– Velimir Ivetić –
Colonel-General
ARSO R. JOVANOVIĆ,
Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army from March 1 to September 15, 1945
He was born in the village of Zavala near Podgorica on March 24, 1907, and died near Vršac in 1948.
He graduated from the Military Academy in 1928, the Higher School of the Military Academy in 1934 and the Supplementary Course of the Higher School of the Military Academy in 1940, after which he underwent general staff training. He was promoted to the rank of First-Class Captain in 1938, at which point, as a company commander at the School for Reserve Infantry Officers, he was appointed commander of the Training Battalion at the Infantry School for active officers.
During the April War (1941), he successfully commanded the Student Battalion along the Sarajevo-Travnik axis.
In the uprising of 1941, he led the Supreme Command of the National Liberation Troops of Montenegro, Boka and the Sandžak. He was the Chief of Staff of the National Liberation guerrilla detachments, later of the Main Staff of the National Liberation Partisan Detachments for Montenegro and Boka, and commander of the Montenegrin National Liberation Partisan Detachment for operations in the Sandžak. As of December 12, 1941, he served as Chief of the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia, later renamed the Supreme Headquarters of the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia (NOV and POJ), until it was restructured into the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army (JA) on March 1, 1945. From late 1942 to mid-1943, he was in Slovenia with a group of officers to improve the partisan organization and strengthen the leading role of the Communist Party of Slovenia and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. When a smaller group of the Supreme Staff of the NOV and POJ was in Caserta (Italy) in August 1944 with the Supreme Command of Allied Forces for the Mediterranean, Arso was deeply involved in planning the next joint operations. At the beginning of 1945, he led a delegation of the Supreme Headquarters of the NOV and POJ tasked with working with the top leadership of the USSR to develop joint operations and other strategic actions for the final phase of the war.
He was promoted to the rank of Major-General on May 1, 1943, Lieutenant-General on November 1, 1943 and Colonel-General in 1947.
From 1946 to 1948, he studied at the “K.Y. Voroshilov” Higher Military Academy in the USSR. After returning from his studies, he was appointed head of the Higher Military Academy of the Yugoslav Army. He accepted the resolution of the Cominform, and during an attempted crossing of the Yugoslav-Romanian border, he was, according to the official report, killed by border forces.
He authored more than 30 works, mostly on the National Liberation War (NOR), 17 of which were written during the war. Among them, the book Tactics of the Infantry Battalion (1939) stands out.
He received numerous decorations, including the Gold Medal for Diligent Service while still a second lieutenant and the Order of the Yugoslav Crown, Fifth Class (1940), as well as the Order of Brotherhood and Unity, First Class, the Order of Merit for the People, First Class, the Partisan Star, First Class, and other high honours of the new Yugoslavia. He was also awarded the Soviet Order of Kutuzov, First Class, and the Order of Suvorov, First Class.
(Translated from the Serbo-Croatian original: Ivetić, Velimir. Načelnici generalštaba: 1876-2000. Novinsko-informativni centar ‘Vojska’, 2000, pp. 55-56.)