WWII Balkan Operation. Zara Bombing

First of all I would point out that no document or map I found in my studies reports a Zadar till mid WWI. All the maps I have refer to Zara not because of political reasons but because that was the name of the town for centuries, a Dalmatian town with a Roman and Venetian history. The same Austro - Hungarian Empire did not modified the name.

Split (Spalato), was bombed because of about the same reason than Zara. Do not forget that the coastal Dalmatian community had it's own etnic individuality.

To say the bombings had no reason, it's a simple way to explain them. I'm still trying to fully understand them. It's not possible to enclose files to this newgroup (I'm ready to send it to you) but I've found an original radio msg, in the Pubblic Record Office in London (ref. 20/8433-122325) among the documents of mid June '44. At the date in Zara were just few (very few) German troops and the civilians. The msg is a request from Marshal Tito to the Balkan Air Force for bombing Zara.

Something more by the eyewitnesses. After few raids, the Croats going to Zara to sell their products, used to warn their italian friends and customers about the next raid, perfectly referring to the date with less precision about the time... Sound strange? Not completely, some of them ere connected to the partisan by some relatives and they commerced food with partisans.

Partially right. As you know the partisan's war wasn't a one-way one against foreigners. Chetniks and Ustascia were fighting each other too. Something more, Dalmatian inhabitants didn't like the inlanders.

Partially right again. In a previous posting I already mentioned the US OSS (intelligence) Major Linn M. Farish report dated Oct. the 27th 1943, where he highlights the necessity not to repeat the previous mistakes (lack of assistance to Tito in conquering Split - Spalato, and the accidental sinking of somepartisans' motor boats)

I don't argue that the name 'Zara' was probably on Italian or German maps, or the maps used by Allied pilots during the raid. However, in Partisan documents the city was named as 'Zadar'.

Hardly. Ethnic Italians were minority in Split, at least since 1880s when their party lost elections to Croatian nationalists.

And, speaking of Split, the city was under Partizan control between Italian capitulation and German taking. In those few weeks Tito's Partizans had much more time and opportunity to deal with Italian minority and later they didn't need Allied bombs for the dirty work.

Zadar perhaps had very few troops, but it had significant fortifications. After all, between 1920 and 1941 it was Italian enclave on the east Adriatic coast, very vulnerable to Yugoslav attack. Some of those fortifications not only survived the Allied bombings, but were also used by Croatians in the war of 1991.

Well, how those stories couldn't be heard in the case of Split?

Yes. But those antagonisms exist in Dalmatia since Illyric and Greek times. They could hardly be the explanation for the entire city to be turned into rubble. After all, Tito's Partizans had all the reasons to expect Zadar becoming part of Yugoslavia after the war. They didn't want the important industrial and trade center and future war gain to be flatened.

Dragan Antulov

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