n zone. The city then saw a very difficult period: arrests, deportations and executions of people suspected of helping the Partisans' guerilla struggle. The city was subjected to repeated Allied air raids during the Second World War (Pula was a German u-boat base from 1942�1944).
Post-WWII and modern era.
For two years after 1945, Pula was administered by the Allied. Istria was partitioned into occupation zones until the region became officially united with the rest of Croatia within the SFR Yugoslavia on 15 September 1947, pursuant to the terms of the Paris Peace Treaties.
Pula formed an enclave of the Zone "A" defined by the Morgan Line within SFR Yugoslavia, occupied by a company of the United States 351st Infantry and a British battalion of the 24th Guards Brigade.
When the city was ceded to SR Croatia, a republic of SFR Yugoslavia, upon the ratification of the Paris Peace Treaties on 15 September 1947, creating the Free Territory of Trieste, its population of 45,000 was largely made up of ethnic Italians. However, between December 1946 and September 1947, most of the city's Italian residents opted to emigrate to Italy during the Istrian exodus: on 18 August 1946 it was the site of the Vergarola explosion and on 10 February 1947 an Italian woman named Maria Pasquinelli shot British general De Winton.
Subsequently, the city's Croatian name, 'Pula', became the official name, while the former Italian one was 'Pola'. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1992, Pula and Istria have become part of the modern-day Republic of Croatia
