Partisan attack on Lopare and Operation "Full Moon". On the night between 8 and 9 June 1944, the Partisan XVI Vojvodina Division fiercely attacked Lopare, Zajednice and Brezovača, where it was awaited by the I Battalion of the 28th Regiment and the 7th and 6th batteries of the Artillery Regiment, 13th SS Mountain Division "Handschar". The fighting lasted all night, from the early evening until the early morning hours – when the decisive charge was made, and when howitzers, bombs and machine guns got replaced with rifle butts and bayonets (the following quotes were taken from books "A Youth Given For Freedom" by Nikola Božić and "Himmler's Bosnian Division" by George Lepre). A memoir of Partisan Milenko Novaković Brale (a political commissar): "The confused 'fez-wearers' were jumping out of the burning houses, half-dressed, bitterly fighting to save their lives. It was one of the most horrific night combats, hand-to-hand, that I experienced during the war. There were houses, vehicles and trench roofs burning everywhere. The centre of Lopare turned into a real battlefield. Rifle butts and knives were primarily used. I came out of a clash with a skinned cheek. Some tall SS guy hit me with the butt of a German Mauser rifle, but only a moment later he fell too, pierced by the bayonet of a fighter next to me." A memoir of SS soldier Eduard Roth (a German, radioman): "I was engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with fixed bayonet when one of my comrades was shot through the throat. I carried him to the first-aid tent. Upon my arrival, the medical orderly received a gunshot wound in the arm, which I bandaged. I then crawled back to my radio position [...]. I was alone. In the meantime, a wild shootout had broken out at the pack animal collection point [...]. As we later learned, the enemy killed most of our mules and horses. The Partisans were virtually on top of my position, but as I had only four rounds of ammunition left, I could do little. Had I fired even once I would not be alive today. To be honest, I didn't think that I would make it through that night." Partisan Milenko Novaković also wrote: "Indignant by all the things that they heard about the outrageous crimes committed by members of this division in the southwestern Syrmia and Majevica, the Syrmians simply burned with impatience to grab the villains by their throats [...]" (The SS men who defended Lopare were in fact mostly inexperienced, newly-mustered recruits.) SS NCO Heinz Stratmann (a German, artilleryman) hinted: "I won't go into detail about how gruesomely our dead had been mutilated by the enemy, but I will say that even during my two years of combat in Russia I had never experienced anything so horrible." A memoir of Partisan Ante Bralić (a political commissar): "I spotted a Kraut under a truck pointing his rifle at me. I yelled at him to come out or I'll shoot him. He got up, raising his hands in tears, and started begging in Serbian language not to shoot him. He claimed he was Bosnian, that he was conscripted into the army and that he would like to stay with us and fight against the occupiers. After consulting with comrades, we decided to accept this German soldier, a Muslim from the 13th SS Division, into our ranks. We assigned several members of the Party and SKOJ to keep an eye on him. In the battles that followed, he even carried a German machine gun and proved to be a good fighter. However, we were wrong, he took the first opportunity to desert and flee back to the Germans." Milenko Novaković Brale continues: "During our first withdrawal to the starting positions, in all that mess and hand-to-hand combat, I had a mishap. I don't know how nor when, in all the confusion I lost my commissar bag with confidential political material and lists of fighters [...]. Feeling a great responsibility and guilt, I went back to search for it. The comrades tried in vain to hold me back and talk me out of such a crazy idea. Soon I realised that they were right. Only a few hundred metres from our positions, I ran into an enemy rifle squad that took cover. 'Get him, Mujo!'... 'Catch him, Alaga!' – I heard them shout and simultaneously saw several 'fez-wearers' jumping out in front of me, trying to catch me alive. I barely managed to escape them, by jumping into a gully, and to return to my comrades again." SS NCO Stratmann mentioned another comrade who survived the attack: "He was unwilling to discuss that horrible night. He was only eighteen years old at the time and suffered from nightmares for over a decade thereafter. He feared that talking about it would bring back all of those terrible memories." Pictured, Ilija Bogdanović Čiča, commander of the I Vojvodina Brigade, (XVI Division,) with hands behind his back and a cigarette in his mouth, passes by the destroyed Kübelwagen cars of the 7th Battery, Artillery Regiment, "Handschar" Division, near the village of Zajednice (in the vicinity of Lopare).