In the middle of the 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian Navy (KuK Kriegsmarine) realized the extraordinary geostrategic position of the Bay of Kotorska, which enables easy control over the southern Adriatic and Otranto, and the actions of warships stationed there in the Aegean and the central Mediterranean. Therefore, Austria-Hungary began gradually arranging and equipping Boka as a war port, the second most important naval base after Pula, where the bulk of the KuK Kriegsmarine fleet was concentrated.
By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Boka was turned into one of only three belt fortresses in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Before the First World War, the "coastal fortress of Boka", as it was officially called, was composed of nine fortified towns, four armored fords, 28 fords of different sizes and purposes, four barrier fortresses, nine fords-batteries, two torpedo batteries, two flanking batteries, 13 barrier fortifications, 22 semi-permanent type batteries, 20 watchtowers, about 20 various barracks, two fortified camps, four guard ships as fixed firing points and a huge infrastructure consisting of thousands of kilometers of automobile and pedestrian roads (over 700 kilometers of roads were built only on the Luštica peninsula), observation towers, water pipes and tanks, railway, airport in Sutorina, seaplane base, Klinci radio station, signal stations, Naval Arsenal in Tivat, cable car from Kotor to Njeguš, warehouses, workshops, warehouses, residential buildings, hospitals , schools, cemeteries, a crematorium for burning waste, even sports fields, cinema and theater halls, churches...
Financial investments in the construction of all these facilities were measured in hundreds of millions of crowns, and the logistical-engineering challenge was astonishing, because thousands of tons of materials, equipment and weapons often had to be taken to very inaccessible heights in the hinterland of Boka.
Tivat and Kumbor played a very significant role in the "Boka Coastal Fortress", which enabled them to be written on literally the first page of aviation history in the territory of today's Montenegro. Namely, one of the first seaplane stations in this part of the world was built there, and Boka itself was the stage for the first use of seaplanes for war purposes in the world in general.
It happened in the spring of 1913 during the Second Balkan War, when three small "Donnet-Lévèque" seaplanes were delivered to the bay on the decks of the Austro-Hungarian battleships "Radetzky", "Erzherzog Franz Ferdinad" and "Zrinyi". The aviation contingent that arrived in Bok on March 23, 1913, in addition to seaplanes, also consisted of 14 pilots, scouts and mechanics. A temporary hydro-aviation base was established, first in one of the hastily adapted large coal warehouses in the Tivat Arsenal, and immediately afterwards in Kumbor, under the command of the pilot, lieutenant of the battleship Wenceslas Vozeček.
First seaplane bombing of ground targets
Already at the end of March 1913, the Austro-Hungarian seaplanes S-8, S-10 and S-12 regularly and daily took off from Tivat Bay on reconnaissance missions of Serbian-Montenegrin combat operations against the Turks in Shkodra. After the transfer from Tivat, the planes and personnel were housed in a wooden boat shed on the coast at Cape Vrbanj in Kumbor, and they operated until May 28 of that year. The provisional statute of the KuK Kriegsmarine for naval aviation from May 1914 enabled the establishment of further seaplane stations on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, in addition to the main one on the island of Katarina in Pula.
So, the very next month, it was decided that the "Flottenflugstation" (Flottenflugstation) in Kumbor would be established in the southernmost port of the monarchy, in Boka Kotorska. The first three seaplanes of the "Lohner E" type arrived in Kumbor already in July and were temporarily housed in large tents placed along the coast of the Kumbor Strait. The construction of the first wooden hangar begins immediately. With the outbreak of the First Setian War a few days later, the Kumbor Hydroplane Station gained importance because its planes and personnel were constantly engaged for the needs of the nearby hunting front, in support of the actions of the Austro-Hungarian land army against the Montenegrin troops.
In August 1914, in Kumbor there are seaplanes E-18, E-20 and E-21 with crews under the command of the newly promoted commander of the Flottenflugstation Kumbor Wenceslas Vozeček.
History begins to be written again - on August 15, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian seaplane E-18 took off from Boka with the lieutenant of the battleship Konstantin Maglić at the command of the successful bombardment of Montenegrin positions on the Krstac pass on Lovcen. It was the first case in this area in which a seaplane bombed targets on the ground. Encouraged by their successes, the naval pilots from Kumbor are increasingly aggressive and daring, so that already on October 23, three seaplanes, E-18, E-33 and E-34, simultaneously attack Montenegrin positions in the vicinity of Bar, and on November 9, an airplane with a crew which consisted of the lieutenant of the frigate Glauko Prebanda and Sgt Dvorak also carries out the first night attack on targets near Bar. In addition to these, seaplanes from Boka regularly carried out tasks of reconnaissance and recording of enemy positions, so thanks to their engagement in 1914 and 1915, some of the first aerial photographs of today's Montenegrin territory were created. At the end of 1914, Flottenflugstation Kumbor had five seaplanes, four officers and 23 non-commissioned officers and sailors.
The storm destroyed the tents and the hangar
On December 11, 1914, a storm blew down the tents and the temporary wooden hangar of the Flottenflugstation Kumbor, during which all the seaplanes were damaged. In January 1915, a new hangar was completed, and by bringing in 500 Russian prisoners of war for forced labor, the entire station was built in a hurry, so that by the end of the war it had four more large hangars, a workshop for the maintenance of seaplanes, warehouses for bombs, ammunition, gasoline and spare parts , and barracks for the accommodation of officers and staff. In August 1916, Kumbor received the official status of "Seeflugstation" (Seaplane Station of the Naval Air Force), and throughout the war, combat missions over Montenegro, Albania, Italy and the Adriatic were very intensively flown from there.
Missions included tasks of reconnaissance, bombing of the enemy and rescue from the sea of shipwrecked and downed airmen. One Austro-Hungarian seaplane took off from Boka on October 17, 1914 and dropped bombs on two French seaplanes that were moored in the port of Bar. Reuters reported from Rome that on September 8 of the same year, an Austrian plane, equipped with a machine gun, attacked one of the two French "Voisin" hydroplanes that were flying on reconnaissance in the vicinity of Bar.
The pilot of Seeflug station Kumbor Glauko Prebanda, during the sixth in a row penetration of French naval forces into the southern Adriatic in autumn 1914, carried out the world's first aerial bombardment of a warship, dropping several bombs on the French armored cruiser "Waldeck Rousseau".
The number of planes and personnel in Kumbor is constantly increasing, so this seaplane base with only 3-4 seaplanes, as many as it had at the beginning of the war in 1914, will grow to as many as 1918 planes with a large number of pilots, observers and mechanic. During that time, the position of commander, after the lieutenant of the battleship Voseček, was replaced by the lieutenant of the frigate Gottfried von Benfield (from 4.09.1914/12.09.1914/XNUMX to XNUMX/XNUMX/XNUMX), battleship lieutenant Hugo Okermiller (13.9.1914 - 27.5.1915) and lieutenant of the battleship Dmitrije Konjović (from 28.9.1915 until the end of the war).
Attack on the French submarine Konjović and Železno
In the middle of the war, seaplane pilots from Kumbor once again wrote the pioneering pages of the world history of warfare at sea: on September 15, 1916, flying back from Durrës to Kumbor, the Austro-Hungarian seaplane L132 of the "Lohner" type with a crew consisting of the pilot, lieutenant of the battleship Dimitrije Konjović and the observer, lieutenant frigates Maximilian Severus, spotted about 10 miles southeast of Cape Oštro, the French submarine "Foucault" on the surface of the sea.
Konjović together with seaplane L135, in which the crew consisted of frigate lieutenants Walter Zelezni i Otto von Klimburg, immediately attacked the French submarine with bombs. Three of the first four bombs caused serious damage to the French warship - batteries and electric motors were damaged, water penetrated the submarine and "Foucault" slowly began to sink. For the next half hour, the terrified crew watched the hands of the depth gauge in horror. The heavily damaged "Foucault" slowly sank into the depths of the Adriatic. Sailors fought desperately to stop the ingress of water and get the submarines back on track. When everything seemed lost, and "Foucault" sank to a depth of 80 meters where there was already a danger that the water pressure would simply crush the hull, the French managed to empty the ballast tanks and thus direct the submarine to the surface.
As soon as the "Foucault" emerged from the depths of the sea, the Austro-Hungarian seaplanes attacked it again, causing further damage to the submarine. Commander of the "Foucault", lieutenant of the battleship Leon-Henri Devan, ordered the crew to abandon ship. Seeing that the French were leaving the deck and jumping into the sea, the pilots Konjović and Železni gave up on further attack and dropped the remaining bombs far from "Foucault". In an extremely brave but also gallant act, the Austro-Hungarian pilots then landed their seaplanes on the turbulent surface of the Adriatic and drove close to the "Foucault", which was sinking.
Konjović and Železni took all 29 crew members of the French submarine on their planes, and it soon disappeared forever under the waves of the Adriatic. The overcrowded seaplanes could no longer take off. However, the Austro-Hungarians did not want to abandon their former enemies - the French shipwrecked ones, but kept them on their planes until the Austro-Hungarian torpedo boat Tb 100M arrived from Boka, took over the crew of "Foucault" and took it to Tivat. The fact that they had just become the first people in the world history of warfare to sink a submarine from an airplane was less important for Konjović, Železni and their two comrades than the noble desire to chivalrously help the defeated enemy and save all the French submariners. Because of their military success, seaplane pilots from Kumbor received numerous Austro-Hungarian awards and recognitions. An elegant gesture of honoring the opponent, which is a rare case in the world, came from the French themselves, who, albeit 52 years late, by the decision of their Government on December 14, 1968, awarded Dimitrije Konjović a medal for the courage, humanity and mercy shown in the battles at sea. An artistic graphic depicting scenes of the rescue of French submariners on that September day in 1916 from the Adriatic off the Bay of Kotor is still on the official website of the French Navy.
How Miroslav's Gospel was saved
By chance, the seaplanes from Boka and their commander - the lieutenant of the battleship Dimitrije Konjović, a Serb born in Sombor, got involved in the fate of the cultural treasures of the South Slavic peoples. One winter day in 1916, Konjović set out on a mission in which he was supposed to bomb ships in the Albanian port of San Giovanni di Medua, through which Serbian and Montenegrin soldiers were evacuated to Italy after the collapse of the fronts and the Austro-Hungarian conquest of those two countries. Among the thousands of soldiers and refugee civilians, the future Serbian patriarch was also boarding one of the ships Dimitriye, and the people who accompanied the treasury of the Kingdom of Serbia brought onto the ship, in a specially sealed package, the oldest Serbian book, Miroslav's Gospel from the 12th century. Hidden by cloudy clouds, an Austro-Hungarian seaplane appeared unannounced, causing panic among those trying to board the ships. He was flying very low. There was panic in the harbor as everyone expected the bombs to start falling. However, to everyone's surprise, the Austro-Hungarian seaplane, making three circles above the ship, moved away and threw its deadly cargo into the sea instead of the people.
None of the people in San Giovanni de Medua knew that the Austro-Hungarian officer Dimitrije Konjović was behind the controls of that seaplane. He later explained that he threw the bombs into the sea because he saw ships full of civilians, and that could not possibly be a war objective. Such a humane, but also potentially dangerous decision by Konjević, because he could have ended up in front of a military court, saved numerous human lives, but also the oldest and most beautiful monument of Serbian literacy - Miroslav's Gospel.
After the First World War and the collapse of Austria-Hungary, the Hydroplane Base in Kumbor became the largest and most equipped base of the new Naval Air Force of the new country - the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The headquarters in Kumbor was the Third Seaplane Command of the Yugoslav Naval Air Force - the strongest of all three such segments that made up the Yugoslav Naval Seaplane Command. Before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Third Seaplane Command in Kumbor consisted of: 1st Seaplane Squadron (composition: two "ŠM" type seaplanes and six "SIM XIV" type seaplanes), 11th Seaplane Squadron (composition: three "ŠM" type seaplanes, three types "IO", three types of "Fizir", two types of "SIM XIV" and one type of "Heinkel"), 20th sea squadron (composition: five seaplanes of the type "Dornier DoH", one type of "Dornier DoD", two types of "PVT" and one "Fleet" seaplane), and the 21st seaplane squadron (composition: seven "Dornier DoW" seaplanes and one "Dornier DoD" seaplane).
The logistics part of Treća HK consisted of a technical workshop, four hangars with ramps, two trabaculas, motor boats, warehouses of ammunition and consumables, and gasoline tanks. It is interesting that on September 25, 1925, the Yugoslav king visited the naval facilities in Kumbor, as well as in all of Boka. Alexander I Karađorđević, accompanied by the then Commander of the Royal Navy, Vice Admiral Dragutina Price. In front of Tivat, the king inspected the naval units of the Navy - torpedo boats and minesweepers, visited the Naval Arsenal there, after which he visited the Navy's Mechanical School in Kumbor and the local seaplane base. On one of the six new Yugoslav hydroplanes of the "Ikarus ŠM" type, piloted by the captain of the corvette Nikša Nardelli, King Alexander and then took off from Kumbor for a short flight over Boka and the Montenegrin coast.
World War II and capitulation
Before the outbreak of the Second World War, four squadrons of the Naval Air Force of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with a total of 37 seaplanes were stationed at the Kumbor Hydroplane Base. On the first day of the war, Boka was attacked by four squadrons of Italian and German planes, mainly Junkers Ju-87 pike attack bombers and heavy three-engined Savoia Marchetti SM-79 Sparviero bombers. Enemy planes attacked Tivat, Zelenika, Kumbor, Dobrota and Yugoslav warships that were mostly at anchor in the Bay of Kotor. The attack passed without major damage to the ships, while minor damage was caused to coastal installations and facilities, including part of the facilities of the Hydroplane Base in Kumbor.
However, there were no seaplanes there because they were already according to "Instruction no. 1 for work in the war" issued on the day of the attack on Yugoslavia by the commander of the Naval Air Force of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the captain of the battleship Nikša Nardeli, deployed to war positions near Orahovac and Dobrota in the Bay of Kotor, i.e. between the island of Sveti Marko and the coast of Krtola in the Bay of Tivat, and near Ross in Hercegnov Bay.
The action of Yugoslav seaplanes in the April War was much more intense than the engagement of ships of the fleet of the Royal Navy of Yugoslavia, so they took off every day on reconnaissance missions of the southern Adriatic, as well as attacks on enemy bases and ships in Albania and Italy. In these operations, the 20th hydroplane squadron of the Third Hydroplane Command from Kumbor stood out, armed at the time with the most modern hydroplanes of the Yugoslav Naval Air Force type "Dornier Do-22". It was a metal high-wing aircraft on floats manned by three crew members: a pilot, a scout and a gunner.
The reconnaissance seat on the "DoH" type seaplane was equipped with a "Telefunken" radio device and a "Leschner" type F=50 cm photo camera.
In the composition of the 20th seaplane squadron immediately before the outbreak of war in April 1941, there were seaplanes of the "DoH" type with registration numbers 307, 309, 311 and 313, and that unit was commanded by an extremely energetic and capable officer - lieutenant of the battleship 6st class Vladeta Petrović. In the period from April 16 to April 1941, 16, his squadron carried out a total of five bombing missions against enemy forces, as well as 16 long-range reconnaissance missions over the waters of the southern Adriatic, and over Brindisi, Bari, Otranto and Durres. The 24th hydroplane squadron from Kumbor was the only unconquered unit of the Yugoslav Royal Army in the capitulation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, because under the command of Petrović, that squadron retreated in an organized manner from April 2 to April XNUMX from Boka, through Greece to Egypt. Under the official name "No XNUMX. Yugoslav Squadron", or the colloquial name "Abukir Squadron", a unit of lieutenants of the first class battleship Vladete Petrović, she continued to fight in the ranks of the Allies in the following years - as part of the 201st group of the British RAF for the support of naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Italian troops entered the Bay of Kotorska on April 17, when the Kingdom of Yugoslavia formally signed the capitulation. The Italians kept significant military and naval forces in Boka under the jurisdiction of the Naval Command, which was based in Tivat. They stationed their 183rd seaplane squadron in Kumbor, which included seaplanes of the type "CANT Z.501 Gabbiano" and "CANT Z.506 Airone", and later their 149th seaplane squadron also operated here, armed with the same types of seaplanes.
It is interesting that during the capitulation of Italy on September 8, 1943, a total of 501 Italians escaped from Cumbora to Taranto with nine "CANT Z.149 Gabbiano" seaplanes from the 80th squadron. How such a large number of people could be accommodated in nine airplanes that could accommodate only five crew members, remains a mystery and a kind of curiosity to this day.
During the Italian occupation from April 17, 1941 to September 8, 1943, Italian land, sea and seaplane forces from Kumbor were intensively used in conflicts with partisans and insurgents. According to Italian sources, during July 182, seaplanes of the 1941nd squadron from Kumbor dropped 180 bombs and fired over 5.000 pieces of machine gun ammunition at the insurgents.
In September 1943, the Germans replaced the Italians as the occupiers in Boka. Unlike their predecessors, the Germans did not keep a stronger naval force in the bay - there were only a few smaller auxiliary ships, and German torpedo boats of the "Schnellboote" type regularly sailed into Bok and stayed for a short time, during their actions in the southern Adriatic. The Germans also kept a small number of seaplanes in Kumbor, and parts of their 623rd Naval Artillery Division were also stationed here.
After the liberation of Yugoslavia in 1945 and the formation of the new Yugoslav Navy, the seaplane base in Kumbor was used for another short time, but not nearly as intensively as before the Second World War. At that time, aircraft from the 122nd Hydro Squadron JRV, based in Divilje near Split, used to visit here only occasionally. This unit had a total of six Utva-66 H and DHC-2 Beaver type seaplanes, two Short Sealand type amphibious vehicles, two Siikorsky S-55 helicopters and one Ikarus Kurir H courier plane. The squadron was trained to maintain communication and transport during the day and at night (although only seaplanes of the DHC-2 Beaver type were capable of flying at night), for assistance and rescue at sea and for day and night visual reconnaissance along the coast.
Abolition of hydroaviation in JRM and the end of Kumbor's ties with the army
However, hydroaviation in JRM was abolished at the beginning of the sixties, and with it the former Kumbor Hydroplane Base also ceased to exist. The large hangars in which Austro-Hungarian, Yugoslav, Italian and German seaplanes were once maintained and housed were still preserved, and the JRM used them for various other purposes during the existence of the military base in Kumbor in the decades after World War II. On the site of the former Austro-Hungarian Seeflug station Kumbor, during the SFRY, one of the largest barracks in the JNA in general arose, which was named "Orjenski battalion" after the partisan unit that operated in Boka at the beginning of World War II. In addition to other things, the base also had a smaller helipad where occasionally, most often during exercises in the southern Adriatic, anti-submarine helicopters of the type "Kamov Ka-25" and "Kamov Ka-28" from the 784th helicopter squadron from Divulje landed, as well as helicopters "Mil Mi-8" and "Mil Mi-14 PL" types. On the field of the football stadium, which was located in the grounds of the "Orjenski battalion" barracks, JRV light helicopters of the "Aerospatiale SA-342 gazelle" type were not a rare sight.
The final end of Kumbor's connection with the air force and the modern technologies that accompany it came a few years after the independence of Montenegro in 2006, when it was decided to withdraw all remaining military units from Boka, and the local naval land complexes were converted into tourist facilities. Thus, in 2012, Kumbor's connection with the army, which had lasted for almost a century, ended - the "Orjenski Battalion" barracks was leased to the company "Azmont Investment", which demolished all the military facilities here, including a total of five previously preserved seaplane hangars. Two of those buildings were from the time of Austria-Hungary - built in 1915 and 1916.
The Austro-Hungarian hangars from Kumbor, measuring 41 by 36 meters, up to 15 meters high, were the oldest objects of this purpose in the Balkans, and probably in Europe, but they were in the way of the construction of the Portonovi tourist resort, so the company "Azmont" dismantled and removed them. Historical hangars in their unfolded state were donated to the Aviation Museum in Belgrade, at the request of the management of that cultural institution. The plan was to re-erect both Kumbor hangars in Surčina near the site of the Aviation Museum, which would receive two extremely valuable new, attractive historical exhibits, as well as space for storage and work on old airplanes and helicopters that are in the restoration phase. The museum in Surčin has about 200 aircraft in its collection, but in its building it has a place to display only 45 aircraft, so the old Kumbor airplane hangars would be a great supplement to the spatial capacities of that cultural institution. However, this plan has not been realized to this day and the historic airplane hangars from Kumbor are still unfolded in sections, languishing on the meadow in Surčin.
Bonus video:
