The Kurtez ambush occurred on August 12, 1943, near the village of

Kurtez Kurtez (also: ''Kurtes'') is a community in the Korçë County, southeastern Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It ...

in the Kolonjë District of Korçë County in southeastern Albania. It was carried out by Balli Kombëtar during the Albanian Resistance of World War II. Two hundred local Balli Kombëtar militants, commanded by Qemal Burimi and David Smiley, ambushed a German convoy and a troop carrier, inflicting heavy losses on the German troops.

Background

After the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, several resistance groups gradually formed. One of the most important of these groups was Balli Kombëtar, a nationalist organization led by Mit'hat Frashëri and Ali Këlcyra. In mid-1943 the Special Operations Executive (SOE), a British clandestine organisation, sent several agents to Albania to cooperate with Balli Kombëtar and the Albanian National Liberation Front. David Smiley, one of the SOE agents, contacted a unit of two hundred Balli Kombëtar soldiers under the command of Qemal Burimi. After assembling at the village of

they decided to carry out an ambush against German troops on the main road near Kurtez connecting Korçë to

Ioannina Ioannina ( el, Ιωάννινα ' ), often called Yannena ( ' ) within Greece, is the capital and largest city of the Ioannina regional unit and of Epirus, an administrative region in north-western Greece. According to the 2011 census, the c ...

Ambush

The Albanian troops were positioned along the road and Smiley laid sixteen mines in two groups of eight on either side of the road about apart. Shortly afterwards a large German troop-carrier towing an 88 mm gun approached and was blown up on one of the two groups of mines. The German soldiers that were not killed by the explosion were shot by the Ballists while they were trying to escape by running back along the road. Eighteen German soldiers were killed, twelve of them while in the troop-carrier. The captured gun was pushed into the river-bed below the road. About a half-hour later, a German convoy of twenty-three trucks approached the ambuscade from the direction of

Leskovik Leskovik is a town and a former municipality in the Korçë County, southeastern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became a subdivision of the municipality Kolonjë. It is located right at the Greek-Albanian border. The population ...

. The first truck blew up on the second group of mines, while Smiley fired a

20 mm Breda The Breda 20/65 mod.35 (''"Breda 20 mm L/65 model 1935"''), also simply known as 20 mm Breda or Breda Model 35, among other variations, was an Italian anti-aircraft gun produced by the Società Italiana Ernesto Breda of Brescia company ...

gun on the following trucks, resulting in two of them bursting into flames. The Ballists shot down five German soldiers who tried to escape. The Albanian troops suffered no casualties during the attack. The German troops were from the 1st Alpine Division.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurtez Ambush Conflicts in 1943 1943 in Albania Military history of Albania during World War II Battles involving Balli Kombëtar Battles of World War II involving Germany Ambushes August 1943 events