Description

On 25 May 1944, 800 men of the 500th SS Parachute Battalion descended on Drvar, a town behind enemy lines in north-western Bosnia. Their aim was to kill or capture Tito, the leader of the partisan movement in the region. The plan was to land the battalion by glider and parachute in two waves which would be relieved the next day by a ground assault. Tito knew an attack was imminent but dismissed the idea of an airborne assault. The attempt to eliminate Tito was a colossal failure. The elite battalion had been decimated, with only 200 men fit for duty the next day. Inter-agency rivalry between the Abwehr and the SS had meant that intelligence was not shared, a problem exacerbated by a failure to exploit HUMINT about Tito's precise location and the adoption of a plan that did not take into account these intelligence limitations.

Product details

Published Jun 20 2012
Format Ebook (PDF)
Edition 1st
Extent 80
ISBN 9781849086028
Imprint Osprey Publishing
Illustrations 35 b/w; 11 col
Series Raid
Short code RAID 32
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

David Greentree

David Greentree graduated from the University of Y…

Illustrator

Johnny Shumate

Johnny Shumate works as a freelance illustrator li…

Illustrator

Mark Stacey

Mark Stacey was born in Manchester, UK, in 1964 an…

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