By Bardhyl Berberi
How Enver Hoxha was protected with a combat torpedo boat in Lake Pogradec, the former Deputy Minister of Defense, Nazar Berberi, speaks exclusively.
Memorie.al / We were drinking morning coffee in a bar on the shore of Lake Pogradec. As an association to tell the following story, there was a large private speedboat, which was moving rapidly in the waters of the lake. Nazar, at an advanced age, approaching his 80s, remembered an event from that time, which had brought him a lot of trouble in his duty as Deputy Minister of People’s Defense.
The story of Nazar Berberi, former Deputy Minister of People’s Defense
In 1978, I was in the position of Deputy Minister of People’s Defense and covered the Artillery, the Navy and Aviation. Mehmet Shehu called me to the office, he was worried, and he was walking around the large office premises. Then he would sit down and scribble on a paper with a fountain pen, drawing geometric figures, and then he would get up again. This was a sign that he was very worried. At that time Mehmet was both prime minister and Minister of People’s Defense and he said to me:
– “Nazar, I just left comrade Enver’s office, before he leaves for vacation in Pogradec, he requires high security measures and above all, he requires a powerful combat vehicle to be placed on Lake Ohrid, against any sudden attack that may be made by an armed gang. Also, a combat helicopter will go to the outskirts of Pogradec, and this will also have the same function”.
I told Mehmet that; we secure the combat vehicle, we remove a patrol torpedo boat from the Adriatic Sea, but how will the torpedo boat be transported to Pogradec, on that very dangerous road with many turns in the Qafë e Thanës?!
Mehmet cut me off; “go, think carefully and carry out the order”. I immediately went to Durrës and we chose a torpedo boat 4, which was patrolling in the Adriatic waters. The difficulties were in the transport, how would the torpedo boat be transported from Durrës to Pogradec?! A very skilled driver was called, from the Durrës Automobile Park, who was also a “Hero of Socialist Labor” named Met Dervina, who took on this important task.
(He had also transported some high-tonnage and very voluminous equipment and machinery, from the Port of Durrës to Lake Fierza. It was even said that a feature film was made about him by the Kinostudio “Shqipëria e Re”)
The torpedo boat was loaded into his car and drove well to the Librazhd tunnels, but it could not be passed there, because the tunnel did not allow it. After the calculations we made, it was impossible, so we had the idea to put the torpedo boat on a work train, with a powerful crane.
After many vicissitudes of transport, once on the train and once on the car, we arrived in the village of Lin. We found a place where there was great depth in the lake near the shore and we dropped it at the Lin mills in Pogradec, where it was unloaded with the powerful crane and released into the water.
As soon as the torpedo was fired, a terrible deafening noise shook not only the village of Lin, but also frightened in the form of a panic all the vacationers of the neighboring country, Macedonia, in Ohrid and Struga.
Within a few minutes, the campsite with foreign vacationers in Radozha was emptied, the terrified vacationers fled in the form of a panic. Panic and fear also seized the vacationers in Pogradec. The entire city trembled from the extremely loud deafening noise. And the panic went to the form of an epidemic in the village of Tushemisht, during the patrol of the torpedo. The same thing happened in the campsite of Shën Naum, where the foreigners who were there abandoned their vacations, then in Ljubanisht and in Peshtan.
Even the ferry of St. Naum, which made the route four times in the direction of Ohrid, interrupted its trips. The situation seemed alarming, as panic and fear engulfed all the vacationers. The torpedo boat patrolled from one end of the lake to the other, from the mills of Lin, to the border with St. Naum. The Ministry of Defense of the then Yugoslavia, made us a note of protest, but who listened. Later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia did the same thing.
Opposite Enver’s villa, on the other side of the border on the shore of the lake, was the villa “Biljana” of Josof Broz Tito, where he also vacationed for almost three months every year in Ohrid. Meanwhile, we also brought the combat helicopter and placed it in the place called “Greek’s Graves”, because there was a special unit there. Mehmet was pleased that the “Commander”’s wish was fulfilled, because in April of that year, they had had an incident with Enver that had upset him greatly, and the accomplishment of this task seemed to calm his anger!
How do rockets fly from Patos to Tepelena?!
At that time, there was a long-range missile base in Patos. Just two days before the May 1st holiday, Nazari was urgently notified that a very serious incident had occurred at the missile base in Patos. A combat missile had “flown” unintentionally and accidentally from the missile base in Patos in an unknown direction.
“Honestly, I was seized by a panic in the form of horror; I said where did this rocket fall? Has it been destroyed?! I urgently contacted all the military units by radio and they told me that the rocket fell on a mountain in Tepelena at the foot of a cliff and had completely crushed it. A shepherd, who was on the mountain, grazing his cattle, had seen the scene.
Fortunately, there was no one injured. I reported it to Mehmet. He was very shocked at first when I told him about the incident, but he seemed to calm down somewhat and took heart a little when I told him that there was no damage, that the rocket fell on a cliff on a mountain in Tepelena. He immediately notified Enver Hoxha on the phone, reporting that; we have a serious incident. We went together to Enver.
– “Well, tell us,” Enver greeted him with a frown. We told him how the incident had happened, two soldiers, playing with each other, had pressed the start button and a combat missile had escaped from the base and hit the rock in Tepelena.
– “Both of you go to Patos and I want a detailed report”, – Enver interrupted us. We took a combat helicopter and headed towards Patos. The base commander, a very nice guy and professionally skilled with missiles, who was from Gjirokastra, reported to us. We vented to him, and then he was discharged and sentenced to several months in prison, for negligence in duty. Then we visited the soldier in the Fier hospital. The soldier was partially burned by the rocket gases, but was out of danger to his life”.
This was the story of the torpedo bomber and the rocket that Nazari told, that after the arrival of the Four-Tank Bomber in Pogradec, Enver was satisfied and the rocket incident was, as it were, forgotten. We left the conversation open, as Nazari promised us that next time, he would tell us about the suicide of Mehmet Shehu, who gave his arguments about this mysterious suicide and the private conversation he had with Mehmet, a few days before the suicide, about the son’s engagement to Silva Turdiu. But Nazar Berberi, after a short time, passed away…! Memorie.al
