Help with searching for SOE liaison in former Yugoslavia

Discussion in 'Searching for Someone & Military Genealogy' started by ramil, Jul 24, 2012.

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  1. ramil

    ramil Junior Member

    Hello,
    I am a new member from former Yugoslavia, and I am trying to find out what happened to a great uncle of mine, which supposedly had some connections with a SOE agent in Yugoslavia, somewhat notorious Colonel Duane Hudson Duane Hudson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
    My great uncle Milutin Mladenovic was a mining engineer like Hudson, and they supposedly were friends even before the WW2. During the war, he was a manager of an important mine in Serbia, owened by the Germans as the occuping force. After the war, he was imprisoned by the new communist authorities for collaboration with Germans, and then he dissapeared. The family presumed him dead -probably shot in prison, although they never received death certificate.
    A BBC crew was in Serbia some years ago trying to film a story about Colonel Duane Hudson and his alleged theft of British funds for anti-Nazi fighters that he was supposed to distribute. For some reason, they thought my great uncle had helped him bury the gold :D.
    Although no one in my family knows anything about the destiny of Milutin Mladenovic, nor his liaisons with SOE, after incidentally finding out about it in a story on BBC crew's research, I thought that he might have been a field agent himself and that there could exist some record about it in British Archives.
    Unfortunately, since I am not in Britain, I can't go ti the National Archives, which, as I saw, has a substantial amount of documents on SOE in Yugoslavia, but not downloadable, at least not for free. So I thought that some of you people who are conducting similar investigations concerning SOE or other British intelligence personnel in ex-Yugoslavia, might help me somehow. At least tell me if my ideas are conceivable.
    Thanks
     
  2. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    There is no SOE personal file for your uncle = he may be mentioned in the operational files covering Hudson's missions or have a card in the Card Index. Hudson did not steal the funds he cached them as some agents had been murdered because of the funds they were carrying - the Yugoslavs used to check what money the agents had and on occasion take it by violent means.
     
  3. ramil

    ramil Junior Member

    Thank you very much for your answer, Jedburgh22. I wasn't suggesting that Colonel Hudson really took that gold, I really don't know anything about that.
    As I can see, you are a historian and an expert on this matter. Can you be so kind as to explain to me what the Card index is, since I am not familiar with the SOE organization and I don't know what the existence of a card in the index might mean. That he indeed was somehow connected to SOE?
    The thing is, I am not looking for gold that he he might have helped steal form UK Government :D. Afther the war, there were some rumors from some Yugoslav officials that they have seen ma great uncle somwhere in Romania, near some mines. He was allegedly an excellent and experienced mining engineer. So I thought that the British, or Colonel Hudson, being a decorated war veteran, somehow managed to save him from Yugoslav prison, at least saved him from being shot and gave him the new identity somewhere else. His own brother, who left Yugoslavia before the end of the war, a phd from Sorbonne, somehow ended as a prominent history professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, although he was a Natzi colaborator - editor in chief of a prominent newspaper during the war.
    Unfortunately, the archives of the Yugoslav Security Police are still closed, so I can't check if he actually was killed by the Secret Police. Finding such a document, a death certificate or something, would put an end to these probably naive and silly ideas of mine.
     
  4. Jedburgh22

    Jedburgh22 Very Senior Member

    In each area that SOE worked in a set of record cards were maintained as a reference source for contacts, helpers etc in that country, when I have an opportunity I will look to see if there is a card for your uncle - the period after 1945 will not be covered - only the war years.
     
  5. ramil

    ramil Junior Member

    Thanks a lot for your kindness.
     

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