Jablanica Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
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Jablanica is situated in the valley of Neretva-river and is famous
about it’s bridge and the Battle of Neretva. In 1943 there
were heavy fights between the German Army and the partizans in this
region. The partizans had plenty of succesful operations against
the germans, because the rough terrain was a big problem for the
mechanized troops and for the airplanes. In February 1943 the
Germans wanted the partizans to caught in a pocket on the western
side of the Neretva, with their back to river. The only way to get
through the river was this bridge, but it was controlled by the
germans. In one night, the legendary partisan leader, Marshal Josip
Broz Tito made a fake, he sent his sappers to blow up the bridge.
The germans thought, that the partizans were prepairing there last
battle and wanted to brake out the north of Jablanica and with
destroying the bridge, they wanted to prevent desertion. The
germans strated to redeploy there troops and left only weak guard
at the bridge. Soon the partizans attacked and occupied the guard,
and rebuilt the destroyed bridge very fast, which let them to break
out from the deadly trap, taking the wounded and the main partizan
field hospital with them, too. This action, the Battle of Neretva
was one strong base of Tito’s glory. The 1969 Oscar-nominated
motion picture, The Battle of Neretva shows these events. The
partizans could escape from the trap and moved to eastern Bosnia,
near to Sutjeska-river. In May-June 1943 the germans destroyed the
main partizan forces in the Battle of Sutjeska, but it’s
another story and maybe another cache. Near the cache there is a
museum which shows this event and you can see an exhibition about
the last Balkan-war (1992-95), too.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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