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Ladies and gentlemen, let me start a little unconventionally. Above all, I would like to apologize to you all if my performance today does not meet your expectations. That is, if you are expecting a perfectly prepared lecture, technically grounded and so on. You know, I've done a lot, dozens and dozens of discussions in schools and on different occasions. However, I almost always spoke to the youngest generation, which knew very little or nothing about the issue of the Czechoslovak Foreign Air Force ...
There was such a grove on the Polish side of the valley. Before we headed to it, we automatically looked back. A German soldier with a flint ready to shoot was standing in a meadow on the Czech side. He didn't know… to shoot or not to shoot. However, before he changed his mind, we fled to the forest and he did not know if there was a Polish patrol that would return fire ...
We pilots were sent by express train to Paris, the officers were deployed to other bases around Paris. It was mainly Chartress, where there was a fighter center, it was also Istres, Tolouse and others ...
We landed at an airport near London, now I don't remember if it was Croydon or Hendon. At the airport we were surprised by a completely different atmosphere. No mess and confusion like in France, there was peace, order, organization, everything ready. After landing, we went through a cordon of police, they were the typical great Bobby in their high helmets, as we knew them from movies and books ...
In 1943, I was released by our government in London to serve in the Army of Free France. I was taken to North Africa with two other friends, the Kozak cousins. By the way, Pavel Kozák then died there and is buried in the air cemetery in Meknés, Morocco. I was assigned to the Free France Air Force (FAFL). I underwent pilot training and flew like a fighter. I experienced a lot of interesting things here too. Not to mention just the sad ones, I would tell you one such incident with a happier ending.
On the night of February 6-7, 1941, six Wellingtons of the 311th (Czechoslovak) RAF Bomber Squadron launched from East Wretham to attack the French port of Boulogne. The aircraft marked KX-T "Tamara" did not return from the raid. The second pilot of this machine was Sgt. Petr Uruba.
sitting under the lamp ...
With great emotion, I heard a telephone message from Dobromila Urubová that her husband, Colonel Petr Uruba, had left this world forever on the morning of March 1, 2009. Another legend of the Czechoslovak foreign resistance left.
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