Emigration

“It was on April 11, 1949. A friend of mine from Valašské Meziříčí arrived. He was a sports pilot, and he had one Sokol available, it was a small sports plane. Officially, this plane had been sent to Egypt together with eleven others, but they hit a storm over Yugoslavia and all of them crashed. My friend managed to turn the plane back before they flew into that storm and he flew back to Valašské Meziříčí. And just on April 11 he received a telegram to fly this plane over to Choceň. He asked me directly: ´Franta, I got a fully fuelled plane here. Don’t you want to fly over the border?´ I exclaimed: ´Christ Jesus, where is that plane?´ We agreed that the following day he would take off from Valašské Meziříčí at four in the morning and land on his field in Kelč. I knew precisely where the place was, because an air show had been held there one day. He said that if I and my wife were there, we would be able to fly. He himself didn’t dare to fly over the border, and he asked me to pilot it. So I flew the plane and we managed it. The weather was very bad, it was raining, but this was lucky for us, because they were not able to chase us. We landed in Germany, very close to the Russian sector.”

• a true fighter pilot ace among WWII pilots, became a legendary pilot of World War II nicknamed General of the Skies
• born April 8, 1911 in Morkůvky near Břeclav
• became one of the best fighter pilots of the then Czechoslovakia
• excellent representative of his country in the 1937 international Olympic air show in Zurich
• after the occupation of Bohemia and Moravia went to France via Poland
• became immensely popular in France
• took part in a number of air fights, altogether contributed to the loss of nineteen German airplanes
• after the occupation of France got to England via Algeria, took part in the Battle of Britain
• April 1949 emigrated to Germany and then to England, where he returned to serve in the RAF
• in the 1950s moved to Canada and the USA
• in 1990 rehabilitated in England, a year later in Czechoslovakia
• returned to the Czech Republic in 1993
• many decorations and awards at home and abroad: the Order of White Lion, the highest French decoration the Order of the Legion of Honour and many others
• died May 6, 2006
• his wife Anna Peřinová-Klimešová, imprisoned by the Nazis during the war, died just a few weeks before him
• a book was written about him: František FAJTL: Generál nebe, Praha 2002