Ratomir Milikić, PhD
Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

**THE FATE OF MAJOR ATHERTON AND THE ALLIED HYDRA MISSION IN 1942: BETWEEN YUGOSLAV LITERATURE AND BRITISH SOURCES**

Vol. XLIII, 1/2025, pp. 125-146
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2025.1.mil.125-146

ABSTRACT/RESUME:

Experts, as well as a broader public, have mostly endorsed a decades-old stereotype that the ill-fated Hydra mission, which the Allies carried out in occupied Yugoslavia under Major Terence Atherton, was cursed by the greedy hand of a “Chetnik villain” thirsty for English blood and a good amount of gold. Based on documents from British sources, this paper is providing a new angle. The Hydra mission, a mixed British-Yugoslav venture that must be viewed as an inseparable part of a joint undertaking with the Yugoslav Hena mission, too, was led by Major Terence Atherton, well-acquainted with Yugoslav circumstances and recruited during the war. It was in a peculiar way that the mission reached occupied Yugoslavia in January 1942, right after the Uprising had been crushed and a civil war erupted between two resistance movements in the country – onboard a submarine, the Hydra team landed on the Montenegrin coast, near Perazića Do. Although not all the details of Major Atherton’s instruction have been revealed, the most reasonable assumption is that he was supposed to establish communication with General Mihailović and provide a genuine picture of the situation in the occupied country for the purposes of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the British authorities. Shortly after they had reached the Yugoslav soil, members of the Mission were interned by a People’s Liberation Movement (NOP) unit. The commanding officer did not trust the foreigners introducing themselves as allies, preferring to liquidate them, but the orders arrived to escort them under guard to Tito in Foča, where the NOP headquarters was at that time. Seemingly a free man, but in fact under constant, strict surveillance by his Partisan escort, Atherton was able to meet and talk with the most prominent leaders of the Partisan movement. Tito tried to summarize the situation in the country and within the resistance movement as a treacherous crusade by the then dominant Yugoslav Army in the Homeland (JVuO) against the NOP. Tito would offer various pieces of information as evidence of his claims, but did not allow Atherton any spontaneous contact with the surroundings, not even with ordinary NOP fighters. While in Foča, Atherton met Royal Yugoslav Army General Ljubo Novaković, who at that time had made a sort of pact with the NOP. The two escaped from Foča and the Partisans together, and according to British sources, Tito sent Slobodan Penezić Krcun after them, to “catch them at all costs.” Krcun, running the kernel of the Department for the Protection of the People at the time, set out to accomplish the task. In this chase, Major Atherton vanished, as did the gold he was carrying. General Mihailović ordered an urgent investigation right away, but as the war was nearing its end, Tito claimed in his contacts with the British that he, too, had conducted an investigation. The Partisan leader insisted that some of the JVuO units on the ground had liquidated the British major. This version, concocted by Tito and the NOP, has been gradually built up, expanded, and elaborated over time. In 1943 Tito was explicit that he had nothing to do with Atherton’s disappearance, and at the end of 1944 he was already persuading the British side that the JVuO soldiers were to be blamed. In the following years and decades, even a presumed perpetrator was identified. The narrative peaked in the 1980s, when unexpected witnesses to Atherton’s escape from Foča were found, remembering everything perfectly and eager to speak up nearly four decades after the tragic events. On the other hand, the British tried to identify those responsible for Major Atherton’s death. Internal SOE documents from the immediate post-war period suggest that the Partisans were the likeliest culprits, with a note though that insisting on it would be inopportune, as it might threaten the bilateral relationship that began to improve after 1948. Besides, an analysis of British documents reveals that several British officers with the NOP were killed or went missing in a manner very similar to how Atherton disappeared.

KEYWORDS: Atherton, Hydra mission, SOE, Mihailović, Partisan movement, Tito, Yugoslavia

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THE FATE OF MAJOR ATHERTON AND THE ALLIED HYDRA MISSION IN 1942: BETWEEN YUGOSLAV LITERATURE AND BRITISH SOURCES

**THE FATE OF MAJOR ATHERTON AND THE ALLIED HYDRA MISSION IN 1942: BETWEEN YUGOSLAV LITERATURE AND BRITISH SOURCES**