[4] After the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April, 1941 Novak went to headquarters of Draža Mihailović at Ravna Gora together with Jaka Avšič.

After the war, Novak claimed that the Royal Yugoslav Army in Slovenia had armed encounters with Italian troops and gathered intelligence on the Italians for Mihailović, but according to the historian Jozo Tomasevich the first claim is groundless as the Italians allocated an operational zone to Novak's principal unit and indirectly provided it with supplies, and its size and restrictions on its movement precluded the gathering of much useful intelligence.

[11] Major Novak was in Ljubljana during the Battle of Grčarice and commanded his units through radio connection.

After the defeat of his units in this battle, Major Novak went to Rome to avoid German attempts to arrest him in Ljubljana.

[14] Novak was some kind of envoy for Mihailović with the Allies in Italy and had the intention of using this new Chetnik unit as the nucleus for new Chetnik action in Slovenia, and so he requested that Mihailovic's headquarters obtain financial support from the Yugoslav embassy in Switzerland.