article for July 9, 2019
Article of the day for July 9, 2019 is Luftwaffe . Vardar was the eventual name of a Sava-class river monitor, originally built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy as SMS Bosna, that went into service on 9 July 1915. During World War I she fought the Serbian Army, the Romanian Navy and Army, and the French Army. After briefly serving with the Hungarian People's Republic at the end of the war, she was transferred to the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia), and renamed Vardar. She remained in service throughout the interwar period. During the first few days of the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, she laid mines in the Danube near the Romanian border as the flagship of the 1st Monitor Division. She fought off several attacks by the Luftwaffe, but was forced to withdraw to Belgrade. Due to high river levels and low bridges, navigation became difficult, and she was scuttled on 11 April by her crew, who were later killed or captured.
