A 1993 battle in the Balkans, which earned Canadian troops top honours from the governor general and credit for standing up to Croat forces intent on killing innocent civilians, never took place, claims a former Croatian senior officer.

Testifying at the trial of two fellow officers accused of war crimes, retired general Davor Domazet-Loso suggested Canadian troops fighting at Medak Pocket may have instead killed Serb troops since at no point did the Croatian army engage in combat with the United Nations force.

But the Canadian commander at the time calls Mr. Domazet-Loso's claims an attempt to rewrite history, adding his men knew exactly where Croat forces were located when the fighting started.

"We knew who we were firing at," retired colonel Jim Calvin said. "And the Croats knew exactly where we were. They're just trying to re-create history. I have no control over that."

The fighting at Medak Pocket was considered at the time to be the largest battle the Canadian army had fought since the Korean War. Canadian and other UN troops were credited with standing their ground against Croatian forces intent on "ethnic cleansing" Serb civilians in the area.

The war crimes trial of two former Croatian generals involved in operations in Medak Pocket started several months ago in the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac are accused of allowing their troops to torture and kill Serb civilians. The indictment alleges forces under their control killed 28 civilians and five prisoners of war near the town of Gospic in September 1993.

The Citizen broke the story about the Medak Pocket battle in 1996 and the House of Commons later heard testimony from Canadian soldiers who took part in the fighting.

In 2002, then-governor general Adrienne Clarkson presented the Commander-in-Chief Unit Commendation to the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry for its actions against the Croatian army and its attempts to stop that force from killing Serbian civilians and destroying villages in Medak.

The decoration recognized "the outstanding service of Canadian Forces in times of conflict under direct enemy fire."

But Mr. Domazet-Loso, in charge of the Croatian general staff's intelligence service at the time, said there was never any confrontation with the UN.

"It is completely unclear to me what the awarding of 800 Canadian medals means, which were handed out for, they say, the biggest battle since the Korean War in 1953," he told the war crimes trial. "In the explanation they said that they had killed 26 Croats in that battle. Since this is not true, I wonder if their victims were Serbs."

He described Mr. Calvin as exceptionally arrogant and said the Canadian officer described the Croatian army as criminal. He also claimed there were many Serbs in the ranks of the Canadian unit.

Mr. Calvin said he doesn't recall meeting Mr. Domazet-Loso, who was then a colonel, and he shrugs off the claim he was arrogant. But Mr. Calvin readily agrees he may have described the actions of the Croatian army as criminal, particularly after his troops found every single building in Medak Pocket destroyed and the bodies of civilians who had been killed by Croatian forces.