It would perhaps be more accurate to put the word “Allied” in quotes. Enemies are bombed, not allies. True, a few bombs were dropped on Zagreb, the capital of the Axis “Independent State of Croatia,” but not on purpose as happened with Belgrade and other Serbian cities. US and British bombers got rid of some of their remaining payload by dropping it on Zagreb after conducting raids on German installations in occupied Europe. Even so, the Croatian Ustashi “government” sharply protested the few incidents of this nature, even though it had declared war on the US and Great Britain in December of 1941 and these raids were therefore not a violation of international law. The massive carpet bombing of Belgrade, Podgorica, Leskovac, Niš, and other Serbian cities falls in an entirely different category. In these barbaric raids, which as historians have subsequently established were conducted at the specific request of Josip Broz’s Main staff, thousands of Serbian civilians were killed and injured, while occupation forces suffered minimal losses and their installations were largely intact.

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