SERBIAN ARMY FOUNDED ITS AIR COMMAND IN NIŠ

BIJELJINA, DECEMBER 23 /SRNA/ – By order of Radomir Putnik, Military Minister, the Serbian Army Air Command was established in Niš on December 24, 1912.

Several months earlier, following the proclamation of general mobilization at the dawn of the Balkan Wars, six pilots undergoing training in France were ordered to return home immediately. They were Lieutenants Jovan Jugović and Miloš Ilić, Second Lieutenant Živojin Stanković, Sergeant Mihajlo Petrović, and Corporals Miodrag Tomić and Vojislav Novčić. The first squadron consisted of 12 aircraft. Eight were purchased in France along with prefabricated hangars, two were bought in Russia, and two were seized from the Ottomans. The base was the airfield at Trupalsko Polje near Niš. The unit’s first real test came in March 1913, during the battles for the liberation of Skadar from Ottoman forces, when the first Serbian pilot, Mihajlo Petrović, was killed. The date of the establishment of the Serbian Army Air Command is commemorated as the Day of Aviation and Air Defense of the Serbian Armed Forces.