Saje Baldomir

Baldomir Saje (Novo mesto, 26 January 1909 – Vojsko, 1 April 1945 ).

 

He attended the Naval Academy in Dubrovnik and graduated in 1929. He served aboard several ships as well as in Osvetnik submarine. In March 1942 he was interned in the Italian concentration camp Gonars and, eventually, in Padua. After the capitulation of the Italian Army he returned to the Yugoslav territory on 1 October 1943 and was deployed to a Naval Detachment on the island of Vis. In 1944, he was sent to Slovenia, where he became Naval Group Commander within IX Corps. He was killed in a battle at Vojsko.

 

Nadja Terčon

 

(PMSMP, documentation NOB) 

 

Saje was born in a railway family in Novo mesto as the first of five children. Soon after the birth of the last child, the father died. With a modest pension and persistent manual labour, the mother supported and educated four of her five children at the Novo mesto secondary school and eventually at various colleges and academies.

 

After completing secondary school, Baldomir and Radoslav, the first two sons, opted to attend the Naval Academy in Dubrovnik. Baldomir graduated from the Academy in 1929 as a 5th class student. In this class rank, he achieved 18th place among thirty-five competitors. Just a few days after, he boarded the ship "Spasilac" and spent several years carrying out various jobs on land as well as on warships. He was particularly infatuated by submarines. Therefore, he enrolled in the course for submarine officers on 14 October 1933 and passed it with honours on 5 June 1935. After completing the course, he served for few years aboard submarines where he went through all functions from navigation officer via artillery and torpedo officer to chief mate aboard the submarine "Osvetnik". On 4 May 1937, he was granted submarine specialization, enrolled in a submarine commander's course and completed it with honours on 10 September, 1940. Shortly before the breakup of the old Yugoslavia, he served in the submarine flotilla base in Tivat with the rank of Lieutenant Commander First Class. In this service, he awaited the capitulation of the Army and the Navy.

 

The Italians instantly deported him to occupied Slovenia, where he joined the Liberation Front in Novo mesto in the summer of 1941. In September 1941, progressive naval officers organized a group in Ljubljana named »Mornariška grupa Jadran Osvobodilne fronte«.  It was led by Captain Vladimir Kandare, Lieutenants Ilj Poljanec and Franc Potočnik. In a short time, the group was joined by all junior officers from Novo mesto, including Slavko Kavšek and Janez Tomšič, and started to prepare to join the partisans. These naval officers, however, were arrested in Novo mesto on the night between 17 and 18 March 1942. A day later, the officers in Ljubljana were also arrested and together with the Novo mesto officers taken to the Gonars Camp in Friuli. On 15 November 1942, the officers and non-commissioned officers, who had not yet been released by the Italians from Gonars, were transferred to the Chiesanuova Camp near Padua. The Italians released Yugoslav officers from the camp in groups. Baldomir Saje awaited the capitulation of Italy on 8 September 1943 in the camp. The Germans took the camp prisoners by train to their hometowns, where Saje escaped in Zagreb and joined the partisans. He became a fighter of the Cankar Brigade and eventually sent, as a former Yugoslav naval officer, to the Island of Vis, where the Partisan Navy was formed.
By order of the Navy Headquarters issued on 23 December 1943, he was appointed Commander of the Brač Flotilla on the Island of Brač, which belonged to the 4th Naval Coastal Sector. He carried out this duty until mid-February 1944, when yet again summoned to Vis to assume the duty of Chief of Staff of the 4th Naval Coastal Sector. On 24 May, he was appointed Acting Commander of the 2nd Marine Coastal Sector, based on the Island of Dugi otok. On 1 September 1944 he travelled, by order of the Navy Headquarters and with the approval of the Supreme Headquarters of NOV and POJ, from Vis to Slovenia with the rank of Major in the group commanded by Major Janez Tomšič. They formed the Naval Group at the 9th Corps, with Major Saje appointed the Navy's delegate at the Headquarters of NOV and PO of Slovenia.

 

In mid-February 1945, Major Janez Tomšič was summoned to the liberated town of Split, where new tasks awaited him. On the proposal of the Headquarters of NOV and POJ, Major Baldomir Saje was commissioned to take Tomšič’s place. Towards the end of the same month Saje took over the command of the Naval Group, which near Cerkno in the immediate vicinity of the Headquarters of the 9th Corps was preparing to take part in the liberation of Trieste. In the battle raging during the offensive, Baldomir Saje was mortally wounded on 1 April 1945.
On 11 July 1945, the Anti-Fascist Council of the Yugoslav National Liberation decorated Major Baldomir Saje with the 3rd degree Order of Merit for the Nation. 
Adapted from Miroslav Pahor.

More about it on the link

 

and 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.  391 – 398, Major Baldomir Saje iz Novega mesta (roj. 1909)