The Day of 204th Air Force Brigade Marked
Friday, 1.12.2017 | Culture and traditions
Today, at the airfield “Batajnica” an official celebration was held to mark 2nd December – Day of the 204th Air Force Brigade and the 11th anniversary of the establishment of that unit.
Today, at the air field “Batajnica” an official celebration was held to mark 2nd December – Day of the 204th Air Force Brigade and the 11th anniversary of the establishment of that unit of the Air Force and Air Defence.
The celebration was attended by Deputy Commander of AF and AD, Brigadier General Sava Milenković, members of the Ministry of Defence and Serbian Armed Forces, local government, religious communities, retired members of the unit, and the families of perished and deceased members of the brigade.
Reminding of the history of the unit, the Commander of the 204th Air Force Brigade, Colonel Željko Bilić, pointed out that the flag of the patron of the unit, features the glorious traditions of the 6th fighter regiment, the heroes of defence of Belgrade in the April War in 1941.
- The sixth regiment moved to the war history but it has remained an inspiration of the generations of Serbian air knights – the Commander said and added that the unit that he commands had always had modern aviation equipment and high combat capabilities, and that it was adorned by high level expert combat training, strong collective spirit and unbreakable fighting morale.
Colonel Bilić underlined that after long period of time we witnessed the procurement of fighter planes, multipurpose helicopters of newer generation and the modernisation of transport aircraft for the unit which would certainly contribute to successful realisation of tasks and raising the level of operational capabilities of the unit.
- This year as well, we have conducted the planned training of cadets of the Military Academy and the training of our young colleagues has enabled us to assign new pilots to aviation fighter units. With great efforts and a lot of personal self-sacrificing, the serviceability of the assets was maintained at the level that allowed unhindered training, and the realisation of envisaged flight hours and conduct of all flight activities – the Commander of the 204th Air Force Brigade, Colonel Bilić said and reminded of all results achieved by the unit in the previous period, and a year that he characterised as highly successful.
According to his words, the basic goal of the brigade in the period to come would be preservation of sovereignty and control of the air space of the Republic of Serbia, and increase of quality of flights carried out, with maximal possible maintenance of serviceability of the aircraft so that the next step could be made towards full recovery of the unit’s capabilities.
The most successful members were awarded and commended at the celebration, along with traditional handover of scrolls of honour in a memory of Major Zoran Radosavljević, and the homage was paid to the perished and deceased members of the unit by lying a wreath at the monument “No one said: I do not want to”.
The Day of the 204th Air Force Brigade is marked on 2nd December in a memory of the same date in 1949 when the 2014th Fighter Aviation Wing was established.
