Military History of Serbia - Serbian Air Force History Since Formation

Serbian Air Force History Since Formation

The idea to form air forces in the Serbian Army was first mentioned in the General Army Formation Act from 2 August 1893. This act envisioned that within each division of the Army of the Kingdom of Serbia be formed one air force balloon company.

Twenty years later, in 1912, a group of Kingdom of Serbia officers were sent abroad to school- to a Pilot Training Program in France. At the same time aircraft were purchased and by the Act of the Minister of War Marshal Radomir Putnik, on 24 September 1912 an Air Force Command was established in Niš. This places Serbia as one the first 15 states in the world to have had military air force at those times. A year later, during the siege of the town of Shkodra, Serbian Air Force had their baptism of fire. The first planes used in the Serbian military aviation was the Blériot XI and Farman HF.20.

The pilots soon applied the experience gained in the Balkan wars to World War I battles, thus becoming a worthy opponent to the stronger enemy forces. On 17 September 1915, according to the Julian calendar, that is 30 September in Gregorian calendar, Serbian Air Defense members shot down the first of many enemy airplanes over Kragujevac. This day was, by the Act of king Aleksandar I, proclaimed the Air Defense Artillery Division’s day. At the Thessaloniki front line, with the support of the Allied force, Serbian Air Forces were reorganized. First, Serbian-French joint escadrilles were formed, and by the end of 1916 a Nieuport division, while at the beginning and in mid 1918 the First and Second Serbian Fighter Escadrilles were formed.

The period between two world wars was marked by a significant growth of our Air Forces, accompanied by the production of modern and sophisticated aircraft, with then ongoing organizational-formation changes within the Air Force. As of 1924, 2 August, the Saint Elijah day was observed as the patron saint day of Serbian Air Forces, with the Saint Elijah the Lightning Bearer as a patron saint of military and other pilots of then existing Yugoslavian Kingdom.

During the April War in 1941, in 9 war days, 145 pilots died in air combats, while 576 members of the Air Force perished on ground. In that period 1416 combat flights were performed, downing 60 enemy aircraft. Especially, the 5th and 6th Fighter regiment pilots showed exceptional their bravery, and also bombers pilots, causing significant casualties to the enemy at airbases in Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.

After World War II the Air Force underwent several developmental stages, the first major air force modernization being performed from 1953 to 1959. Aircraft made in the West are introduced thus broaching the era of jet aviation. With the forming of first helicopter escadrille in 1954 the chopper units were also incorporated within the Air Forces branch. At the beginning of 1960s supersonic fighters were introduced, followed by intensive growth of Serbian aviation industry in that period. A number of jet planes prototypes were constructed, which served as basis for the development of training fighters and fighter aircraft, such as ”Galeb” and “Jastreb”, “G-4” and “Orao” and the most advanced fighter aircraft MiG-29 was introduced in mid 1980s.

Since its establishment, the Air and Air Defense Forces has numbered tens of thousands of pilots, more than 5000 aircraft, and four types of missile launching mid-range systems, a number of small-range missile launching systems and 15 radar types.

Serbian Air force (Serbian Aviation – Srpska Avijatika) was the fifth ever air force founded in the world in 1912. Serbian Military Aviation was created when the aviation as vital part of the ground units was the question of the prestige under the military commands of the world. When we see what was Serbian position into the account, it was really hard to form the air force knowing that Serbia was very small and poor at the beginning of 20th century. The real reason why Serbia hurried to form the Aviation unit was the growing tension between the Kingdom of Serbia and Austria-Hungary. Also, it was the question of preparing the Balkan countries for the final driving out of Turkish forces from Europe. Serbia was not only aware of all these problems but was also forced to equip Serbian military with the aircraft and the balloons (of course with a great material renunciation). Serbia had purchased the first two balloons in 1909 from Augsburg; the same place where almost 30 years later the Royal Yugoslav Air Force had purchased the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3 in 1937. The time of purchasing these balloons was the time of the growing crisis about the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina under Austria-Hungary, which could have easily caused the war with this great military force. The first six military pilots were trained in France. They finished the course in the beginning of the First Balkan war. On 24 December 1912, the head of the military Minister Radomir Putnik signed the papers about forming the Aviation Command situated in Niš which included : the Aircraft squad which counted 11 military aircraft, the Balloon squad, the Pigeon post and the Base. This date is the date of forming the Military Aviation of Serbia and as well as the whole Yugoslavia. Its first combat experience, Serbian Aviation had experienced in March 1913 over Shkodra which was in the Central Force hands. On the first combat flight, sergeant-pilot Mihajlo Petrović was killed as the second victim of World Military Aviation. The first victim of military aviation was a Bulgarian pilot Topradzijev who was killed in 1912 when he was flying back from the reconnaissance mission over Edirne, Turkey.

Mihajlo Petrović was the first trained Serbian airplane pilot. He completed his training and exams at the famous Farman pilot school in France and was awarded the international FAI license No. 979 in June 1912. His Serbian pilot's license carried the number 1.