Operation BEARSKIN

Operation BEARSKIN

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History

During night 25/26 May SOE LtColonel Peter Moore returned from Bari to Yugoslav Partisan General Staff of Slovenia to arrange interdiction campaign against German road and rail communications north through Slovenia.

Strategic goal was to halt all German movement through region to prevent reinforcements from Balkan going to either France after D-Day landings or Italy where Allies were preparing major offensive. For this purpose 38 tons of explosives were dropped to Partisans in Slovenia.

Primary targets were:

Operation begun on 7/8 June with sabotage of railroad Trieste - Ljubljana followed by destruction of Å tampet bridge on 12/13 June. Two more bridges were destroyed on 17/18 June. Sabotages on communications Ljubljana - Zagreb and Maribor - Celje on 20/21 June halted German traffic until 20 July. OSS Major Franklin Lindsay reported significant drop in German rail traffic between 7 and 20 June.

Aftermath

Success of BEARSKIN showed bigger operations could be possible resulting in large scale operation RATWEEK.

References