smalle (1912-1957) was a Golden Age comic book artist, a writer, inker, and penciller, active with Chesler and Funnies Inc. from the late 1930s through the 1950s. He did Ace McCoy for Ace Periodicals and Rang-A-Tang the Wonder Dog for Archie. He had runs on DC’s Congo Bill, Cowboy Marshall, Real Fact Comics and Rodeo Rick and also worked for the Parents’ Magazine Press on True Comics and the series Vic Hardy’s Crime Lab. His other work included sports and western features for Hillman, horror, war, mystery and western stories for Marvel, Stanmor, and Trojan, as well as a contribution to EC’s Haunt of Fear.

The first image of the story shows Nikola Tesla next to a large sphere radiating electricity. His major role in the development of modern technology and electricity is noted: “Nikola Tesla is the forgotten genius, who revolutionized the science of electricity and made fantastic predictions which time proved true.” The birth year of Nikola Tesla is incorrectly given as 1857. He was born on July 7, 1856, in the town of Smiljan, outside of Gospic, which was then a part of Austria-Hungary. The town is incorrectly given as “Smilgan” in the story. Croatia was then a part of Austria-Hungary. The first panel shows a water pump for a new fire engine. The pump does not work. Nikola Tesla, pictured as a youth, volunteers to fix the water pump. Tesla jumps into the water and fixes the clogged water pump.

In a scene from later in his life, his father warns him that he is exerting too much effort on his studies. He was so committed to his studies that he became ill. His diligent study paid off. He was enrolled in the major European universities of that time such as the University of Technology in Graz, Austria, and the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. He created controversy immediately by challenging the accepted scientific dogmas and orthodoxies. Tesla advocated alternating current over direct direct: “But professor, if alternating current were used…”

His theories were ridiculed and rejected by his professors: “Mister Tesla, please forget that foolish idea. Direct current is the only method.” He then moved to Paris, where he worked for the Continental Edison Company. In 1884, he met Charles Batchelor, a former employee and associate of Thomas Edison. His name is misspelled as “Batchellor” in the story. Tesla tells Batchelor: “My experiments with the rotating magnetic field prove that my motor will work.” Batchelor replies: “I think you’re a brilliant scientist, Tesla. You must go to America and work with Edison.” Tesla is shown on the dock awaiting to sail to the United States. Tesla exclaims that he has been robbed of his money and baggage. In the next scene he is shown arriving in the United States. As he is getting off the ship, he thinks to himself: “I’ve only got four pennies. I must get work.”

Walking from the pier, Tesla volunteered to help fix a broken-down machine. He fixes the machine in several hours for which he is paid twenty dollars. In New York, Tesla begins working for Thomas Edison after a letter of introduction from Charles Batchelor: “Through a letter from Batchellor to Edison, Tesla was soon working for the American inventor.” Edison tells Tesla, who is shown holding a wrench in Edison’s company: “We’re having a hard time repairing the motor of the liner ‘Oregon.’ See what you can do with it.” In the next scene, Tesla is shown walking home after repairing the motor of the ‘Oregon”, docked in the harbor. “In the year Tesla worked for Edison, he designed twenty-four dynamos and automatic controls. But Edison would not accept his theories on alternating current. In 1885 Tesla left Edison, unable to find work…” Tesla is shown digging a ditch in order to earn enough money to survive.

The story downplays the controversy between Tesla and Edison over the “War of the Currents”. Edison adamantly rejected alternating current in favor of direct current in which he had invested his capital and his scientific reputation. Edison’s theories on direct current were discredited while direct current itself was shown to be nonviable and unpractical as a source of energy for long distances and at high voltages.

Tesla set up his own company in 1888 in New York, the Tesla Electric Company, after Alfred K. Brown of Western Union invested in it: “Then he met A. K. Brown, who recognized his genius and helped finance his work. In April, 1887 …” Tesla is shown beaming in front of his new company as workers put up the company name sign. He exclaims: “At last, my own laboratory. Now I’ll have a chance to build and experiment.”

His breakthrough came in 1888 when he demonstrated his system of alternating current in a lecture: “Tesla persisted in his experiments and finally in May, 1888, at the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in New York …” Tesla is shown demonstrating his AC induction motor before a packed-house: “…And so you see how a wire can carry a thousand times more energy with alternating current than with direct current.”

George Westinghouse is then shown making a proposal to Tesla to develop his alternating current system: “I’ll give you a million dollars and a royalty of one dollar per horsepower for your patents.” This contract would make Tesla one of the wealthiest inventors in the world. Tesla agreed to the terms of the offer: “I accept, Mister Westinghouse.” Westinghouse’s financial backers, however, forced Westinghouse to rescind the royalty agreement. Westinghouse informed Tesla: “The bankers won’t help me start a new company unless our royalty agreement is cancelled.” Tesla agreed to the abrogation of the royalty agreement: “That’s all right, as long as I have enough money to continue with experiments.”

One of the milestones in Tesla’s career is described next: “Tesla worked hard and devised a method of harnessing power from Niagara Falls. Later he designed the Niagara Power Plant.”

In the next scene, the destruction of his laboratory by fire on March 13, 1895 is described. Tesla is shown outside his company as fire fighters seek to extinguish the flames which have engulfed the building. Tesla shouts in anguish: “All my experiments, all my records! They’ll be burned!”

After the construction of a new laboratory, Tesla focused his attention on other experiments. One of his major discovers was cosmic rays. Tesla stated: “I believe there are particles of matter bombarding the earth.” This theory was later proven to be accurate: “Thus Tesla discovered the cosmic ray thirty years before its existence was known to the world.” He was able to transmit power without wires: “He experimented further with electricity and in 1890…” Tesla is shown lighting a light bulb without wires. One observer exclaims: “Unbelievable! Light without wires!” Another exclaims: “Amazing!”

Tesla’s pioneering development of radio is recounted: “He worked on the fundamentals of radio and in 1891 …” Tesla is shown demonstrating remote control before a group of spectators. He is able to power a small red boat model in a small pool by remote control: “And so he foreshadowed wireless remote control and electronics.”

In the next scene, the Wardenclyffe project is described, Tesla’s unsuccessful attempt to provide free wireless power for the entire planet: “But a major disappointment came.” Tesla is shown in front of the tower. He tells a backer of the project: “Wireless power will circle the globe when we get this built.” He is told: “I’m sorry, Tesla, but it can’t be finished. We have no more funds to give you.” J. P. Morgan was the principal sponsor of the Wardenclyffe tower project initially investing $150,000. Morgan refused to invest further in the project. As a result, the Wardenclyffe tower was shut down and demolished in 1917.

The last pages focused on Tesla’s final years in New York: “In spite of many set-backs, Tesla achieved fame in the scientific world, and in 1936 …” A group is gathered to award the Edison Medal, which was awarded to Tesla in 1916. Tesla’s chair is shown to be empty. One of the men explains: “Receiving the Edison Medal is a great event in any man’s life, but when is Tesla coming?” The other responds: “I think I know where he may be.”

They are able to locate Tesla in Bryant Park, in Manhattan in New York City. Tesla is seated on a park bench feeding white pigeons that have landed on his shoulders. The comic story ends here.

The story concludes with an assessment and evaluation of Tesla’s role and contributions to the development of modern science: “Some of Tesla’s early predictions which have been perfected included radar and television. But many scientists are still skeptical about other of his later ideas like … sending messages to planets … controlling moisture on deserts by means of electrical impulses … creating a death beam that could destroy 10,000 planes at once.” In the final panel, an image of Tesla is shown. His death on January 7, 1943, at the age of 86, is noted.

The closing is upbeat with the observation that Tesla was able to persevere and to become a pioneer in the development of the modern technological age: “In spite of the hardships that plagued his life, Nikola Tesla continued his scientific investigations which were so far ahead of his time.”

Following the October, 1915 invasion and occupation of Serbia by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, Serbia ceased to exist as a nation. Belgrade was taken on October 9 by a joint German and Austrian-Hungarian force. On October 14, Bulgaria invaded Serbia from the southeast. The wartime capital, Nish, was taken on November 6 by Bulgarian troops.

The First Army under the command of Lieutenant General Kliment Boyadzhiev was deployed between the Danube and Tran. As stipulated by the military convention it was part of Army Group Mackensen together with the German Eleventh Army and the Austro-Hungarian Third Army.

A consequence of the defeat was that the land, sea, and railway links between Berlin and Istanbul were established. This was of vital interest to the strategic balance for Germany and the Central Powers.The territory of Serbia was divided between Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria.

The military conquest of Serbia was perceived by the Central Powers as a major victory, allowing them to knock out the country regarded as the instigator of the war, to open a land route to Turkey, and to establish dominance in the Balkans. Strategically, it allowed the Central Powers to establish a contiguous territory which they controlled and which connected the three major powers. It was also a morale boost for the Central Powers, giving them a rare and much needed victory, especially after the stalemate on the Western Front. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand made the most of the victory.

Wilhelm made a special journey to Belgrade in 1916. The New York Times reported: “Kaiser at Belgrade.; First German Emperor in Serbian Capital Since Barbarossa” in the Friday, January 21, 1916 issue.

According to the The New York Times, in an article on page 2, the goal was to “recruit Turks, “impress Muslims”, and restore the prestige lost by the German Army in France and Rusia: “Kaiser’s Three Aims in Serbian Drive; To Recruit Turks, Impress Moslems and Restore His Army’s Prestige, It Is Said.” October 22, 1915.

Kaiser Wilhelm II was photographed in Belgrade on Wednesday, January 19, 1916. Western newspapers reported that he last German Emperor to travel to Belgrade was Frederick Barbarossa in the 12th century during the Third Crusade.

A key result of the victory was the opening of The Balkan Express, the Berlin to Istanbul railway link, on January 1, 1916. On Tuesday, January 18, 1916, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria met in Nish, Serbia, which had been the wartime capital of Serbia. German and Bulgarian troops were photographed at the railroad station for the arrival. The Balkan Express would be in operation until October, 1918.

The historic meeting in Nish was described by J.M. de Beaufort in My Secret Service: By the Man Who Dined with the Kaiser, 1916:

“The Balkan-Zug was late. Night was upon us before it drew into Nish station, an impressive affair consisting of four sleeping cars, one dining-car, and one ordinary first and second class car.

As it steamed into the station the German, Bulgarian, and Austrian National Anthems were played, and King Ferdinand and his two unprepossessing sons entered before the rest of the passengers.

This was an interesting event also for the passengers from Constantinople, who leaned out of the windows, keenly interested.

The Kaiser had disappeared immediately after the Banquet, just as the Kaiser always does disappear, suddenly and mysteriously, no one knowing why or whither.”

Wilhelm and Ferdinand reviewed from the citadel a procession of Bulgarian, Macedonian and German troops. Wilhelm presented Ferdinand with a field marshal’s baton and the king appointed the emperor as an honorary commander of a Bulgarian infantry regiment. Also present at the meeting were General Erich von Faikenhayn, chief of the general staff; Field Marshal August von Mackensen, the German commander who led the invasion of Serbia, Adjutant-Generals Hans von Plessen. Oskar von Chellus and Moritz von Lyncker and Admiral Georg Alexander von Mueller. King Ferdinand was accompanied by Princes Boris and Cyril, and Premier Vasil Radoslavov. The Kaiser acknowledged his contributions to the Central Powers’s success, autographed a menu card and music program to him after the banquet, and presented them to him.

The meeting begat at 12 noon, with a “warm welcome” between Kaiser and Tsar. They drove in automobiles to the citadel, where they both observed the parade of Bulgarian, Macedonian and German groups established there. Kaiser Wilhelm presented the field marshal’s staff to Tsar Ferdinand, and the Tsar appointed the emperor as head of the 12th Bulgarian Infantry Regiment.

The next day, the Kaiser traveled north to Belgrade. The meeting had been a success. Reporters, however, noted that he appeared exhausted and ill.

The meeting in Nish was significant in that it reinforced the alliance between them. The victory allowed the Central Powers to solidify their control of the Balkans and to remove a barrier between Germany, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Most importantly, the victory connected Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey.

The defeat of Serbia would give the Central Powers undisputed dominance in the Balkans. This state of affairs would last from 1915 to late 1918, when it would unravel and collapse.