Operation Allied Harvest

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Operation Allied Harvest was an operation of NATO - Navies in the wake of the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Operation Allied Force , in which NATO warplanes over the Adriatic was sought and destroyed or salvaged discarded ammunition.

Operation Allied Harvest II was another mission of its kind in 2000, which was necessary because not all known ammunition could be found in the first Operation Allied Harvest and ammunition was still found in the northern Adriatic.

Reason for the operation

Allied Harvest was a pure peace mission. During the air raids on Serbia in the vicinity of the war in Yugoslavia, the Allied pilots were instructed to drop their unburned bombs over the Adriatic Sea . Landing of armed planes on the airfields in Italy was prohibited for safety reasons . Even the French planes were not allowed to land on the aircraft carrier Foch with ammunition . For this purpose, emergency dumping areas were established on the Adriatic. Unused ammunition was to be discarded in these areas, which were precisely delimited. After the bombing, there were several serious accidents. An Italian fisherman pulled a 250 kg bomb on board. When the bomb exploded, he was killed and his ship sunk. The NATO leadership, directly responsible for these incidents, dispatched mine clearance boats to rescue the dangerous explosives from the operational area so that the fishing grounds could again be completely harmed.

The operation

The operation started on June 9, 1999 and lasted 73 days. The sea area to be searched was 1,074 square miles. During these days the boats managed to destroy 93 explosive devices. The German boats recorded 19 and 13 finds respectively. The Lindau , the longest-serving German minesweeper eleven. The most difficult thing was the recovery of so-called cluster bombs. Their explosive devices were scattered all over the lake floor. The search for these weapons therefore turned out to be extremely difficult and lengthy.

Boats involved

The forces deployed belonged to the Mine Counter Measures Force North Western Europe MCMFORNORTH (roughly: Mine Defense Association North West Europe ) and to the Mine Counter Measures Force Mediterranean MCMFORMED (roughly: Mine Defense Association Mediterranean Region).

Anti-mine ships from eight nations took part in the operation:

  • GermanyGermany Germany : Lindau (now replaced by Fulda) and Sulzbach - Rosenberg and Rottweil
  • BelgiumBelgium Belgium : BNS Aster
  • United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom : HMS Atherstone , HMS Bulldog , HMS Sandworm
  • GreeceGreece Greece : HS Eyniki
  • ItalyItaly Italy : ITS Numana and ITS Alpino (command and supply ship)
  • DenmarkDenmark Denmark : HDMS Lindworm
  • NetherlandsNetherlands Netherlands : HNLMS Urk
  • TurkeyTurkey Turkey : TCG Edninchic

Other finds

In addition to the fact that the fishing grounds were passable again, the mine clearers mainly discovered ancient ships. A fact that was very helpful to archeology. Some of these ships still had their full load on board.

In addition, it was also possible to recover material that had already been used in the First and Second World War, which led to more weapons being found and disposed of than had been dropped in 1999.

literature

  • Hendrik Killi: Minesweeper of the German Navy , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-8132-0785-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Revised Military Structure. In: Allied Joint Force Command Naples. NATO, accessed December 3, 2014 .

Web links