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Challenge in the Air

A Spitfire pilot remembers.,

by

Sqd/Ldr M. A. Liškutin DFC, AFC

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Miroslav Liškutin was just completing his flying training when the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939.  He fled to Poland, spent time in the French Foreign Legion and the French Air Force, and following the armistice escaped to England on a Polish cargo vessel out of Bordeaux.

In England, Miroslav joined the RAF where he was assessed as an above average pilot. His first operational posting was to 145 Squadron flying Spitfires out of Catterick, following which he was transferred to 312 [Czech] Squadron, where he continued to fly Spitfires for the next three years, taking part in the Dieppe operation and in dive-bombing sorties. After the Normandy landings, and for his third operational tour, Miroslav moved to 313 [Czech] Squadron at Manston.

Miroslav returned to Czechoslovakia at the end of the war and became a staff officer and flying instructor with the Czechoslovak Air Force.  The book gives a graphic account of the suspicion and hostility encountered by the aviators returning from the West to a country under the growing influence of Communism and describes, with his arrest imminent, his escape for the second time.  On 14 June 1948 Miroslav waded the river into the Russian zone of Austria, and took a train to Vienna.  Here he crossed into the neutral First District from where he was able to return to England, the RAF and his family.

** This book is now out-of-print. For the website visitor interested in learning more about the Czechoslovak Airmen in Great Britain during World War II, second-hand copies should be available through specialised book shops, book fairs, or on-line sources such as abebooks or amazon