People's Defence Corps of Yugoslavia

The People's Defence Corps of Yugoslavia or KNOJ (Serbo-Croatian: Korpus narodne odbrane Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Корпус на народна одбрана Југославија, Slovene: Korpus narodne obrambe Jugoslavije), was a corps of the Yugoslav Partisans in charge of internal security of liberated territories during World War II in Yugoslavia and later the territory of Communist Yugoslavia.

[1] KNOJ was created based on a directive by Marshal of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, on 15 August 1944.

[2] As liberated territories expanded, the corps was established to allow Partisan military intelligence organization (Department for People's Protection, OZNA) continued focus on core tasks.

The first commander was Jovan Vukotić (1907–1982) and the supervision lay with the political commissar Vlado Janić (1904–1991).

[3] In July 1944, just before the formation of KNOJ, there were about 5,000 soldiers in defense units that dealt with security on liberated territories.