mysterious Danube river fightings in 1944/1945

[lupodimare89]

So what else is new for German naval special force operations on the lakes and rivers? No hurry.
Edward L. Hsiao

Sorry, but for the time's being (well, at least the whole end of summer) i will focus on the Ultra files for Black Sea/Azov Sea.
Also i should stress that whatever work on rivers/lakes without documents of Heer (Army) and Luftwaffe (that included some naval units) will be incomplete. Personally i've little idea where to find these data (if they exists/were not destroyed).

[lupodimare89]

So what else is new for German naval special force operations on the lakes and rivers? No hurry.


Edward L. Hsiao

Thanks the very good croat site "Paluba" forum, i found link for a big database library of Yugoslavian literature. I am currently on the process to read the big 3 main files with all the wartime records of Partisan Naval flotilla and i am collecting a big amount of info, detail, descriptions of what so-far have been only limited descriptions of Adriatic Sea actions. Sometimes tiny corrections or never-seen before wartime episodes.
I hoped to find a similar collection for the data concerning Yugoslavian Danube operations (mostly since late November 1944), but so far i only found general files of the ground operations in the area. Hopefully there will be info also of the riverine crafts, but i am not sure if there will be direct reference of potential clashes with German assault boats in late April 1945, nor detailed info of actual losses.

Hopefully i could dig in these files during 2021, because i am using my holidays spare time to finish the Adriatic files

[lupodimare89]

So what else is new for German naval special force operations on the lakes and rivers? No hurry.
Edward L. Hsiao

Not on rivers, but an interesting raid by "Linse" crafts against Split harbor on 12 February 1945. Spotted in advance, intense harbor defense fire likely destroyed 3 crafts (or they exploded too early), without target confirmed as hit or damaged.

I have also came across scattered brief reports of the Yugoslavian partisan fotillas in Sava river and Damube River active mostly in 1945 for transportation. No real contact with enemy (that Soviet claim of Yugoslavian losses remain unconfirmed so-far) because scarcety of data and documents over it. However there were few significant losses by mines in the rivers (but also the Ustasha flotilla lost earlier some units for mines: while Germans left behind mines, also Allied aircrafts air-dropped mines in 1944/45: in the end it's quite difficult to differentiate).