The Chetnik movement in Serbia

So was Jugoslavia merely a Speed bump on Hitler's drive to the East? If so it was a pretty critical speed bump in that it delayed Operation Barbarossa by two months. Draza Mihailovic has yet to recieve his historical due. Then the Jugoslavs were the first to offer guerrilla resistance to the invader.
YouTube - Spremte se spremte
http://www.babamim.com/wwii_page_5
"The Forgotten 500" book may go a ways in straightening out the record. http://www.gregoryafreeman.com/500.html

 

I doubt Mihailovich will ever get the due that he does deserve because all the nations involved don't want to admit the blunder at least publicly how they sided with Tito during the civil war.

Also during the time the Untied States and England had cut off all support and relief to Mihailovich. To acknowledge his significance in not only helping the downed airmen but the delay of operation barbarossa they would have to admit this.

Sure the information is out there but they don't want to bring it up unless they need to. The President of the United States(i forgot what year) bestowed upon Mihailovich the Legion of Merit award which is the highest award for non military members, or figure heads of states, but it was kept in a draw and not given to his family until 2005, and there was supposed to be a public ceremony to give the award to his surviving family member, but then it was scrapped so there would not be much spotlight. So even in 2005 there is a core group of politicians who do not want to acknowledge the bravery and the significance of his actions even to this day.

 

FG;
Harry S. Truman awarded General Mihailovich with the highest possbile award a that could bestowed on a foreign national. Unfortunately the award was kept secret until 1966 for political reasons. It was not until 2003 that the Mihailovich family received the medal.http://www.generalmihailovich.com/
JeffinMNUSA

 

Thanks for clearing that up for me i was trying to shoot from memory i knew it was 2000something

 

FG;
He was a great man who just might have stopped Hitler's drive East. That he was disgracefully treated by the Western Allies is pretty well documentated. He was even more disgracefully treated by Tito; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2293041/posts
JeffinMNUSA

 

PS. The classical treatise on the Chetnik movement in partial ebook;
The Chetniks - Google Books
The book concludes that the major reason for the failure of the Chetnik movement was that Mihailovic was somewhat limited as a leader-the author could not have known that there were communist agents in British intelligence working against the Chetniks. How much of the failure was Mihailovic and how much Philby? The anti Chetnik element in MI5 was powerfull enough to where they apparently attempted to assassinate the American team sent to rescue The Forgotten 500. The ruse was only stopped when the team leader looked down on the planned drop zone and recognized a firefight going on down below. Another time the drop plane attempted to drop them over PARTISAN territory-where they no doubt would have disappeared without a trace...Against such determined treachery what chance did Mihailovic have?
JeffinMNUSA

PS. If the German forces were indeed inflicting 10:1 casualties in 1941 AND they were to arrive at the Gates of Moscow a month or two early? Well maybe our wargaming friends could play out this scenario and it will not be an easy task for the Russki player to prevent the fall of Moscow... Probably even more important is that the German player has extra warm weather time to work on his horrendous logistical situation.

 

There was a movie "Chetniks - The Fighting Guerrillas" staring Philip Dorn, made circa 1943,

See Chetniks - The Fighting Guerrillas Synopsis

 

Let me revive this topic a bit.

General Draza Mihailovic will recieve his glory in Serbia as he deserves.

Draza Mihailovic was a true Serbian hero. I will not lie , Chetniks did colaborate with Ustashas and Germans but for short period of time.

Chetniks were loyal to the King , and Communist were the true enemies of Chetniks.

After the war , Draza was hunted like an animal for "treason" as communist say.

They shoot him and buried him in unknown location.

From that moment on , until mid 90's we were learning in school that Chetniks are murderers and rapist and that Communist are heroes.

At the end of last year , there were leads where Draza could be buried. But, there are still some old communists who are sworn to Tito and wont speak for the location of Draza execution.

I firmly believe that the TRUTH will come to light and that we could build a monument to his achievement.