Other Forces

Yugoslav Stuka

The Junkers Ju-87B-2 employed by Partizanska Eskadrila Novj, Independent Headquarters Escadrille, of Yugoslavia Partisan Air Force in a photo taken at Rajlovac, Sarajevo, Bosnia, on May 1945. In background another German-built airplane, a Dornier Do-17Ka of former Royal Yugoslav Air Force and perhaps employed by Croat Air Force before his capture by Yugoslav Partisans. The Ju-87 were the Stuka Wr. 0406, code 5B+ER, of Luftwaffe’s NachtSchlachtGruppe 10 (NSGr.10) used for anti-guerrilla missions from the Butmir airfield near Zagreb. On 12 February 1945 the 5B+ER took off from Butmir for a repositioning mission to Zalužani airfield near Banja Luka, but the pilot because an error navigation landed at Sanski already occupied by the Yugoslav Partisans. The aircraft, captured in full flying conditions, was assigned to Air Squadron of the 5th Corps and later to the Eskadrila Novj based at Mostar, Herzegovina, and equipped with a mixture of captured or defected airplanes manned by pilots who had defected from the Croatian Air Force. According some sources the Ju-87, escorted by two Bf-109G of same unit, carried out the last mission of the war in the Balkans, on 28 May 1945, attacking German and Chetniks troops who had refused to surrender after the officially acknowledged armistice. At the time the various air units of Yugoslav Partisans forces were already incorporated in the new Yugoslav Air Force (Jugoslovensko Ratno Vazduhoplovstvo-JRV) founded on 5 January 1945. After the war the Ju-87 was surely phased out and scrapped. Victor Sierra