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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger.

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Warship Wednesday 15 April 2026: The Fastest Yugo

Above we see the class-leading destroyer (razarac) Beograd of the Royal Navy of Yugoslavia (Kraljevska mornarica Jugoslavije, KMJ) shortly after she was completed at Nantes in 1939. Note her “B” hull identifier.

Lightning-fast at 39 knots during her trials, she was captured 85 years ago this week and went on to serve under two other flags until the final days of WWII.

The KMJ’s tin can needs

Emerging from the wreckage of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, mashed together with the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro by the Versailles Treaty in 1919, Yugoslavia needed a fleet.

The country inherited eight small 188-foot/250-ton torpedo boats, four Danube River monitors (the ex-Bosna, Enns, Körös, and Bodrog), four small TBs converted to minesweepers, and some scratch-and-dent auxiliaries from the Austrians. The largest ship collected from the smashed empire was the circa 1887 7,000-ton ironclad SMS Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf, which was condemned and sold for scrap within a couple of years.

In 1921, the budding polyglot country bought six surplus 500 ton German minelayers as tugs on the open market and armed them with new Skoda 3.5″/45s then followed that up in 1926 with the elderly German Gazelle-class light cruiser ex-SMS Niobe (2,370 tons) and added six new Skoda 3.4″/55s to that hulk, bringing her into service as the flagship Dalmacija.

Moving to purchase new construction, in 1927-31 the KMJ bought two small (236-foot/975-ton) 6-tubed Armstrong-built coastal submarines (Hrabri and Nebojsa), another two similarly small subs from France (Smeli and Osvetnik), the 250-foot/1,870-ton seaplane tender/minelayer Zmaj from Germany (capable of supporting 10 floatplanes, which the Yugos didn’t seem to have), and five 174-foot/130 ton Maclinska-class minelayers, the latter built by Yarrow’s Adriatic Yard in Kraljevica.

As part of the 1928 naval program, the KMJ moved to order from Yarrow, Scotstoun, what would be their most modern and well-armed surface combatant, the 2,800-ton destroyer leader Dubrovnik.

At 371 feet overall and powered by three oil-fired Yarrow boilers and dual sets of Parsons steaming and Curtis cruising turbines, she had 48,000shp on tap and was designed for 37 knot speeds (made 37.2 on trials).

Yarrow had built the experimental one-off destroyer HMS Ambuscade for the RN, delivered in 1927, and it could be argued that Dubrovnik was basically an enlarged take on that design.

Outfitted with four new 5.5″/56 Skoda single mounts— guns capable of firing 87.7-pound HE rounds at up to eight rounds per minute per tube out to 25,600 yards– Dubrovnik was one of the most heavily armed destroyers in the world at the time. In fact, her guns were the largest the KMJ ever had afloat, barring the trio of 12-inch Krupp M1888 L/35 guns on the old Erzherzog Rudolf, which were likely never put into service.

Going past the 5.5″/56s, she had weight and space for an embarked seaplane, carried several 83mm M.1929 and 40mm/L67 Skoda AAA guns, and two triple 21-inch tubes for French-designed 1923DT torpedoes as well as depth charges and mines.

Dubrovnik was essentially a lead-in for the construction of a very similar new series of large (2,500-ton/377-foot) British destroyers authorized under the 1935 program, the well-liked Tribal class, which also had four gun mounts (for smaller 4.7″/45s), two funnels, and a three-boiler/two-turbine 44,000shp power plant for 36 knots.

Delivered in May 1932, it was planned to build two sisters to Dubrovnik, and, since they were destroyer flotilla leaders, a whole class of modern tin cans for them to lead.

Which brings us to our subject of this week’s Warship Wednesday.

Meet Beograd

Named for the Yugoslav capital (Belgrade), the lead ship was ordered to a design from Ateliers et Chantiers after the fast French destroyer L`Adroit, which had entered service in 1929.

Beograd would run a little shorter than L`Adroit (321 feet overall, 316 at the waterline with two funnels instead of three and less of a clipper bow) and hit the scales at 1,200 tons standard (1,655 full). Powered by three Yarrow boilers on two sets of Curtiss geared steam turbines, she had 44,000shp on tap and made just over 39 knots on trials versus a designed speed of 38.

Armament would be four new model 4.7″/46 Skoda DPs, which could fire 52.9-pound HE shells at 10 rounds per minute to 18,000 yards. Secondary battery would be two twin 40mm Swedish Bofors with Dutch Hazemeyer fire control devices (one of the first mountings of such guns that would go on to become iconic), two 15mm Skoda heavy MGs, and two triple 21-inch torpedo tubes in addition to a stern depth charge rack. As many as 30 mines could be carried as well.

Laid down as Yard No. 585 at Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire in Nantes in 1936, Beograd took to the water on 23 December 1937 and was completed in August 1939, just as Europe was marching to another world war.

Just 300 miles to the north of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia had just been swallowed up by Germany, Hungary (which occupied Carpathian Ruthenia), and Poland (which occupied and annexed the Zaolzie area), and things were getting tense between Russia, Poland, and Germany. Meanwhile, Italy invaded and swiftly annexed Albania to Yugoslavia’s south in April 1939, sending 22,000 troops across the Adriatic supported by two battleships, six cruisers, and two dozen escorts.

The first of at least two of Beograd’s planned sisters, Zagreb and Ljubljana, were ordered in 1936 from the new Ateliers et Chantiers-founded Jadranska Brodogradilista shipyard in Split, as Yard Nos. 22 and 23, respectively, and were likewise delivered in the summer of 1939.

War!

As noted by Dr. Milan Vego in his 1982 Warships International article on the KMJ, in 1940, the force counted 326 officers, 1,646 petty officers, and 1,870 seamen. At that time, just 64 former Great War era Austro-Hungarian officers (1 VADM, 27 CAPT, 27 Senior CDR, 5 CDR) were still on the rolls, while 336 officers were educated in the Yugoslav schools after 1918 (14 CDR, 110 LCDR, 27 ensigns).

The U.S. military attaché in Belgrade then observed that the “discipline and morale of navy personnel was very good. The men are content and like their life.” However, “higher commanders appear somewhat discouraged at the inferior position of the Yugoslav Navy due to totally inadequate appropriations.” In his view, “under such conditions the fleet units kept in service may be said to be in very good condition considering the small amount available for upkeep and training.”

Less than a month after commissioning, as Hitler marched into Poland, Beograd was sent to Britain with a large part of Yugoslavia’s gold reserves (7,344 ingots), which were deposited at the Bank of England for safekeeping.

Keeping their heads down in the event of a surprise attack from Italy, in which they had orders to make to sea to raid the Italian coast and shipping, Beograd and her sister ship Zagreb were deployed to the 1st Torpedo Division in the Bay of Kotor (Cattaro) with Dubrovnik. The third sister, Ljubljana, was undergoing repairs in the Tivat Arsenal after sinking in an accident on 24 January 1940.

It became clear that the Germans and Italians planned to move Yugoslavia into their orbit, especially after Mussolini invaded Greece in October 1940, using Albania as a springboard. When the 27/28 March 1941 coup in Belgrade changed the government’s polarization from semi-German to semi-Allied, the writing was on the wall. By 30 March, it became known that Germany and Italy had started evacuating their citizens living on the Yugoslav coast.

Mobilization orders were passed, and the KMJ’s warships were ordered to keep full bunkers, magazines, and stores, as well as charge the air valves in their torpedoes and depth charges. To keep from being picked off at pier side, they were ordered dispersed, and the crews of the ships camouflaged themselves along the coast; the destroyer Dubrovnik in the Bay of Kotor, the destroyers Beograd and Zagreb near Dobrota.

On the eve of the expected Axis (German, Italian, and Hungarian) invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Zagreb and Beograd, along with four 250-ton class torpedo boats and six MTBs, were sent to the port of Sibenik, about 50 miles south of Zadar– an Italian enclave on the Dalmatian coast which had been occupied since the Treaty of Rapallo in 1920– in preparation for an attack on the Italians, to be joined by a reinforced Yugo army division from landward.

While the assault on Zadar kicked off three days into the war on 9 April, it faltered, and Beograd suffered damage from Italian aircraft off Sibenik, which knocked out her starboard engine. Sailing back to the Bay of Kotor for repairs, Beograd and the rest of the Zadar assault flotilla set up a triangular kill box for attacking Italian aircraft, firing on successive waves over the next few days while the KMJ high command dithered over what to do.

Eventually, it was decided to try to evacuate the ships that could still fight to join the Allies in Greece and North Africa, and on the evening of 16 April, the submarine Nebojsa set out for Alexandria, followed the next day by the torpedo boats Kajmakcalan and Durmitor— without orders. Word was flashed to the KMJ that the surrender would begin at 0500 on the 17th.

With many of Zagreb’s crew heading ashore during the looming collapse, two of Zagreb’s lieutenants, Milan Spasić and Sergej Mašera, scuttled the destroyer, sacrificing their lives in the process on the afternoon of 17 April.

With Beograd hamstrung by her damaged engines, her crew disembarked in lifeboats and landed ashore at Kotor. She was captured there by rapidly advancing Italian forces just after Zagreb settled.

Other vessels lost during the short war included the river monitor Drava, bombed and sunk by Luftwaffe aircraft off Cib with the loss of 54 of her 67 crew on 12 April, while her fellow monitors Morava, Vardar, and Sava were scuttled by their crews on the same day. The coasters Senj and Triglav were scuttled to prevent capture at the Island of Krk. Meanwhile, the cargo ships Karadjordje and Prestolonasledik Petar were sunk by Italian mines off Sibenik.

Germany’s Balkanfeldzug sideshow had only cost the Axis about 4,500 casualties to conquer Yugoslavia in less than a fortnight, but is generally believed to have forced the delay of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, by some five precious weeks, which could have made a huge difference in the outcome of the frozen Battle of Moscow that winter, which was a hard-won victory for the Red Army.

Under a different king

Much of the KMJ was put back into enemy service under either Italian or puppet (Croatian) flags over the next couple of years.

Dubrovnik served as the Italian destroyer Premuda from 1941 to 1943.

Ljubljana, sidelined during the war in the shipyard, was completed by her new owner, renamed Lubiana (the Italian translation of her name), and sent to escort convoys to North Africa. She ran aground on 1 April 1943 near Tunisia and was destroyed the next day by an Allied air attack.

Beograd, repaired and up-armed with several Breda Model 35 20mm L/65 AAA guns, was commissioned into the Regia Marina as Sebenico in August 1941.

Beograd/Sebenico’s career in Italian service was much more active than under the KMJ ensign. She was immediately put to work as a convoy escort on routes between Italy and the Aegean Sea and North Africa, completing over 100 runs over a period of two years.

This brought her under the scopes of at least 12 British submarines– HMS Proteus, Safari, Taku,  Thunderbolt, Torbay, Turbulent, Ultimatum, Unbeaten, Unique, Upholder, Utmost, and Ursula— but managed to escape their wrath.

Under the Reichskriegsflagge

After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, several ex-Yugoslav and ex-Italian units were taken over by the Kriegsmarine and designated Torpedoboot Ausland (foreign torpedo-boat). These included TA32 (ex-Premuda, ex-Dubrovnik), TA43 (ex-Sebenico, ex-Beograd), and the TA48 (ex-Italian and Yugoslav T3, ex-Austrian 78 T), which were amalgamated into the hodge-podge 9. Torpedobootsflottille, tasked with escort and minelaying in the still Axis-held northern Adriatic.

In German service, TA43/Sebenico/Beograd landed her torpedo tubes and saw her armament augmented by seven 37mm flak guns in one twin and five single mounts, as well as two single 20mm guns.

Surviving air attacks and both Italian and Yugoslav partisans, TA43 was scuttled by her German crew in Trieste on 1 May 1945, just a week before VE-Day. She narrowly survived Dubrovnik, which had been lightly damaged by British destroyers in March 1945 during the Battle of the Ligurian Sea and was scuttled in Genoa on 25 April.

Varying accounts have Beograd raised and scrapped postwar, generally in the 1947-48 time frame, as Trieste was under UN mandate as a Free Territory before it was split between Italy and Yugoslavia.

Epilogue

Little remains of our destroyer that I can locate.

As for the treasure that Beograd rushed to London for safekeeping, following the war, the Bank of England restituted 334,654.186 ounces of gold and coins to the National Bank of Yugoslavia between 1948 and 1958.

Models of Zagreb, who had the most heroic ending of her class, dot museums in Zagreb, Belgrade, and Kotor, her story and that of her two defiant lieutenants retold throughout the past 85 years.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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