Dinara Division

On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Poorly equipped and poorly trained, the Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated.[1] After the invasion, the country was dismembered. The extreme Croat nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, was then appointed Poglavnik (leader) of an Ustaše-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia (often called the NDH, from the Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska). The NDH combined almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern-day Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate."[2] NDH authorities, led by the Ustaše militia,[3] subsequently implemented genocidal policies against the Serb, Jewish and Romani population living within the borders of the new state.[4] Serbs in particular were targeted for incarcerations, massacres, forced emigration, and murder.[5] As a result, two resistance movements emerged – the royalist and Serb Chetniks, led by Colonel Draža Mihailović, and the multi-ethnic, Communist Yugoslav Partisans, led by Josip Broz Tito.[6] Momčilo Đujić, a Serbian Orthodox priest, appointed himself vojvoda (commander) of Chetnik forces in northern Dalmatia.[7] Chetnik movement in Croatia was developed among the Serbs of the Kninska Krajina, central Dalmatia and southern Lika region. These Chetnik groups were formed during separation of the Greater Serbian and pro-Chetnik elements which arose from insurgent Serb groups whose actions were against the military and civilian authorities of the NDH and Ustasha repressive measures against the Serb population.[8] Some of the Greater Serbian and the pro-Chetnik groups were under protection of the Italian occupation army and they gradually became part of their service. After the Zagreb agreement between the NDH authorities and the Italian military authorities from the middle of 1942 these Chetnik groups became part of voluntary anti-communist militias (Milizia volontaria anticomunista) where they were properly supplied with weapons, food, and in time of combat activities against the Partisans paid with money and war loot. During March-April 1942 all these Chetnik groups from the Kninska Krajina, northern Dalmatia and southern Lika area will be united to the Dinara Chetniks Division and placed under the command of the West Bosnian, Lika-Dalmatian and Herzegovinian military Chetnik detachments where they were even better connected to the movement of Draža Mihailović.[9]

Momčilo Đujić, commander of the Dinara Division (left), with an Italian officer

The division was formed in early January 1942 after Đujić was contacted by Mihailović via a courier. Ilija Trifunović-Birčanin played a central role in organizing the units of Chetnik leaders in western Bosnia, Lika, and northern Dalmatia into the Dinara Division and dispatched former Royal Yugoslav Army officers to help. Đujić was designated the commander of the division and its goal was for the "establishment of a Serb national state" in which "an exclusively Orthodox population is to live".[10] According to Đujić: "We were under Draža's command, but we received news and supplies for our struggle from [Dimitrije] Ljotić and [Milan] Nedić. [...] Nedić's couriers reached me in Dinara and mine reached him in Belgrade. He sent me military uniforms for the guardists of the Dinara Chetnik Division; he sent me ten million dinars to obtain for the fighters whatever was needed and whatever could be obtained."[11]

In March 1942 the division prepared a programmatic statement that concerned the "specific conditions of Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Dalmatia, and southwestern Croatia (Lika)." The statement was accepted by commanders of these areas during a conference at Strmica near Knin a month later. The statement echoed the tone of Mihailović's instructions issued in December 1941 to Chetnik commanders Major Đorđije Lašić and Captain Pavle Đurišić in pursuing a Greater Serbia that was to be inhabited solely by Serbs, the establishment of a corridor through the linkage of the territories Herzegovina, northern Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Lika to Slovenia; the mobilization of all Serb nationalists for the ethnic cleansing of other nationalities that existed in Herzegovina, Dalmatia, Bosnia, and Lika. It also elaborated on the division's wartime strategy: "collaboration with the Italians on a live-and-let-live principle, determined struggle against Ustaša formations and the Domobrans, as well as against the Partisans; it is task of the Chetnik movement to prevent increasing number of Croats and Muslims who join the Partisan movement and the main focus must be towards "national Croats", though later they can be eliminated; and the formation of separate Croatian Chetnik units for pro-Yugoslav, anti-Partisan Croats." While towards Muslims "should be patient, not to kill them and plunder ie undertake such methods that Muslims really gain belief that military-Chetnik detachments are their friends", in this regard it is concluded "any premature action against the Muslim population would strengthen the Partisans because they have to sit at their houses so that we destroy them in their homes"[12][13] In the area of the Sassari division according to a report of the Italian 18. Army Corps from 11 August 1942 exist nine Chetnik detachments with total of 12,440 persons under command of Momčilo Đujić, however according to same record only about 2600 persons were armed. While command of 18. Army Corps in mid-September 1942 talks about 4269 people armed with 4197 rifles, 35 light machine guns and 7 machine guns. In order to strengthen the Chetnik positions in the area of the Kninska Krajina and southern Lika at the end of 1942 were transferred about 3,200 Herzegovinian and east Bosnian Chetniks, among whom was and the Zlatibor Chetnik detachment from Serbia which remained there until March 1943. In the late summer of 1944 Dinara Division has about 6500 of Chetniks.[14][15]

During early February 1943, as the Partisans began to prevail over the Chetniks as part of Case White, Đujić and Petar Baćović attempted to mount a counteroffensive around Bosansko Grahovo in western Bosnia preliminary to re-capturing Drvar. This was opposed by the Germans and made no headway.[16] By early August, the Dinara Division was "poorly formed, badly armed and disciplined", lacked accurate rolls of its members, and consisted of no more than 3,000 effectives. Lieutenant Colonel Mladen Žujović, one of Mihailović's few remaining delegates in the area, concluded that the division was "a pure figment of the imagination."[17]

On 21 December 1944, after Đujić requested a written guarantee from Ante Pavelić to afford him and his forces refuge in German-occupied Slovenia, Pavelić ordered the military forces of the Independent State of Croatia to give Đujić's division free passage. However, Đujić went through an alternate route towards the Istrian peninsula, as the routes offered by Pavelić were not secure from Partisan attacks, and killed the Croatian population along the way.[18] When Đujić reached Slovenia, his forces joined Dobroslav Jevđević's Chetniks, Dimitrije Ljotić's Serbian Volunteer Corps, and the remnants of Milan Nedić's Serbian Shock Corps in forming a single unit that was under the command of Odilo Globocnik of the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Adriatic Littoral.[18][19]

In May 1945, Đujić surrendered the Dinara division to Allied forces. Its members were then taken to southern Italy. From there, they were taken to displaced persons camps in Germany and then dispersed. After staying in Paris from 1947 to 1949, Đujić emigrated to the United States,[20] where many members of the Dinara division are believed to have followed him. Other members of the division emigrated to Canada and settled there.[21] Đujić lived in the United States until his death in San Diego, California in September 1999.[20]