Bosnia Conflict and Srebrenica:20 years later and a greater perspective.

[Hangarshuffle]

Srebrenica: Cameron announces extra funds to remember massacre | World news | The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/06/srebrenica-cameron-announces-extra-funds-to-remember-massacre)


Okay I'll bite on the headline. PM Cam is apparently announcing funds (i.e. our money) to go towards a memorial week.
My first reaction was why? And also the amount of money is very large. Its in the link above. 1.2 million pounds GBP. I can think of probably the same number of worthy causes in the UK, and so can you no doubt.
This conflict dominated the fixed wing Fleet Air Arm, in fact strike that, I mean a lot of the whole FAA's time and tears for 3 or 4 years for maritime and a darn lot longer for the Yeovil green Sea King circuit. And a lot of the Army, and I dare say RAF as well.
I cannot see the point of the UK giving away this money. I'm sick of remembering about bloody European conflicts. Sod them.


20 years ago. Sod them. And yet the UK did some good work here - we prevented an air war breaking out that could have taken many civilian lives. I've never seen anybody actually write that but I like to think this sometimes when I think about the years 1993,94 and 95 and the conflict. Am I right?
Did we do the right thing in Bosnia?

[melmothtw]

Sod them...

...Am I right?

No, though judging from the mean-spirited Memorial thread, there will no doubt be plenty on PPRuNE who agree with you.

[Pontius Navigator]

Ah, a dissenting voice.

In, I think, Estonia is a memorial plaque commemorating and thanking the Royal Navy for their assistance in about 1921.

A relevant memorial in the proper place and funded by the people affected - same as WW memorials.

[Green Guard]

You light the fire.
You get warm and you kill the bull and cook some raw meat on hot ashes.
Then you put out the fire.
Then you go to Hague Court and charge the cow for unruly bull and charge the wood to let it be alighted so easily.
Very smart until Bosnians wake up.

[Bevo]

Shouldn't this discussion be in the "Jet Blast" section? We seem to be having more of these "it's your fault - not it's your fault" political posts here which are only peripherally about about aviation.

[Lonewolf_50]

Shouldn't this discussion be in the "Jet Blast" section? We seem to be having more of these "it's your fault - not it's your fault" political posts here which are only peripherally about about aviation. Quite a few PPRuNe members had the chance to serve in that Bosnia mess 20 years ago. It is related to the Military angle here, don't you think?

[Lonewolf_50]

Did we do the right thing in Bosnia? Based on private conversations I had with Greek officers in various NATO events during that time, their PoV was "NATO is backing the wrong side here."

Granted, consider the sources ...

[Hangarshuffle]

Yes fair point the thread was badly started by me really. I haven't looked at the memorial thread running parallel. I still think its a lot of money and not sure about it at all.
The Bosnian conflict itself squeezed the juice out of me. I don't think I've ever been the same since. I'm a middle aged bloke now, 20, 22 years ago was obviously not so and I still found it the probably one of the hardest, thankless things I ever did in the military. 3 very gruelling years doing 3 long deploys onboard a CVS as a junior rating I would never recommend anyone to do. The utter monotony of it, the compression, working alongside some dog ugly ship and squadron Senior Ratings running things at our level-it was bloody awful really. The strain on home life. I still find it hard to fathom why so many of us kept going with it and just didn't wrap it in. Loyalty?
In retrospect we probably did some good-my reasoning being we (NATO) stopped the Balkan states killing each other by air attack, through Operation Deny Flight (was that its name again)? We prevented another Guernica? Another Rotterdam?
Probably a lot of people on Prune loved it for differing reasons, but not me. It was all a duty I'm glad to put behind me. And the memorial bit? Why bother? I've ever yet to read or here of a single word of thanks from any Bosnian, Croat or any other for NATOS help, then or now.

[Lonewolf_50]

Yes fair point the thread was badly started by me really. I haven't looked at the memorial thread running parallel. I still think its a lot of money and not sure about it at all.
The Bosnian conflict itself squeezed the juice out of me. I don't think I've ever been the same since. I'm a middle aged bloke now, 20, 22 years ago was obviously not so and I still found it the probably one of the hardest, thankless things I ever did in the military. 3 very gruelling years doing 3 long deploys onboard a CVS as a junior rating I would never recommend anyone to do. The utter monotony of it, the compression, working alongside some dog ugly ship and squadron Senior Ratings running things at our level-it was bloody awful really. The strain on home life. I still find it hard to fathom why so many of us kept going with it and just didn't wrap it in. Loyalty?
In retrospect we probably did some good-my reasoning being we (NATO) stopped the Balkan states killing each other by air attack, through Operation Deny Flight (was that its name again)? We prevented another Guernica? Another Rotterdam?
Probably a lot of people on Prune loved it for differing reasons, but not me. It was all a duty I'm glad to put behind me. And the memorial bit? Why bother? I've ever yet to read or here of a single word of thanks from any Bosnian, Croat or any other for NATOS help, then or now.
Were you in Operation Sharp Guard, Maritime Guard, or Sharp Fence? That was the arms embargo, depending upon the year.

[Hangarshuffle]

CVS vessels worked the Bosnia circuit hard. All three ships were out there, to my recollection, doing a roughly six month deploy. Followed by return journey, a BAMP or mini refit (Base Assisted Maintenance Period), some leave, some training in prep, then the return journey back to the Adriatic. This was a typical rotation from early 1993 starting with Ark, 94, 95 and I think finishing off with Illustrious coming home in 96?
Operationally, we used two sea boxes called areas Lurcher and Dogger in the lower half of the Adriatic, from there launching typical SHAR armed patrols out over the Balkans. Typical CVS loadup with a TAG (tailored air group) was about 6 or 7 SHAR, about 6 or 8 Sea King ASW, and 3 Sea King AEW as I recall.
I still have mixed feeling about the design of CVS. They had relatively small decks and long narrow hangars. I never felt they were an ideal easy to work platform, compared to say Ocean, in which a lot of thought had gone into. But undoubtedly fast. And for some on-board, very, very cushy and comfortable.
Several weeks of this kind of operation, then a stand down typically to either Trieste, Athens, Bari, Corfu, Sicily, Malta, Haifa, Istanbul (not sure), Naples, Civitecchi (spell), cant remember where else. Engines off, get the lads ashore. This bit was usually fun, for what I remember.


Some difficult Naval characters on these things as well. Wasn't at all sweetness and light. Was anyone else on these trips? What do they think now, in hindsight?

[Hangarshuffle]

Truly Lone, I cant remember. The whole 3 years are blended into one long trip now, in my memory. All we ever seemed to do, was launch endless Sea Harrier after Sea Harrier over the land bit, recover them, stow them, fix them, re-arm them and repeat and repeat.. Our planes never engaged other fighters, I don't ever even think they saw any. Our pilots did a two week bombing spell sometime around the end of Summer 1995, around the Dayton agreement was it? Its like a dream. The utter boring 3 year monotony of it. As I said others will have a differing perspective. Malcolm Rifkind appeared, he was the defence minister. Patronising cock then and still now.. , and yet in a way I probably saw the RN and FAA at the very professional end of its fixed wing period. And it was a bit quirky, I wouldn't want to be still in it, but it did its job probably well enough.

[Bevo]

Yes fair point the thread was badly started by me really. I haven't looked at the memorial thread running parallel. I still think its a lot of money and not sure about it at all.
The Bosnian conflict itself squeezed the juice out of me. I don't think I've ever been the same since. I'm a middle aged bloke now, 20, 22 years ago was obviously not so and I still found it the probably one of the hardest, thankless things I ever did in the military. 3 very gruelling years doing 3 long deploys onboard a CVS as a junior rating I would never recommend anyone to do. The utter monotony of it, the compression, working alongside some dog ugly ship and squadron Senior Ratings running things at our level-it was bloody awful really. The strain on home life. I still find it hard to fathom why so many of us kept going with it and just didn't wrap it in. Loyalty?
In retrospect we probably did some good-my reasoning being we (NATO) stopped the Balkan states killing each other by air attack, through Operation Deny Flight (was that its name again)? We prevented another Guernica? Another Rotterdam?
Probably a lot of people on Prune loved it for differing reasons, but not me. It was all a duty I'm glad to put behind me. And the memorial bit? Why bother? I've ever yet to read or here of a single word of thanks from any Bosnian, Croat or any other for NATOS help, then or now.OK mate. Unfortunately we (the west) continue to try to “do the right thing” in areas were the combatants and general population are not going to forget the basic difference that started the fighting: and where they would probably just like to continue without our “inference”. This especially true were religion is the basis for the fighting.

[Hangarshuffle]

Yes perhaps the western NATO forces should have totally kept out and let the conflict take its course. But media coverage was extensive and quite horrific, and we had to be seen to be doing something? So a partial involvement dragged on, and dragged it on? Certainly it seemed to mark the start of fuller and deeper involvement of the UKs Armed Forces all over the world after a long period of cold war (bar GW 1), for after we had many operations, each seeming to grow more and more; Kosovo, Sierra Leone...Blair was in charge..it was the start of something~.
The RN were desperate to be involved, looking ahead to get the next carrier project going, CVS was ageing, that was the driver for them.
~only my opinion, I'm bound to be put right.

[AreOut]

"Yes perhaps the western NATO forces should have totally kept out and let the conflict take its course. "

as a Yugoslav I think that NATO forces should have reacted as soon as Slovenia started seceding which should have resulted in a relatively peaceful disintegration of all 6 republics

of course it's easy to be general after the battle...

[ExAscoteer]

and I dare say RAF as well.


As someone who was involved with the Sarajevo airlift, as someone who spent a fair amount of time on the ground 'sausage side', and as someone who later was doing 'trucking' into Split (despite the Royal bloody Navy attempting to shoot us down in a defined Transit Route) I find your 'Billy Big Bollocks Royal Navy Did Everything' attitude pretty bloody insulting.

[Door Slider]

Not to mention the SH Fce

[Courtney Mil]

Oh, my, God. Hangarshuffle, I truly had forgotten that The Bosnia thing was another one that the Royal Navy did all on its own. I am sooooooo (as they say on Facebook) sorry for not getting that.

This conflict dominated the fixed wing Fleet Air Arm, in fact strike that, I mean a lot of the whole FAA's time and tears for 3 or 4 years for maritime and a darn lot longer for the Yeovil green Sea King circuit. And a lot of the Army, and I dare say RAF as well.

You know, I never recall an FAA jet ever releiving me from my dawn patrol. Oh, maybe the RAF got there too late. Or was it rotated around available assets and Squadrons?

Guess what, that's what the UK's military assets are for. Go do things where you're told to go do things.

[Toadstool]

Hangar

your post talks about perspective. Yes, we've all put up with detachments and I'm sure that your 3 long deployments over 3 years were over and above the norm in what must have been much worse conditions compared to those based in Italy.

I would say though that the conditions suffered by those in Srebrenica and during the siege of Sarajevo puts what we suffered into the perspective of which you seek.

I like to think that we contributed and if we helped to stop another Srebrenica or Sarajevo, then it was a small price to pay.

[Lima Juliet]

I think you'll find that the FAA's participation was just a small cog in a very a large gear for Op DENY FLIGHT and Op DECISIVE EDGE. I did 2 stints of a few months on both and they were, to say the least, frustrating times. Having intercepted several EF helicopters (and told to shadow and not engage), the sqn being on a down day when the Serbs sent up their fixed wing at the same time we'd been flying sweep all week before (thus missing the opportunity of a couple of kills) and watching the massacre of civilians in towns on Sky News without clearance to do anything about it (the mud movers were bellowing over the radio to drop onto identified EF tanks and field arty pieces in the AOR) - now I wasn't privvy to what was going on in the CAOC or in diplomatic circles but it is my opinion that the Kosovo campaign could have been avoided if we had acted more decisively in 93-95. I really felt sorry for the Dutch Army stuck on the ground in Srebrenica - the choice being "don't hand over the local military aged males and be massacred" or do as they did and feel guilty about it for the rest of their lives. What a mess!

As for a Srebrenica memorial? I'd have to say 'no' as a vet of the Bosnia campaign. It is hardly our finest hour as a UN/NATO multinational force - indeed I would go so far as claiming the Bosnian campaign was gargantuan c0ck up in my humble opinion! Sadly, the local townspeople have their own memorial in the mass graves of those murdered; so no need for a UK one. :(

LJ

[Dougie M]

The Bosnian War (SFOR) transmuted into the Kosovo War (KFOR) without much sense of purpose. The Air Warfare maxim of Selection and Maintenance of the Aim seemed lost in the number of operations involved. This is the reverse of a coin minted near 5ATAF HQ in Italy which shows the diverse Ops including the tongue in cheek "Whatever".




http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag76/dougiemarsh/3a70f67f-45eb-4cea-b670-519bd62bacc7_zps9qqgabsz.jpg

[Dougie M]

The only aim seemed to written on the pages of the book that the lion is holding.http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag76/dougiemarsh/cbd51dc6-aca9-4b16-af7a-2353b3c64dbd_zpsiqrvlaof.jpg

[Lonewolf_50]

Leon:
I seem to recall that the commander of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in Gorazde didn't back down. (tips cap)

As to the UN dual-key RoE BS, that is a core reason that the 93-95 period was a cluster hump. (General McKenzie, Canadian, has over the years done a fine job of describing how screwed up that all was).

Despite the best efforts of troops from a bunch of UN nations, the collective political leadership of the world, as embodied by the UN Security Council, utterly screwed the pooch and created the conditions under which Srebrenica happened.

I had a coffee a few years later with a young (Turkish) man in Izmir, Turkey. On the wall of his jewelry shop (he was a fair goldsmith) was a medal and a placard from his UNPROFOR service before 1995. Proud he was to have done his part, but he expressed to me his frustration that he was unable to do more to help based on what he saw.