A POINT should be made here—that the guerrilla bands which Marshal Tito had dispatched southward into Serbia the year before had played havoc with German lines of communication. At the time when the British were sorely pressed at El Alamein in North Africa, Tito had ordered his guerrillas to spare no effort to delay German re-enforcements. The result was that train after train bearing German troops and supplies for Rommel’s army was derailed or blown up, and thereby the Yugoslavs became one of the most important factors in the eventual Allied North African victory.
Perhaps this more than anything else convinced the British that Mikhailovich was, if not a traitor and Axis collaborationist, at least a straw man, blown all out of proportion by Yugoslav Government in Exile lies. At any rate, the British were fed up and disgusted with the Government in Exile’s incompetence and stupidity. The British contacted Tito and determined to send a military mission to cooperate with him. The mission was landed by parachute on the Piva Plateau in Montenegro.