Operation Banjalučka Operajica (ii)

Banja Luka operation (Yugoslav place name)

'Banjalučka' (ii) was a Yugoslav operation by the partisan forces of Marshal Josip Broz Tito to link liberated Bosanska and central Bosnia regions in Axis-occupied Yugoslavia (18/28 September 1944).

Units of the Yugoslav V Corps captured all of Banja Luka except the stronghold of Kastel, where some 300 Germans and Ustase soldiers were taken under siege. In 'Sturm', the Germans despatched a 5,000-man relief force in the form of Major Rudno’s Kampfgruppe 'von Rudno' and the Kampfgruppe 'von Panvic', and after these had broken the siege of Kastel, the elements of the Yugoslav V Corps fell back from Banja Luka.