* 21.01.1915, Osičky.
† 23.02.1988, Brno.
Pre WW2:
František Burda was born in Osičky, a small village near Hradec Králové and Parducice, Czechoslovakia, on 21 January 1915. He was the only child of František, a bricklayer, and Marie, a housewife and former trained weaver. For his primary education, he attended the village school at the nearby village of Osice. Shortly after the family moved to Hradec Králové where he completed his five years of primary and four years of secondary school. He then attended four classes at the High School for Construction and on completion of his course worked as a construction technician for a company in Prague. On 1 October 1935, for his mandatory military service, he applied to join the Artillery in the Czechoslovak Army but was turned down. He then applied to join the Czechoslovak Air Force, and underwent extensive aptitude and medical tests. Of the 600 applicants for that year, only 60 were selected, of whom Františekwas one.
Czechoslovak Air Force:
On acceptance, František was sent to the Military Aviation Academy at Prostějov where did his basic military training and was selected to be trained as an aerial-observer. Several of his classmates during this period were later to become fellow airmen in the RAF in England. In June 1936, on graduation from his training, he was posted to the 1st Air Regiment ‘T.G. Masaryk’, of the Czechoslovak Air Force at Prague-Kbely airbase. Here, he decided that he wanted to have a career in the military service. On 1 October 1936 he was posted to for further training to the Military Academy at Hranic. In October 1937, with the rank of poručík (P/O) he returned to the Military Aviation Academy at Prostějov for pilot training. In June 1938, he was posted to the 40 Sqn of the 4 Air Regiment and equipped with the biplane Avia B-534 fighter aircraft which were considered the most advanced in that era. By the time of the German Occupation, he had achieved a total of 230 flying hours.
German Occupation:
When the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia, on 15 March 1939, his unit was based at Dolní Měcholupy. It was disbanded by the end of March and he was demobilised.
Germanisation of Bohemia and Moravia begun immediately with the regions becoming the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia – Protectorate [Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren] – and Slovakia became a German ‘puppet’ state. But by 19 March 1939, former senior officers of the now-disbanded Czechoslovak military had started to form an underground army, known as Obrana Národa [Defense of the Nation], working in co-operation with Svaz Letců, the Airman Association of the Czechoslovak Republic. One of their objectives was to assist as many airmen and soldiers as possible to get to neighbouring Poland where Ludvík Svoboda, a former distinguished Czechoslovak Legionnaire from WW1, was planning the formation of Czechoslovak military units to fight for the liberation of their homeland. Within Czechoslovakia, former military personnel and civilian patriots covertly started to arrange for former Air Force and Army personnel to be smuggled over the border into Poland to join these newly formed Czechoslovak units.
František, was one of the many Czechoslovak airmen and soldiers who regarded the German occupation as unacceptable and who saw it was their duty to go to Poland from where they could fight to achieve the liberation of Czechoslovakia.
In the meantime, since his demobilisation, František had obtained work for a construction firm in Prague while he made arrangements to escape with Václav Bergman, also a now dismissed Czechoslovak Air Force pilot.
To Poland:
With the help of those underground organisations, on 14 June they travelled to Ostrava on the Eastern side of Czechoslovakia and close to Těšín, the Czechoslovak region annexed by Poland following the Munich Agreement. Once they arrived at Ostrava, they went to the U Bílého slona pub, where after an exchange of passwords they received instructions for the next step of their journey: to go o the railway station that night, and in the café buy a pack of 100 cigarettes and say a agreed phrase as a password. That went to plan and they were taken to a coal train and told to climb into one of the wagons, where three other escapees also joined them there. The train was transporting coal to Poland and at the Czechoslovak/Polish border it would stop for about 5 minutes while German guards checked the train, and then they were to get off at the next station – Šumbark – where a Polish guide would be waiting for them and arrange their onward journey to Kraków. There they reported for duty, on 23 June, at the Czechoslovak Consulate.
Disappointment in Poland:
Here they were to find out that Poland was not permitting the formation of foreign military units on its territory. However, the Czechoslovak Consulate in Kraków had been in negotiations with its counterpart in Paris, France, a country with which Czechoslovakia had an Alliance Treaty. Under French law, foreign military units could not be formed on its soil during peacetime. The Czechoslovak escapees, however, could be accepted into the French Foreign Legion with the agreement that should war be declared they would be transferred to French military units. The Czechoslovaks would, however, have to enlist with the French Foreign Legion for a five-year term. The alternative was to be returned to occupied Czechoslovakia and face German retribution for escaping – usually imprisonment or execution with further retribution to their families.
In the interim, while their onward travel arrangements were being made, they were billeted at Bronowice Małe, a former Polish army camp outside Krakow. František arrived there on 28 June, the 575th Czechoslovak escapee to arrive there; his companion Václav was the 590th.
To France:
On 25 July 1939, František and 189 other Czechoslovak military escapees were taken by train to the Baltic port of Gydnia, Poland. The following day they boarded the ‘SS Kastelholm’, a Swedish coastal steamer, and sailed to Calais, France. Part of the voyage down the Baltic Sea was very rough, even to airmen who were used to flying in turbulent conditions, and so the ‘SS Kastelholm’ stop at the Danish port of Frederikshaven to re-supply was a welcome relief for the Czechoslovaks onboard. After a five-day voyage, they arrived in Calais on 31 July 1939.
France:
On arrival to France, they were required to enlist in the French Foreign Legion for a five year period but were assured that should war be declared they would be transferred to French military units.
On their arrival at Calais, František and his fellow escapees, were met by the Czechoslovak Defence Attache, from the Paris Embassy, who gave them each a little French money for their immediate needs and arranged their journey by train to Place Balard, the Foreign Legion’s recruitment depot at Paris. There they underwent medical checks and documentation was prepared for their enlistment into the Legion pending their transfer to the Legion’s training base at Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria.
During this period of the Phoney War, they spent their time attending French classes and any free time was usually spent in Paris exploring the sights and practising their newly learnt French with the girls they met.
l’Armée de’Air:
Fortunately for František and his colleagues, before that process could be completed, Germany invaded Poland on 1 September resulting in England and France declaring war on Germany two days later. František had been accepted, at the rank of sergeant, into the French Foreign Legion on 7 October, but three days later was released from his Foreign Legion contract and transferred to the l’Armée de l’Air’s BA 117 recruitment centre at Base Aerienne de Dugny. František and his colleagues were then transferred to l’Armée de l’Air’s Base Aérienne de St Cyr, at Versailles, about 20 km west of Paris. Amongst his colleagues here were Emil Fechtner, Vaclav Bergman, Emil Foit, Vilém Göth, Vladimír Zaoral and Karel Vykoukal, all of whom were destined to become Battle of Britain pilots in England with František.
František was then transferred to Centre d’Instruction de Chasse at Chartres, the l’Armée de l’Air training airbase, about 50 miles South-West of Paris, for retraining on French aircraft, firstly on the Potez XXV and Morane-Saulnier MS.230 elementary trainers and then the outdated Morane-Saulnier MS-406c fighter aircraft and finally on the modern Curtis H-75c fighter aircraft.
The relative calm of the Phoney War ended at 05:35 10 May 1940 when Germany attacked Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. In France they came through the dense Ardennes Forest to skirt around the main defence of the Maginot line and swept Northwards towards the English Channel. The lightning speed and ferocity of their Blitzkrieg attack caused the l’Armée de l’Air units to rapidly retreat Westwards. This resulted in František and František Štička finally being posted to GC I/4 on 27 May for operational flying. The unit was deployed at Villacoublay, on the West side of Paris and equipped with equipped with Curtis H-75c fighters.
Battle of France:
During the Battle of France, František made his first operational sortie on 3 June. The following day, three more Czechoslova pilots – František Novotný, Václav Brejcha and Antonín Velebnovský from Charttres. joined GC I/4, which was now deployed at BA105 Evreux airbase, some 85 km North-West of Paris.
Early on the morning of 5 June, the Germans launched a large-scale offensive which managed to break through the defences North of Paris. That morning František achieved his first combat success. His unit had taken off at 06:50 to engage the Luftwaffe supporting the ground offensive. At 07:15 a swarm of Me109s was sighted near Amiens and engaged. With two others from GC I/4, he shared in the destruction of a Me109. The flight had lasted nearly 90 minutes and the unit had achieved the destruction of seven destroyed and one probable Me109s. The next day, 6 June, he was in combat again near Ferrièrs at 20:00, but had to make a forced landing in a field near Rouen as his Curtis H-75C was short on fuel. In his broken French, he managed to enlist the help of some local people to take him to a telephone box from where he was able to call Evreux airbase to come and collect him..
With the rapid advance of the German forces, GC I/4 were constantly retreating south through France and by 17 June were now deployed Perpignan airbase, in SW France near the Spanish border. The French authorities had by now realised that the war on mainland France was lost and sought to evacuate as much of their military to Algeria as they could.
Evacuation from France:
By the time GC I/4 arrived at La Salanque airbase at Perpignan, where some 250 aircraft from other units had already congregated there en-route to Algeria. There everything was very chaotic, and with few ground-crew available, the pilots of GC I/4 had to refuel their aircraft themselves. The Curtis H-75C’s were fitted with long-range fuel tanks and hand-operated starters. The following day, at the hour of their en-mass departure, each pilot had to start their engine manually.
Even with the extra range given by the long-range fuel tanks and without the aircraft carrying any ammunition, the flight over the Mediterranean Sea was only just achievable. Further weight saving was achieved with the pilots themselves limited to only a small bag containing real essentials – all their other possessions had to be left behind. In the event of being forced to engage with any Luftwaffe aircraft en-route to Algeria, the Curtis H-75Cs would not have enough fuel to reach the Algerian coast. The following morning the aircraft of GC I/4 took-off at 06:15 and after a 900km uneventful flight, they reached the Algerian coast and landed at the l’Armée de l’Air airbase at Oran, Algeria at 09:35. The following morning GC I/4 redeployed to Maison Blanche airbase, Algeria.
On 22 June, GC I/4 took-off for Meknes, Morocco, from where the units Czechoslovak pilots were released from their l’Armée de l’Air service. During the Battle of France, František had made 14 operational flights totalling 18hrs 40min.
To England:
The pilots travelled by train to Casablanca on the Atlantic coast of Morocco from where, with other military personnel, they were evacuated on 29 June, aboard the ‘Gib-el-Dersa’ which took them to Gibraltar. Here they transferred to the ‘Cidonia’ which, on 7 July, as part of a 35-ship convoy, they sailed far out into the Atlantic to avoid Luftwaffe attacks, before changing course for England, arriving at Liverpool on 16 July 1940.
RAF:
On arrival, after security vetting and medical checks, František, like most of the Czechoslovak escapees, was initially housed at the tented Czechoslovak retrenchment camp at Cholmondeley Park, near Chester. The Battle of Britain was now in progress and there was an urgent need for fighter pilots. As a trained fighter pilot, he was quickly admitted to the RAF Voluntary Reserves, at the rank of P/O on 2 August and transferred to the Czechoslovak Airmens Depot, at RAF Cosford for basic training and a crash course of English lessons.
On 28 September 1940 he was posted to No 6 OTU [No 6 Operational Training Unit] at Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire, for re-training on Hawker Hurricane Mk I fighter aircraft.
Battle of Britain:
On 14 October, 6 Czechoslovak pilots, 3 P/O’s and 3 Sgt’s, including František, were posted to 310 (Czechoslovak) Sqn, at Duxford, for the closing days of the Battle of Britain. He was assigned to the squadron’s ‘B’ Flight. His first operational flight was on 20 October in Hurricane P8809, taking-off at 15:40 for a routine patrol, landing at 16:40 with no Luftwaffe aircraft sighted. František was to fly a further four sorties before the 31 October, all of which were routine patrols with no enemy aircraft sighted. His total flying time in the Battle was 5.5 hours.
After the Battle:
With the Battle of Britain now over, 310 Sqn role was mainly convoy patrols along the East Anglia coast and the Thames Estuary, to protect Allied shipping from Luftwaffe attack. On 19 July, the squadron redeployed to Dyce, Scotland, where they were to protect Aberdeen and local shipping from Luftwaffe raids. Here they were re-equipped with Spitfires. The squadron returned South and were deployed at Perranporth, Cornwall on 24 December 1941 and were now engaged in bomber escort and offensive patrols over occupied Northern France.
František was promoted to F/O on 8 August 1941 and, having flown 200 operationFrantišek was promoted to F/O on 8 August 1941 and, having flown 200 operational hours, completed his first operational tour on 20 August 1942. During the mandatory three- month break from operational flying he was posted to an air-gunnery instructors’ course at Central Gunnery School at Sutton Bridge, near Lincoln then on 5 October for a VHF Blind Approach course at West Malling, Kent. He was promoted to the rank of F/Lt on 20 May 1942 and returned to 310 Sqn on 9 October 1942. The following month he was appointed Flight Commander of the Squadron’s ‘B’ Flight.
Shot Down:
On 27 February 1943, whilst escorting US Liberators on a bombing raid on Brest, France his Spitfire Vb RP287 NN-X was shot down at 14:30 by anti-aircraft fire near the Island of Vierge, North of Brest, France. František bailed out of his burning aircraft and landed safely. He was captured by a German patrol and spent the remainder of the war as Prisoner of War, no 245.
Prisoner of War:
The position of captured Czechoslovak Prisoners of War was somewhat different from that of the other nationalities. For the latter, the Geneva Convention of 27 July 1929 applied for the treatment of PoWs and their rights. Captured Czechoslovaks were not granted the status of Prisoners of War, as the German authorities regarded the Czechoslovaks as Reich nationals. This was because since their occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, they had declared the country to be a Reich protectorate and its citizens thus were now part of Germany and subject to German law. Thus, any captured Czechoslovaks fighting for the Allies were not covered by the Geneva Convention and were classed as Reich nationals who had fought against the Reich. Such action was classed as high treason, (pertaining to paragraph 91 of the Reich Criminal Code), for which according to that law, the death penalty by hanging could be applied along with severe repercussions for their families in their homeland.
As a captured airman, František was now under the jurisdiction of the German Luftwaffe and was first taken to Dulag Luft [Durchlager der Luftwaffe], their transit camp near Frankfurt, Germany, on 2 March. Here he endured 14 days of solitary confinement and interrogation before transfer to a permanent camp. On 20 March he was transported to Oflag XIb, [ Offizierslager] an officers’ camp, at Szubin, about 250km North West of Warsaw, Poland, where he was kept until 5 April. His next camp was Stalag Luft III, [Stammlager der Luftwaffe] at Sagan, Poland, which gained notoriety for the Great Escape, during which 76 Allied Officers escaped on the night of 24/25 March 1944, and on recapture, 50 were murdered by the Gestapo.. František was not one of the 76 escapees, but had been an active helper in an earlier successful escape – the Wooden Horse, where all three escapees managed to evade capture and reach neutral countries before their return to England.
Gestapo:
The Gestapo – Geheime Staatspolizei the secret police of Nazi Germany – classed all Czechoslovak PoWs as being guilty of high treason. In the summer of 1944, 24 of them were taken from various PoW camps to Pankrác prison in Prague for Gestapo interrogation at their HQ at the notorious Petschek Palace. František was one of the 24 taken there on 13 July. During the brutal interrogations, the Gestapo made use of the traitor Augustín Přeučil, a former Czechoslovak airman from l’Armée de l’Air and the RAF, who stole a Hurricane II aircraft and flew it to Belgium to hand over to the occupying Germans. He was now in the service of the Prague Gestapo. There, for their treason, the Czechoslovak prisoners were sentenced to death.
Fortunately, information about these sentences reached the British Government via the Red Cross, the Protection Power for Allied PoW’s The reaction from the British Foreign Office was that “the Czechoslovak RAF prisoners-of-war, having sworn allegiance to H.M. King George VI, and having served in the British Forces in British uniform, should be treated under the terms of the Geneva Convention in exactly the same way as British prisoners-of-war”. They instructed the British Ambassador, in Berne, “to make immediate communication to the German Authorities via the Red Cross, regarding this and to add that the British Government would regard any prosecution for treason as illegal and that the persons responsible would have to answer for their activity after the war. There would also be repercussions to German PoW’s held by the British in the event of any prosecution or executions of the Czechoslovak PoW’s. This resulted in the Reich Military Attorney terminating any criminal proceedings with the proviso that “the hearing should only take place after the war”.
To Colditz:
From there, on 20 August, František was taken to Stalag Luft I at Barth, on the German Baltic coast, until 9 September when he was transferred to the infamous Oflag IVc (Colditz), near Leipzig, Germany. By the time Colditz was liberated by the advancing American Army on 16 April 1945, there were 20 Czechoslovak RAF airmen incarcerated there.
Repatriation to England:
He was repatriated to England by aircraft on 20 April 1945 and was at the Czechoslovak Depot at Cosford for debrief by the British Authorities about their experience and treatment by the Germans whilst PoW’s, medical checks and convalescence until 29 June when he returned to 310 Sqn at Manston, Kent.
Return to Czechoslovakia:
With the squadron he returned back to Czechoslovakia on 24 August 1945. 310 Sqn had now become the 310st Squadron of the 10 Air Regiment of the Czechoslovak Air Force and František was appointed as its Commander. On 1 July 1946 he was appointed as Staff Captain at the Operational Department at the Czechoslovak Air Force HQ at Prague.
Communist Putsch:
Following the Communist take-over in February 1948, František was transferred to the 7 Air Regiment in Brno as their Commander. On 24 October 1948 he was promoted to the rank of podplukovník (Lt/Col.) but within a year he was dismissed, because of his RAF service, from the Czechoslovak Air Force and demoted to the rank of Private. He then was only permitted to do menial work.
In the 1960s, the Czechoslovak Communist authorities began to ease their oppression of those who had served with the Allies in the West during WW2. In František’s case, in July 1965, he was able to achieve partial rehabilitation for the injustices of 1948 and his former military rank was restored to him. Four years later, he was promoted to the rank of plukovník v.v. [Colonel in reserve in the Air Force]. On 1 April 1970, he retired from the Air Force. He found work as a librarian and later as a translator of English technical documents. Following the Velvet Revolution in November 1989, the RAF Rehabilitation Ceremony was held in Prague in September 1991. There, after 43 years of Communist rule, František and his fellow RAF colleagues were morally and politically rehabilitated by the Czechoslovak government in apology for the suffering caused by the country’s former Communist regime.
He died, aged 73, on 23 February 1988, at Brno.
Medals:
1939 – 45 Star with Battle of Britain clasp
Air Crew Europe Star with Atlantic clasp
Defence Medal
War Medal
Válečný kříž 1939 and 2 bars
Za chrabrost před nepřítelem and 2 bars
Za zásluhy I.stupně
Pamětní medaile se štítky F–VB
Croix de Guerre avec palme
Remembered:
Great Britain :
Capel-le-Ferne:
He is commemorated, along with the other 2940 Battle of Britain aircrew, on the Christopher Foxley-Norris Memorial Wall at the National Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-le-Ferne, Kent:
Hawkinge:
František is remembered on the Czechoslovak Battle of Britain pilots memorial at the Kent Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge, Kent. It was unveiled on 28 October 2025, to commemorate the 88 Czechoslovaks who flew in that battle.
London – Battle of Britain Memorial:
He is also commemorated on the London Battle of Britain Memorial:
Czech Republic:
Osice:
In 2024, a memorial plaque to commemorate him was unveiled at his birth village of Osice.
Prague 1 – Klárov :
In November 2017, his name, along with the names of 2533 other Czechoslovak men and women who had served in the RAF during WW2, was unveiled at the Winged Lion Monument at Klárov, Prague.
Article last updated: 31.10.2025.
THEIR COURAGE AND SACRIFICE WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.