With the Munich agreement
Czechoslovakia lost over a quarter of its entire territory and
about a third of its population. Though in strategic terms, the
most serious loss was the German acquisition of the mountains,
which provided the Czechoslovaks with a natural protective
barrier, together with a line of special fortifications. In
effect, this annexation guaranteed that Czechoslovakia could not
effectively defend itself against Germany. Six months later, on
15 March 1939 - the fateful Ides of March – German troops
marched into Czechoslovakia and the Czechoslovak armed forces
were ordered to offer no resistance, since any such opposition
would have been futile. In the weeks that followed the
occupation, thousands of Czech soldiers and airmen managed to
leave Czechoslovakia, most of them escaping to neighbouring
Poland before sailing to France. Until war was formally
declared, the French assigned them to the Foreign Legion in
north Africa but, on the commencement of hostilities, the Czech
airmen were drafted into the Armée de l’Air and, in May 1940,
took part in the short-lived Battle of France. The rapid fall of
France then led to some 4,000 Czechoslovak soldiers and airmen
leaving France to sail to Britain – the last line of defence
between democracy and fascism.
The
first 30 Czech pilots to reach Britain landed in an RAF aircraft
at Hendon on 17 June 1940. Next day, the Czech
President-in-exile Dr Eduard Benes wrote on behalf of the
Czechoslovak National Committee to the British Secretary of
State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, pleading that a special
effort be made to bring the remaining Czech airmen out of France
and over to Britain in order that they could continue the fight.
Then, on 2 July, he submitted to the British Government a
memorandum urging that the Czech airmen be allowed to
participate at once in the defence of Britain and that a formal
agreement covering the status of Czech military personnel in
Britain be concluded as soon as possible. The British Government
acted quickly: within a month of the Benes memorandum, a Czech
fighter squadron and a Czech bomber squadron had been formed.
The Czechs were desperately eager to fight and they brought
invaluable flying experience and an unquenchable hatred of the
Germans who were occupying their country. For its part, the
Royal Air Force needed as many trained aircrew as it could
muster as what was to become known as the Battle of Britain was
about to commence.
However, there was no time to conclude a formal agreement on the
status of the Czechoslovak airmen prior to their deployment in
the RAF. Therefore all Czechoslovak officers and airmen were
immediately commissioned or enlisted in the Royal Air Force
Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR). Originally all officers, irrespective
of their Czechoslovak rank, were commissioned in the rank of
pilot officer, the lowest commissioned rank in the RAF. The only
exceptions made were in the case of flight and squadron
commanders who were necessarily granted the appropriate acting
ranks. All airmen were enlisted with the lowest possible
classification of aircraftsman 2nd class and awarded a higher
acting rank to fill establishment posts as applicable, so that
most were soon granted the temporary rank of sergeant. In the
beginning, the Czech airmen were concentrated at the Czech air
Force depot at Cosford, near Wolverhampton, through which they
all passed before they joined a squadron.
The incorporation of the Czechs in the RAFVR and the formation
of the Czech squadrons was all part of a process formally
recognised in an official agreement between the British
Government and the provisional Czechoslovak Government concluded
on 25 October 1940. It was signed by the respective Foreign
Ministers, Lord Halifax and Jan Masaryk. The agreement confirmed
the employment of the Czech airmen with the Royal Air Force, the
personnel being members of both the RAFVR and the Czechoslovak
Armed Forces, subject to the laws of both forces. Any cost of
maintaining the Czechoslovak military effort was to be refunded
by the Czechoslovak Government from credits granted by the
British Government.
The Czech bomber squadron ( 311 ) :
-1,011 operational sorties totalling 5,192 hours,
-approximately 1,218,375 kg of high explosive bombs and 92,925
kg of incendiary bombs were dropped on enemy territory,
-after its transferral to Coastal Command in 1942 - 2,102
operational flights totalling 21,527 hours and was credited with
four enemy aircraft destroyed and three probables plus 35
attacks on U-boats and four on surface vessels,
-heaviest casualties: out of the 480 killed, 273 came from this
one squadron,
On 27 May 1942, members of the Czech resistance, who had been
parachuted into Czechoslovakia by the RAF, killed Reichsfuhrer
Reinhard Heydrich as he drove through the streets of Prague
Total number of Czechoslovak airmen who lost their lives while
serving in the RAF came to 480,
The deaths of all these Czech airmen is commemorated on the
Sunday nearest 28 October – the Czech day of national
independence – in a simple ceremony at the Czech cemetery in
the village of Brookwood in Surrey,
At the end of the war, there were some 1,500 Czechoslovaks still
serving in the RAF, so that the total number of Czechoslovak
airmen who served in Britain was probably around 2,000
