Navy of the Independent State of Croatia
| Navy of the Independent State of Croatia Ratna Mornarica Nezavisne Države Hrvatske | |
|---|---|
 A 250t-class torpedo boat similar to T7, which was operated by the RMNDH in the Adriatic Sea between September 1943 and June 1944 when she was sunk | |
| Active | 1941–1944 |
| Disbanded | May 1945 |
| Country |  Independent State of Croatia |
| Type | Navy |
| Size | 1,262 personnel (1943) |
| Part of | Croatian Armed Forces |
| Headquarters | Zagreb, Independent State of Croatia |
| Engagements | World War II |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Đuro Jakčin Edgar Angeli Nikola Steinfl |
| Insignia | |
| Naval Ensign (1941–1944) | .svg) |
| Naval Ensign (1944–1945) | .svg) |
The Navy of the Independent State of Croatia (
scuttled
during the invasion but subsequently refloated.
The RMNDH was only a small part of the armed forces of the NDH, largely due to restrictions imposed by
Malinska-class mining tender Mosor. All of the significant assets had been lost by December 1944 when the remaining personnel were assigned to duties ashore to circumvent their defection to the Yugoslav Partisans
. The RMNDH was disbanded in May 1945 with the collapse and defeat of the NDH.
Background
On 10 April 1941, four days after the
Adriatic coastline. As the weaker Axis partner, Italy was unable to challenge Germany's grip on the NDH, and the Ustaše-led Croats had to accept whatever conditions were imposed on them.[2] By long-standing agreement between the Ustaše leadership and Italy that preceded the outbreak of World War II, if the Croats ceded the Croatian coast to them, the Italians would provide for its protection.[3]
The
Split in an attempt to join the nascent NDH navy, but was captured at Split by the Italians on 17 April and handed over to the Germans soon after.[7]
Formation
The Navy of the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Ratna Mornarica Nezavisne Države Hrvatske, RMNDH) was established by the Law on the Establishment of the Army and Navy issued on the same day as the NDH was established by the Ustaše deputy leader and retired Austro-Hungarian
Lieutenant Colonel (later Marshal and Commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the NDH) Slavko Kvaternik, with the approval of the German authorities. The task of the navy, along with the army, was to defend the new state against both foreign and domestic enemies.[8] The Italians opposed the formation of a navy by the NDH, as they considered the Adriatic to be Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). The Germans supported the Italians in this, so the development of the RMNDH along the Adriatic coast was initially very restricted.[9] On 18 May 1941, the Agreement on Military Matters Pertaining to Coastal Areas was signed in Rome – the second of three Treaties of Rome signed that day. In this bilateral treaty with Italy, the NDH agreed to demilitarize the coastal area entirely, restricting itself to civil administration there. It also agreed not to create any naval units in the Adriatic except for policing and customs purposes.[10] By July 1941, the RMNDH consisted of two commands, the Coast and Maritime Traffic Command, and the River and River Traffic Command, and had its headquarters in the NDH capital, Zagreb.[11]
The Coast and Maritime Traffic Command comprised three naval commands for the northern, central and southern sections of the Adriatic coast, headquartered at Crikvenica (later Sušak), Makarska (later Split) and Dubrovnik respectively. These commands were further divided into naval districts; North Adriatic Naval Command was divided into the Kraljevica and Senj Naval Districts, Central Adriatic Naval Command comprised the Omiš, Supertar, Makarska, Metković and Hvar Naval Districts, and South Adriatic Naval Command consisted of the Trpanj, Orebić and Dubrovnik Naval Districts. The naval districts consisted mainly of naval and weather stations, and were only responsible for coast guard and customs duties.[11][12]
Yugoslav monitor Morava
was renamed Bosna and was part of the River Command FlotillaThe River and River Traffic Command was headquartered in
Bosna, which had been scuttled during the invasion and later recovered; two river gunboats, Ustaša and Bosut; two river minelayers, Zagreb and Zrinski; and six motor boats. The flotilla had a flagship, the river tugboat Vrbas, and two patrol groups, each consisting of one monitor, one gunboat, one minelayer and three motor boats.[11]
Re-organisation
The Law Decree on the Armed Forces of 18 March 1942 re-organised the RMNDH as a branch of the
Malinska-class mining tender Mosor. Croatian crews also served on German-operated vessels, for example twenty Croats served aboard the minelayer Kiebitz, ex-Italian auxiliary cruiser Ramb III.[16]
Zniam was stranded on 19 December 1943 and was torpedoed by
Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) two days later. On 24 June 1944, T7 and two German S-boats were sailing between Šibenik and Rijeka, protecting German sea supply routes along the Adriatic, when they were attacked by three Royal Navy MTBs near the island of Kukuljari, south of Murter Island. The MTBs fired two torpedoes at T7, but missed, so they closed and engaged her with their guns, setting her ablaze. She was beached, and 21 crew were rescued by the MTBs. The British crews later examined the wreck, capturing five more crew, then destroyed her with demolition charges.[17] The river monitor Bosna struck a mine and sank in the same month,[18] and Sava was scuttled on 8 September 1944 when her crew deserted to the Partisans.[19] Mosor was stranded on Ist Island near Zadar on 31 December 1944, and remained there until after the end of the war.[20] By this stage, the RMNDH consisted of a flotilla of small coastal craft stationed at Rijeka. The entire flotilla tried to desert to the Partisans in December 1944, but all but one craft (carrying the commander of the flotilla) was prevented from doing so by the Germans. The Germans brought the naval personnel to Zagreb and used them to form a unit for ground combat, and disarmed the remaining vessels.[21] Nevertheless, the RMNDH continued to exist on paper and had a designated commander until it was disbanded at the end of the war.[12]
During the war, a unit known as the
Black Sea campaign under the command of Kapetan korvete (Commander) Andro Vrkljan and later Kapetan fregate (Captain) Stjepan Rumenović.[12] The purpose of posting a naval contingent on the Black Sea was to evade the prohibitions imposed on the RMNDH by the second Treaty of Rome.[22] The Croatian Government hoped that its personnel could gain experience there and later serve as the core of a naval force in the Adriatic.[23] The unit did not have any ships upon its arrival in the Sea of Azov.[22] It managed to scrounge up 47 damaged or abandoned fishing vessels, mostly sailing ships, and hired local Russian and Ukrainian sailors to help man them. They patrolled a coastal sector of the Sea of Azov,[24] and the Legion eventually reached a strength of 1,000 officers and men as the 23rd Minesweeping Flotilla.[12] On 24 September 1942, the Poglavnik (leader) of the NDH, Ante Pavelić, visited Legion headquarters, where he reached an agreement with the Germans to train and equip a flotilla that would undertake anti-submarine patrols.[24] In 1943, a coastal artillery battery was added to the Legion. Following the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, and Axis reverses on the Eastern Front, the Croatian Naval Legion returned to the NDH in May 1944 as a Trieste-based torpedo boat flotilla, part of the German 11th Escort Flotilla. The Germans disbanded the Legion at the same time as the crew of the RMNDH were brought ashore to prevent them from defecting with their vessels to the Partisans.[12]
Three officers commanded the RMNDH:[12]
- Kontraadmiral (Rear admiral) Đuro Jakčin (1941 – late 1943)
- Kapetan bojnog broda (Commodore) Edgar Angeli (late 1943 – 1944)
- Kontraadmiral Nikola Steinfel (1944 – May 1945)
See also
- Military ranks of the Independent State of Croatia
- Croatian Navy
- Croatian Armed Forces
- Croatian Air Force
- Croatian Air Force Legion
Footnotes
- ^ Tomasevich 2001, pp. 52–53, 272.
- ^ Tomasevich 2001, pp. 233–234.
- ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 31.
- ^ Shores, Cull & Malizia 1987, pp. 205–207, 213–218, 220–224.
- ^ a b Whitely 2001, p. 312.
- ^ Chesneau 1980, pp. 357–358.
- ^ Freivogel & Rastelli 2015, p. 97.
- ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 417.
- ^ Chesneau 1980, p. 356.
- ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 237 (with map on p. 236).
- ^ a b c Niehorster 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f Thomas & Mikulan 1995, p. 18.
- ^ Tomasevich 2001, pp. 423–424.
- ^ Gardiner 1985, p. 339.
- ^ Chesneau 1980, p. 357.
- ^ Chesneau 1980, p. 359.
- ^ Paterson 2015, p. 223.
- ^ Chesneau 1980, p. 358.
- ^ Tomasevich 2001, p. 431.
- ^ a b Müller 2012, p. 98.
- ^ Brnardic 2016, p. 12.
- ^ a b Müller 2012, p. 100.
References
- Brnardic, Vladimir (2016). World War II Croatian Legionaries: Croatian Troops under Axis Command 1941–45. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4728-1768-6.
- Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. London, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-146-5.
- Freivogel, Zvonimir & Rastelli, Achille (2015). Adriatic Naval War 1940-1945. Zagreb, Croatia: Despot Infinitus. ISBN 978-953-7892-44-9.
- Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. London, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-245-5.
- ISBN 978-1-78076-890-8.
- Naval Records Club (1965). "The Independent Croatian Navy". Warship International. 2. Rutland, Massachusetts: International Naval Research Organization. ISSN 0043-0374.)
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link - Naval Records Club (1968). "Yugoslavian Monitors". Warship International. 5. Toledo, Ohio: International Naval Research Organization: 333. OCLC 1647131.
- Niehorster, Leo (2013). "Armed Forces of the Independent State of Croatia – Order of Battle Croatian Navy 1st July 1941". Leo Niehorster. Retrieved 11 March 2015.
- Paterson, Lawrence (2015). Schnellboote: A Complete Operational History. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-083-3.
- Shores, Christopher F.; Cull, Brian; Malizia, Nicola (1987). Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece, and Crete, 1940–41. London, England: Grub Street. ISBN 978-0-948817-07-6.
- ISBN 978-0-8047-3615-2.
- Thomas, Nigel; Mikulan, Krunoslav (1995). Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941–45. New York, New York: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85532-473-2.
- Whitely, M. J. (2001). Destroyers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia. Annapolis, Maryland: U.S. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-326-7.