Momčilo Gavrić

Momčilo Gavrić and another soldier reporting to major Stevan Tucović, 1916.

Momčilo Gavrić (; 1 May 1906 – 28 April 1993) was the youngest Serbian soldier of World War One; he became a soldier at the age of eight.

Biography

He was born on 1 May 1906, in Trbušnica, near Loznica, near the slopes of the mountain Gučevo, as the eighth child of eleven, in the family of Alimpije and Jelena Gavrić.

World War I

In the beginning of August 1914, Austro-Hungarian soldiers of 42nd Croatian Home Guard Infantry Division maimed and hanged his father, mother, grandmother, His house was also set on fire. Momčilo survived because he was not at home when it happened—his father had sent him to his uncle earlier.

When his unit was sent to Thessaloniki, Major Tucović sent him to Sorovits where he hastily went through the equivalent of four grades of elementary education. In 2014, a street in Loznica was named after him.

On 2 April 2015, the Serbian government decided to raise a monument in Belgrade dedicated to Gavrić.