Wynne Horakova, with photo of Josef
(Radio Praha website; photo www.czech-tv.cz)
Josef Horak was a Czechoslovakian Air Force officer. During World War II he served in the RAF No. 311
Squadron, first as an air gunner and later as a pilot. 311 Squadron was one of the ‘3-series’ squadrons comprised of Czechoslovakian military personnel, many of whom had escaped after the German occupation. They fought against an enemy that had taken over
their country and their skills and experience were desperately needed by the
RAF at that point.
Horak and Josef Stribrny, another Czech pilot, were from
the village of Lidice and much of his story is told at the Radio Praha website. In June
1942, as part of the reprisals for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the SS
Officer in charge of the region, Lidice was selected for destruction and was razed
completely to the ground. All its male
occupants and some women were shot on site, the remaining women sent to
Ravensbrück Concentration Camp and most of its children, other than those
deemed suitable for ‘assimilation’, were killed in another camp. It appears that the village was selected
because the Nazis knew that it had two airmen serving in the RAF. They made
this act known on the radio and it was communicated to Horak by his best friend,
Vaclav Student, another Czech pilot.
