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Czechoslovak Foreign Military Group

The Consul sold some pieces of furniture to keep his office running. The interim IDs were issued to the refugees from the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia here. A  member of its staff came to the border area of Tesin in May to provide the Cz emigrees with information of the further procedure. Having crossed the border and ordered by the Polish authorities they were not allowed to leave this region. While billeted at the expense of the Poles, the refugees had to get food themselves. Some of them worked for the Czech farmers whose fields had been in Poland since early October 1938. These farmers did their best to make the refugees´ life easier. In June more people were coming to the Cz Consulate in Krakow. Its civil servant commuted once a week to the town of Katowice with the IDs for the Czechs grouped here. So they were allowed to go by train to Krakow at last.  They swore their oaths to the Czechoslovak Republic  at the Consulate. Though unarmed and in their civilian clothes they became members of the Cz Foreign Military Group. They could be billeted in a tourist hostel  at 28 Main Sq but some of them preferred paying for a better room.  Board was provided for them in a railway restaurant or in a lunchroom of a local Jewish community for ration coupons paid by the Consulate. The Community organized transports of Jews to Palestina. Lack of money was not a problem only at the Czechoslovak Consulate in Krakow but also for individuals. Some officers had idea of existence of a so called Military Retirement Fund following the date of March 15, 1939 while the Cz Army was being disbanded. They made decision to send Lieut of Artillery Richard Zdrahala back to the Protectorate to get the money for the Resistance. Zdrahala crossed the border at the hamlet of Vojkovice East of Frydek Mistek and made a try to get some information on the Fund at MoD in Prague. Col. Joseph Balaban found out that meanwhile the Military Resistence Fund had gone into liquidation and millions of Czechoslovak crowns were seized by the Germans.   

Mid April co-operation of the Cz Consulate in Krakow and the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia lasted for two months. From Mr Znojemsky´s point of view far from satisfactory. The Committee decided on registration of the Cz refugees exclusively and the Consulate had no say. Due to the increasing numbers of the refugees the Consul insisted on ship transports of Cz men in arms to France. Meanwhile the Cz National Committee in Paris made a deal with France of their five year contract with the Foreign French Legion. The text of the preliminary consent submitted to our airmen in Poland ended with a sentence of humiliation.  If those ones rejected to sign their contract of a voluntary service with the Foreign French Legion while in France, they would be sent back to Germany. Promise of these Cz airmens´ re-deployment to the French Air Force if the war broke out was only verbal. In April as Poland as Great Britain were not interested in Cz AF personnel´s joining their Air Forces at all.

The first ship transport with Cz airmen to France was ordered by the Jewish Gmeund Association. Five of them departed the port of Gdynia on May 5. The British Committe for refugees from Czechoslovakia was in charge of the second one a week later with ten Cz airmen onboard. On May 15 two ones from the Krakow group and six more Air Force officers sent by the Cz Embassy in Warsaw boarded a liner contracted by the Gmuend Association. This time UK bound. Two days later there were six NCOs and one Cz Air Force´s officer in the second ship transport of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia. On May 22 the first one run by the Cz Embassy in Warsaw left for France. The majority of the Cz. airmen on the Polish soil were brought to France by four more ship transports contracted by the Cz Embassy till the outbreak of WWII. In particular on June 17, July 27 and 29 and Aug 17.  Several more airmen joined a transport of the Gmuend Association on Aug 5 and one of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia ten days later.

Negotiation between the Cz Embassy in Warsaw and the Polish gvt resulted in gaining billeting and fullboard for the Cz refugees in a former POW camp of the Great War  from early July.  Situated at Male Bronowice nr Krakow the foodstuffs were supplied by the Polish army for them.

NOTES :

A fighter pilot F/O Jiri Kral served with No I/1 Group de Chasse of the French Air Force. His Marcel Bloch 152C1 fighter plane was downed by a Bf 109 nr Monneville on June 8, 1940. The pilot bailed but his parachute failed to open. His coffin was exhumed after WWII and re-interred into No 176 grave of the Cz Section of the La Targette Military Cem.

Lt-Col. Joseph Balaban was one of ´Three Kings´ together with Lt-Col Joseph Masin and Staff Cpt. Vaclav Moravek.  Focusing on intelligence reports and sabotaging they co-operated with the Nation´s Defence underground group. They signed  B + M + M. Joseph Balaban was caught by the Gestapo as the first of them  on Apr 22, 1941. Shot dead in a riding hall of the Ruzyne Barracks on Oct 3, 1941. The  Inauguration Ceremony of the SS-obergruppenfuehrer and Police General Reinhard Heydrich Acting Reich Protector of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia had been held at the Prague Castle five days ago.

Bibliography :

Miroslav Vrana – Transports from Poland and the USSR

Miloslav Vild – Fate was my friend  –  Nase vojsko  Publ.  1985

Richard Zdrahala – I waged war in the Desert – Nase vojsko Publ.  1990

Stanislav Rejthar – Good soldiers met their deaths  - OSTROV Publ.   2002

Jan Rail, Vit Formanek –  Forever alive – OSTROV  Publ. 2003

Petr Kettner, I. M. Jedlicka – Three vs. Gestapo – Albatros Publ  2003

Joseph Vana, Jan Rail – Cz airmen in France 1939 – 1930 – AVIS MoD  Publ 2005

Joseph Havel – Rebel  in the clouds – OFTIS Publ.  2012

Pavel Vancata – From a WOP´s diary – Svet kridel  Publ  2013

Jiri Padevet –  Prague under Protectorate Guidebook – Academia Publ  2013