“For me, this is more than a documentary. It is a tribute to the Czech airmen of the Second World War who stood side by side with RAF pilots,” said Dutch director Gisèl Mallant, describing her relationship to the film Unknown Liberators, which was screened on Thursday morning at the Černá Pole Barracks for students and staff of the Department of Air Force and the Department of Aircraft Technology of the Faculty of Military Technology.

The crew of the Vickers Wellington Mk.IC T2990 bomber of the Czechoslovak 311th RAF Bomber Squadron consisted of six Czechoslovak airmen. On the night of 22–23 June 1941, while returning from a raid on Bremen, the aircraft was intercepted over the Netherlands by a German night fighter and shot down. The burning aircraft crashed into the Kostverloren polder near the village of Nieuwe Niedorp in the province of North Holland, burying itself deep in the soft soil. Only one airman survived the crash: the second pilot/observer, Vilém Bufka, who saved himself by parachute and spent the rest of the war in German captivity.

The recovery of the wreckage, which had been buried several metres deep in the waterlogged ground, formed the central framework of the documentary. The recovery took place in 2021 as part of the Dutch programme for locating wartime aircraft wrecks, during which parts of the aircraft and the remains of five missing airmen were found.

The discussion following the screening was also attended by Zdeněk Smrček, nephew of one of the airmen, wireless operator Leonard Smrček. He introduced the audience to the conditions under which Czechoslovak airmen served with the 311th Bomber Squadron. A tour of duty with the RAF lasted 200 flying hours, which amounted to approximately 40 combat flights. Despite the heavy losses suffered during these missions, some airmen completed more than one such tour.

Author: Viktor Sliva, photo: Viktor Sliva