* 12.08.1911, Hrejkovice.
† 19.08.1983, Marondera, Zimbabwe.
The Early Years:
Miroslav Karel Bedřich Kopecký was born on 12 August 1911 in Hrejkovice, a village 40 miles south of Prague, in the Bohemia region of Czechoslovakia. He was the second child of Karel, the headmaster of the village school, and his wife Božena née Soltvová. He had a sister Blažena who was three years older. For his education, Miroslav completed five years of general school, and four years of secondary school.
In 1931, the family moved to Dolní Břežany, where Miroslav studied a further two further years at High School where he trained as an electrician.
Czechoslovak Air Force:
For his mandatory military service when he was 18, Miroslav joined the Czechoslovak Air Force cadet school on 1 October 1929. That was located at the Military Aviation Academy in Prostějov some 125 miles south-east of Prague. There he trained as pilot, graduating on 14 July 1931 and was promoted to the rank of desátnik (Corporal). Some of his peers on that training course were pilots whohe would later meet up with in the RAF in England. They included Josef Koukal, Václav Šlouf and Rudolf Zima who were also to become Battle of Britain pilots. On 29 August 1931 Miroslav was posted as an operational pilot to the 1st ‘T.G. Masaryk’ Air Regiment deployed at Prague Kbely airbase. He completed his mandatory military service on 23 October 1932 and chose to remain in the Air Force. On 31 May 1933 he was promoted to the rank of četař [Sergeant]. On 29 October 1934 he was posted to the 72nd squadron of the 6th Air Regiment for fighter pilot training from which he graduated and the following year also completed an instrument flying course.
On 1 October 1937 he was posted to the Non-Commissioned Officers school at Milovice from where he graduated on 2 April 1938. Miloslav then returned to the 72nd squadron, 6th Air Regiment. His next promotion to rotmistrem [F/Sgt] was on 1 July 1938 and on 31 August that year he was posted to the 86th squadron of the 6th Air Regiment who were deployed at Havlíčkův Brod, some 100km south-east of Prague.
By the time of the German occupation Miroslav had achieved 1000 hours of flying time, making him a very experienced fighter pilot.
German Occupation:
On the evening before the invasion, on March 14, 1939, Czechoslovak intelligence officers called a meeting where they announced that the threat of invasion was imminent and recommended measures which would prevent most important assets fall in German hands. However, no orders were handed down until too late. The Chief of the Czechoslovak Air Force General Fajfr and his deputy General Vicherek ordered that no aircraft were allowed to take-off. III Department of the Ministry of National Defence started organising the transfer of the aircraft to several airfields in Moravia with the intention to get the airfleet to Romania and Yugoslavia. None of these planned intentions came to be instigated.
Germany occupied Czechoslovakia on 15th March 1939 The Czechoslovak Air Force was quickly disbanded by the Germans and all personnel dismissed; the same fate befell most of those serving in the Czechoslovak Army. Germanisation of Bohemia and Moravia began immediately. For the military personnel and many patriotic Czech citizens, this was a degrading period. Many sought to redress this shame and humiliation and wanted to fight for the liberation of their homeland. By 19 March 1939, former senior officers of the now-disbanded Czechoslovak military had started to form an underground army, known as Obrana Národa [Defence of the Nation]. 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.
Poland:
Miroslav was demobilised from the Czechoslovak Air Force. Like many other of his Air Force colleagues, he could not accept the Nazi occupation of his homeland and that Czechoslovakia couldn’t defend itself against Hitler’s Germany.
On 3 June 1939, with the assistance of the two underground organisations, Miroslav travelled with fellow airmen Leo Anderle, Josef Kubak, Miroslav Mansfeld, Josef Šnajdr, and Josef Vopalecky. They travelled by train to Ostrava in north-east Czechoslovakia. This was adjacent to the Český Těšín region which had been annexed by Poland following the Munich Agreement of September 1939. There they were met by a former presidential guard who guided them to the Polish border from where they crossed into Poland. Shortly after crossing the border on 9 June, they were detained by Polish police and taken to the local Police Station. Here their details were taken and as the Police station was small and unable to accommodate the six, they were permitted, under parole not to try and return to Czechoslovakia, but to leave the Police station and stay in a nearby hotel that night. The following day they returned to the Police station and were taken to Těšín Police station for further questioning. They were there for a week before they were released and travelled to Kraków, in southern Poland, where they reported for duty at the Czechoslovak Consulate.
Disappointment in Poland:
However, there Miroslav and his colleagues, like all the previous escapees from Czechoslovakia, found that there was no enthusiasm from the Polish authorities to have Czechoslovak military units assembled on their territory as the Poles had no wish to provoke neighbouring Nazi Germany. This Polish attitude caused some of the Czechoslovak escapees to become discontented and disillusioned, with some considering returning to their homeland. Fortunately, patriotic speeches by General Ludvík Svoboda, a Legionnaire veteran from WW1 and Senator Vojtěch Beneš, brother of former Czechoslovak President Eduard Beneš, now exiled in in Britain, averted this return. Meanwhile the Czechoslovak Consulate at Kraków had been in negotiations with 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, but 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 Czechoslovakia.
Whilst the Czechoslovak Consulate made travel arrangements to France, the Miroslav and his three colleagues were billeted at Bronowice Małe, a former Polish Army camp from the Austro-Hungarian period, arriving there on 11 June, Miroslav being the 300th escapee to arrive there. Shortly after, along with 138 other Czechoslovak military escapees, 42 of whom were airmen, they travelled by train to the Polish Baltic port of Gdynia, where on 17 June they boarded the ‘Sobieski’, a Polish passenger ship and sailed to Boulogne, France, arriving on 19 June.
France:
The Czechoslovak escapees were met at Boulogne by the Air Attaché from the Czechoslovak Consulate, Paris. Each escapee was given 20 francs to cover their immediate needs and after two days there, they travelled by train to Place Balard, Paris, the Legion’s recruitment centre. Here medical examinations were undertaken and documentation prepared for their enlistment. While there they were required to attend French classes and so any free time was usually spent in Paris exploring the sights and practising their newly-learnt French with the girls they met.
French Foreign Legion:
Miroslav was accepted into the French Foreign Legion, at the lowest rank of Soldat and transferred to their transit centre at Fort St Jean at Marseille, on the French Mediterranean coast. On 28 August, they boarded the ‘General Tirman’, a transport ship which sailed to Oran on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria. From there, they travelled on to the Legion’s training base at Sidi-bel-Abbès, some 35 miles south of Oran. Here, he was assigned to the 1st Battalion of the Legion’s 1st Regiment.
When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Miroslav was with the Legion, at their base at Marrakesh, Morocco. Two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany resulting in the Czechoslovaks serving in the Legion, being released from their Legion contract and transferred to French military units.
l’Armée de l’Air:
On 28 September, Miroslav was transferred to the l’Armée de l’Air and was sent to Blida, their Base Aerienne no 140 on the Mediterranean coast of Algeria.
Miroslav and other Czechoslovak airmen were then transferred to mainland France to the l’Armée de l’Air’s BA 117 recruitment centre at Base Aerienne de Dugn., in the south-west outskirts of Paris. On 30 November he was posted, at the rank of sergeant, to the Centre d’Instruction de Chasse (CIC) at Chartres airbase, for re-training on French fighter aircraft and to continue learning rudimentary French.
The phoney war came to an end on 10 May 1940, when the Germans invaded Holland, Belgium and France. The rapidity of their advance caused the French military to soon retreat westwards. On 18 May, Miroslav was posted to Patrouille DAT Étamps, whose role was the defence of the Étamps airbase and its pilot training school, located some 50 km south-east of Chartres. The unit was part of GC 1/55 and was equipped with Morane-Saulnier MS-406 and Marcel Bloch MB-151 fighter aircraft. Since 15 June, Operation Aerial, the evacuation of Allied military forces and civilians from ports in Western France had been in operation. On 13 June 1940, with the French capitulation imminent, Miroslav and the other Czechoslovak airmen were released from their l’Armée de l’Air service and instructed to get to the port at Bordeaux, before the Germans reached there, so that they could be evacuated to England from where they could carry on the fight against Nazi Germany. They reached Bordeaux, where 38 with other Czechoslovak airmen, under the command of podplukovník [W/Cmdr] Vítěslav Rosík, they boarded the SS ‘Kmicic’ formerly the SS ‘Robur III’, a Polish cargo ship, and sailed on 19 June down the Gironde estuary. The Luftwaffe attacked Bordeaux that night emphasising the importance of leaving immediately. The route took them far out into the Atlantic, to avoid U-Boats and Luftwaffe attacks, before changing course East to Falmouth, Great Britain. They arrived on 23 June, the day after France capitulated.RAF:
On arriving at Falmouth, the Czechoslovak airmen were given a clean-up, a meal, a change of clothing, 5 shillings back pay and taken to Falmouth railway station to be taken to RAF Innsworth, Gloucestershire, for security vetting and medical checks.
Once that was completed, their next move was to the Czechoslovak resettlement camp at Cholmondeley Park, near Chester. Here, as he was a pilot, Miroslav was accepted into the RAF Volunteer Reserve, at the rank of Sgt, and was required to swear his oath of allegiance to King George VI. On 12 July Miroslav and others were transferred to the Czechoslovak airmen’s depot at Cosford, near Wolverhampton for basic training and English lessons. On 18 July he was posted to the newly formed 310 (Czechoslovak) Sqn who were stationed at RAF Duxford. There they had British instructors to retrain them on Hawker Hurricane Mk I fighter aircraft.
310 (Czechoslovak) Squadron:
The squadron motto was “We fight to Rebuild” and was jointly commanded by S/Ldr Alexander ‘Sasha’ Hess, a Czechoslovak and S/Ldr George Blackwood, who was British. The Battle of Britain had commenced on 10 July, and the RAF had an urgent need for trained pilots. To help speed up that re-training process, the Czechoslovak pilots were posted straight to a squadron for training, rather than following the usual route of via a Operational Training Unit [OTU]. Between 12 and 19 July a total of 69 Czechoslovak pilots had arrived at 310 Sqn for re-training onto Hurricanes.
6 OTU:
By 17 August, sufficient Czechoslovak pilots had been retrained to fly Hurricanes, enabling 310 Sqn to be declared operational, so that they could participate in the Battle of Britain. As the squadron was now operational, there were no longer spare Hurricanes available for training purposes, so Miroslav, and the 12 others, whose retraining had not been completed, were posted to 6 OTU at Sutton Bridge, Lincs, to continue that retraining.
Battle of Britain:
Miroslav, having completed his retraining, was posted to 111 Sqn, who were deployed at Drem, 16 km East of Edinburgh, on 9 September. The squadron had previously been stationed at RAF Croydon and had suffered heavy losses during the Battle of Britain and had now been rotated in September, north to RAF Drem for well-deserved rest and to recuperate their losses. The squadron’s role there was to protect the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys against German naval or air attacks. With 111 Sqn, Miroslav made 28 training flights before he was posted, at the rank of W/O, to 253 Sqn, at Kenley, Kent, on 25 September.
His first operational flight in the Battle of Britain was on 1 October, for an interception flight in Hurricane V6813 from 14:10 to 15:45. By 31 October, the end of the Battle of Britain, he would make a further 30 operational flights totalling 31 hrs 40min. On 28 September, he was joined at 253 Sqn by Václav Cukr, also a Czechoslovak.
After the Battle:
The squadron redeployed to Leaconsfield, Yorkshire on 5 January 1941 and then to Skeabrae, in the Orkneys on 8 February 1941. From here they undertook convoy patrols and also the aerial defence of the Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow from marauding Luftwaffe aircraft flying from Norway.
Flying Instructor
He was posted, on 12 March 1941, to 52 OTU, at Debden, Essex, as a flying instructor and subsequently did not return to operational flying, remaining in that role for the remainder of his RAF service. His next posting, on 23 May 1941, was to 9 FTS [Flying Training School] at Hullavington, Wiltshire, then back to 52 OTU on 5 June 1941 and he remained with them when the training unit was redeployed to RAF Aston Down, Gloucestershire on 26 August 1941. That 14 August, Miroslav received his commission at the rank of P/O.
Further postings as a flying instructor were on 21 January 1942, to 3 EFTS [Elementary Flying Training School] at RAF Shellingford, near Faringdon in Oxfordshire; on 4 February 1942 to 52 OTU at RAF Aston Down, Gloucestshire; on 13 April to 9 FIS [Flying Instructor School] at Central Flying School at RAF Upavon, Wiltshire. Then back to 52 OTU on 9 May 1942; on 28 May 1942 to 22 EFTS [Service Flying Training School] at RAF Cambridge; on 24 July 1942 back to 3 EFTS at RAF Shellingford; then to SFTS at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire, on 25 August 1942. On 14 August 1943 he was promoted to the rank of F/O and posted to 5 (P) AFU [Pilot Advanced Flying Unit] at RAF Tern Hill, Shropshire. His next promotion, his final RAF promotion, was on 7 March 1944 to the rank of F/Lt.
The demands of his instructor role were now becoming apparent, causing his health to suffer and on 13 July 1944, he was diagnosed as suffering from flying fatigue and stood down from flying duties. Only after examination by the Medical Board at the Cosford RAF Hospital, 14 September, 13 October and 23 February 1945 was he able to resume those duties. Miroslav’s final RAF posting was to 6 EFTS at RAF Sywell. With Allied victory in WW2 now expected imminently, training programmes were being scaled down and on 21 February 1945 he was posted to the Czechoslovak Depot at Cosford until his return to Czechoslovakia on 18 August 1945.
Return to Czechoslovakia:
He remained in the Czechoslovak Air Force on his return, initially at the Czechoslovak Air Force HQ in Prague until 16 November 1945, then he was posted to the 10 Air Regiment, with the rank of kapitán (F/Lt) until 6 February 1946. He was then posted as a pilot instructor to the Military Aviation Academy at Prostšjov.
Communist putsch:
Following the Communist take-over in February 1948, the Czechoslovaks who fought for the Allies in WW2 were regarded as being tainted by Capitalism and many were arrested, imprisoned and subjected to other persecution. Before he could be arrested Miroslav escaped, with three other Czechoslovak former RAF airmen, over the border to the American Zone in Germany.
2nd Exile:
Miroslav returned to England and re-applied to join the RAF but was only offered acceptance at the lower rank of Sergeant, which he considered an insult considering he previous had held the commissioned rank of F/Lt. Instead, he decided to remain a civilian and in 1948 found employment as an electrician at the Cadbury’s factory at Birmingham. This resulted in the family moving also to Birmingham where Patricia employed as a factory worker for Cadbury’s. Life in post-WW2 Britain was austere and with the Cold War just commencing with the threat of another war, emigrants from Eastern Europe were regarded with suspicion. Because of these factors, the family aspired to having a better life, but realised it would not be in post WW2 UK.
Rhodesia:
They emigrated to Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and settled at Marondera, about 40 miles south-east of the capital Salisbury, now Harare. There they opened up a successful electrical shop. With the shop and Miroslav undertaking electrical contract work they were able make a reasonable living.
During the turmoil of Unilateral Declaration of Independence [UDI] – Rhodesia wanting independence from Great Britain – Miroslav became the local military warden for the Marondera ex-pat European community.
He died 19 August 1983, aged 72 at Marondera, Zimbabwe.
Medals Awarded:
1939 – 45 Star with Battle of Britain clasp
Air Crew Europe Star
Defence Medal
War Medal
Válečný kříž 1939
Za chrabrost
Za zásluhy I.stupně
Pamětní medaile se štítky F–VB
Croix de Guerre
Remembrance:
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:
Miroslav 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:
Hrejkovice Memorial unveiled 2024
Prague 1 – Klárov:
In November 2017, his name, along with the names of 2507 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.
Thank you so much for bringing my father, Miroslav K B Kopecky to the forefront of the world’s notice. He was a proud Czech, unable to ever come back to his homeland but never gave up his love for his country and family.