Serbian planes are falling down - Sibenik, Hrvatska, Croatia

In the early days of the balkan conflict, there was an atmosphere of hopelessness among Croatians who were seeing their dreams of independance dashed by a Serbian leadership that was prepared to use the full might of the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) to grab as much Croatian territory as possible and perhaps prevent the breakup of Yugoslavia altogether. Lightly armed Croatian militia on the front lines were being decimated by aerial and armored assaults on their positions, and towns and villages fell to JNA advances on a daily basis. It was hard and brutal fighting, and victories against Serbian attacks were rare. Morale , both of the public and militia, was very low. On September 21, 1991, two JNA J-1 Jastreb light strike fighters were shot down over the Dalmatian town of Šibenik in the space of a few seconds. Hundreds of people watched it happen, and to top it off, a TV journalist caught the whole event on videotape. The first Jastreb that went down was hit by a shoulder-launched SAM, and seconds later th