The matters of their departure as well as their compulsory vaccination for their overseas service were being done in Liverpool for a week. They proceeded to the port of Glasgow then.
The group was commanded by Staff Captain Frantisek Fajtl DFC and Staff Captain Jan Klan as his right hand man. F/O Stanislav Rejthar was this unit´s staff officer and F/Os Frantisek Chabera and Joseph Stehlik were to be in charge of both the fighter squadrons. This unit consisted of F/O Rudolf Borovec, P/Os Jiri Reznicek, Leopold Srom, Frantisek Sticka, Pavel Kocfelda, Frantisek Kruta, Thomas Motycka, F/Sgts Frantisek Loucky, Stan Hlucka, Bohuslav Mraz, Frantisek Vaculik, Stanislav Tocauer, Antonin Vendl, Jan Skopal and Ladislav Valousek. F/O Jiri Sehnal was the group´s inteligence officer.
They boarded the Reina del Pacifico at the port of Glasgow on Feb 21, 1944. The liner headed for Australia and was convoyed in the first one sailing there via a shorter route of the Suez Canal. Due to an U-Boat menace the passengers´ evacuation drill was exercised twice a day. AA gunnery practice was also under way.
On March 6 Reina del Pacifico with about three thousand people aboard laid her anchor in the Port Said, Egypt. The Cz airmen were billeted for the first night in an English desert camp, on the following nights nearer Cairo. On Mar 17 they departed to the port of Haifa in Palestine by train. They changed here for the train to Damascus, Syria. Having spent four days there they boarded the nearest British bus heading for the Habbanyia air base on Mar 23. Only Staff Cpt Fajtl departed by plane to Tehran to consult the further transport of his men with the Soviet authorities. The group was commanded by Staff Cpt Klan meanwhile. They went on via Bagdad to the border town of Basra by trucks. Having entrained here and crossing the Iranian border they proceeded via the town of Ahwaz as far as to Tehran. Two thirds of the Iranian territory were under the British and American administations, the Northern third under the Soviet and Persian ones at that time. Late March the Czechoslovak airmen arrived in Tehran, awaited here by their CO. They said their final GB to the RAF here. On Apr 2 at 0500 hrs the first batch of ten Cz pilots boarded a Soviet -made Dakota, took off and landed at the Moscow central airport on the same day. They made nearly thirteen thousand kilometres in the Feb 17 – Apr 2 time frame.
Biography
Stanislav Rejthar – Dobri vojáci padli ie The good soldiers lost their lives The OSTROV Publ. 2002
Frantisek Fajtl - Prvni doma ie The first in our homeland The Nase vojsko Publ. 1980
Joseph Stehlik – lovec s presnou muškou ie a sure shot hunter The Kolesa Publ. 2002