Miodrag Tomić

Miodrag Tomić (Serbian Cyrillic: Миодраг Томић; 17 May [O.S. 5 May] 1888 – 20 February 1962) was a Serbian and Yugoslav military pilot who flew during the Balkan Wars and World War I.

Tomić belonged to the first class of six Serbian pilots trained in France in 1912. In August 1914, he participated in the first aerial dogfight of the war, when he exchanged gunfire with an Austro-Hungarian plane over western Serbia. In the winter of 1915, during the Serbian Army's retreat across Albania to the Greek island of Corfu, he evacuated General Petar Bojović from Scutari by plane, delivered mail by air and transported the Serbian Government's gold and hard currency reserves from Niš to keep them from falling into enemy hands. Following the occupation of Serbia by the Central Powers, Tomić went to France and flew over the Western Front, where he had one confirmed kill. He returned to the Balkans in late 1916, conducted combat missions over Bulgarian-occupied Macedonia and shot down one enemy plane.

Tomić continued flying after the war and became head of the Royal Yugoslav Air Force's pursuit squadron in Novi Sad. During World War II, he was captured by the Germans and detained as a prisoner of war. Tomić left Yugoslavia following the war and settled in the United States with his wife. He died in Chicago in 1962.