The aircraft visible beyond a group of Yugoslav partisans at Vis island is the Fiat G.50bis number 3505, ancient Italian military registration MM6197, of Independent State of Croatia’s Air Force (Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske-ZNDH), the pilot of them, Andrija Arapovic, defeated on 1944 for join the Tito’s Yugoslav Liberation Forces. This aircraft survived to war and to post-war and is the same plane today preserved in the Belgrade’s Air Force Museum, unique exemplar of Fiat G.50 still existing in the world. The biplane scarcely visible in background on the right seems one of two Italian-made SAIMAN 200 which defected at Vis in the same 1944. Victor Sierra

Croat G.50 deserter

Fiat G.50bis of the Ustaška Eskadrila in front of a hangar at Borongaj airfield, Zagreb. The aircraft is one of first batch of this fighters, nine G.50bis single-seat and one G.50B two-seat fighter trainer, sold by Italians to Independent State of Croatia’s Air Force Zrakoplovstvo Nezavisne Države Hrvatske or ZNDH) together twenty AVIA FL. 3 basic trainers, and delivered from 25 June 1942. Later, during the course of the same year, five were transferred to the 1st Squadron at Zagreb in order to strengthen the defence of the NDH capital. Their deployment between the two squadrons was aimed to further familiarize the ZNDH’s pilots with aircraft most modern of the former Royal Yugoslav Air Force employed until then: seven Avia BH-33E, four Ikarus IK-2 and eleven 11 Rogozarski R-100 fighter-trainers. The number of the Croat G.50s, never employed outside of the Country, grew after the Italy’s armistice on 8 September 1943 when the ZNDH received about 20-25 aircraft of this type seized by the Germans on Regia Aeronautica airfields in the Balkans together other Italian planes. On 1944 some G.50, together some French Morane-Saulnier MS.406, was included in the newly formed 11 Lovacka Skupina (11th Fighter Group) with four Squadron (Lovacka Jata) for defence of the Croatia territory. But the role of the now obsolete G.50 was taken by the Bf.109Gs and the survivors was moved to Kurilovac, near Velika Gorica. At the end of the war the few G.50 still in flight conditions was inherited by the new Yugoslav Air Force and used again for few years. Victor Sierra



Ustaška Eskadrila’s Fiat G.50

One of the 25 Italian-built Saiman 200 trainers and liaison aircraft delivered directly by Italy during 1943 to the Independent State of Croatia’s Air Force. The aircraft of the photo has the Croatian markings adopted on 1944. Also this two-seat in tandem biplane, as the other Croatian Air Force’s airplanes, was during the operations against the Tito’s partisan forces most of all to deliver mail and fresh meat to isolated or surrounded Croatian garrisons. The survivor Saiman 200 was inherited by the new Yugoslav Air Force. Victor Sierra