The following newspaper report appeared in
Reading Eagle on 15 December 1943.
Slavs Rout Nazis at Uljan Island;
Germans also defeated at Port of Zara.
London, 15 Dec 1943 — Allied air raids that killed 450 Germans and wounded 1,500 others have forced the Axis to evacuate Uljan Island off the Dalmatian coast and enabled [the anti-fascist] Yugoslav partisans to inflict a “heavy defeat” on the enemy at the nearby mainland port of Zara, Yugoslav circles said today.
The Germans suffered “great losses” at Italian-owned, German-occupied Zara, a partisan communique said, but gave no details of the engagement. Partisan forces have been active in the Zara area for several months and once broke into the city itself.
Medium and fighter bombers of the Northwest African air forces have been bombing and strafing the Dalmatian coast and adjacent islands in support of partisans for several weeks.
Some 90 miles southeast of Zara, the 16th Moslem Partisan Brigade occupied the Bosnian town of Klaban and drove the Germans back toward Livno. The communique reported the partisans everywhere were offering strong resistance against an Axis offensive designed to smash the partisans and in several places “achieved considerable success.”
However, reports reached London that Germany has dispatched an additional 40.000 reserves from Austria and Finland and an air squadron intended for Italy to bolster the 90.000 Axis troops already in Yugoslavia.
