Bartoloměj Ranofrej

“In the afternoon we worked in hangars, in the morning courses for mechanics took place. We had to know terms and operating instructions. I had to know names of every screw, each part of the plane, how to repair it. In short: to manage all the aspects of the plane Wellington. Its iron frame was coated with fabric. We mended the fabric with Irish canvas. When the planes returned from Germany, their fabrics were riddled with bullets. We had to cut out, mend and paint the holes. Another part of our work consisted in maintaining fraps, engines, handle, undercarriage, and so on. We had to know all the terms. Each plane had to pass trough daily inspection. Every pilot had to sign the papers he had taken over the plane in perfect shape. He had to test the engine, air flaps, reverse gear, anything testable.”

“Our journey from Beirut to Marseille was distressful. We were sailing in January 1939, stormy ocean, and approximately thirty new men on board accommodated in under deck. We sailed together with foreign legionnaires and with Syrian members of the French Foreign Legion. Everybody in the under deck had been vomiting – horrible conditions. My friend took me up for a while on the upper deck for fresh air when we were passing trough Messina straits. They gave us a bowl of seedless raisins for a diner, e.g., that was bad." "You were not allowed to visit the upper deck?" "We were, but we could not walk. To make a step was pretty exhausting. You have never seen such conditions, it is hard to describe. There was some horrible dust falling from girders, I thought we will never make it to France.”

“We remained, six or seven men, in the ditch waiting for the frontline to move on. We never met the rest of our unit again. I met only few soldiers much later in England, which was another story. Six of us trailing the bloody gun reached Orleans. In Orleans we report ourselves to French army in military quarters. We had no food. They took care about us. Later we were ordered to guard a bridge across the river Loire. After midnight the area was bombed, the bridge was destroyed and we remained helpless. Absolute chaos had ruled on the place. Finally we got an order from our commander: ‘You have to carry on on your own.’ So we left the gun on the spot, we had no other weapons left, and we headed to south. Two days later we came across a lorry operated by a Czech sergeant. When I saw his stripes I dashed to him. This saved us. He picked us and drove back to the southern France were we had come from.”

“We were equipped with boots, trousers, a sweeter, a cap and a helmet. A truck should deliver the rest, but it never arrived." "Did you have any papers?" "No, we didn’t. When we had escaped to Orleans, we were afraid to speak Czech, because many Frenchmen formed a fifth column. They were afraid and disliked foreigners. As I have said: dirty legionnaires. You could speak ‘alllié’ which meant you were an ally, but we had spent only six months in France. We didn’t speak French. What we could have learned, when we used Czech language in the Army? There were not much studious Czechs. We were content with food…”