Stanislav Hlucka RIP

Kyt · Nov 7, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article5100505.ece

The death of the distinguished Czech pilot Stanislav Hlucka leaves just a handful alive of the men who escaped their Nazi-occupied homeland to fight the Third Reich from exile. Pilots like Hlucka, while still young and often inexperienced, were determined and courageous, providing vital additional strength for the RAF during the war. He also made the hazardous journey to the Soviet Union in 1944 to provide air support for the assault on Nazi forces from the east.

Despite victory in 1945, however, life for Hlucka and his comrades after the war was far from easy. As the Communist regime took power in Czechoslovakia in 1948 they were regarded as tainted with Western imperialism due to their RAF service. Hlucka, like many other former pilots, was first imprisoned by the communist authorities and then banished to menial jobs. There was some respite during the political thaw of the 1960s. But only after the revolution against communism in 1989 were Hlucka and others who had survived given more of the recognition they deserved both in Czech society and in Britain.

Stanislav Hlucka was born in 1919 near the Moravian city of Brno. He trained initially as a machine fitter but then volunteered for air training. Hopes of being part of a national military resistance to Nazi expansion were dashed, however, after the sacrificing of Czechoslovak security at the Munich agreement in September 1938, and the unopposed German invasion of the Czech lands the following March.

Hlucka decided to join the resistance and escaped via Slovakia, Hungary and the Middle East, eventually joining other exiled Czechoslovaks in France in 1940. It was a frustrating period as the war changed so quickly and he and his colleagues remained distant from the front. He recalled later a surreal atmosphere as they enjoyed local wine around Bordeaux while the war happened elsewhere.

But then he moved on to Britain, and trained on Hurricanes and Spitfires at furious pace as the Czechs, Slovaks and other foreigners were desperately needed to make up RAF pilot numbers, though there were tensions as most pilots from abroad were given the lowest rank and treated with some suspicion by the RAF hierarchy. Hlucka joined the 313 Czechoslovak fighter squadron, flying Spitfires, based mainly in the South and South West of England including Churchstanton in Somerset. He notched up four “kills” of Luftwaffe aircraft. Hlucka, a keen sportsman and gymnast, was dubbed the “acrobat” by colleagues admiring his nimble manoeuvring. But there were narrow escapes — especially when he was wounded while escorting bombers over France.

“There were lighter moments too,” he remembered in an interview, “playing football, grabbing beers. At 5 in the morning it was back in line and you had to be ready. But it was OK because we knew why we were fighting”. Czech pilots, thinking of their families left trapped under Nazi occupation, never lacked motivation.

In February 1944 he was asked by his commanding officer, the charismatic František Fajtl, to accompany him to the Soviet Union and help to form a Czechoslovak air force unit there to support the Soviet counterattack against German forces from the east. Conditions there were often primitive, different aircraft had to be mastered, and the political machinations surrounding Czechoslovak deployment were often baffling. But Hlucka and his colleagues did enjoy the satisfaction of helping to drive remaining German occupiers from Slovakia as the war came to an end and Czechoslovakia was restored.

After enjoying a few years of postwar life in the Czechoslovak Air Force as an honoured war veteran, Hlucka and other former RAF pilots faced the sudden hostility of the Communists who took power in Prague in 1948 amid much Stalinist paranoia. He was arrested and sent to a forced labour camp for a year. Such camps often contained former SS and other Nazi prisoners of the authorities — sharing punishment with them was an especially bitter humiliation for those such as Hlucka who had fought the Nazis so bravely.

After release from prison he was limited to menial jobs. But in the 1960s, as Stalinism gave way to a less oppressive regime, there was some rehabilitation, and he was able to resume a limited military career even after the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. He kept in discreet contact with former RAF comrades and their families — several pilots had married British women and brought them back to live in Czechoslovakia after 1945.

After the revolution against communist rule in 1989 Hlucka, always a dignified figure in his uniform, was prominent as the former pilots were honoured by the new Czech democratic Government, which granted him the rank of major-general, and by the British Government. Charities were established to try to bring some relief to those who had suffered under communist persecution. And there was educational work to be done as their stories were told to younger generations who had never realised that some Czechs and Slovaks had risked so much to make a vital contribution to the air war against Nazi Germany.

Stanislav Hlucka, Czech pilot, was born on October 19, 1919. He died on October 15, 2008, aged 88
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liverpool annie · Nov 7, 2008

Kyt said: ↑

Stanislav Hlucka: Czech wartime RAF pilot who was jailed by the communists after the war | Times Online Obituary
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In January 1944, the exiled Czechoslovakian forces in Britain, seeing the possibility of an uprising in Slovakia, made a proposal to the Soviets to send air units in support of such a revolt. The idea was approved, and on January 31, 21 Czech pilots were released from Royal Air Force (RAF) service to join the Soviet Voyenno-Vozdushny Sili (V-VS). On February 21, they left England aboard the steamship Reina del Pacifico for the British-held air base at Habbaniya, Iraq. From there, they flew by transport plane to Teheran, Iran. After a final consultation with the Soviet ambassador, they proceeded to the Soviet Union in two groups aboard Litvinov Li-2s (Russian-built versions of the Douglas DC-3). The first group left Teheran at 9 a.m. on April 2 and arrived at Moscow at 7 p.m. It consisted of Flight Lts. Frantisek Fajtl and Stanislav Rejthar; Flying Officers Josef Stehlík and Frantisek Chábera; Pilot Officers Jirí Reznicek, Leopold Srom and Pavel Kocfelda; and Warrant Officers Jan Skopal, Ladislav Valousek and Antonín Vendl.

The second group, which made its flight from Teheran to Moscow on April 8, was composed of Flight Lt. Jan Klán; Pilot Officers Frantisek Kruta and Frantisek Sticka; Warrant Officers Stanislav Hlucka, Tomás Motycka, Bohuslav Mráz and Stanislav Tocauer; and Flight Sgt. Frantisek Loucky. Three other pilots who were too ill to accompany the others, Flight Officers Rudolf Borovec and Jirí Sehnal, and Pilot Officer Jirí Vaculík, finally flew up to join them in Moscow on April 13.

The leader of the group, Frantisek Fajtl, was born in Donín near Louny in western Bohemia on August 20, 1912. After graduating from the Business Academy in Teplice, he went to the Aviation Academy and became a lieutenant in the Czechoslovakian Air Force in 1935. After the German occupation of his country, he went to Poland, then to France and finally to England, where he took part in the Battle of Britain. By 1942, he had served successively as the commander of the RAF stations at Ibseley and Skaebrae, although those responsibilities did not curtail his flying activity. In May 1942, he was shot down over France but managed to escape to Spain, where he was interned; eventually he was repatriated to England. In January 1944, he was flying Supermarine Spitfires with No. 313 (Czech) Squadron when he was asked to command the expedition to Russia.
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Slovak National Uprising - August 29th, 1944 [Archive] - Military Photos

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