* 21.12.1914, Bílá Třemešná.
† 04.10.1945, Bučovice.
The Early Years
Josef Kuhn was born on 21 December 1914 at Bílá Třemešná, a small village near Dvůr Králové , some 100km North-East from Prague. He was the first child of Josef and Anna Kuhn, who owned a small farm there. His parents were to have two more children, Libuse and Bohuslav. As their first-born son, it was anticipated that Josef, on completion of his schooling. would take-over the running of the farm. Josef attended the local primary and secondary school at Bílá Třemešná for nine years, during which time his parents realised that he had little interest in running the farm. So instead, on completion of his schooling he attended the Commercial Academy at Dvůr Králové studied for an appreticeship.
During his youth he was an active member of the local Sokol group. The Sokol movement’s principle was that of ‘a sound mind in a sound body’ which was achieved by gymnastics, moral education, patriotism, and community involvement. During his youth, like many young Czechoslovak men at that time, he developed an interest in aviation and aspired to fly aircraft.
Military Service
On completion of his studies, that aspiration motivated him to apply to join the cadet school at the Military Aviation Academy at Prostějov. He was accepted and joined there on 1 October 1933 where, on completion of his basic military training, he was selected for pilot training. Amongst his peers there were several cadets who, like himself, were to later to leave their homeland and join the RAF in England. This included Josef Bernát and Metoděj Šebela who would also join 311 Sqn.
Josef graduated from his pilot training on 18 June 1935 and was posted as an observation aircraft pilot, at the rank of vojín [AC1] to the 10th Observer Squadron of the 3rd ‘M. R. Štefánik’ Air Regiment who were deployed at Nitra airbase, some 50 miles east of Bratislava, in the Slovakia region of Czechoslovakia. There he flew reconnaissance aircraft, mainly dual-seat Letov Š-328 biplanes. On 1 October 1935 Joseph was promoted to the rank of svobodník [LAC] and then to desátnik [Cpl] on 16 August 1936.
On 15 June 1937, Josef attended the Air Gunnery School at Malacky, some 20 miles north of Bratislava in Slovakia, returning back to his squadron, at Nitra, a month later. On 31 August 1936, he was posted to the Regiment’s 16th squadron, also an observation unit, and also equipped with Letov Š-328 aircraft, which at that time were stationed Tri Duby airbase near Zvolen, about 100 miles east of Bratislava, Slovakia. His promotion to četař [Sgt] was on 15 May 1937. On 1 May 1938, he undertook a pilot’s night flying course, which he completed on 15 July 1938 and returned to the 16th Squadron.
Mobilisation
By the Autumn of 1938, the political situation in central Europe was changing rapidly. Hitler and the Nazis in Germany were making territorial demands on the Czechoslovak Government in respect of the Sudetenland border regions. This resulted in Czechoslovakia calling a general mobilisation and thus all men of military age were drafted into the military to help defend the country in the event of invasion.
During this tense period, the 16th Squadron was deployed at Vígľaš, Lučenec and Muráň airfields in Slovakia in support of army units mobilised against potential Hungarian or German incursions.
German Occupation
Despite assurances given by Hitler at the Munich Agreement, that he had no further interest in territorial gains for Germany, just a few months later he extended his demands that the remaining regions of Czechoslovakia become part of Germany.
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 the most important assets from falling into 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. The Department of the Ministry of National Defence started organising the transfer of the aircraft to several airfields in Moravia with the intention of getting the air fleet to Romania and Yugoslavia. None of these plans were carried out.
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. On 20 March, Josef along with other Czech airmen who had been stationed in Slovakia at that time, were repatriated back to the German Reich Protectorate. By this time Josef had achieved 570 flying hours.
German Resistance
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, couriers and other assistance to enable airmen to escape to Poland. Usually, this was by crossing the border from the Ostrava region because of the close proximity of the ‘new’ Polish border since Poland had occupied the Český Těšín region of Czechoslovakia on 10 October 1938.
Escape to Poland
Josef 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, Josef covertly escaped over the border near Michalkovice, on the eastern side of Ostrava, into Poland on 18 August 1939. He then travelled to Kraków and reported for military duty at the Czechoslovak Consulate there.
At the Consulate, Josef 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.
Initially, the escapees were 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. The barracks, which were in poor condition, had already been well occupied by fellow escapees whilst arrangements were made for their transportation, by sea, to France.
As a result of those negotiations, between that 12 May and 17 August, six commercial ships had already transported 1192 Czechoslovak escapees from Bronowice Małe via the Polish Baltic Sea port of Gdynia to France. However, by the time of Josef’s arrival in Poland, the tense international situation with the high probability of war made commercial shipping companies hesitant to operate regular passenger services. The risks associated with naval conflict and potential blockades meant that passenger services from Gdynia to France had become unreliable or ceased entirely.
Josef arrived there on 26 August 1939, the 1995th Czechoslovak escapee to arrive. By now, the Polish authorities had been realising that invasion by Germany was now inevitable and desperately sought to bolster their military forces. This included reaching out to the Czechoslovak airmen and soldiers at Bronowice Małe asking them to join the Polskie siły powietrzne – the Polish Air Force.
On 29 August 1939, Josef was one of the 93 Czechoslovak airmen at Bronowice Małe who had accepted this offer to join, and left for the No. 1 Polish Air Force Training Centre at Dęblin, about 90km South East of Warsaw. Josef now held the rank of plutonowy [Cpl]. There, the Czechoslovak airmen, officially classed as civilians, re-trained on Polish PWS-26, RWD-8, RWD-14 and other aircraft, all of which were obsolete in comparison with the aircraft they had previously flown in the Czechoslovak Air Force.
Germany Invades Poland
Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and two days later Britain and France, because of their trilateral agreement with Poland, declared war on Germany.Early on the morning of 2 September, Dęblin airbase was bombed by a Luftwaffe formation of Do 17 bombers, with Me 109 fighter escort. During the air-raid fellow Czechoslovak airmen Lts Štefan Kurka, Zdeněk Rous and Ondřej Šandor were killed.
After this bombing, Josef and other Czechoslovak airmen evacuated to Góra Pulawská airfield, some 10 miles south of Dęblin. There, on 4 September, the first Czechoslovak air unit in World War II – the Czechoslowacka Eskadra Rozpoznawcza – was formed, comprising some 60 Czechoslovaks – pilots, other aircrew and mechanics and equipped with 8 Potez XXV and 3 RWD-8 aircraft at their disposal. It wasjointly commanded by Captain Bohumil Liška and Polish liaison officer Lieutenant Adolf Nowak. Josef was one of the Czechoslovak airmen of this unit.
After familiarising themselves with their equipment, they assembled into two-man crews, and following brief training, the unit flew to the Krzywda airfield near Radzyn Podlaskie, some 35 miles east of Dęblin. The unit subsequently saw active service from 7 September from airfields at Bełżyce near Lublin and Wola Galezówske, some 100 miles from Warsaw, in southeastern Poland, from where they flew reconnaissance and liaison flights. During this period, Josef participated in flying aircraft from endangered forward airfields back to safer airfields from the advancing Germans and Luftwaffe air superiority, which caused the dispersal of the unit. Together with several others, including some Polish aircraft mechanics, he was sent to Dęblin airbase on 11 September 1939, to evacuate any serviceable aircraft from there.
Early in the morning of 13 September 1939, Josef was still at Dęblin airbase with a few others from the unit and they were tasked with flying those serviceable aircraft from there to Brus airfield, some 80 miles southwest away, where they would meet up with their unit. It was a foggy morning and the airmen heard the sound of engines, gunfire and shouting from the Polish guards that the Germans had arrived and were occupying the airbase. Immediately, the airmen ran to their aircraft to fly them out. Jan Lazar and Polish mechanic Kulczinsku took off in one. Fellow Czechoslovak, Jaroslav Dobrovolný got into the cockpit of a French-built Potez XXV, a dual-seat reconnaissance biplane. As Josef had no aircraft himself, he and Cpl Matowski ran over to Dobrovolný’s Potez and boarded it. Despite being overloaded, Dobrovolný opened the engine and in the fog took off over the gunfire from the German tanks, so escaping from the airbase. With visibility restricted because of the fog, and with no map, Dobrovolný lost his orientation and made an emergency landing near the village of Garbów, a small village some 25 miles southeast of Dęblin. On landing, the tyre on the left undercarriage wheel burst. Dobrovolný decided to go to the nearby village for help but was apprehended by Polish Infantry Captains who regarded the three airmen as spies, despite Cpl Matowski, a native Pole explaining about the Czechoslovak airmen in Polish. Fortunately, their predicament was resolved when a nearby Polish Air Force Lieutenant heard of their capture and authorised their release.
With no help available from the village, and with chaos from the roads full of retreating troops, the airmen destroyed the right-hand undercarriage wheel and took off flying south. Over Lublin they were fired upon by Polish ground troops but avoided damage to their Potez, and landed at Brus airfield. There, they found that their unit had already departed and had left no orders for them. They resumed flying South, to try and get to Romania, but they were forced to land in a field near Wieliczka, due to lack of fuel. With no other option, they tried to continue their journey on foot and in a bus.
Soviet Russia Invades Poland
On 23 August 1939, the Molotov–Ribentrop non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany. had been signed. Despite its claimed agenda, the covert agenda was that the two countries would invade Poland and divide the country between them. On 17 Sep 1939, in accordance with that pact, the Soviet Army launched its invasion of eastern Poland. With the Germans having invaded Poland from the west on 1 September, this resultant pincer movement meant that evacuation from Poland was now only possible to the south via Romania. However much of that area was quickly occupied by Cossack cavalrymen of the advancing Russian Army and most of the evacuating airmen of Czechoslowacka Eskadra Rozpoznawcza were taken prisoner. Josef’s group were captured at midday on 17 September. They were taken to a nearby railway station where they were entrained on an eastbound goods train.
During his short service with Czechosłowacka Eskadra Rozpoznawcza, Josef had flown 10 flying hours.
Russian Captivity
With his fellow Czechoslovaks from the group led by Bohumil Liška, Josef was interned in a camp at Oranki, some 230 miles east of Moscow. This was a NKVD – Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del [People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs] – the Soviet Security Police, transit camp where Czechoslovak and Polish military, captured in Poland, were processed, and segregated prior to transfer to other Soviet camps. Conditions were harsh there, but not as severe as at the Russian Gulags, in Siberia. During their invasion of Poland, the Soviets had captured approximately 800 to 1,000 Czechoslovak military personnel.
After France capitulated in June 1940, the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London, led by President Edvard Beneš, wanted to get its airmen and soldiers released from Soviet internment. They were helped by the British Government who put diplomatic pressure on the Soviets to allow the release of these Czechoslovaks so that they could be transferred to the West. This was finally agreed in Spring 1941 and the Soviets started to release small groups of their Czechoslovak military internees so that they could rejoin Allied forces in the West. This resulted in Bohumil Liška’s group of 58 Czechoslovak airmen being transferred to a camp in Suzdal, a town northeast of Moscow. It was a temporary Soviet internment camp for Czechoslovak and Polish military personnel who had been captured in Poland.
To England
They were released from there and transported overland 800 miles to Odessa, a Russian port on the Black Sea, from where, on 21 February 1941 they boarded the SS Svanetia, a Soviet transport ship, which took them to Istanbul. There, on 24 February 1941, they reported to the Czechoslovak Consulate. Then they went overland by train for a forty-hour train journey to Mersina, a port on the Turkish Mediterranean coast. From there aboard the SS Alexandria to Haifa, Palestine, arriving on 11 March 1941. There Josef was assigned, at the rank of Private, to the Czechoslovak 11th Infantry Battalion – East. From Haifa, he left by train to RAF Ramleh, Palestine, then by train to Suez, on the Egyptian Red Sea coast. From there he went on a long sea journey aboard the SS Cameronia, a former Atlantic passenger liner, now requisitioned by the British as a troopship, from Suez down the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean south to Cape Town, South Africa. They then went north, through the Atlantic Ocean, to Gibraltar and onto Great Britain, where they landed on 12 July 1941 in Glasgow, after 75 days at sea. After security vetting, Josef and his fellow airmen were sent to the Czechoslovak Air Force Depot now at RAF Wilmslow, near Manchester, arriving on 16 July 1941.
RAF
On 25 July 1941, Josef was accepted into the RAF Volunteer Reserve at its lowest rank of AC2. Four days later he was promoted to the rank of Sgt. At RAF Wilmslow, after basic RAF training and English lessons to the required RAF standard, he was posted to 2 SFTS [No 2 Service Flying Training School], at RAF Brize Norton on 27 December 1941 for pilot training. Despite already being a trained pilot, he had not flown an aircraft since September 1939 and so a brief refresher course was required to ensure he satisfied the RAF standards. On completion of the refresher course, he was awarded his RAF pilot’s wing and posted back to the Czechoslovak Depot at RAF Cosford, then onto RAF St Athan on 13 February 1941. Josef’s next posting was on 18 February 1942 to 9 SFTS [No 9 Service Flying Training School] at RAF Hullavington, a major advanced training airfield.
Due to his proficiency in English, flying skill and experience, on 24 February 1942, he was posted to No 6 FIS [ No 6 Flying Instructor School] at RAF Upavon, in Wiltshire, for a training course to be a flying instructor. On 23 March 1942, on completion of that course, Josef returned to 9 SFTS at RAF Hullavington. On 11 May 1942, he was posted 1429 COTF [1429 Czechoslovak Operational Training Flight] at East Wreatham, Norfolk. There, under the command of S/Ldr Josef Šejbl, newly trained aircrew were trained for operational flying on Vickers Wellington twin-engined bomber aircraft. Josef was on course 9 and crewed up with Sgt Václav Jílek, F/O Teodor Pospišil, Sgt Dalibor Brochard, Sgt Adolf Pegřimek, and Sgt Bohumil Tvrdý, with Josef as co-pilot.
To 311 Sqn
On 1 October 1942, on completion of their training, Josef and his crew were posted to 311 [Czechoslovak] Sqn who were now deployed at RAF Talbenney, in South Wales, who were now part of RAF Coastal Command.
311 Squadron had been transferred from RAF Bomber Command to RAF Coastal Command in April 1942, because the loss rate of more than 40% of its aircrew and with a very limited source of replacement aircrew, meant it was unsustainable for the squadron to maintain bombing operations.
A new danger was now facing Britain, whose lifeline to its wartime survival was the convoys from North America bringing food and war materials to sustain its ability to fight the war. The German High Command identified this weak link for Britain, and as in WW1, sought to sink those supply ships by using submarines. To enable quick and easy access to the Atlantic, the Germans built submarine bases – heavily fortified concrete U-boat pens – in the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast of France, the main ones being at Lorient, Saint-Nazaire, La Rochelle and Brest from where they sailed in pursuit of Allied convoys.
Whilst the Allies were able to protect these convoys with aircraft patrolling the Atlantic either from North America, or Britain, the vast width of the Atlantic meant that the limited range of the aircraft resulted in there always going to be a central area of the Atlantic that could not be patrolled. This was the main area where the U-boats were able to intercept the convoys, with little fear of being attacked by Allied aircraft.
Thus, the Bay of Biscay became a primary area for RAF Coastal Command patrols where they flew around-the-clock patrols in anti-submarine sweeps in the search and engagements of U-boats returning from Atlantic patrols or those outbound for a new patrol. This was Operation Percussion, the Allied air and naval operation in the Bay of Biscay, off the south-west coast of France and comparatively close to the north coast of neutral Spain. They attacked U-boats attempting to leave or reach French ports by means of a surfaced transit of the Bay of Biscay.
From RAF Talbenney, 311 Sqn’s Wellingtons would patrol the westerly approaches to the Bay of Biscay Often these patrols would be in the region of 9 hours duration, covering some 1100 nautical miles but not locating any submarines. During these patrols they would often come under threat themselves from patrolling Luftwaffe aircraft from bases in France, who were providing aerial protection for the submarines. The squadron were very successful in this new role – for the quarter ending 28 February 1943, 311 Sqn was assessed as ‘Very Good’, both by day and night, being the only squadron in RAF Coastal Command to achieve that assessment.
Josef’s first operational patrol was on 31 October 1942 as a co-pilot to F/Sgt Jan Hadrávek in Wellington X9664, taking off at 09:21, carrying out an uneventful patrol and returning back to RAF Talbenny, at 18:44.
Whilst flying as co-pilot in Wellingtons, Josef made a further 13 patrols, all were uneventful apart from on 4 December 1942 when his aircraft was attacked by 3 Luftwaffe Ju 88’s and then on 23 March 1943 when they sighted and depth-charged a U-boat. On 1 December 1942, Josef was promoted to the rank of F/Sgt and he achieved his Captaincy in March 1943. He made his first operational flight, in that role, on 17 March, in Wellington HD989, ‘V’. These Wellington patrols were usually of about 9 hr 30 min duration and covered some 1100 nautical miles.
During June and July 1943, the squadron was re-equipped with the American Consolidated B24 Liberator, four-engined aircraft with an operational range of 1,900 miles, and with a heavier load of ordinance, usually of depth charges or bombs. This was nearly double that carried by the Wellington, and also the capability of carrying eight RP-3, 60 lb rockets, a formidable weapon against surfaced submarines. This extended range now meant that patrols were now usually of 12 to 14 hour duration and covering an area of some 2000 nautical miles.
Josef’s first Liberator patrol was on 25 August 1943, an uneventful 10 hr patrol, covering some 1660 nautical miles.
Combat in the Bay of Biscay
The Liberator’s ability to defend itself was severely tested on 7 October 1943, during Josef’s 25th anti-submarine patrol. He was at the controls of Liberator BZ779 ‘J’, and his crew were F/Sgt Bohuslav Héža, F/O Adolf Jurman, F/Sgt Alois Strouhal, Sgt Alois Matýsek, Sgt Josef Reitler, Sgt Josef Bílek and F/Sgt František Veverka. They had taken off at 13:02, from RAF Beaulieu, and were flying over the western area of the Bay of Biscay about 270 miles west of Brest, France, when the aircraft was attacked by four Luftwaffe Ju88’s in position 47.28N 10.17W. The Luftwaffe aircraft were first sighted by the Liberator at a distance of three miles and the enemy aircraft changed formation into ‘line astern’ in readiness to carry out a series of attacks on the Liberator. The first of the Ju88’s opened fire from a distance of 1,000 yards and together with the others closed in on the Liberator. To present as small and as difficult a target as possible to his attackers, Josef Kuhn continually corkscrewed the Liberator. Its gunners returned fire at every possible opportunity during those evasive manoeuvres. During the combat, the Liberator suffered considerable damage; the radar was put out of action, the fuel and hydraulic tanks were holed and began leaking. Several of the crew were wounded; Sgt Alois Matýsek, the radar operator, had splinter wounds in his leg and shoulder; F/Sgt František Veverka, one of the gunners, had splinter wounds in his leg and face (he had been wounded firstly when manning the rear turret and had moved to the starboard beam gun where he was wounded for the second time). Regardless of his injuries he continued to engage the Luftwaffe aircraft throughout. One of the Ju 88’s was claimed as damaged, probably shot down. The aircraft in question was probably Ju88C-6 No.750434 of KG40, which was listed as missing. The missing crew members were Oblt G Christner, Few E Leubner and Uffz A Knefel. After the attack Josef managed to nurse the Liberator back to the airfield at St. Eval for a ‘no flaps’ landing on the nose wheel and one main wheel. The flying time of the patrol was 6hrs 38mins.
The next day the crew were flown back to base as passengers in Liberator ‘B’ piloted by S/L Václav Korda. The Liberator ‘J’ was too damaged and was struck off charge at the end of October 1943.
Both Josef and F/Sgt František Veverka were awarded the DFM medal in recognition of the courage and skill that they displayed during the incident, Josef on 15 February 1944 and Veverka on 24 May 1944.
The citation for Josef DFM award reads:
On 7 October 1943, F/Sgt Kuhn was Captain of Liberator Aircraft BZ779, detailed for anti-submarine patrol in the Bay of Biscay. While on patrol his aircraft was attacked by a formation of four Ju88 aircraft. After the first few attacks the elevators of his aircraft were partly shot away, the intercommunication interrupted, the hydraulics and two petrol tanks pierced, the rear turret out of action and almost all the navigational instruments shot to pieces. In spite of the damage to the aircraft and the fact that he could not communicate with the rest of the crew, this Captain manoeuvred with extreme skill and audacity throughout the combat which lasted for twenty minutes.
After the combat, with two wounded aboard, he proceeded to land at St Eval. The hydraulics being out of action, he could not lower the undercarriage nor the flaps. Under his directions, one of the wheels was lowered, but the other stuck in. The casing above the front wheel had to be smashed in order to release and lower the front wheel. In spite of these heavy odds. he crash landed on one wheel and the front wheel without flaps, at an excessive speed, so successfully that no one aboard was even scratched.
By such a splendid display of courage and skill, he set an outstanding example, not only to his crew, but to the whole Squadron.
From the 24 October until the 6 November 1943 Josef and Adolf Jurman, his navigator, attended the 2-week No. 14 Joint Anti-Submarine Course at RAF Maydown in Northern Ireland. The course’s object was to ensure that all Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel actively employed in anti-submarine warfare should be given knowledge of each other’s methods and capabilities. In November, they returned to the squadron. Josef was granted his King’s commission, at the junior officer rank of P/O, on 27 November 1943.
On the 27 December 1943, Josef’s Liberator was one of the six aircraft ordered to search for the German blockade runner ‘Alsterufer‘, sighted earlier that morning by Sunderland flying boats from 201 Squadron. Because of bad weather four Liberators, including his, were recalled, but the third aircraft to leave Beaulieu, piloted by P/O Oldřich Doležal, sighted the ‘Alsterufer’ over 1350 kilometers west off Cape Finisterre, Spain. They attacked and completely disabled the ship, to the extent that the crew had to abandon ship. This success was a great-morale booster for the squadron. In February 1944, 311 Squadron redeployed to Predannack, Cornwall. Initially, 311 Sqn continued its anti-submarine sweeps in the Bay of Biscay area, but with the imminence of D-Day – the Allied invasion of occupied Europe – they were now patrolling the western approaches to Normandy, protecting the Allied shipping now assembling for the invasion against enemy submarines and the fast e-boats. They contributed to the saturation air patrols which covered individual sectors of the sea, providing vital protection 24 hours each day. Patrols were now usually now around 9 hours duration and covering 1400 nautical miles.
On his 8-hour patrol of 29 April 1944, a surfaced U-boat was sighted, but dived before they could attack it. On 27 May 1944 Josef was promoted to the rank of F/O. He was to make a further 44 operational patrols in Liberators, but following D-Day, and with the Allies now advancing eastward, liberating countries in mainland Europe, the Battle of the Atlantic had now finished as had the role of RAF Coastal Command in that Battle. The new emphasis for the RAF was the transportation of either personal – repatriation home of liberated former Allied prisoners of war – or the flying of military freight and also personnel.
Thus personnel from RAF Coastal Command that had multi-engine aircraft experience were now posted to RAF Transport Command.
To 246 Sqn
Josef, with F/O Oldrich Dolezal, F/Lt Zdeněk Hanuš, F/O Karel Kopal, F/O Ervín Kováč, F/O Jaroslav Novák, W/O František Sadil, W/O Alois Strouhal, and W/O Viktor Tégel, all pilots, navigators and wireless operators from the squadron, were posted, on 7 September 1944, to 105 OTU [105 Operational Training Unit], at RAF Bramcote, near Nottingham, for a conversion course to train pilots, navigators and aircrew, prior to joining RAF Transport Command. During his service with 311 Sqn in RAF Coastal Command, he had flown 610 operational hours during 60 operational patrols, totalling approximately 84,000 nautical miles.
Josef completed the course on 28 November 1944 and with his fellow Czechoslovaks, were posted to 246 Sqn, part of 116 Wing of Transport Command on 12 December 1944, who were based at RAF Holsmley South, in the New Forest at Hampshire.
At 246 Sqn was already fellow Czechoslovak F/O Jan Šerhant who had been posted there a few days earlier. The squadron was initially equipped with Liberator C.VII and Halifax IIIs and later took some Avro Yorks onto its strength. They flew transport variants of Liberators on long distance routes to Africa, the Mediterranean area, India and the Far East.
Return to Czechoslovakia
With the defeat of Germany on 8 May 1945, the war in Europe was over and the Czechoslovak RAF personnel looked forward to returning to their homeland. Josef now held the rank of poručík [P/O] in the Czechoslovak Air Force. After a long delay, caused by the Russian liberators, they went back on 24 August 1945.
On his return, like many of his fellow returnees, he was to find that his relatives had been interned in Svatobořice internment camp by the Germans during WW2 as a reprisal for Josef having escaped from Czechoslovakia in 1939 to fight against the German occupation. Josef returned to his home village at Bílá Třemešná, who granted to him an honorary decree in recognition of his WW2 service in the RAF. Josef continued with his military service in the Czechoslovak Air Force, serving in its Air Transport Group who were deployed at Ruzyně airport, Prague.
Fateful Flight
On 4 October 1945 he was the pilot of a military flight from Ruzyně airport to Zlín in a Siebel Si 204D twin-engine airplane. Take off was 09. The weather was bad but for reasons unknown, at about 10:00, the aircraft crashed into the side of a hill, partially digging itself into theground at Větrník, Bučovice about 16 miles East of Brno. All eight airmen – Josef Forman, František Lacina, Vladislav Spurný, Stanislav Tvrdík and former RAF airmen W/Cmdr František Doležal DSO, DFC, C de G, Vratislav Sajver, and Alois Strouhal together with Josef, were killed.
Due to the extent of the damage to the aircraft, the exact cause of the crash was never discovered, with one theory being that the crew lost control of the aircraft, possibly due to wings icing up. However, the possibility that the aircraft crashed as a result of wartime sabotage by Czech workers, who built these aircraft for the Luftwaffe during that time, was not ruled out by the Czechoslovak Air Force.
When a news of his death reached them only a few weeks later the whole village was devastated, hundreds of people turned up to pay their respect at his funeral there.
Josef Kuhn DFM was interred at the family grave at Bílá Třemešná
Medals Awarded
Válečný kříž 1939
Za chrabrost
Za zásluhy I.stupně
Pamětní medaile se štítky VB
Distinguished Flying Medal
1939 – 45 Star
Atlantic Star
Defence Medal 1939 to 1945
War Medal 1939 – 1945
Remembered
Czech Republic:
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: 01.02.2026.
