63rd Parachute Brigade
The 63rd Parachute Brigade () is an airborne and special reconnaissance unit, one of two special forces brigades (other being 72nd Brigade for Special Operations) of the Serbian Armed Forces. It is under the command of the General Staff and is based at Niš Air Base. Formed in 1953, it was the elite unit of both Yugoslav People's Army and Armed Forces of Serbia and Montenegro. Reconfigured in 2006 to a battalion within a newly formed Serbian Armed Forces, the "63rd" regained the status of a brigade in 2019. History The first parachute jump in Serbia was taken at the Novi Sad Airport on 2 September 1926. Second Lieutenant Dragutin Dolanski was dropped from an altitude of 650 meters (2,100 feet). The year 1938 was particularly significant for the Yugoslav parachuting, since that was when the First International Aircraft Exhibition was staged in Belgrade. The Exhibition at the Zemun Airport included a combined jump of 10 parachutists, including Katarina Matanović, the first and only woman parachutist in Yugoslavia prior to the 1941 war. The Royal Yugoslav Army had realized the significance of parachute units, and a school of parachuting was opened at Pančevo on 1 October 1939. The School was