On the 31st anniversary of Operation Storm, three comrades from Zadar recalled the fierce battles near Zemunik Gornji, their wounds, and the determination that broke enemy resistance.
Members of the 7th Home Guard Regiment (7. dp) Zadar traditionally mark the 31st anniversary of the Military-Police Operation Storm, in which one of their comrades lost his life. For this unit, the operation held additional significance, as about a third of its members came from occupied villages and had spent four years in exile with their families. Ahead of the new anniversary, three comrades, Enriko Jurić, commander of the 2nd Battalion, Zoran Radić Rambo, commander of the transport and logistics platoon, and Elvis Veršić, commander of the 2nd Company of the 2nd Battalion, recounted how they broke through the first line of defense near Zemunik Gornji at a tremendous cost.
In the run-up to the operation, the unit held the line from Rupalj and Zemunik to Galovac and Škabrnja. About ten days before Storm, thirty volunteers from the regiment were sent to Bosnia to take part in Operation Summer '95. They rejoined their parent unit only on the third day of Storm, in Benkovac. Commander of the 2nd Battalion, Enriko Jurić, emphasizes that they were in excellent physical and mental shape, with four years of combat experience behind them.
"There wasn't much difference between our regiment and the professional guard brigades, except for a slight difference in age and equipment," Jurić recalled. The plans for Storm were presented to them by their commander, the late Danijel Telesmanić Did, with the key concept provided by Ante Gotovina. Mobilization to fill out the ranks was launched on August 4, and the order to begin the operation arrived at one o'clock after midnight, with the start at five in the morning.
The route toward Škabrnja and Drače, a hamlet of Zemunik Gornji, was deliberately avoided. At Drače, the Croatian Army had suffered more than 20 fatalities after Operation Maslenica, and the command considered those points extremely dangerous. Jurić's 2nd Battalion was tasked with advancing along the Banići, Potkosa, center of Zemunik Gornji axis. There, they were met by the elite 92nd Benkovac Brigade of the Army of Serbian Krajina, whose commander was from Drače, which further explained the ferocity of the defense.
The enemy positions were fortified with two rows of trenches, parapets, and concrete bunkers reinforced with logs. Each point was 200 to 300 meters apart, with established communications. "The Benkovac Brigade of the Army of Serbian Krajina came out in full force during Storm and put up a determined defense," Jurić stressed, dismissing later claims that Serbian forces did not fight.
On the first day of the operation, August 4, the 2nd Battalion launched two infantry assaults, but both were repelled. Neither to their right nor left did anyone manage to break through the enemy line. Around 2 or 3 p.m., a call came into Jurić's headquarters from the operations center with Ante Gotovina's question: "What are we waiting for?" Jurić then made a crucial decision, he led his security platoon and took the route used by UNPROFOR forces, which was not mined.
"When we crossed that part of the battlefield, everything was burning. It was extremely hot, and our artillery had been pounding the line five or six times since morning," Jurić describes. They entered the first row of enemy trenches, but they were empty. The enemy soldiers had withdrawn deeper, and on the road they were met by two men armed with a heavy PKT machine gun.
Jurić emphasizes that he was not a reckless commander who would order a mission to be accomplished at any cost, such as at the expense of ten men. "You can't do that with Dalmatians. We went to do the most we could while losing as few men as possible. Even Knin wasn't liberated on the first day of the operation," he explained.
The first two Croatian soldiers to emerge before them, Radić and Režan, were met with a burst from the PKT. Zoran Radić Rambo was hit from about twenty meters away. "When we entered Banići, it was hand-to-hand combat with grenades being thrown. All our men were ready to die," Radić recalled. "I passed out. Another guy, Pavić, was also hit. My guys were true heroes; they pulled me out while I was wounded."
Jurić admits that at that moment, although they were childhood friends, he felt no emotion, and that, he says, is what saved him as a commander. He immediately organized the evacuation of the wounded and called in mortar support. Nazif Agović Naki, a former member of the Niš special forces, was ordered to target houses one by one with Zolja rockets. After ten projectiles, he shouted to Jurić that he couldn't fire anymore. Soon after, the assault came: "We walked and fired at them, and they fled. I shouted: 'Catch them alive, shoot at their legs!'", Jurić recalls.
After the breakthrough, the 2nd Battalion entered Banići and then Potkosa. Meanwhile, the 1st Battalion of the 7th Home Guard Regiment had taken Goleš but failed to break through the line at Ercezi. As a result, they began to suffer flanking fire from Chetnik 60mm mortars positioned near UNPROFOR forces in the village. Jurić radioed the operations center, where it was confirmed that the 1st Battalion had not succeeded. By that point, they had liberated about half of the village. The commander then decided to halt the attack, send relief to the exhausted troops, and let the enemy withdraw.
Jurić notes that the enemy in Zemunik Gornji put up maximum resistance during Storm with the forces at their disposal. On the second day of the operation, before dawn, the last enemy self-propelled gun withdrew with about twenty soldiers, and there was no real defense left, only sporadic resistance. At the Tromilja crossroads, one enemy soldier fired ten rounds at a column of 200 men before being hit and later dying in the hospital.
In conclusion, Jurić dismisses the often-repeated claims that Serbian forces did not fight during Storm. "It's not true what is often said, that Serbian forces didn't fight in this operation," he stated. He also pointed out that before the operation, commanders had agreed that if they encountered stronger resistance, they would not go head-on into a wall, which, along with courage and resourcefulness, allowed the mission to be accomplished with minimal losses. "I never heard anyone say we would crush the enemy. We knew that on the first day of the operation we might liberate maybe ten or twenty kilometers. Those who later said otherwise want to boost their own reputation or diminish the success of others," the commander concluded.
