Yugoslav Royal Air Force
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| Yugoslav Royal Air Force | |
|---|---|
| Active | 1918 - 1941 |
| Country | Kingdom of Yugoslavia |
| Allegiance | Royal Yugoslav Army |
| Engagements | World War II |
| Insignia | |
| Roundel |
 |
| Fin Marking |
 |
| Aircraft flown | |
| Bomber | Bristol Blenheim, Dornier Do 17, Junkers K 30 Potez 630, Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 [1] |
| Fighter | Hawker Hurricane, Ikarus IK 2 Messerschmitt Bf 109, Rogožarski IK-3 |
| Trainer | Fizir FN[2] (assumption that it was a trainer) |
| Transport | Fieseler Fi 156, Messerschmitt Bf 108[3] |
The Yugoslav Royal Air Force or Jugoslovensko Kraljevsko Ratno Vazduhoplovstvo (JKRV) in Serbian & Croatian: Jugoslovensko Kraljevsko ratno zrakoplovstvo, slovene: Jugoslovansko kraljevo vojno letalstvo was formed upon the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes that year later renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia existed from 1918 to Royal Yugoslavia's capitulation in the Second World War in 1941. The remaining aircraft were used in conjunction with the British Royal Air Force and the Yugoslav Partisans of communist Josip Broz Tito which served alongside the British Royal Air Force after 1943.
Contents |
[edit] Beginning of a Yugoslav Air Force
Upon its creation it originally composed the aircraft which previously made up the Serbian Air Force then known as the Serbian Military Air Service, was one of the earliest air forces in existence and the one of the first to engage in battle in the Balkans Wars of 1912 to 1913. The Serbian Air Force survived occupation by Austria-Hungary by being based in exile in neutral Greece during the First World War where its pilots were serviced and trained with the help of the French Air Force.[4] In 1918, with the creation of a united Yugoslav state, then called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the new government began to expand the air force across the new territories of the kingdom.
[edit] History
[edit] Consolidation and Modernization of the Air Force
In 1923, the Yugoslav government began to modernize its air force and established contracts within the country and abroad which contributed to their large variety of aircraft in service at the time of the Second World War. In 1923, the government consolidated the bureaucracy for the air force by joining their Aviation Command with the Ministartstvo vojske i mornarice (Ministry of War and Marine).
Little is known of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force (JKRV) and its brief fight with the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica in April 1941. Many Western historians have written it off as small and insignificant.
It will surprise many to learn that the JKRV had over 800 aircraft on its strength at the time of the German invasion, built around a core of modern fighter, bomber and maritime aircraft fully up to international standards and backed up by a large number of adequately trained (although operationally inexperienced) air and ground crew.
By 1941 the JKRV had on its strength over 160 modern fighters, made up of 73 Messerschmitt Bf 109Es, 44 Hawker Hurricane Is and 30 Hawker Fury IIs, as well as 8 Ikarus IK 2s and 6 Rogozarski IK-3s, both locally designed and built.
Its bomber force of 175 aircraft comprised 70 Dornier Do 17Ks, 60 Bristol Blenheim Is (both being licence manufactured in Yugoslavia by the State Aircraft Factory, 50+ Dorniers and Ikarus, 40+ Blenheims, respectively) and 45 Savoia-Marchetti SM.79s.
Maritime patrol and strike had on hand a dozen each of the Do-22K and locally designed and built SIM XIV-H floatplanes.
The situation whereby Yugoslavia had to acquire or manufacture aircraft from whatever source presented itself meant that by 1941, the JKRV was rather uniquely equipped with 11 different types of operational aircraft, 14 different types of trainers and five types of auxiliary aircraft, with 22 different engine models, four different machine guns and two types of aircraft cannon.
The Yugoslav manufactured Dornier Do-17K, for example, was a German aircraft with French 1000hp Gnome-Rhone engines, Belgian armament from Fabrique Nationale, Czech photo-recon equipment and locally produced Yugoslav instrumentation.
During 1938, The Yugoslav government concluded an agreement with Hawker to purchase 12 Hurricane Is for the Royal Yugoslav Air Force and followed this up with an order for 12 more together with a manufacturing licence to allow production of the fighter at the Rogozarski (orders for 60) and Zmaj (orders for 40) factories. These plants, together with the Ikarus concern, had been designing and manufacturing sporting and training aircraft since the 1920s. Production was expected to reach eight per month from each assembly line by mid-1941. In the event, by the time of the German onslaught of April 1941, which put an end to further production, Zmaj had delivered 20 Hurricanes but Rogorzarski had delivered none [1].
The local design team working on improved versions of the IK-3 fighter had originally planned to power later IK-3s with new 1,100 h.p. Hispano-Suiza 12Y-51 engine. The German occupation of France had frustrated this plan, and it therefore become necessary to consider a British or German engine. The Air Ministry favoured the DB 601 A, and as part of IK-3 development program, a Daimler-Benz engine was installed experimentally in a Hurricane airframe in 1940.
Engineers Ilic and Sivcev at the Ikarus plant Zemun, outside Belgrade, made the conversion by the fitting of new engine bearers, cowlings and cooling system manufactured at the Ikarus factory. The one Hurricane fitted with a DB601A engine for comparison with the Merlin-engined version was tested early in 1941.
The conversion was extremely successful, and experimental aircraft displayed better take-off performance and climb rate than either the standard Hurricane or the Bf 109 E-3 and was only slightly slower than the latter. JKRV pilots who flew the Hurricane conversion considered it to be superior to the standard model.
At the same time, a 1,030 h.p. Rolls-Royce Merlin III was installed in one of the IK-3 airframes, but this machine had only just been completed at the time of the German attack, and as enemy forces neared Belgrade it was destroyed by the factory workers, together with four other IK-3s undergoing overhaul or modification and a further 25 on the production line.
[edit] World War II
By the outbreak of the Second World War, Yugoslavia had a substantial air force with their own aircraft, aircraft from Allied countries like Britain and aircraft from Axis countries like Germany and Italy. In 1940, Britain attempted to bring Yugoslavia to the Allied side by supplying military aide to the Yugoslav Royal Air Force, including new Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft. However Germany sold a large number of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters to Yugoslavia and in early 1941, and German dismay towards a Balkans campaign convinced Yugoslavia to join the Axis forces.
Shortly after Yugoslavia joined the Axis powers however, Fascist Italy demanded that their ally Nazi Germany help their faltering military campaign in Greece and demanded that invade Yugoslavia in order to reach Greece and give over long-demanded territory from Yugoslavia. The German Luftwaffe then began to mass at the borders of Yugoslavia from allied Axis nations. The JKRV was forced to stretch out to defend Yugoslavia from an apparent invasion and iminent air war. [5]
Following the Belgrade Coup on March 25th 1941, the Yugoslav armed forces were put on alert, although the army was not fully mobilised for fear of provoking Hitler – to no avail. The JKRV command decided to disperse its forces away from their main bases to a system of auxiliary airfields that had previously been prepared. However many of these airfields lacked facilities and had inadequate drainage which prevented the continued operation of all but the very lightest aircraft in the adverse weather conditions encountered in April 1941.
Despite having superior aircraft to some of the previously German-occupied eastern European nations like Poland or Czechoslovakia, the Yugoslav Royal Air Force could simply not match the numbers of the German Luftwaffe and could not defend all of Yugoslavia resulting in the devastating Luftwaffe bombings of Belgrade. Yugoslavia capitulated eleven days after the Axis invasion.
Yugoslavia immediately fell apart and Tito's Partisans, the first anti-fascist resistance movement in Europe, ultranationalist royalists Chetniks, and the Axis forces, including the Independent State of Croatia, would continue a struggle over that territory that lasted until the middle of May 1945.
In the face of overwhelming Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica superiority in terms of numbers, tactical deployment and combat experience, the 11 day fight put up by the JKRV was nothing short of extraordinary.
The bomber and maritime force hit targets in Italy, Germany (Austria), Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania and Greece, as well as attacking German, Italian and Hungarian troops. Meanwhile the fighter eskadrilla inflicted not insignificant losses on escorted Luftwaffe bomber raids on Belgrade and Serbia, as well as upon Regia Aeronautica raids on Dalmatia and Herzegovina, whilst also providing air support to the hard pressed Yugoslav Army by strafing attacking troop columns in Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia (sometimes taking off and strafing the troops attacking the very base being evacuated) [2].
Little wonder then that after a combination of air combat losses, losses on the ground to enemy air attack on bases and the overrunning of airfields by enemy troops that after 11 days the JKRV almost ceased to exist.
Some 70 or so operational and training aircraft succeeded in escaping to Greece and 4 to Russia (8 Do-17Ks and SM-79Ks set out, but half were lost due to poor weather conditions, mountainous terrain and/or overloading). But further tragedy was to befall even these escapees with some 44 destroyed on the ground at the airfield of Paramitia in Greece by marauding German and Italian fighters. In the end only 3 Lockheed 10s, 2 Do-17Ks, 4 SM-79Ks, 8 Do-22K floatplanes and 1 SIM XIVH floatplane reached the Allied base of Egypt in May 1941.
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia came into existence in July 1941 with over 150 captured operational, training and auxilliary aircraft. Tito's Yugoslav Partisans were themselves able to form an air force in 1943 from captured Croatian air force aircraft.
[edit] Service Types
| Aircraft | Quantity | Role | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Messerschmitt Me-109E | 61 | Fighter |  Germany |
| Hawker Hurricane Mk.I | 38 | Fighter |  United Kingdom |
| Hawker Fury Mk.II | 30 | Fighter | United Kingdom |
| Avia BH-33 | 2 | Fighter |  Czechoslovakia |
| Ikarus IK-2 | 8 | Fighter |  Yugoslavia |
| Rogozarski IK-3 | 6 | Fighter | Yugoslavia |
| Potez 63 | 2 | Fighter |  France |
| Dornier DO-17K | 60 | Bomber | Germany |
| Bristol Blenheim Mk.I | 47 | Bomber | United Kingdom |
| Bristol Blenheim Mk.I | 11 | Reconnaissance | United Kingdom |
| Savoia Marcetti SM-79 | 40 | Bomber | _crowned.svg/22px-Flag_of_Italy_(1861-1946)_crowned.svg.png){kind=small} Italy |
| Breguet 19 | 120 | Reconnaissance/Utility | France |
| Potez 25 | 120 | Reconnaissance/Utility | France |
| Fieseler Fi 156 | 10 | Utility | Germany |
| Dornier DO-WAL | 10 | Bomber | Germany |
| Dornier DO-22 | 11 | Reconnaissance/Bomber | Germany |
| SIM-XIV | 15 | Coastal Reconnaissance | Yugoslavia |
| SIM-XII | Training | Yugoslavia |
|
| Rogozarski PTV | Training | Yugoslavia |
[edit] Markings
 Yugoslav Royal Air Force roundel from 1929 |
 Yugoslav Royal Air Force roundel until 1929 |
[edit] Gallery
 The Royal Yugoslav Air Force managed to purchase a number of the infamous German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters before the war broke out between Germany and Yugoslavia. |
 Do 17K from the 3rd bomber regiment of Royal Yugoslav Air Force, April 1941 |
 SM.79 of the Yugoslav Air Force. |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- http://www.aeroflight.co.uk/waf/yugo/jkrv/yugo-af1-home.htm
- Shores, C., Cull, B. and Malizia, N., Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece & Crete – 1940-41 Grub Street, London, 1987.
