Mission Davidson was a World War II Special Operations Executive (SOE) military expedition to Yugoslav Partisans led by Basil Davidson, a peacetime journalist, Sergeant William Ennis and a wireless operator Sergeant Stanley Brandreth. Codenamed "Savannah", the mission landed by parachute at Petrovo Polje in central Bosnia on 16 August 1943. They were welcomed by the local British Liaison Officer, Major William Deakin, who took Davidson to meet Marshall Tito. Once he explained that his ambition was to get into Hungary, Tito suggested Davidson joins General Kosta Nađ and his troops on their way towards Belgrade.Davidson (1980), pp. 42-43Maclaren, p. 157Deakin, p. 108Williams, p. 165
Background Davidson was a journalist, and in the autumn of 1939 he worked as the Paris correspondent for The Economist. He returned to London and was shortly approached by the SOE for a post in the Balkans. He left for Hungary via Yugoslavia in January 1940. On the long train journey he was accompanied by a fellow SOE colleague and sacks of explosives for which they bribed the Hungarian customs not to inspect. They arrived safely to Budapest and delivered the sacks to the British legation building. Davidson soon set up an above-board news agency to deliver British news to the local press and radio, and a clandestine operation "to promote resistance" to the subsumption of Hungary into the German war machine. He organised the printing and distribution of leaflets written by George Paloczi-Horvath suggesting the existence of a large anti-Nazi organisation. By the autumn of 1940, the flow of news from London ceased, and Davidson started making-up his own, greatly exaggerating British military might and German and Italian frailties and losses. Although in the safety of Budapest, he found the news of London being ferociously bombed and Britain's survival at stake difficult to take.Davidson (1980), pp. 50-57
Things went from bad to worse, and when the British ambassador (most likely Owen O'Malley) found the sacks of plastic explosives and magnetised metal casings in the embassy basement, he ordered it be thrown away. Davidson realised that they will no longer be able to disrupt German oil and raw material shipping on the Danube. By March 1941, through Antal Ullein-Reviczky, his contact at the Hungarian Foreign Office, he realised that the escalation of war was imminent and that he had to flee. On 3 April he boarded the train to Belgrade, Yugoslavia.Davidson (1980), pp. 58-60
The escape On 6 April, Davidson was in Belgrade's Hotel Majestic when the German saturation bombing started. Operation Punishment was in full force and much of the city was left in ruins. The SOE members joined a convoy of over one hundred evacuees led by the British ambassador Sir Ronald Campbell heading slowly towards the Adriatic coast. They reached Herceg Novi and managed to evacuate the most exposed members, including George Paloczi-Horvath, using a Sunderland flying boat. Ambassador Campbell remained with the rest of the group and tried to label the remaining SOE members as Press Attaches hoping that they would be treated as diplomats, although they had no such passport or other evidence. A British submarine was able to reach Herceg Novi, but the Italian troops had already taken the town and the group was in their custody. They were loaded onto trucks and driven to Albania for internment. Finally, they were exchanged for Duke of Aosta, the Italian commander in Ethiopia who had been captured by the British Army in East Africa. Davidson eventually reached Gibraltar. Together with the locally posted officers, he was surprised at the news of German invasion of Russia on 22 June and the timing and reasoning behind it.Davidson (1980), pp. 61-68
Davidson returned to London and spent the next twelve months at the SOE HQ in Baker Street before being posted to the Middle East.
In Cairo Davidson travelled between Cairo, Jerusalem and Istanbul as the fortunes of the war in Africa were changing. In July 1942, he de-briefed Stanislav Rapotec, who recently arrived to Istanbul from a covert mission to Yugoslavia.Williams, p. 70 In October, he was promoted to Major and appointed the Acting Head of SOE Yugoslav Desk in Cairo assisted by Lieutenant James Klugmann and Major William Deakin.Williams, p. 98 They ultimately reported to Brigadier C M Keble, who was in charge of all operational sections of SOE Cairo.Davidson (1980), p. 111
The remnants of the Royal Yugoslav Army (RYA) rebranded as the Yugoslav Army in the Fatherland (Chetniks) and led by Colonel Draža Mihailović, although frequently accused of complicity with the enemy and reluctance to fight, continued to receive British assistance and military missions.Davidson (1980), pp. 105-106
At the same time, SOE officers travelled to Canada to recruit mission volunteers among Yugoslav emigrants. The rumours about an active Partisan resistance movement continued as well as an inexplicable presence of numerous German divisions, desperately needed on the Eastern Front, stuck in parts of the country not known for any recognised opposition. It became clear that there was much fighting on the ground. By January 1943, intercepted and decoded German Military Security Service (SD) radio signals detailed continuous fighting between the Partisans and the Germans.Davidson (1980), pp. 85-116
Keble asked Davidson to work closely with Deakin and plot all SD reported Partisan positions on a map. Using the German confidential sources it shortly became obvious that "The Partisans were active in most regions of Yugoslavia. They were strong, effective and aggressive. They were a formidable fighting force in constant use".Davidson (1980), p. 117
On 28 January Deakin and Keble met Winston Churchill in Cairo and showed him their map of Partisan activity. Churchill asked for a memo which Keble duly provided - named "Operations in Yugoslavia". The memo stated that aid to Mihailović should continue in areas where his troops are known to be active. It stated that 'Other resisting elements' in Slovenia and Croatia were holding down thirty divisions in areas which are vital to both Italian and German communications - without having received any external aid at all. Their leadership was politically 'extreme left' but the rank and file were 'not necessarily politically minded'. It claimed that it was inaccurate to adopt the German branding of the whole movement as 'communist'. Finally, it asked for a few long-range Liberator aircraft so that the aid could be delivered to both sides. They received four smaller Halifax bombers instead.Williams, pp. 115-119
It was thanks to Davidson's map that the first two missions of Yugoslav Canadians were successfully parachuted blind into the occupied territory, hoping to stumble across local Partisans on 20 April. Both Operation Hoathley 1 and Operation Fungus reached the targeted groups and reported back to Cairo HQ. The team prepared the first British Liaison mission, and on 26 May six soldiers led by Deakin successfully dropped to the Partisan GHQ at Black Lake in Montenegro. Codenamed Operation Typical, they landed in the middle of a large German offensive - Operation Schwarz - which aimed to surround and destroy the Partisan forces. They followed the GHQ out of the encirclement and less than three months later Davidson joined them.Davidson (1980), pp. 116-127Churchill, p. 410Williams, p. 165
Arrival Shortly after the landing, Davidson met the battle-hardened partisan leadership around Tito's command table "an affair of rough-hewn planks" where "his counsellors sat on logs ranged on both sides". In addition to Vlatko Vladimir Velebit who was assigned to work with the British mission, there were Arso Jovanović, Marko Aleksandar Ranković, Veljko Pavle Ilić and Kosta Nađ. Most communications were done in a "hotch-potch of German and French"Davidson (1946), pp. 10-13
Approximately ten days later, Davidson joined Nađ's HQ slow move towards Belgrade so that he could reach Hungarian border.Davidson (1946), p. 22 His additional task was to welcome and assist other SOE agents get into Hungary via Yugoslavia. Steve Markos, a Canadian agent, infiltrated himself successfully via this route, and was able to send "valuable reports about German and Hungarian armies' movements and about factories making war materials" back to Davidson for onward transmission to Cairo.Maclaren, p. 157
Journey The Mission had a long way on foot and horseback over the mountainous terrain of central Bosnia, often intersected with river valleys with limited crossings, strongly guarded by enemy troops. They paused in the village of Maslovare, where they learnt about Italian capitulation, which enabled the partisan movement to expand their territory and strengthen their fighting capability. Their first major challenge was to cross the river Bosna and the key road and railway lines that run alongside it, whilst under aerial reconnaissance. After just missing an armoured train, the column reached the river at a spot where it was divided into branches by shingle spits. Mainly on foot and holding onto each other, the troops crossed the deep river in a single file and reached the eastern bank.Davidson (1946), pp. 46-56 From there, they continued onto Gradačac, and Srebrenik before reaching Tuzla. The long journey gave Davidson an opportunity to understand the origins and motivation of the Partisan movement, local attitudes and customs as well as the poverty, illiteracy and communal tensions. By now, he had met many senior Partisan commanders including Todor Vujasinović Toša, Vladimir Popović and Sulejman Filipović as well as Canadian miners George Diklić and Stevan Serdar who arrived in April 1943 as part of Operation Hoathley 1.Davidson (1946), pp. 56-75Davidson (1980), p. 43
In Srem In October, the mission crossed the river Sava and arrived at Sremska Rača, an encircled enclave that a small group of Partisans managed to keep for the time being. It was an opportunity to see Partisan civic, military and Party administration at first hand.
The days were spent in conversation with local fighters, including a senior officer Savo Orović, discussing news, half-truths and rumours which were plentiful. Their plan to move north across Danube into the Hungarian controlled territory of Bačka suffered a set-back as the enemy offensive, by "Vlasov troops", pushed them onto Jamena, and back across the Sava into northern Bosnia. There, they worked with the commander Danilo Lekić in order to communicate with the British HQ and arrange for further drops of military and medical materiel. By December, they were chased out again, crossed the Sava and finally arrived to Fruška Gora overlooking Danube.Davidson (1946), pp. 109-135
Davidson worked closely with the local Partisan unit, observing the burnt out and heavily damaged villages of Prnjavor, Graboš, Rakovac, Ledinci, Sviloš, Neštin, Susek, Banoštor, as well as others. He joined them in action to blow up the railway link between Beočin cement works and the main railhead, while continuing onward to log the positions of the 24 barrage balloons that were flying above key railway bridge across Danube before returning to the base at Jazak.Davidson (1946), pp. 134-146
In-between the operations, Davidson thought about the circumstances in which the Partisan movement had developed and the reasons he thought it had strong local support: