Its crews landed at Tarnopol and Luck on Sep 17 where their flying over was. Some officers were interned by the Red Army moving westwards. NCOs were ordered to find a job in Ukraine. The Cz combatants were not allowed to enlist in the Red Army. Some of them walked to the Volyne Region. Families of the Czechs had lived there for fourty years. Our volunteers lived there and worked in co-operative farms. The combatants who found themselves in other parts of the Ukraine were ordered to come to the town of Cesky Kvasilov. They were registered here by St Cpt Liska and went back to their place of work. There were about sixty airmen in this group of about 150 Cz combatants.
2/ F/O Zbigniew Osuchowski´s Recce Wing
From Sep 18 to 20 bunches of hand grenades were dropped by five Polish observers on the German troops in the vicinity of Kamionka Strumilowa and Krasno nr Zloczow. Their biplanes were flown by Zwierzinski, Wilhelm Koszarz and the Czechs Pavlovic, Frantisek and Balejka. On Sep 22 Sgts Joseph Frantisek and Wilhelm Koszarz and Cpl Joseph Balejka were ordered to take off from a grass airfield near Kamionka Strumilowa and fly to Romania.
3/ No 6 Reg ´Lwow´
On Sep 17 Alois Stoces, Joseph Kopecky and Jaromír Drmelka left for Romania flying this Regiment´s aircraft. Podborský one day later. The latter contracted malaria while interned in a camp in Romania. Not sooner than early November he embarked a Patris Greek steam ship and sailed to Malta. Then arrived to Marseille on a board of a Franconia liner on Nov 19. Drmelka was released from the same internment camp sooner. Having boarded a Besarabia liner heading for Beirut he left the port of Constanca on Oct 14. He embarked a Marechal Joffrey ocean liner in Beirut and on Nov 13 arrived in Marseille. Kopecky, Stoces and Uher joined a group of Polish airmen and mid Dec they sailed from Constanca to Beirut aboard of a S.S. King Carol. Having embarked a Champolion liner there they departed for Marseille on Jan 4, 1940.
4/ On Sep 17 the Cz pilots Imrich Gablech, Zdenek Bachurek, Miroslav Havlicek and Cpt. Chroniewski crewed with Polish observers took from Luck station heading for Romania. Gablech flew a RDW-8 trainer. Though fuel enough the Polish commander gesticulated to be followed and land.They proved to be still in Poland about seven kms before a border line of Romania. Cpt. Chroniewski intended to wait for Polish land troops. The airmen were put up by a farmer. When his wife heard Gablech speak to Bachurek in a language different from Polish one, they were given mik by her, five Polish water only. On the next foggy morning eight airmen were approaching their camouflaged aircraft. They were made POWs by the Soviet troops and brought to the town of Horodenka. Neither food nor water for three days. Then taken to the town of Marganec in the Krivolska Region. These three Cz airmen shared a same cell. After midnight of Mar 4, 1940 the NKVD Secret Police men came and took Bachurek and Havlicek away. Gablech was told nothing why and where. NOTE : Two years later Gablech learned in England that both the Czech pilots had joined the group of their contrymen commanded by Lt Col Ludvik Svoboda at an Yarmollintse Cloister.
5/A group commanded by Cpt of Cz Gendarmery Frantisek Divoky departed on Sep 17 at 1100hrs from Czortkow for Chryplin. They arrived at the town of Delatyn at 2330. On the next morning at nine a.m. they set out for a walk towards a Romanian border. Fatigued after thirty six kms they were put up and fed by Ukrainian residents to the village of Strednyj Bereznyj. On Sep 19 they were on they way southwards from 6 a.m. Marching via Jablonow and Kosow to Kuty they were imperilled by exchange of fire between Ukrainian insurgents and Polish troops from time to time. The Cz group was let through by the former but regarded for Ukrainians and shot at by the latter. They crossed the border line of Romania near the town of Vinjita at 3 p. m. and billeted for a night at the local barracks. On the following morning they went by train to Cernovice. At 2130 hrs they left for the town of Panciu via Maracest arriving there on Sep 22. Cpt. Divoky sent two men to contact the French Consulate in Bucurest two days later. The Romanian Ministry of Interior made decision to send the Cz group to Pitesti. They arrived at this town at 3 a.m. on Sep 28. First billeted at the local barracks but later moved to a camp nearby. Meanwhile Col Pika had their passports issued at the French Consulate in Bucurest. On Oct 8 about fourty Cz combatants escaped from the camp. Six days later they embarked a Besarabia liner heading for Beirut at the port of Constanca. Having boarded a Champolion liner in Beirut they arrived in Marseille on Oct 27. They celebrated the Cz Statehood Day of Oct 28 at the Agde Cz Depot. On the other hand the majority of the Cz volunteers had to stay in the camp nr Pitesti till Oct 22. Instructed by Col Pika they left for Bucuresti and Constanca in several smaller groups. On Oct 26 at 2100 hrs they embarked a Romania liner and sailed to Haifa via Istanbul, Pireus and Alexandria. Allowed to disembark there at last on Nov 2 at 1700 hrs they were billeted there. On the next morning they boarded again and arrived in Beirut on Nov 4 at 0800 hrs. NCOs were billeted in tents at the barracks officers in a hotel. Two days later this group embarked a Marchal Joffrey liner. On Nov 13 they arrived in Marseille and got conscripted at the Cz Consulate on the next day. Then by train to the Agde Cz Depot coming there on Nov 15 at 1 a.m.
6/ A group commanded by St Cpt Liska left the village of Novosulki on Sep 18 having learned of the Red Army´s moving westwards. They failed to get to Romania. On Oct 7 sixty one Cz airmen found themselves in the town of Cesky Kvasilov. This group was deserted by F/O Jan Stastny on Nov 18. Over the winter 1939/40 they were put up by the the Czech compatriots who had settled in this Volyne Area under the Tsar Regime. The Cz volunteers lived in the villages nearby and worked in co-operative farms.
The further Cz airmen who were in the western Ukrayine tried to join St Cpt Liska´s group at Cesky Kvasilov. Some as Sgt Karel Kubanek and Joseph Rychtera escaping individually to Romania or Hungary were caught. Indicted for espionage by the Soviet authorities they were brought to Soviet labour camps. The others such as Joseph Koukal and Vaclav Kilian swam across the border river Dniestr on the foggy day of Oct 9. Their comrade non-combatant Franek was hit by machine gun fire of the Soviet border guards.
7/Four Cz Air Force pilots and one of sports aircraft left the group lead by Lt Col Svoboda at the Yarmollintse Cloister. They did not enlist in the Polish Air Force in August. In November they joined a Soviet Intelligence Service. Sgts Radoslav Selucky and Jan Vycpalek, Cpl Jaroslav Lonek, LAC Miloslav Hula and Pvt Vladislav Bobak departed to Moscow. They underwent a course for secret agents and in addition Hula with Selucky for a WOP. From Feb 1940 they were guided in twos across the USSR border. Arriving in Prague via Slovakia they established an Intelligence Service detachment there. All five were captured by the Gestapo German Secret Police in spring 1941.Executed in the Third Reich two years later.
R&R :
Ceskoslovensti letci v polske obranne valce 1939 ie The Cz airmen in the 1939 Polish defense campaign by Josef Vana and Jan Rail the MoD´s AVIS Publ 2003
Prvni doma ie The first in homeland by Frantisek Fajtl – The Nase vojsko Publ 1980
Zit naveky ie Aloive forever by Jan Rail and Vit Formanek – the OSTROV Publ 2003
Col Imrich Gablech´s recalls on Jul 20, 2011 and Oct 13, 2014