Hi Sergej - The weather was so bad we could hardly leave the car and at times were well and truly lost. We did get to Sipovo and stopped at a petrol sation. The attendant was very friendly but the language barrier was far too wide. He did seem to pick up on the name Culumovic and kept repeating Chulumovich and gesturing for us to go to some place I could not understand. Looking back I guess we missed the village by no more than 10 miles but were unable to decipher any of the Crylic signs. I am now more determined to get to the bottom of this and will visit again once I gain more info. Bosnia appears so sad with war damage everywhere you look. Can you suggest any place where I may obtain a detailed map of the Serb Republic? These are non existant in the UK and the ones I have do not show Brdani / Brdjani - Web maps show as a red mark only with no name.
Andy;-)

I will see if I can find a place where you can buy decent maps. You had bad luck, the weather was nice the whole summer :-p in that area. But I am glad you tried and am glad you are going again. Lets see if we can plan this better for the next time.

Thanks Sergej - Guess I may have spent too long chasing ghosts this time than actually doing productive research. I have checked out flights to Belgrade and surprised these fly direct from my nearest airport. Once I am 100% sure I will book a flight and arrange car hire and travel from there rather from the Coast. Can you remember me mentioning Mr Krylic, grandfathers friend young cousin? Although he had not returned to Serbia since he was displaced in 1946 he has just returned from a month long visit as his wifes family have recently moved from Croatia back to Serbia. At least my interest as spread to others and good as come out of this.

Thats good to hear. I checked out maps, but all of them are digital so nothing on paper. Perhaps the Tourist Agency has something.

I believe the places you are searching for are remote and most of the time not on the map. You can try to see if you can find something with Google Maps.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=map+of+bosnia&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=map+of+bosnia&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

The small vilages are not on there (yet).

Thanks - Best hope is that someone may recognise my description of the village. The surrounding land is quite flat and to enter you have to cross a shallow timber crossing over a stream. The village was small with a concrete structure that acted as Police, bar and shop. The old village was reached after you travelled through as it had been destroyed in ww2. Everyone in the surrounding farms grew tobacco - At one time there may have been evidence of coal mining of some sort. Pliva is significant as grandfather often mentioned swimming and diving at pliva.

Close to Jajce in that region is Pliva waterfall, see location A at this map. It fits with your description:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=map+of+bosnia&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wl

Hi Sergej
At last a clear breakthrough - Parents are in regular contact with someone who knew grandad a Mr Krlic. His family live near Belgrade and are helping me out in my search.
The village of Brdani is near to Tuzla - checked on maps and the area is flat as mother recals.Unfortunately it looks like it was totally destroyed in the 90's even the graves......Also found that the wife could have come to the UK but refused to leave her homeland - getting somewhere at last......

Good to hear. You might want to check with the Jasenovac archives to see if there is any data in there. Just Google for it its online.

Getting even closer now Sergej. Is there some sort of silence out there? Mr Krlic and his wife have now disclosed that they knew all along where grandad was from- Boyer, Mr Krlic's wife her dad grew up with grandadad and came over together. LIved near to Obudovac- Culumovics still there - all the paperwork I have is phoney - not right.......andy

Well, if you know that the Chetniks weren't a popular group in that region and still aren't today its understandable. Dont forget that we had also 50 years of socialism in which all national elements were prosecuted. That could be one of the reasons for the secrecy. All I can say is expect anything but dont give up. Make sure not to let everybody know what you found out. If you want you can run it through me to make sure you dont step on anybodies toes.

Keep me posted.

Hi Sergej - very intriged now in my search - can you remember when we first spoke and I said that Grandad was extremely secrative but when he was dying suddenly wanted to put everthing into writing. Coupled with the paperwork now looking phoney and old friends of his suddenly changing their minds and now saying they did know his background - am I overreacting or could I be stumbling into something given that we knew he was high ranking?

Could be either high ranking or just afraid of prosecution. A lot of the Chetniks were prosecuted for atrocities against Croats, Serbs and others. Their role was very controversial even today. I do not know what his exact motivation was but I doubt he was given a permit to live in the UK with his original name and info.

No Sergej - lots of displaced Chetniks lived here - Yorkshire was full of them - worked in the mines. Even built orthodox churches and built up communities. The British government even paid for their families to come over if they desired. I still know families who have kept in touch so this cannot be true abought not allowing them permits to live here.....andy

Like I said, it could be anything so I guess he had his reasons for it although I am in the dark.

Hi,
here is some help with addresses and phones of the Culumovics form Obudovac.

ćulumović brano
obudovac bbk
76235 obudovac 054 643145 šamac

ćulumović dario
novice cerovića 13
78000 banja luka 051 310212 banja luka

ćulumović dušan
obudovac bbk
76235 obudovac 054 643919 šamac

ćulumović jela
obudovac bbk
76235 obudovac 054 643337 šamac

ćulumović jovo
obudovac bbk
76235 obudovac 054 644547 šamac

ćulumović luka
cara dušana 62
76230 šamac 054 612872 šamac

ćulumović nikola
obudovac bbk
76235 obudovac 054 644803 šamac

ćulumović petar
obudovac bbk
76235 obudovac 054 644917 šamac

ćulumović stojan
obudovac bbk
76235 obudovac 054 644553

It would be good to contact these persons, I presume that they are your relatives. Write a mail on Serbian language, they know something about Maxim.