Talk:Operation Retribution (1941)

Propaganda

Do you have some proof for this: "It was supposed to break down the Germans but actually had destroyed Belgrade more than the German bombs. On some found bombs, it was written in Serbian Cyrillic Happy Easter"? This state was created in 1990, and was part of Slobodan Miloshevic propaganda against US and Britain. Please give citation or remove this propaganda.

More info

"Civilian casualties were as many as 1,160, while German military losses were 18." 18 what? Buildings? Bases? 99.236.220.155 (talk) 05:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Splitting

Well, I think that should be two separate articles 'cause attacker in this two occasions were not fight on the same side. Also, if you look into French, German and Serbian articles, you'll see that they describe only one bombing (not both in the same article). -- Bojan  05:29, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose I don't think there is need for two articles. Those were both in the same war, and the second article would be too short. Vanjagenije (talk) 11:08, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Questionable numbers of downed aircraft

Even though the claim that Yugoslav fighters shot down 12 German Messerchmits is referenced it is still false. The truth is that they shot down 12 German aircraft of all types - the majority of them being Junkers Ju-87 Stukas. Also, Milisav Semiz never shot down four aircraft. According to some optimistic Serbian sources I read, he claimed only three enemy aircraft. However, I remember hearing an interview with a member of a small club dedicated to Yugoslav Royal Air Force (historical research and memory preservation) some years ago who claimed that no Yugoslav pilot shot down more than two aircraft during the campaign.

Veljko Stevanovich 13. 07. 2007. 00:45 UTC+1

This whole article is bunkum

No wonder Wikipedia isn't trusted as a source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.97.23.238 (talk) 17:53, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Split of article

I consider this article should be split into two, this one for the German bombing (Operation Retribution) in April 1941 that presaged the invasion, and a new one for the Allied bombing of Yugoslavia (which mainly occurred in 1944). The USAAF and RAF bombed Belgrade, Mostar, Niš, Pančevo, Zara, Skopje, Metovic, Knin, Imotski, Bihac, Brod, Drnis, Leskovic, Zagreb, Varazdin etc etc etc. Conflating two bombings of Belgrade three years apart is counterintuitive when there is much more to the Allied missions that bombed Belgrade (for example the USAAF also bombed Niš and Pančevo on the same day in April 1944). They really are separate subjects. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 04:46, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Support - If the article dealing with the allied bombing cannot be developed substantially beyond the scope currently found in this article, the material could be arranged as an article on allied bombing of Yugoslavia in WWII, with an appropriate wikilink in this one.--Tomobe03 (talk) 09:36, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Undiscussed move

I have reversed the move to Bombing of Belgrade in World War II, as that is NOT the scope of the article. This article relates only to Operation Retribution, the bombing of Belgrade at the outset of the Axis invasion in April 1941, not the later bombing of Belgrade by the Allies that occurred between 1941 and 1945, covered by Allied bombing of Yugoslavia in World War II. When moving articles, please take into account the scope of the article, other articles that might cover the topic, and the class of the article, and use an RM if unsure. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 10:10, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Easter?

Dear @Peacemaker67:, I have doubts on the Easter.

First of all, 6 april gregorian was saturday, so cannot be the Easter Sunday. This is sure.

Gilbert (Grande Storia della Seconda Guerra Mondiale, I have it in italian ...) states that Beograd was full of people collected there to celebrate the Palm Sunday (evidently the next day). The correctness of Gilbert is highly probable.

My computer program computes that the Orthodox Easter was on 7 april julian i.e. 20 april gregorian. Quite probably I have a bug ...

Suppongoche (talk) 19:25, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

The dates of my program have been confirmed by a pair of INTERNET calculators. I may only guess that the serb church used a rule different from that implemented in the Gauss algorithm (e.g. a more accurate formula for the lunar motion) Suppongoche (talk) 20:29, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Although the source does indeed say this, it would appear the author (Zakić) is mistaken and you are correct. Easter Sunday in 1941 took place on 20 April (Gregorian). It would appear that it was the 1944 bombing that coincided with Easter Sunday, not the 1941 one. I will therefore remove this in accordance with WP:V. Good catch! Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 20:54, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Seems legit. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:33, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

As a consequence, the Palm Sunday of Gilbert (claimed to be a main factor of the heavy life toll) is the catholic one. Suppongoche (talk) 03:53, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Short and long tons of bombs

The conversion of short/long tons of bombs dropped has been changed in this article to SI units (tonnes), so I reverted, but was myself reverted with the edit summary "It's standard practice to use SI units on wikipedia articles, especially those that relate to countries other than the US, per MOS:UNITS. Also it's less confusing for readers." In fact, there are thousands of articles on WP which use short and long tons, because the sources that were used to create them describe them in that way, and it is standard in the literature. It is entirely "standard practice" on articles about ships. For example, HMS Dreadnought (1906) (a GA), SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand (an FA), and many, many more. Every naval ship FA I have worked up (about 25 articles) uses them, and the same would apply to several highly prolific naval ship editors who have developed far more FAs than me. Among articles about bombing, Bombing of Tokyo (10 March 1945) also uses short tons. For an editor with 300 edits to suggest that they know "standard practice" on WP better than an editor with over 90,000 is also a bit rich. There is no reason whatsoever to insist on this reading of MOS:UNITS. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:31, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Naval literature has its own traditions such as listing speed in knots, that is well established. But measuring the weight of bombs has no established tradition that would set it apart from other descriptions of weight. It is just that - a simple description of mass meant to be understandable to the average reader. Regarding the use of short tons on Tokyo's bombing, that bombing was done by USAAF and the MOS clearly states: “In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United States, the main unit is generally a U.S. customary unit ”. The bombing of Belgrade was done by Germany on Yugoslavia (Serbia), both of which are metric countries and the article has no strong ties with the United States.

Regarding other articles pertinent countries the MOS states:

• In all other articles, the primary units chosen will be SI units, non-SI units officially accepted for use with the SI, or such other units as are conventional in reliable-source discussions of the article topic (such as revolutions per minute (rpm) for rotational speed, hands for heights of horses, etc.)

If you have 90 000 edits you should probably know this by now. Andro611 (talk) 01:18, 25 December 2022 (UTC)