Timeline
On the early morning of 1 May, Croatian Army forces (which included elements of the 3rd Guards Brigade and 5th Guards Brigade) and Special Police units began their advance from three directions. Over 7,200 soldiers and policemen participated in the operation.
Rebel forces were quickly overwhelmed and in a few hours time local commanders and civilian authorities issued orders for evacuation across the River Sava into parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina controlled by Serbian forces.
By the afternoon of May 2 all rebel forces were evacuated and the Croatian Army had achieved all of its initial aims. One large group of rebel soldiers and civilians, including Džakula, failed to evacuate and had to surrender near Pakrac. The operation produced a total of around 1,500 Serb POWs, the largest capturing of an enemy force to date in the war.
The forces of the RSK also launched a retaliatory action against civilian targets by launching a number of cluster shells on Zagreb on May 2 and 3rd. The attack killed seven and injured at least 175 people. On that very same day the leader of the RSK, Milan Martić publicly took responsibility for the shelling, and that statement was used against him at his International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) trial.
Read more about this topic: Operation Flash