along the way. The 7th SS Division continued to push towards Petrovac, against Partisan defenses consisting mainly of the 7th Banija Division. It took another ten days to cover those 50 km. The 7th SS Division reached Petrovac on 7 February, and on 9 February finally managed to link up with the 717th Division, thereby fulfilling the task originally scheduled for the second day of the operation. The 369th Division and the 3rd Home Guard Mountain Brigade, facing only Partisan rearguards, reached Bosanska Krupa on 30 January and relieved the encircled 737th Regiment at Benakovac a few days later. The 369th joined with the 7th SS near Bihać on 4 February. With this, the broader area of Grmeč was encircled by three German divisions. On 6 February, after they had received reinforcements, the 369th, 187th and 717th Division started their attack on Grmeč. The 2nd and 5th Krajina Brigades were caught in the encirclement, along with some 15,000 inhabitants. On 10 February the brigades made the decision to break out of the encirclement, and succeeded in opening the way over the Krupa-Sanski Most road toward Potkalinje. The inhabitants followed the brigades, but a large number (up to 2,000) succumbed to the freezing weather. Some 400 remaining civilians were killed by the Germans. According to a German report from 18 February for Weiss 1, the 7th SS Division suffered losses of 149 dead, 222 wounded and 68 missing, and the 717th Division's casualties were 118 dead, 290 wounded and 20 missing. The same report puts the Partisan losses at 6,561 dead, but adds that only 286 rifles were captured. This drastic imbalance between the figures suggests that those killed were mainly civilians. Partisan Offensive During the first half of 1942 the Partisans were expelled from the eastern parts of Yugoslavia, and the Axis powers largely succeeded in pacifying these areas. The Partisans established a stronghold in the western parts of the country, but returning to the east remained one of their main objectives. Localization of guerrilla activity enabled the Germans to leave the control of pacified areas to second-tier forces, and to concentrate their best units in the endangered areas. The 714th, 717th and 7th SS Divisions (all in west Bosnia in January 1943) were all originally deployed in Serbia. Tito started with the plans for a march to the east in early autumn 1942. The original idea was to start