* 26.10.1917, Pécs.
† 03.05.1943, sea off Guernsey, Channel Islands.
Pre WW2:
Karel Körber was born on 26 October 1917 at Pécs, an ancient city some 170km south-west of Budapest. At that time it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and after WW1 it was incorporated into the newly formed Hungary. The family later moved to the Repy district of Prague where Karel attended elementary and secondary school. On leaving school he then trained as a shoemaker.
For his mandatory military service Karel joined the non-commissioned officer school at the Military Aviation Academy at Chleb in 1936. The following year he was selected for pilot training and transferred to the Military Aviation Academy at Prostějov for elementary flying instruction. Karel successfully completed that course achieving his pilot’s wings and was selected for fighter pilot training, being posted to the Military Academy at Hradec Králové. Amongst the others attending that course were František Bernard and Josef Kopriva who were later also to fly in the RAF during the Battle of Britain.
He graduated from there in 1937, and was posted as an operational pilot to the 31st Fighter Squadron of the 1st Air Regiment ‘T.G. Masaryk’, of the Czechoslovak Air Force. They were deployed at Hradec Králove airbase and equipped with Avia B-534 biplane fighter aircraft. Many of his peers stationed there would meet up later in the RAF.
By the time of the German occupation of Czechoslovakia, in March 1939, Karel had been promoted to the rank of desátnik [Corporal] and had achieved 270 flying hours of experience.
German Occupation:
The Germans occupied Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939. Under pressure, Emil Hácha, the Czechoslovak President had acceded to their demands, and in the early hours of that day, he had ordered all Czechoslovak military units to stand down, remain in their barracks and not resist the occupation. Germanisation of Bohemia and Moravia began immediately; they were now the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren), while Slovakia’ in return for its allegiance to Nazi Germany, had become the ‘puppet’ independent state of Slovakia.
Upon occupation, the Czechoslovak Air Force was disbanded by the Germans and all personnel dismissed. But just four days later, on 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]. Obrana Národa also worked 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 they could be formed into military units to fight for the liberation of their homeland. These two organisations provided money, courier and other assistance to enable airmen to escape to Poland. Usually, this was by crossing the border from the Ostrava region.
Poland:
Karel was one of the many Czechoslovak airmen and soldiers who regarded the German occupation as unacceptable and who saw it was their patriotic duty to go to Poland from where they could fight to achieve the liberation of Czechoslovakia.
With the help of those two organisations, he covertly escaped over the border to Poland in May. He then travelled to Kraków and reported for military duty at the Czechoslovak Consulate there.
Polish Disappointment:
At the Consulate Karel was advised that the formation of Czechoslovak military units in Poland was not permitted. The Polish Authorities, who recognised the new puppet State of Slovakia, showed little interest in the Czechoslovak military who were escaping across their border in groups and would not allow independent Czechoslovak units to be established on its territory as they were concerned about provoking neighbouring Nazi Germany.
Only after lengthy negotiations between Vladimír Znojemský, the Czechoslovak Consul, in Krákow, his counterparts in France and Great Britain, countries with which Czechoslovakia had an Alliance Treaty, and the French Government, did the French agree to permit 4,000 Czechoslovaks into the French Foreign Legion. French law did not allow for foreign military units to be on its territory in peacetime, and the Czechoslovak escapees would be required to join the French Foreign Legion for a five-year period with the agreement that, should war be declared, they would be transferred to French military units. 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.
Karel, like most of the Czechoslovak escapees, decided that his best choice was to go to France. Initially he was transferred to Bronowice Małe, a derelict former Polish Army barracks from the Austro-Hungarian era, on the outskirts of Krákow, which was then being utilised as a temporary transit camp for the escaped Czechoslovak military prior to their transfer to France. Karel arrived there on 11 June 1939, the 388th Czechoslovak escapee to arrive. The barracks, which were in poor condition, were already well inhabited by escapees whilst arrangements were made for their transportation, by sea, to France.
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.
After a short stay at Bronowice Małe, Karel was one of the 547 Czechoslovak escapees who went by train to Gdynia where they boarded the MS ‘Chrobry’, a Polish transatlantic passenger ship owned by the Gdynia-America Shipping Lines Ltd for their routes between Poland and South America. This was its maiden voyage to South America and it would stop in at Boulogne, France, so that the Czechoslovaks could disembark there. The MS ‘Chrobry’ arrived at Boulogne on the night of 31 July/1 August.
France:
Early the following morning, Karel and his fellow escapees disembarked onto French soil. There, they were met by the Czechoslovak Defence Attaché from the Czechoslovak Embassy, Paris, who gave each of them a little French money for their immediate needs. After some food, they boarded a train for the thirteen-hour journey to Paris. They arrived there at 17:30 and were taken by coach to the Foreign Legion’s recruitment centre at Place Balard to complete enlistment formalities and undertake medical examinations. By 21 August, these were completed, and they were awaiting transfer to their training base at Sidi-bel-Abbès, Algeria. This time was to serve as a familiarisation period to learn the ways of the Legion and to study French crash courses, and they took every opportunity to practise their new language skills with French girls. War broke out before Karel was transferred to Algeria, and instead he was released from his Legion service and transferred to the l’Armée de l’Air’s BA 117 recruitment centre at Base Aérienne de Dugny, Paris, with the rank of caporal.
L’Armée de l’Air:
On 11 September he was transferred to Centre d’Instruction de Chasse at Chartres, the l’Armée de l’Air fighter training airbase, about 50 miles South-West of Paris, for re-training onto French equipment.
After 14 hrs 18 min of flying instruction, his retraining was completed and on 2 December 1939 Karel was posted, with fellow Czechoslovaks Antonín Mikolášek and Stanislav Peroutka, to GC II /3 who were deployed at Longvic airbase near Dijon, some 260km south-east of Paris and equipped with MS-406c fighter aircraft. On 19 January 1940, GC II/3 redeployed to Connantre airbase, some 90km east of Paris.
Karel became the first Czechoslovak to be shot down in aerial combat on the western front. About 13:00 on 3 March 1940, 12 Ms-406s from GC II/3 took off from Connantre for their usual patrol flight along the French-German border. It was an eventful patrol; at an altitude of 25,000ft they came under fire from German anti-aircraft guns and east of Lorraine, they were attacked by a formation of Me 109s from III/JG 53 led by Gruppen kommandeur Hptm Werner Mölders. During the combat at 13:55, 12km south-east of Diedenhofen, some 280 km east of Paris, Karel’s Ms-406, no 8, was attacked by Mölders. The ensuing combat between the experienced Mölders, who had already achieved 14 aerial combat victories, against the inexperienced Karel, was short and one-sided. The fuselage of Karel’s Ms-406 was badly damaged and black smoke was seen coming from the engine with Karel being wounded in the leg from shrapnel. Despite his injury, Karel managed to make a wheels-up landing in a field near Croix-de Metz airbase at Toul, some 260km east of Paris. He was uninjured in the crash and was taken straight to the local hospital for treatment for his wounded leg and he remained there until 3 April.
Whilst there he received the news that he had received the Croix de Guerre, being the first Czechoslovak pilot to do so. His citation, dated 19 March 1940, said: “Caporal Körber, a young pilot, combative and reliable, showed great coolness and determination on 3 March fighting a numerically superior enemy. Although wounded he was able to put out the fire originated on board the aircraft and bring his machine, heavily damaged by enemy fire to the airfield deep behind the front line.”
Mölders was later to become the first fighter pilot in history to achieve 100 aircraft shot down.
On 8 March, fellow Czechoslovaks Jaroslav Gleich, Václav Cukr and Otto Pavlů were posted from Chartres to GC III/3.
In May 1940, GC II/3 were re-equipped with the faster Dewoitine D-520c fighters. During this period, he was promoted to the rank of Caporal-Chef.
In the Battle of France Karel flew 70 hours and achieved combat success:
| Date | Time | Aircraft | Action |
21.05.40 | 12:45-13:30 | Dewoitine D-520c | a shared victory of a He III, 10 km north-west of Douai |
22.05.40 | 14:10 | Dewoitine D-520c | a shared victory of a Hs 126 south of Arras |
The 8 June was a notable day for Karel. GC II /3, now deployed at La Ferté-Gaucher airfield, some 70km east of Paris, were on patrol from 05:30 to 06:30 in the Rouen and Forges-les-Eaux region, some 110 km north of Paris. During that patrol they came under German flak and Karel’s Dw-520 was hit. He managed to keep the aircraft under control and was intent on trying to return to base so that the aircraft could be repaired. He managed to fly some 125km south before the Dw-520 failed causing Karel to make a belly-landing near Montlhéry, just South of Paris. Although the aircraft was destroyed, Karel escaped unhurt.
The rapid advance of the German Blitzkreig caused GC II /3 to keep retreating westward to avoid capture. By 16 June they were now at La Salanque airbase at Perpignan in south-west France, their 11th redeployment westwards since Germany had invaded on 10 May. 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.
By the time GC II/3 arrived at La Salanque airbase, there were some 250 aircraft from other units that had already congregated there en-route to Algeria. There everything was very chaotic, and with few ground-crew available, the pilots of GC II/3 had to refuel their aircraft themselves. On 20 June they flew from France, over the Mediterranean to Maison Blanche airbase, Algeria and then to Relizane airbase, also in Algeria, some 120 km west of Oran.
It was there that they learned that France had capitulated on 22 June. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, appealed to all the evacuated Czechoslovak airmen to come to Britain and continue the fight from there. The l’Armée de l’Air released the Czechoslovak airmen from their service so that they could make their journey to Britain.
On 4 July 1940, they left by train and travelled for four days across the Sahara Desert to Casablanca, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. From here, on 4 July, under the command of štábní kapitán Josef Duda, they boarded the SS ‘Royal Scotsman’, which sailed on 9 July and took them to Gibraltar. There they boarded the ‘David Livingstone’ which departed on 21 July 1940, in a convoy of 69 vessels At first, they sailed westwards far into the Atlantic to avoid attack by Luftwaffe aircraft and then changed their route eastwards to the UK, arriving at Cardiff at 05:00 on 5 August 1940.
RAF:
On arrival in England, after security clearance, like most of the Czechoslovaks, Karel’s path first led to the Czechoslovak resettlement camp at Cholmondeley Park, near Chester, arriving there on 8 August. 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 voluntary reserves of the RAF, at the rank of AC2, on 15 August and transferred to the Czechoslovak RAF Depot, Cosford for English lessons and basic RAF training.
On 21 September, Karel, now at the rank of Sgt was posted, with 19 other Czechoslovak Sgt pilots from RAF Cosford to 6 OTU [Operational Training Unit] at Sutton Bridge, Lincolnshire for conversion course onto Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft. Firstly, they learnt the theoretical aspect of flying Hawker Hurricanes and then the practical aspect, initially in dual dual-seater Miles Magister training aircraft. Once they had reached the required standard, the training continued in single-seater Hurricanes. Part of this training period involved undertaking English lessons to enable at least elementary airborne radio communication to the required RAF standard and operational flying training.
Battle of Britain:
Karel completed his re-training on 8 October 1940 and was posted to 32 Sqn at RAF Acklington, near Morpeth, Northumberland, which was equipped with Hurricane Mk I aircraft. The squadron had moved north from RAF Biggin Hill, at the end of August, to rest after a demanding time in the Battle of France and the early days of the Battle of Britain. The squadron was one of the most successful Hurricane squadrons which fought in the Battle of Britain.
After the Battle:
On 2 December 1940, Karel made a heavy landing at RAF Woolsington. This caused the undercarriage ofhis Hurricane Mk I P3036 to collapse causing substantial damage to the aircraft, but he was uninjured.
He was posted on 27 October 1941 to 222 Sqn who were deployed at RAF North Weald and were equipped with Spitfires onto which he had to re-train.
Flying Instructor:
Karel completed his operational tour on 16 December 1941 and, for his mandatory rest period, was posted to No 1 Central Flying School, at RAF Upavon, Wiltshire, for training as a military flying instructor. He completed his training course on 2 March 1942. His next posting was to No 3 Elementary Flying Training School [ No 3 EFTS] at RAF Shellingford, near Faringdon in Oxfordshire, where he was training new pilots. His next posting was from 13 May 1942 to 22 EFTS at RAF Cambridge, where again he was a flying instructor.
He was there until 22 July when he was then posted to the 21 Group RAF Refresher Flying Training school at RAF Kirknewton near Edinburgh. The purpose of the school was to prepare inactive pilots to current requirements, prior to being posted to an operational squadron for flying duties. Karel completed that course on 29 August 1942.
310 (Czechoslovak) Squadron:
Karel was then posted to 310 (Czechoslovak) Sqn who were deployed at RAF Exeter, Devon, and equipped with Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vc to commence his 2nd operational tour. On 1 September he was promoted to the rank of W/O.
At RAF Exeter, 310 Sqn was mainly flying convoy patrols and providing fighter cover for Allied bombers on raids over northern occupied France. These raids, known as ‘Ramrods’ were primarily intended to destroy ground targets and also inflict losses by the escorts on German fighters trying to intervene. They also undertook ‘Rodeos’ which were offensive fighter sweeps over Northern France to tempt Luftwaffe fighters to engage with them so that they could be destroyed in aerial combat.
Fateful Flight:
On 3 May 1943, 310 and 313 Sqns were tasked with providing escort to six Whirlwind bombers, known as ‘Whirlibombers’ from 263 Sqn for an armed shipping reconnaissance patrol. That day, six Spitfires from 310 Sqn, took-off from RAF Exeter at 14:30. Karel was flying Blue 2, to S/Ldr Jiří Hartman, in Spitfire Mk Vb EN960.
310 Sqn Spitfires rendezvoused with the Whirlwinds and 12 Spitfires from 313 Sqn, over Exeter, with the later Spitfires providing close escort to the Whirlwinds. The formation set course at sea level to 10 miles north-east of Guernsey and thence to Sept Îles, and then along the French coast towards Île de Batz.
At 15:13, north of Île de Batz two Fw 190s from 8 /JG2, approached the formation from the south and four more from the east and attacked the 310 Sqn Spitfires. In the ensuing dog-fight, Karel’s aircraft was attacked by a Fw190 8 /1G2 flown by Obfw Josef Bigge at 15:15 and damaged. The dog-fight over, the 310 Sqn Spitfires formed up and set course to return back to England. At about 15:25, smoke was seen coming from Karel’s engine and it caught fire. Just prior to bailing out, he waved to Sgt Stanislav Peroutka, a fellow 310 Sqn pilot. Karel successfully bailed-out but released himself too early from his parachute harness. The fall was about 50 to 60 feet above the calm sea and he is presumed to have been stunned by the impact with the sea and drowned. Wing Leader W/Cmdr František Doležal climbed to 10,000 feet to radio a navigational fix on Karel’s location. Whilst his No 2, F/O Karel Zouhar orbited the spot, W/Cmdr František Doležal went down to sea level and saw that Karel was floating in his Mae-west with his face down in the water, arms outstretched and not showing any sign of movement. After 3 min W/Cmdr František Doležal decided to disengage, and the five 310 sqn Spitfires returned to RAF Exeter, landing at 16:35. Despite a search by Air/Sea rescue launch, Karel’s body was never recovered.
W/O Karel Körber is commemorated on Panel 134 at the Air Forces Memorial at Runnymede. He was 25 Years old.
Medals Awarded:
1939 – 45 Star with Battle of Britain clasp
Defence Medal
1939-1945 War Medal
Válečný kříž 1939
Pamětní medaile se štítky F–VB
Croix de Guerre avec palm.
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:
Karel 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:
London – St Clement Danes:
Karel Körber is remembered in the Remembrance book at St Clements Danes Church, London.
London – West Hampstead:
He is remembered on the Memorial Plaque at the Bohemia House, he former Czechoslovak National House, at West Hampstead, London.
Czech Republic:
Prague 1 – St Vitus Cathedral:
He is remembered in the Remembrance book at St Vitus Cathedral, Hradčany, Prague.
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 1.
Prague 3 – The Army Museum:
He is remembered on the Memorial Plaque at the Military History Institute, at Žižkov Prague.
Prague 6 – Dejvice:
He is named on the Memorial for the fallen Czechoslovak airmen of 1939-1945, at Dejvice, Prague 6.
Prague 8 – Dolákova:
A symbolic grave for him is at the family tomb at the Dolákova cemetery, in the Prague 8 district.
Article last updated: 31.10.2025.
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Hello, thats a great article. My great uncle was Antonin Mikolasek from GC II/3, who is mentioned here. I collect any information about him. Thank you, best regards
Martin