Osredkar Ive

Ive Osredkar (Ljubljana, 6 May 1915 – Mt Blegoš, 3 August 1942)

 

Osredkar was born in Ljubljana on 6 May 1915. After high school studies he decided to join the Navy and in 1934 entered the Naval Academy in Dubrovnik. After three years of studies, he was promoted to the rank of officer on 28 June 1936. He initially served on minesweepers, later on the mother ship "Hvar" and as Battery Commander at Baška voda. With the rank of Sub Lieutenant he lived to see the end of the April War in 1941.At the end of April 1941 he returned to Ljubljana, but was arrested by the Italians and sentenced to three months in prison. After released from jail, he joined the Liberation Front and took an active part in it.

In the night from 18 and 19 March 1942, when the Italians arrested all the former Slovenian officers, Ive Osredkar went underground and organized a group of 73 volunteers from Ljubljana to break with through the Italian blockade with him and to join the partisans on the night of 4-5 May. He was assigned to the Poljana Company of the Škofja Loka Detachment. As a former officer and as the only active officer among the Gorenjska partisans, he trained combatants in military skills and took part in a number of partisan actions.

His stay on Mt Blegoš in the middle of the summer of 1942 was intended for rest, but the Poljana Company and Osredkar himself assumed the task of reporting in the Poljana Valley to alert the German outpost in Škofja Loka; by doing so, they would help the Second Detachment Group to move with greater ease to the region of Štajerska. Therefore, the Company carried out several activities, which resulted in a large German offensive on Mt Blegoš. During the fight on 3 August 1942, Ive Osredkar lost his life there.

In 1949, Osredkar's next of kin transferred his remains to the family tomb in Radovljica.

 

Ive Osredkar was the first Yugoslav naval officer who decided to fight together with partisans, as well as the first among them to give his life in an organized partisan fight in the struggle for liberation and a new social life. 

 

 

Adapted from Miroslav Pahor.

 

More in printed books: 

 

Miroslav Pahor: Vse poti vodijo k morju: zbrani prispevki k slovenski pomorski zgodovini 1 in Samo morje je vedelo: zbrani prispevki k slovenski pomorski zgodovini 2, Koper,  2022; 
Volume 2, pp. 385 – 390,  Poročnik korvete Ive Osredkar iz Ljubljane (roj. 1915)