Six months after qualifying he joined the Czechoslovak Air Force. In he attended fighter school in Cheb , training for four months in air-to-air and air-to-ground gunnery and aerobatics on various biplane and single wing fighters. There he met the German contingent headed by World War I ace Ernst Udet , the then chief of the Luftwaffe's office of supply and procurement, and Erhard Milch , second-in-command of the Luftwaffe.
After the first dissolution of Czechoslovakia and the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia by Nazi Germany , and after Germany invaded Poland in September , France declared war on Germany.
He was also promoted to sergent-chef. The next day he shot down his fifth, thus becoming the first Czech ace in the Second World War. A day after that he shot down two more planes. In interview on his 95th birthday, he recalled:. I had to gain them some time, and I could think of nothing other than to attack.
I had to stop them somehow. I distracted them, and I even managed to shoot one down, but then I myself was hit. My plane took 15 cannon hits, 80 by machine gun. My leg and my arm were injured, although I didn't feel a thing. I knew I probably wasn't going to make it back. After being hospitalised in Coulommiers he left the hospital and escaped to Paris and then Chartres. He then travelled by train to Casablanca where he boarded a ship to Britain. He returned to No. On 3 June while escorting bombers he claimed two Focke-Wulf Fw s from a formation of four, one of which was confirmed destroyed and a second as 'probable'.
His victory claims totalled 12, and consisted of 3 solo and 9 shared destroyed, 2 probables, and 1 damaged [ 8 ]. However, as the communists took power and the Cold War developed there was a questioning of the loyalty of those 'westernised' pilots who had served with the Allies.
