MY TESTIMONY ABOUT OF THE WAR OPERATION "UNA-95"
After the Military-Police
Operation "Oluja 95" and the magnificent victory in that operation,
and the liberation of most of the occupied territory of the Republic of
Croatia, as brigade scouts of the 2nd Guards Brigade "Grom",
reinforced by a tank crew, we were stationed in Maja in Banovina from where we
often went to the so-called actions of clearing the terrain from the remaining
broken enemy groups and individuals, of which there were many in the forests
and hamlets of the hilly Banovina.
Although most of the enemy surrendered or fled to Bosnia and Herzegovina or the
Republic of Serbia, fearing retaliation for ethnic cleansing and numerous war
crimes in the occupied territory of the Republic of Croatia, some armed enemy
forces and individuals hid in the woods unwilling to surrender. Although they
are all guaranteed forgiveness or amnesty, unless they have committed war
crimes.
As such, they posed
a serious danger to the population who began to return to their destroyed and
burned villages from which they had been expelled in 1991. And that after the
ethnic cleansing by the insurgent Serbs, which was helped and armed by Slobodan
Milosevic and the government of the Republic of Serbia, with the help of the
so-called Yugoslav People's Army, which was completely taken over by the
Republic of Serbia after the independence of the Republic of Croatia.
We were already pretty well trained for all kinds of fighting, so when the
order for action arrived on September 18, 1995, we routinely prepared for
another “one day at work”.
The first platoon
of our company went to Dvor na Uni, while we from second platoon were
transferred by truck, accompanied by the Military Police to Hrvatska Dubica. I
know that the Military Officer wished us luck when he escorted us to the
gathering place.
It was foggy, in the morning, and we waited for the fog to dissipate so the
action could begin.
I was glad to see
comrades from the first infantry battalion called "Black Mamba". We
were in the same barracks in Trstenik with them, so I knew many of them. And in
"Oluji" our platoon was added to the first battalion and I know that
the boys are great warriors and many of them went through the entire Homeland
War and had great experience in the battles for the freedom of Croatia.
We were only partially acquainted with the details of the action that awaited
us. We acted in the auxiliary direction of the attack Hrvatska Dubica -
Bosanska Dubica. We were supposed to provide a bridgehead when the fog lifted
to introduce other forces and armor across the Una, probably planning to build
a pontoon bridge to cross tanks and other vehicles.
I know I wasn’t
overly nervous, there was adrenaline as the battle prepared. But I had comrades
with me with whom I felt safe. And combined with our tanks, I believed we were
unstoppable.
The fog lifted and
we lay down on the shelters on our shore and waited for the guys with the armor
to clear the opposite shore where the enemy bunkers were.
And it started ...
The earth shook from the hundreds of explosions that hit the opposite bank of
the Una. I know I thought that on the other shore no one can survive. It seemed
both terrifying and impressive as the explosions lifted the earth from the
trenches and the concrete of enemy bunkers into the air.
The detonations stopped and we went to the boat that was supposed to transfer
us to the opposite shore.
Boarding the boat
we noticed that we would be driven by a regular soldier. We
asked him if he was afraid to which he replied that if we are not afraid,
neither is he. He later deservedly received a high decoration for bravery as he
drove a boat across the river and back for the duration of the fierce battle.
He deserved the sincere respect of all of us.
We set off in the first boat, our 2nd Reconnaissance Squadron with
individuals from the 1st Infantry Battalion. There were maybe a dozen of us
because some people were on sick leave due to injuries in "Oluja".
Tubes aimed at the enemy shore, me in my camouflage hat and with an M72 machine
gun. We tried to be as few targets as possible in the boat in case they started
shooting at us.
Suddenly, on almost half of the Una River, the boat's engine stopped
working. Una was fast, muddy and swollen and started to carry and turn us.
While the conscript
was trying to start the boat's engine, my detachment commander managed and told
us to start paddling with rifles.
We were already
starting to grab the barrels of the rifles when the boat’s engine finally
started but the river took us quite a distance from the planned landing area
that ours had cleared with explosives.
As we approached
the shore, we all started shooting towards the part we were going to land on
because we weren’t sure if there were any enemies in that area so we covered
ourselves with fire.
We finally landed along the shore which was quite steep. Several friends
had already climbed the embankment and I slid into the water almost to my
waist, trying to climb the muddy embankment with my hands. My comrades dragged
me up the embankment.
After disembarking,
we began to deploy along the coast targeting nearby bunkers and trenches. Good
thing they were empty.
The boat, meanwhile, returned for another group from the 1st Infantry Battalion
waiting on our shore.
As we lined up
along the river along the bank, a comrade realized that we had entered a
minefield, he saw part of an antipersonnel mine protruding from the ground next
to him. We were a few meters short of their trenches, so we slowly switched one
by one along the tracks made by the predecessor in front of us. We were lucky,
because if someone had been hurt now, it wouldn’t have ended well.
In front of us was a clearing that needed to be crossed to get to the
first few houses. We developed into archers and half-bent we crossed the
clearing slowly with a distance of a few meters between us. Extremely dangerous
part without any shelter. Without shelter you feel extremely vulnerable, you
feel like the first bullet fired will kill you.
It was only as we
approached the houses that we were opened fire on from several windows of one
of the houses. We took refuge under the walls and threatened to blow them up if
they did not surrender. As the firing continued, we began throwing bombs
through the windows of the house.
I know I thought,
if the bomb bounces off the wall or is returned to us, we’re done, because we
were crammed into a group in the open under the wall of the house that provided
us with some sort of shelter from the fire inside.
Then several
explosions of bombs were heard from the house and the glass on the windows
shattered around us.
The firing stopped and someone inside shouted that we should not shoot that
there were children in the house.
We shouted for them
to come out with their hands up and surrender.
After that, a woman
came out, followed by two children with raised arms and one badly wounded
enemy, whom we disarmed and lay on the ground. But he soon bled to death
because a shrapnel bomb hit him in the eye. The other enemy had already been
killed in a fight with each other before, so we just dragged him out of the
house. I immediately took his M-48 and put it on my back.
We entered the house and I went upstairs to inspect the top floor room by room.
As I entered the room, I would kick open the door and enter aiming at possible
hidden enemies. But we didn't find anyone in that house anymore. We checked to
see if there were any more weapons inside.
A friend picks up a
telephone receiver from which a signal is heard that the telephone line is OK.
We joked that we should call our homes.
In the meantime, several boats with the boys from the 1st Battalion had already
arrived, so there were already enough of us to fight if the enemy
counterattacked.
We inspected
several other surrounding houses that were scattered along the coast, along the
road, a few hundred meters from the entrance to Bosanska Dubica. We did not
encounter enemies, but only an old woman.
We put the woman
and children in the house with that old woman and threatened them not to go
out, not to accidentally shoot them. In the chaos of battle, you usually shoot
first and ask who it is. We should not have civilians or people on our
conscience who are not a threat to us.
Suddenly, from one of the houses, which we have already inspected, the enemy
jumps out of the window and starts running across the road into the nearby
cornfield about twenty meters away. We shouted for him to stop, but as he did
not listen to us, I fired several bullets at him from the side. I don’t know if
I wounded him but he’s already lost in the corn.
He caught us
unprepared because we had already relaxed a bit after the initial fight. And we
were convinced that the houses we inspected were empty and that we were not in
danger from that side. You are often in a situation where you cannot inspect
every part of the house in detail because you have to go further. It could have
cost us our lives.
Afterwards my
friends teased me a bit that I let him go on purpose because I was a good
shooter otherwise. The truth is that I was sorry then that I didn’t hit him
because he posed a danger as he was behind our backs somewhere in the corn.
After regrouping, we embarked on a comprehensive attack on the city. We scouts,
with part of the infantry from the 1st Battalion, marched in a column along a
path above the town, while the rest of the infantry marched along the road
towards the town. There weren’t a hundred of us or a little more overall. And
they set off for a small town that was supposed to number thousands of people.
And without the escort of armored vehicles.
Bold and silly. But
I guess the commanders know what they are doing (I'm sure they were so
comforted in the trenches of the First World War, the commanders should
supposedly know everything, from the comfort of their offices ...).
Our group in a column, with a distance of several meters from each other, set
off across a canal to a nearby hill. We have already walked maybe 200 meters.
There were a dozen people in front of me, we were mixed with comrades from the
infantry. We exited the canal that ran through the clearing toward the hill and
entered a path that led through sparse trees that provided at least some
protection from the view from the direction of the city.
And then hell broke loose!
A little earlier,
below us, a burst of gunfire was heard from several weapons. The infantry, who
were walking along the road directly towards the city, entered into battle with
the enemy. Bursts are heard, bomb explosions ...
The front of our group had already reached some old school on the hill when
they started beating us from an armored anti-aircraft three-barrel with
explosive ammunition.
We lay on the
ground as frightening pieces of scattered anti-aircraft bullets buzzed around
us, piercing the walls of the old school as if they were made of paper.
The branches of the
rare trees around us were falling on me and my friends. If only I could dig a
deep hole with my teeth, but I doubt it could protect me even then.
The guys tried with
several anti-tank hand grenades to hit an armored vehicle that was constantly
firing at us. But the vehicle was on a nearby hill, too far away to be aimed
precisely, so the rockets fell long before that vehicle.
A little later, the
firing on us stopped. I don’t know if anyone hit him or they just retreated. I
saw guided missiles flying through the air, Maljutka, from our side, so that
was probably the reason they stopped fighting at us.
A few meters in front of me lay Aunt Nena (that's what we called her from miles
away), nurse Nevenka Topalusic, who only went with us with a medical bag at the
top of the attack. The true heroine of the Homeland War, died at the veterans'
protests in Zagreb on October 22, 2014. Since then, that Square has been named
after her: Nevenka Topalusic Square. An incredibly brave woman. I was happy
that she was close to me, because if I was wounded, I would have her
professional help. I felt safer. She was like a mother to us twenty-year-olds
kids.
We lay in that place for quite a long time, we couldn't move because they were
constantly beating on us and around us. There was a constant buzzing of
bullets. And in the distance constant bursts.
Fierce gunfire was
heard below, there was close combat as our infantry entered into close combat
before entering the city.
Suddenly, a few meters in front of me and Aunt Nena, a mortar shell of a larger
caliber fell. The detonation lifted us a few centimeters into the air and
covered us with a layer of earth falling on us from the explosion. Lying down
saved our lives because shrapnel flew over us. I felt a strong shock wave and
was in shock for probably half a minute. Tinnitus...
Little by little I began to hear the voice of Aunt Nena calling out to me:
Pedi, are you wounded, are you all right? I looked at her, covered with earth,
who was also covered with earth. I point to her ears and wave my palms so I
can't hear her. And she nodded to me and showed that she heard almost nothing.
Then we just laughed at each other. We were very lucky that we were not
dismembered. I check to see if I have blood in my ears but my eardrums have not
ruptured. It's okay for now.
In front of us is a downhill and at 200-300 meters you can see one of the
streets of the town with a series of houses and a road. Around us a few trees,
behind us a thick bush next to which is a cornfield. At the bottom left, where
we came from, a few hundred meters you can see the river Una with an alley and
some houses. At the top of the hill, about 50 meters from me, is the old school
building.
I was surprised to see a van full of uniformed enemies passing through the city
on a side road. A few of us opened fire on him and the van turned
uncontrollably off the road into a yard of one of the houses in the suburbs
that was closest to us. Several enemies scattered around the houses in that
alley, while the driver and a couple of people remained lying in their seats,
apparently dead.
As we later learned
in a difficult way, it was a group of well-trained snipers. They were deployed
in those houses, on the windows and roofs, and they killed and wounded a lot of
our people.
In our group, the guys from the infantry who were left in the cleared area
behind us, without shelter, had the hardest time. Snipers fired at them one by
one. Some would only be wounded, so if someone went to help them, they would
kill him.
We were thus cut
off from the bulk of the forces that were grouped near the Una by the
surrounding houses.
Someone called Aunt Nena because there were a lot of wounded and she went to
help the wounded. She herself suffered several wounds and ended up in a
wheelchair. When she set out to bend down to help the wounded, all I know is
that I thought in shock; woman of God where are you going ... Subconsciously
happy that I don't have to go anywhere from my position because the tall grass
in front of me hid me enough from the view of the enemy, even though we were on
a hill.
But still our
group, which was lying, was exposed without any shelter, except for those rare
trees around us. If they started shelling us harder, the grenade could explode
on one of the branches and explode in the air, so lying on the ground wouldn't
help.
Every now and then a sound would be heard that, as if from the depths of hell,
passed between us and Una, and would be created by bullets from snipers. They
were probably specially adapted sniper bullets because ordinary bullets pierce
the sound barrier and sound completely different, more like the buzzing of
hornets. These sounds were frightening, as if passing through a tunnel, like
the muffled roar of some beast. Since we were on a hill, those bullets were
passing under us and that’s probably why that sound was weird to us.
Later, when we knew
more about the details of the action, I learned that almost every sound took
someone’s life or hurt someone. They were very precise. They knew how to
intentionally injure someone, so they would kill anyone who went to help them.
A few meters next to me was my friend from the platoon, Zmaj. I see him
constantly shooting at houses lower in the city. I ask him what he is shooting
at and he points to a clearing near the city and says: "The
godparents" are coming at us.
I was lying
sideways in relation to him so he had a better view of the city. I had
something to see, the enemy as in the movies over some clearing bent runners
towards us. I opened fire too. I still think to myself, what kind of fools go
like moving targets in front of the barrels of our weapons.
I later assumed
that the Serbs had forced their own, who had fled before us in
"Oluja," to storm to certain death.
The attack was
somewhat repulsed. I guess they no longer had anyone to sacrifice in vain.
I look towards Una when I see two enemy planes dropping bombs and rocketing
positions on our coast. As we were on the hill, they were almost at eye level.
I later learned that one was "Jastreb" and the other was
"Orao", from the Serbian Air Force.
As they turned, I
saw exactly their cabins and both wings and firing rockets at comrades who were
across the Una, on our shore.
I think to myself,
I guess they won't come to us now. I have no shelter. I felt helpless, like I
was bare-handed in front of a T-Rex. We have no chance of surviving if they are
told we are here. But they did not attack us.
We lay in the same places for hours. I said all the prayers I could think of, I
promised God that if I got out, I would never go to war again ... I pulled out
my gun, put a bullet in the barrel with the intention of not falling alive into
their hands. Scouts and snipers usually get by badly when caught alive.
I also forgot I had
an M-48 on my back. A more powerful and accurate rifle than my machine gun.
We shot at the
roofs and windows of the houses, assuming that the snipers were beating ours
from there. Everything was by heart. Too far to see or guess anything well.
Every window, every tile, door is suspicious ...
From time to time the buzzing of bullets around us would remind us that they
know we are here. And grenades would fly over us, towards Una. Their familiar
buzz was heard as they passed above. These are not as dangerous as those whose
buzzing you do not hear. Rarely that would fall a little closer to us, maybe
some 100 meters.
All this time I was naively consoling myself that ours would finally build a
pontoon bridge and that our tanks would come. Then they might have some chance.
Although I later learned that in the meantime from Banja Luka and from the
entire so-called Republika Srpska received large reinforcements to the enemy in
manpower and technology.
At first we
surprised them in that auxiliary direction of attack so they sent most of the
people to defend the main direction of the attack. But they soon organized and
deployed and we had a nasty battle on our line of action as well.
A new shock ensued when I heard behind my back from the bushes someone or
something coming breaking branches around me. I thought exactly that the enemy
had come behind us.
I lie on my back
and prepare for a burst of gunfire. When a comrade from the 1st Battalion
springs up. He came through the branches to pick us up to get us to the school
building.
A stone fell from
my heart. Good thing I didn't shoot blindly. The few of us who had been lying
for an eternity (at least it seemed so to me) on that part, crawled to the
branches and met the rest of the people, about ten of them, at the old school
building that was about fifty yards from our previous positions. But it still
provided some shelter from mortars and snipers.
We only had to run
through a cleared area of ten meters, which our
comrade-in-arms warned us to run one by one because the enemy was covering it
with snipers. There were already wounded in that part. I have to conclude that
I have never run faster in zigzag than then.
We met the others from our group and heard
what the situation was like. Only then did we find out what problems we were in
because until then we had no connection with the others. A friend from my room,
Zeljko, was also wounded there. They managed to pull him down to the bulk of
the forces along the Una and by boat across the river.
There we were left
to bandage a comrade from the 1st Battalion who was shot in the chest. And we
could relax a little as much as the situation allowed. Although there was
constant gunfire and shelling. Several friends went to the first nearby house
to see if there was food and to bring us water.
And so cut off we
prepared for a possible fight. We checked the ammunition. I didn't spend too
many bullets because they fired single shots, you never know how long you'll be
out of supplies so you don't scatter unnecessary bursts of fire. It was still
fine for me, since I had one version of the Kalashnikov that uses ammunition
that the enemy has. My comrades from the unit had another type of weapon with NATO
ammunition.
There were about fifteen of us, with one seriously wounded. We also welcomed
dusk.
When here is
Shargija picking us up through the cornfield. He is one of the bravest warriors
I know. In open offensive battles, as well as in sabotage actions, we scouts
were often the tip of the blade, and Shargia was usually the first.
We took the door off the school and put on it a badly wounded comrade who had
already lost a lot of blood and was completely pale. I was almost certain he
wouldn’t get away with it. Luckily I was wrong, years later I found out he
stayed alive.
We made our way a little through the cornfield to the bulk of our forces that
were next to the houses near Una. There we regrouped and waited to see what to
do next. We finally managed to hurry up and eat something.
That's when we
found out what kind of massacre we experienced, that we couldn't reach the
bodies of our dead, about the strength of the fighting, the multitude of
wounded ...
A semicircular
defense was made and the groups alternated during the night in the defense thus
made. A few of us scouts from the 2nd platoon lined up on the beds in the room
where the field command was and took a nap for maybe 2 hours in sitting
positions, without taking off our combat equipment.
We managed to overhear conversations with the Motorola with the commander on
our shore who stubbornly says that the "Gromovi" are not retreating.
It's as if he doesn't hear people shouting at him on the edge of his strength over
Motorola that there is no one to hold his defense, that if they attack us, they
will run over us.
We also hear the
enemy interrupting the conversation because he took a Motorola from one of our
killed comrades.
I don't know if there are maybe half of us left who started the attack. The
others were either dead or wounded. The losses were great.
Later it was our
turn to take up defensive positions around the group. We were there for about
an hour. We saw nothing but the flash of grenades. But that's why the noise of
vehicles was heard in the distance.
The better you do;
the river swelled behind us, not a hundred of us remained in the enemy's area,
the enemy was accumulating forces in front of us ...
For some time I had
no hope of getting out alive.
At last the sound of the engine on the boat began to be heard from our shore,
and we learned that a retreat had been ordered. Midnight is long gone, soon
darkness will not protect us.
Boat by boat until
everyone from the 1st Battalion got out. We were the only scouts left to guard
the retreat.
The boat arrived for us. We slowly retreated to the river bank in the dark and
began to board.
Shargia was, of
course, the last to retreat. He came to us a few who had not yet boarded and
said that the enemy was very close, he was approaching us little by little
during the night, they could be heard talking and hitting the equipment on the
move.
We were the last to board the boat. The boat heads towards our shore with the
first rays of light.
We made it. We made
our way to our shore. If we had only stayed a little longer, I most likely
would not have written this.
We slept for a few hours in the morning in houses on our coast. We didn't even
hear that there was still shooting around Una.
And Brle, and Zmaj,
and the deceased Hrpa... and all the other comrades, my brothers in arms with
whom I shared both good and evil in those battles, we managed to sleep for a
while in the houses, on soft beds. Although in clothes and equipment, with a rifle
in his arms. It was like a 5 star hotel.
Only those who have
been through it can understand that. You don’t need much to be happy when
you’re in a situation like that.
They woke us up from sleep because supposedly enemy helicopters were heading
towards us.
And it was said
that we would return to the attack, again across the river. Oh God...
I don’t know how many people reading this will be able to comprehend that
feeling: We barely got our heads out alive, reconciled first that we weren’t
going to get away, and yet we barely manage to get out. Completely demoralized.
What about going back now? Now that the enemy is eagerly waiting for us with
much stronger forces in manpower and technology?
I went and sat halfway across the meadow behind the house where we slept for a
couple of hours. I put the bullet in the barrel and waited for the helicopters.
I didn't care if I
was going to die ... From a helicopter, a sniper ... Just to be quick ...
But let me at least
get a chance to shoot myself. Because if we go back to attack, we won't cross
Una either, we'll be dead, either from bullets or drowning.
Still a false alarm. The attack was abandoned ...
We went back to the
road, to our truck. Good thing one of ours remembered not to sit in the truck
right away, but to walk along the ravines along the road, next to the truck.
The road was near the Una River. We later saw that the tarp on the truck had
been ripped off.
We were lucky. We returned to the field base in Maja. If going through such
hell can be called that we were lucky. The brain remembers, the consequences
remain permanent, forever. Unlike the others, we are back. Many are not.
On our way back, we
learned that our friends from the 1st Platoon of the Reconnaissance Company had
ambushed the main direction of the attack. Many were wounded. Mostly difficult.
They were expecting them.
Operation "Una-95" took 49 lives, of which 26 was from our Brigade
"Grom". Of that, 13 ours comrades from "Grom" were killed
in our attack area. We could not pull out the 9 dead because the enemy formed a
strong line of defense in the part where our fallen comrades remained lying.
111 people were
injured. And all in just over 24 hours.
Who to blame? Command leadership, Serbs, Croats, yourself, destiny?
Whoever we blame
will not bring back the lives of the dead, they will not heal the physical and
mental wounds left.
But I would like
the real truth about the causes and consequences to finally be known. Whatever
she was.
I listened to everything, everything was written about the action. As the
operation was hastily planned in Zagreb because we allegedly got the green
light from the USA, so the generals wanted to prove themselves in planning the
operation without field reconnaissance, not taking into account the swollen
river and the strength of the opponents, the number of people sent to cities in
which is inhabited by 10-20 times more enemies than we were in the attack. And
that even at a time when a lot of our comrades were on vacation or recovering
from injuries in the "Oluja" that was a month before.
Well, if they had changed their minds in the USA, because the destruction of
the so-called Republika Srpska created a huge number of refugees in Serbia ...
Because on the other hand, the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina launched an
attack with which we were supposed to destroy the Serbs enemy in that area ...
All this sounds like a cheap excuse for the planners of this action to justify
the large number of losses on our part and the heaviest defeat we suffered just
before the end of the Homeland War.
As if they didn’t
care about our lives.
How to explain some things today to people who are burdened with wearing blue
or green clothes, who are stressed if their boss yells at them at work ... Who
moan for months if they run over a cat on the road. Who tell us today how
privileged we are ...
I made an effort to write this my memory of that event. There is certainly a
lot that I have left out. It is simply impossible to write everything. I forgot
something, something was too emotional to write ...
And to know this: Only in "Oluja" and "Una" 1995, in just
over a month, so in just two actions that lasted a total of about a week, the
reconnaissance company "Grom" had half the people wounded and injured,
with one killed members - Darko Lisac.
Our company
numbered about thirty men in the fighting force at the time, deployed in the
1st and 2nd Platoons.
We who have
survived will carry that event all our lives as a physical and mental wound
that will never heal.
It never happened
again to anyone and never!
For all the dead:
Rest in the peace of God.
Note: The text is electronically translated with Google Translate.
