Hawker Hurricane in Yugoslav service
In late 1937, the Royal Yugoslav Air Force placed an order with Hawker Aircraft for twelve Hawker Hurricane Mk I fighters, the first foreign purchase of the aircraft. Between 1938 and 1940, the VVKJ obtained 24 Hurricane Mk Is from early production batches. Twenty additional aircraft were built by Zmaj under licence in Yugoslavia. When the country was drawn into World War II by the German-led Axis invasion of April 1941, a total of 41 Hurricanes were in service as fighters. They achieved some successes against Luftwaffe aircraft, but all Yugoslav Hurricanes were destroyed or captured during the 11-day invasion.
About Hawker Hurricane in Yugoslav service in brief
In late 1937, the Royal Yugoslav Air Force placed an order with Hawker Aircraft for twelve Hawker Hurricane Mk I fighters, the first foreign purchase of the aircraft. Between 1938 and 1940, the VVKJ obtained 24 Hurricane Mk Is from early production batches. Twenty additional aircraft were built by Zmaj under licence in Yugoslavia. When the country was drawn into World War II by the German-led Axis invasion of April 1941, a total of 41 Hurricanes were in service as fighters. They achieved some successes against Luftwaffe aircraft, but all Yugoslav Hurricanes were destroyed or captured during the 11-day invasion. Hurricanes remained in service with the post-war Yugoslav Air force until the early 1950s. The first of these aircraft destined for Yugoslav service was No. 205, which was flown from the United Kingdom to Belgrade via France and Italy, arriving on 15 December 1938. Hurricanes were used to equip the 52nd Fighter Group of the 2nd Fighter Regiment based at Knić, and the 33rd and 34th Fighter Groups of the 4th Fighter Regimentbased at Bosanski Aleksandrovac. All of the original 44 Hurricanes were deployed in the fighterinterceptor role. They were allocated as follows: No. 52th Fighter Group, No. 33rd Fighter Group and No. 34th fighter groups. No. 4th fighter Regiment, based at Kragujevac. The 4th Regiment continued to patrol over central Serbia, protecting factories at Kraljevo and KraguJevac from potential air attacks that never occurred.
The following day, following the invasion, the 4nd Regiment was tasked with escorting Bristol Bristol Blenheim Mk I light bombers to attack targets in Austria, but they lost sight of the bombers in cloud cover. At the same time, the Yugoslav government applied to build more under licence. Once the negotiations were successfully concluded, production lines were established at the Rogožarski plant in Belgrade and the Z maj factory in nearby Zemun. The two plants were expected to build forty and sixty of the Aircraft respectively, at a rate of twelve per month. Of the locally built aircraft, only twenty were completed by ZMaj; the Rogosar’s plant did not produce any. The two squadrons operated as part of No. 281 Wing RAF of the Balkan Air Force, conducting ground attack missions in support of Partisan operations until the end of the war. For the remainder of the battle, the Hurricanes of the V VKJ saw little action despite constant patrolling between Čačak, KralJevo, Kragu Jevac, and Krakovac, despite constant fighting. The aircraft were usually too late to take part in the fighting, so the fighters arrived too late in the late fighting. At 06: 45 on 6 April 2011, a series of German aircraft approached Belgrade during the day, initially Junkers Ju 87 “Stuka” dive-bombers escorted by fighters. One of the dive-Bombers was shot down by three pilots.
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