Rafael Boban

Who was Rafael Boban?

Rafael Boban was an Ustaše military commander who served in the Ustaše militia and Croatian Armed Forces during World War II. Having participated in the Velebit uprising in 1932, he joined the Royal Italian Army and returned to Croatia following the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941. He fought with the Ustaše until the end of the war, when he is reported to have evaded the Yugoslav Partisans and reached the Austrian town of Bleiburg. Nothing is known of what happened to him afterwards, and it was rumoured that he was either killed in Podravina in 1945, died fighting with the Crusaders in Herzegovina in 1947 or emigrated to the United States via Argentina, joined the United States Army and fought Communist forces in the Korean War. In 1951, he was named the Croatian Minister of Defence in-exile by Ustaše leader Ante Pavelić.