The Korean War (1950-1953) became the first great armed conflict of the Cold War era that saw the USSR and USA support the warring factions. It was also the first conflict to see the wide-scale use of jet aviation on both sides. This fact attracted the interest of both military aviators and the general aviation public throughout the world, including Yugoslavia. As Yugoslav relations with the rest of the Eastern bloc were low since 1948, Yugoslavia turned to the West to modernise its army, especially the air force. This made information on aerial warfare in Korea very valuable, as the jet aircraft used by the United States in Korea were also operated by the Yugoslav Air Force from 1953. A total of five aeronautical journals, published by the Air Force Command and the Aeronautical Union of Yugoslavia (the national aeroclub) followed technological advances, developments in tactics and doctrine, and the exploits and experiences of aviators in Korea. Articles can be divided into expert analyses and informative pieces, both of which were published by the military and the Aeronautical Union. It must be noted that practically all information was supplied by Western sources, that Soviet data was unavailable to Yugoslav authors at the time, and that Yugoslavia's political position affected the stance of the informative pieces, making them pro-Western.
The paper presents the biography of Ljudevit J. Pogačar - an officer of the Yugoslav Army and Border Troops, who is best known for his role as commander of the Serbian Border Guard. Having distinguished himself as a young officer in the battles in Carinthia after the end of World War I, he had a notable military career in the interwar period. After the occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he did not go into captivity, but remained in occupied Serbia. He actively participated in the suppression of insurgent activities in late 1941 and early 1942, and then took on a role in the newly created collaborationist formation, the Serbian State Guard, in its border guard department. After the formation of the Serbian Border Guard, he became its commander and remained so until the end of the occupation. By his position, he was the highest-ranking Slovene in the collaborationist apparatus of occupied Serbia during World War II. As commander of the Serbian Border Guard, he sincerely tried to improve the position of his subordinate border guards, both in terms of armament and equipment. However, cooperation with the occupiers came at a price. His file in the State Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes of the Occupiers and Their Abettors states that he “did not limit himself to military service to the occupiers, thereby committing treason against the people and the state, but in addition, he participated in organizing, ordering, and even directly committing numerous war crimes against citizens.” The fate of the war led him to emigrate to Australia, where he died in 1977. Having ended his life far from Yugoslavia, he is just one of many royal officers who were scattered around the world after World War II. The article was written using materials from domestic and foreign archives, as well as all relevant émigré and domestic historiographic literature and periodicals.
Milan Pribićević's officer career has not been historiographically documented, and most of the archival material has been destroyed over time. In the Yugoslav kingdom, his surname was burdened by the political activities of his own brother Svetozar Pribićević, who went from being a man of great trust of King Alexander I Karađorđević to one of his harshest critics. His first days as an officer in the Serbian army were overshadowed by his transfer from the Austro-Hungarian army. He very quickly became part of the national organizations Slovenski jug, and then Naredna odbrana, where he had the opportunity to cooperate with part of the Serbian intellectual elite, but also with conspirators from the Black Hand organization. His activities were closely monitored by agents of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, where his transfer to the Serbian army was considered high treason. By chance, his other two brothers, Adam and Valerian Pribićević, would be accused by the Austro-Hungarian authorities in the High Treason Trial. The basis for the accusation would be the draft Statute of the National Defense organization, authored by Milan Pribićević. He entered the Balkan Wars with the rank of captain and left with the rank of major. He fought in the battles of Kumanovo and Bregalnica, commanding units of the Moravian Division of the 1st Convocation and the Timok Division of the 2nd Convocation. The beginning of World War I found him as a battalion commander of the Šumadija Division of the 1st Convocation, and after the Battle of Cer, he took over the position of battalion commander in the Combined Division. In the battles at Gučevo, he was involved in the unsuccessful mining of an enemy position, and a day later he showed incredible courage and command skills when, with a small group of soldiers, he carried out a sudden counterattack on his own initiative, stopping the Austro-Hungarian offensive at an important defensive point in the Serbian army's lines. For his courage, he was personally promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel by the then regent Aleksandar Karađorđević. During the retreat of the Serbian army in the autumn-winter of 1915/16, he led his soldiers through the battles in which the Combined Division protected the Serbian army on its March through Albania. During the battles, he always approached and commanded the Serbian soldier - a peasant - with care and understanding, protecting him and helping him in various situations and troubles. On the Salonika Front, he did not have the opportunity to command the regiment assigned to him after being sent to the USA, where he was at the head of a mission that collected volunteers for the Serbian army. Removed from the trench in which he had been continuously for four years, Milan Pribićević found himself in an unfamiliar environment in which a conflict was raging between two groups of Serbian emigrants. He did not fare well in that conflict, and the support of the Serbian government that sent him on the mission was lacking. Although he is credited with the arrival of nearly 6,000 volunteers to the Salonika Front, his mission was still assessed as a failure because Croats and Slovenes did not join the volunteer movement. Milan Pribićević was not to blame for this, as he left the mission in the USA at the end of April 1918. After returning to military service, he was not assigned until mid-October, when he was given a staff position in the Drina Division. At the request of the People's Council of the Serbs and Croats, whose vice president was his brother, he was sent to Zagreb at the head of the Serbian Military Mission, having previously been promoted to the rank of colonel. He spent a few months in active service after arriving in Zagreb, where he submitted a request for retirement. He replaced his successful military career with a political one, which brought him new life trials and dilemmas. Milan Pribićević's officer career was on an upward trajectory, without setbacks or blemishes. He belonged to those officers of the Serbian army who commanded "after me", leading their soldiers in the front lines. Historiography, except for a few works, did not specifically address his career, and his missions were completely forgotten until the centennial of the events of World War I, when he was recognized for gathering Serbian army volunteers in the United States.
The Communist authorities in Yugoslavia, who began establishing their administrative organs in liberated territories already during the Second World War, decided to form the State Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes of the Occupiers and Their Collaborators on 30 November 1943, during the Second Session of the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) held in the Bosnian town of Jajce. Soon afterward, a network of commissions subordinated to the State Commission was created, each having territorial jurisdiction within the boundaries of the republics. The Republic (Zemaljska) Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes of the Occupiers and Their Collaborators of Serbia began its work on 27 November 1944. One of its fifteen District Offices (Okružno povereništvo) operated in Šabac, with authority over the district offices in Bogatić, Loznica, Ljubovija, Vladimirci, and Krupanj. From its establishment, the Šabac District Office simultaneously worked on several tasks, among which the exhumation of the remains of victims from the Jewish Camp in Šabac, the Transit Camp in the Senjak barracks, the Concentration Camp on the Sava River, the "Bloody March", and the mass execution of peasants from Mačva in Benska Bara represented one of the most significant activities. This importance derived from the scope of terror and crimes committed during the Second World War in the city and its surroundings, which were part of the German occupation zone in Serbia. The Šabac District Office also formed special investigative commissions, such as the Commission for the Collection of Corpses Floating Down the Sava River, established in May 1945. Archival materials preserved in the collection of the Commission for the Investigation of Crimes of the Occupiers at the Intermunicipal Historical Archive in Šabac, together with the valuable eyewitness testimonies of wartime events recorded by the Šabac priest Grigorije Gliša Babović in his Diary of Šabac 1941-1945, highlight the crucial role of the Šabac District Office both in the identification of victims, perpetrators, and crimes, and in the dignified reburial and commemoration of the victims. In doing so, it contributed not only to the formation of a "space of memory" but also to the creation of a "space of the future."
Officer Ljubomir Ivanović was born on 26th October 1836 in Kragujevac. After graduating in 1856 from the Artillery School, the precursor of the later Military Academy, Ivanović was sent to France for further studies in military science, where he spent the following three years. Upon his return to the Principality of Serbia, he initially served in the General Military Department within the Main Military Administration. With minor interruptions, from 1860 to 1868 he held the position of aide-de-camp to Prince Mihailo. During the 1860's, he carried out numerous military and diplomatic missions, most notably a year-long assignment at the Serbian agency in Istanbul as an unofficial military attaché, as well as work on improving the Montenegrin army in the first half of 1867. He undertook diplomatic and military missions on two further occasions during the 1870s. Between 1872 and 1874, Ivanović served as the Head of the General Military Department in the Ministry of War, and later held the office of Minister of Public Works in two governments (from June 1874 to February 1875). In 1874, he also served as aide-de-camp to Prince Milan. Afterward, he was appointed Head of the Artillery School. He distinguished himself particularly during Serbia's preparations for the war against the Ottoman Empire in the first half of 1876. Following the decree establishing the Main General Staff, he was appointed its Deputy Chief, and in early June became Chief of the Main General Staff, that is, Chief of the Supreme Command, a post he held during the First Serbo-Turkish War. In the Second Serbo-Turkish War, he served as Commander of the Second Šumadija Division. After the war, he was appointed, for the third time, as Head of the Artillery School, where he remained until his sudden death on 1st April 1879.
