大象传媒

This story starts about 1937 with a young man of about 21 years of age, who was serving in the Czechoslovakian air force..
A single chap,with dark hair and dark eyes, and very handsome in uniform and enjoying life, but very conscious of what was happening not far away across his countries border.
In 1938 as the German army entered Czechoslovakia this young man with a group of his airforce comrades escaped to Poland where they managed to get a flight to France.
This was just weeks before the start of the second world war.
When this little group arrived in France they immediately joined the French airforce.
The handsome young man was again employed in the role of navigator.
As one of the first to arrive in France he had no problems in joining the airforce, and within weeks had mastered the language.
He stayed in France for about a year in total.
He recalled that on the day the Germans entered Paris it was time to ' scram '
so he did.
By this time there were many nationalities serving in the French airforce, they were based in the south of the country but with no aviation fuel life was beginning to get difficult for them all.
A group of the airmen decided the only way out was via North Africa.
The story is a little hazy at this point.
It appears there was no fuel for the plane.
There was a whip round, and fuel was found.
But what or which plane was used I can not say, but the handsome young airman did fly to North Africa.
Only a short time passed from the groups arrival to their departure for Gibralter.
Once at Gibralter, it was onto a ship bound for England.
The handsome young airman's first priority when he landed on these shores was to enlist in the Royal Air Force.
Within a few months he had learnt well the English language and was looking forward to
his role as a navigator on joining a newly formed Czechoslovak squadron.
The 311 Bomber Squadron.
There the handsome young airman served till the end of the war.
He was classed as a Pilot Officer, although navigate is what he did on Wellington bombers and then Liberators.
For a time he was on bombing missions, the first being railway yards in Brussels,after that on other important targets like Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin, Dusseldorf,Paris,Turin to name but a few. On one mission his plane was badly shot up, they landed I believe somewhere in Northamptonshire with a bit of a bump.!
I am told his squadron suffered heavy losses. So in 1942 after two hectic years he and the squadron were transfered to Coastal Command searching for surface enemy shipping and enemy submarines in the North Sea, Atlantic, and Bay of Biscay.
During his 5 years in the R.A.F. he met and married a pretty English girl.
In 1946 they parted, and he returned to Czechoslovakia.
When I first met him in 1990 his hair was white and he was well into his 70's. Life had not been good to him at all under the communist regime, the reason being ..He had fought on the side of the west ..
but the new Czech government did thank him for the years he spent fighting for freedom, and awarded him the rank of Major in the Czech Airforce.
It is a pity he was not able to see the parade in London today..10th July
But sadly the handsome young airman passed away in April 2005.

Ps... That handsome young airman was my father.

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