Remembering the Czechoslovak RAF airmen

To commorate Czechoslovak RAF airmen on the anniversary of VE Day the Free Czechoslovak Air Force Associates ltd [FCAFA] team held two private wreath laying events.

Firstly was at the Air Forces Memorial, at Runnymede.

The Memorial commemorates by name the 20,547 airmen of the Royal Air Force and Commonwealth Air Forces who were lost in the Second World War during operations from bases in the United Kingdom and North and Western Europe, and who have no known graves. Of those named there, 149 are Czechoslovak airmen.

Attending the event were Brigadier General Miroslav Heger, Defence Attaché at the Czech Embassy, London and WO Adrian Podzimek, Assistant to the Czech Defence Attaché and members of the FCAFA team.

Wreaths were laid on behalf of Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, FCAFA ltd, the Kent Battle of Britain Museum the and Veterans Česká republika veterans group in the Czech Republic.

Then onto the Czechoslovak section at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Brookwood, Surrey.

The Czechoslovak Section is located at Long Avenue. Here, surrounding the Czechoslovak Memorial, 45 of Czechoslovak RAF airmen are interred and 1 soldier. The Czechoslovak airmen’s headstones found at this cemetery are unique in that they do not have the symbolic Czechoslovak lion, the national symbol, engraved on them. The reason for this is as a result of the original decision between the Czechoslovak Government and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission after WW2 when this section of the cemetery was being constructed. It was considered that because the symbolic Czechoslovak lion would be on the newly constructed Czechoslovak Memorial at that location, there was no need to also include on the individual headstones.

A further three Czechoslovak airmen’s graves – W/Cmdr Jindřich BREITCETL, S/Ldr Jaroslav MALÝ and Sgt Antonín VANKO are located in the graves opposite the RAF building, some 50 metres from this memorial.