Saturday, 14 April 2018

Messerschmitt Bf.109G, Yugoslav users

Given the chaotical status of Yugoslavia in late 1944 with many partisans factions fighting each others and the intervention of foreign Allied forces like the United Kingdom, the USSR supporting one partisan side (Tito's Partisans) and Germany supporting other partisan side (Chetniks mainly).
In that context, the Partisans were very successful as they counted with foreign-made material and support and also with material captured to the enemy. In fact, the Yugoslav Partisan Air Force was founded de facto back in May 1942 but, given their clandestine status, their aerial operations were very limited. However, when the German forces started to weaken, mainly due to Soviet intervention, the Partisan Air Force grew stronger and they captured so many German Aircraft which were operated mainly by either defectors or veterans.
Among them, it's known that the Partisans operated some Bf.109G-6s since very late 1944 in the Serbian area and also that some of the aircrafts of the most advanced version of the Bf.109G, the Bf.109G-10 were captured from the Croatian Air Force in early 1945 and used in aerial operations during those very late stages of the war.
Once the war was over and the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed, the SFR Yugoslav Air Force was also founded as the main heir to the Partisan Air Force. It was equipped with an heterogeneous mixture of Allied, Soviet, ex-German and even home-produced aircrafts.
Regarding the Bf.109G, the most advanced version they had, the Bf.109G-10, were kept in active service as fighters until 1952 with some of them being converted ad-hoc as trainers and renamed as UBf.109G and used through the 1950s. The older versions of the Bf.109G-6, which most of them were adquired from Bulgaria, were withdrawn from active service in 1949.
Most of Bf.109Gs served with the 172nd and 83rd Fighter Regiments, both of them based in Croatia.










Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109_operational_history#Combat_service_with_Yugoslavia
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Partisans
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

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