!!! NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT !!!

Jan a Sabina Kratochvílovi:
Rytíři nebes – 311. československá peruť RAF – fragmenty
The Knights of the Heaven – No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron RAF – Fragments
archiv Muzea českého, slovenského a rusínského exilu 20. století a muzea RAF – Brno, 2020.
ISBN: ISBN 978-80-270-7958-2

Contact to author:
Jan Kratochvíl
e-mail: muzeumexil@gmail.com
tel.: +420 603 552 351

The Knights of the Heaven – No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron RAF – Fragments really contains only fragments of the 311th Bomber Squadron, which was founded on July 27, 1940, at RAF Cosford near Wolverhampton and bore the proud motto „Never Regard Their Numbers“.
I would like to begin by explaining the reasons why the publication Fragments and why it is as it is. The book is not about the precise description of the combat status of the squadron, its successes or failures – either in the period under Bomber Command when it bombed Europe occupied by Nazi Germany or in the period under Coastal Command when it served to protect the Bay of Biscay, North and Baltic Sea from submarines or surface vessels. The bomber attacks were aimed at important ports, such as Kiel, where German battleships were moored. Both mentioned stages of the squadron‘s operation have already been described by several authors, I think sufficiently.
However, we wanted to capture as many fragments as possible about the members of this squadron. Many of them perished, leaving almost no documents, and even some photographs cannot be precisely identified. Nevertheless, we tried to put together as much material as possible about specific airman. However, we know that we will never succeed completely – hence the fragments.
In the publication The Knights of the Heaven – No 311 Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron RAF, we tried to gather at least a partial overview with the help of descendants, helpers, institutions and owners of the photo documentation. The explanation to the readers: in the book we present many photographs of pilots, airman and ground staff, which also relate to their work in other squadrons, or images from their journeys through Poland and France, and even from the pre-war period.
All of these materials in this publication help to illustrate the fates of the heroes. If we strictly insisted only on the images from the No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron, there would be no basis for a lot of life paths of our airman. All these fragments belong to the members of the No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron. Photographs taken in the RAF are the property of the British Crown, as all our airman were members of the Royal Air Force. As for images from other countries, they are the property of airman families or national, military or museum archives.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the families of RAF airman for their crucial help and providing materials. I would like to thank especially Tom Doležal from England, the son of a pilot in the No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron; Martin Vališ, grandson of No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron pilot Emanuel Novotný; Mrs Špatná, great-grandmother of the airman Horký; Jana Zachová, daughter of the airman of the No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron Karel Janšta; President of the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic JUDr. Eva Brožová, daughter of the airman M. F. Zapletal; Mr Smrček, nephew of the airman from the No 311 Czechoslovak Squadron; Eva Pokorná and many more.
They are the ones that deserve our acknowledgement and respect – their families had problems both during World War II and in the 1950s because their fathers, brothers, uncles, mothers, sisters or aunts served in foreign armies as airmen. We truly thank you all for your help – without you, we would never have put this work together.