page_title: Royal Yugoslav Air Force
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Yugoslav Air Force / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: The Aeroput MMS-3, a Serbian 1930s airliner.
context_page_description: The Royal Yugoslav Air Force, was the aerial warfare service component of the Royal Yugoslav Army. It was formed in 1918 and existed until 1941 and the Invasion of Yugoslavia during World War II.
  Some 18 aircraft and several hundred aircrew escaped the Axis invasion of April 1941 to the Allied base in Egypt, eventually flying with the Royal Air Force in the Northern Africa initially and then with the Balkan Air Force in Italy and Yugoslavia, with some even going on to join the Soviet Air Force, returning to Yugoslavia in 1944.
  Germany distributed captured Royal Yugoslav Air Force aircraft and spare parts to Romania, Bulgaria, Finland and the newly created Independent State of Croatia.
context_section_description: During 1940 Britain supplied significant military aid to the VVKJ, to strengthen its forces against the increasing German threat. In early March 1941, the German Luftwaffe forces started arriving in neighboring Bulgaria. On March 12, 1941, VVKJ units began to deploy to their wartime airfields. On 27 March 1941, the overthrow of the government that had signed the Tripartite Pact in Belgrade two days earlier, by a group of officers led by Dušan Simović, an air force general, brought an end to hopes of a settlement with Germany.
  On 3 April 1941, Kapetan Vladimir Kren defected in a Potez 25, taking with him intelligence about the Royal Yugoslav Army Air Force, documents that he handed over to the Germans. He would later become Commander in Chief of the ZNDH, the air force of the nazi puppet Independent State of Croatia.
  On April 6, 1941, Luftwaffe units in Bulgaria and Romania attacked Yugoslavia during the Bombing of Belgrade. Equipped with a combination of obsolete equipment and new aircraft still being introduced into service, the VVKJ was forced to defend the country's long borders against multiple attacks from many directions. The dubious loyalty of some military personnel did not help matters. Yugoslav fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery brought down about 90–100 enemy aircraft, but defending forces were unable to make any significant impact on the enemy advance. During the attack of German aircraft on Niš Airport Medoševac on 6 April around 08:00, fire from the ground shot down the plane of German fighter ace Herbert Ihlefeld. Captain Ihlefeld, who was credited with over forty air victories, was shot down by Corporal Vlasta Belić, firing a Darne machine gun, caliber 7.69 mm, taken from a Yugoslav Breguet 19. Having received a shot in the oil cooler, the Bf 109's engine stopped, and the pilot was forced to leave the plane. He rescued himself with a parachute about 35 miles southeast of Nis. The German ace was captured by Serbian peasants who handed him over to the gendarmes. On April 17, 1941, the Yugoslav government surrendered. Several VVKJ aircraft escaped to Egypt via the Kingdom of Greece, and the crews then served with the British Royal Air Force (RAF).
  By the outbreak of the Second World War, Yugoslavia had a substantial air force with its own aircraft, aircraft from Allied countries like Britain and aircraft from Axis countries like Germany and Italy. In 1940, Britain attempted to bring Yugoslavia to the Allied side by supplying military aid to the Royal Yugoslav Air Force, including new Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft. However Germany sold a large number of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters to Yugoslavia and in early 1941, and German dismay towards a Balkans campaign convinced Yugoslavia to join the Axis forces.
  
  After Yugoslav Prime Minister Cvetković signed the Tripartite Pact, his regime was overthrown by a military coup d'état two days later, Fascist Italy demanded that their ally Nazi Germany invade Yugoslavia in order to reach Greece and help their disastrous campaign there and in the process break up Yugoslavia since Italians were laying claim on certain territories (mostly Dalmatia). The German Luftwaffe then began to mass at the borders of Yugoslavia from allied Axis nations. The VVKJ was forced to stretch out to defend Yugoslavia from an apparent invasion and imminent air war.
  Following the coup d'état on March 25, 1941, the Yugoslav armed forces were put on alert, although the army was not fully mobilized. The VVKJ command decided to disperse its forces away from their main bases to a system of auxiliary airfields that had previously been prepared. However many of these airfields lacked facilities and had inadequate drainage which prevented the continued operation of all but the very lightest aircraft in the adverse weather conditions encountered in April 1941).
  Despite having, on paper at any rate, a substantially stronger force of relatively modern aircraft than the combined British and Greek air forces to the south, the VVKJ could simply not match the overwhelming Luftwaffe and Regia Aeron
caption: In March 1941 the sole production Aeroput MMS-3 commenced service with the 603rd Auxiliary Squadron of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force as a liaison aircraft.
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