大象传媒

My late father qualified as a pilot in Moravia (part of Czechoslovak Republic) in 1937.
After the Nazi occupation of his homeland he fled the country via Hungary. There he was caught and imprisoned at the Citadel in Budapest. He managed to escape prior to be handed over to the Gestapo and made his way via Yugoslavia to Beirut where he joined the French Foreign Legion. Recognised for his pilot's qualification he was moved to France where he joined the Czech Air Force.
After France fell, he managed to get to England aboard a Danish cargo ship.
He joind the Free Czechoslovak Air Force and was posted to 311 Bomber Squadron as a pilot.
He flew 16 ops in between July 1940 and December 1941, mainly over docks, but also over Berlin and Turin. On the night of the 28th December 1941 he had to ditch his Wellington in the North Sea in a minefield near the Dutch coast. The rear gunner died in the plane. Dad and the rest of the crew spent 6 days in the dinghy, during which two more crew members died. They were taking in water badly. Dad and his front gunner Pavel Svoboda managed to bury the second pilot in order to lighten the load.
They were eventually washed out on the Dutch coast and caught by the Germans.
Dad suffered serious frostbite to both lower legs. After the failed amputation at Alkmaar German Military Hospital he spent the rest of the war in 11 different POW camps.
In 1944 he was arrested by the Gestapo, interogated in Prague at their HQ and sentenced to death. He was transferred to Colditz to await the sentence. He was liberated from there in April 1945.
He returned to England and spent 2 years in the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead where he was treated by the late Sir Archibald McIndoe. He became a member of the Guinea Pig Club.
He was given leave to return to his homeland in 1947. He became active in the Czechoslovak Air Force again, this time as a professor of Night Vision at the Air Force Academy in Hradec Kralove.
After the Communist takeover in February 1948 he was imprisoned, thrown out of the Air Force and exiled from Prague as undesirable with his family. He was not allowed to be employed, so he taught himself to repair watches, radios and later Tvs to to help family's meagre income.
First glimpse of better days came in the mid- Sixties when he was one of the key witnesses at the war trial of Dr. Hans Globke - Nazi lawyer - which was held in East Berlin in 1963.
Though fully disabled, he got a job with the Civil Airport Authority.
The Prague Spring of 1968 saw him back in the Air Force, this time helping with the rehabilitation of his fellow airmen.
The invasion in August 1968 by the Warsaw Pact armies put a stop to that.
After the Velvet Revolution of 1989 his effort was recognised and he eventually reached the rank of Major General.
He appeared in the documentary "Forgotten Men" in 1992.
He died on September 9th, 2003.
His obituary appeared in the Daily Telegraph (September 25th) and the Times (October 3rd).

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