Yugoslav gunboat Beli Orao

When Beli Orao was completed, Yugoslavia had not yet been drawn into the war, but she was immediately pressed into service to replace the admiralty yacht Vila, which was used by senior admirals for transport and to review fleet exercises. This changed with the April 1941 German-led Axis invasion of the country.^[3] At the time of the invasion, Beli Orao was located at the main navy fleet base at the Bay of Kotor.^[6] When the fleet flagship, the obsolete light cruiser Dalmacija, was tasked to participate in an attack against the Italian enclave of Zara, the fleet staff transferred to Beli Orao.^[3] After the Italians captured Kotor, the commander-in-chief of the fleet, Rear Admiral Emil Domainko, who was aboard Beli Orao anchored off Krtole within the bay, was summoned to meet with an Italian general whose troops were occupying Kotor.^[7] Beli Orao then hosted the negotiations between the fleet staff and the Regia Marina (Italian Royal Navy) regarding the surrender of the fleet.^[3] Domainko was allowed to sail in Beli Orao to Herceg Novi at the mouth of the bay, but returned to Kotor to surrender the ship.^[7]

She was put into service with the Regia Marina as a gunboat, initially as Alba (Dawn), although her name was soon changed to Zagabria (the Italian name for Zagreb), probably to compensate for the fact that the Yugoslav destroyer Zagreb had been scuttled by two of her officers instead of being surrendered.^[3] Zagabria's two 40 mm guns were replaced with two Oerlikon 20 mm (0.79 in) L/70 guns. At the time, she was one of the largest gunboats operated by the Italians. Like other Italian gunboats, she was employed only on harbour protection and coastal escort duties.^[8]

Zagabria was then attached to the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) school at La Spezia on the Ligurian Sea, where she was equipped with hydrophones for detecting submarines. Until the Italian armistice with the Allies in September 1943, she was used to train ASW specialists for service on corvettes, destroyers and torpedo boats. At the time of the armistice, Zagabria escaped from impending German capture by sailing to Augusta, Sicily. On 19 September, she departed for Valletta in the British Crown Colony of Malta with the Gabbiano-class corvettes Folaga and Gru, but had to turn back to deliver the Italian admiral Prince Aimone, Duke of Aosta, to Taranto in southern Italy, as the terms of the armistice did not allow him to leave the country. On 7 December of that year, Zagabria was returned by the Italians to the Yugoslav Royal Navy-in-exile, and resumed the name Beli Orao.^[3] Soon after her return she was visited at Malta by Peter II, the King of Yugoslavia, who was living in exile in the UK with his government.^[9]

After refitting in Taranto, Beli Orao was used as a tender for a flotilla of motor gunboats (MGBs) that had been loaned to the Yugoslav Royal Navy-in-exile by the British Royal Navy. In 1944 and 1945, she was stationed at Malta where the British Royal Navy purged the remaining "royalists" from the flotilla, replacing those personnel with politically reliable crew loyal to the Yugoslav Communist Party-led Yugoslav Partisans.^[3][10] The flotilla was then based at Livorno on the western coast of Italy, while it operated in the Tyrrhenian Sea.^[3] The flotilla conducted operations in the Adriatic late in the war, under Commander Konstantin Jeremić,^[3] based at Ancona on the eastern coast of Italy from 1 April 1945. In mid-April, four MGBs from the flotilla supported the capture of the island of Rab by Partisan troops, but distrust remained between the homegrown Partisan Navy and the remnants of the Yugoslav Royal Navy-in-exile, and even the British apparently limited the information they would share with the flotilla.^[11] Beli Orao continued in service until the end of the war.^[2] In the post-war communist era, Yugoslav historians criticised or ignored the operations of the flotilla, and little historical research has been conducted on the subject.^[10]

After the war she was renamed Biokovo, and in 1949 she was renamed Jadranka, serving as an armed yacht in the Yugoslav Navy and also as a presidential yacht for the President of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito. In 1969 she was serving as a dispatch boat,^[12] and was deleted from the naval register in 1976 or 1977, after which a new Jadranka was built as a presidential yacht.^[1] In 1978, the original Jadranka was still in service as a yacht,^[2] but was scrapped soon after. Her ship's bell, wheel and the Yugoslav coat of arms she carried during her service are preserved at the Croatian Maritime Museum in Split.^[1]

• Blackman, Raymond V. B. (1969). Jane's Fighting Ships 1969/70. London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company. ISBN 978-0-354-00050-5.
• Brescia, Maurizio (2012). Mussolini's Navy. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59114-544-8.
• Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-146-5.
• Freivogel, Zvonimir (2020). Warships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy 1918-1945. Zagreb: Despot Infinitus. ISBN 978-953-8218-72-9.
• Freivogel, Zvonimir & Rastelli, Achille (2015). Adriatic Naval War 1940-1945. Zagreb: Despot Infinitus. ISBN 978-953-7892-44-9.
• Haworth, R.B. (2016). "Bjeli Orao". Miramar Ship Index. R.B. Haworth. 6110710. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
• Jane's Information Group (1989) [1946/47]. Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II. London: Studio Editions. ISBN 978-1-85170-194-0.
• Karađorđević, Petar (1954). A King's Heritage. New York: Van Rees Press. LCCN 54-10501.
• Niehorster, Leo (2017). "Balkan Operations Order of Battle Royal Yugoslavian Navy 6th April 1941". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 15 March 2017.