Milan Malý

„There was no big exercise anymore. We were wide-spread, the bunkers and forts were terribly far from each other. The thing was that Italians and Germans lied across us and we were supposed to observe their activity, whether they were preparing something. During the night we would cross and observe their activity. We were all relatively close but it was fairly risky, because those paths we used to get to the German units were undermined. So it happened that three or four our guys were left behind in the mine field. They simply grazed a mine. Those mines were devious. Some detonators were connected by strings. That happened a lot. There were many hyenas in there. As the hyenas ran across that field, they tore the strings apart and blew it up. All our mission in Tobruk was to hold Tobruk and defense. Then when an attack came about and those Italians and Germans were repulsed, out second troop got as far as to Benghází. Whereas we were the first troop and we stayed there. We only carried out cleaning-up actions.“

„Twenty-five of us were chosen the third day. We went to the so called conscription. They called us up one by one. Then already they had a list of twenty-five people who would go to France. Now when it was my turn, officer major Novotný said: ‚Boy, boy, what will I do with you. The French accept only seventeen year olds and you are not seventeen. Sit down there.‘ So I did. Now I was scared. All who escaped across the borders with me were set for the journey already and dispatched. All of them were older than me. Even this friend from Zlín was one year older and he actually organized all of it. After a while, this major Novotný called me up and said: ‚When were you born? No, you were born in 1922.‘ And just like that I was seventeen, the French didn’t mind and I could have gone.“

„Some Englishman approached us and said: ‚Czech tanks!‘. But those were our tanks from the ‚first republic‘ which the Germans seized and used there. So we went to see. There was the largest tank battle, that was Sidi Rezek. English were at one side, Germans at the other. They fought for that area for a couple days. We came there and indeed, the Germans used the Czech tanks there. But there were so many dead that it stunk horribly. There was no time, no conditions to bury those people. It was all decomposing in the heat. The Germans were such that when the English begun to clear up the area, to take the dead away, the Germans would put explosives under the corpses. Then the English said, we are not going on with this and they rushed in the Germans who had to pick them up and place them into a common grave.“

„Later a division was made out of the 312th battalion. They created two regiments. I was at the fourth regiment which was transferred to Pilsen. I.e. they later split us up. I was transferring an aircraft from Pilsen to Budweis and just as I landed, commander called me up and said: ‚It’s over with the flying, you will not fly anymore.‘ They had me on a leave, waiting what was to be decided. Naturally, they released me from the army. So that was the end to flying and to illusions that we would train some pilots for the new republic. Well and then I experienced this anabasis from construction works to that hardening work.“

„In Istanbul we waited for another train to Beirut. We were accommodated in such lower-class hotel. When the day came up, all was prepared and secured. Some Mr. Zelenka from our embassy accompanied us there. All the groups must have gone with him. Mr. Zelenka said: ‚I would like to take a picture of me with you, so that I have a reminder of for whom I have done all the arrangements here.‘ But Mr. Zelenka took a picture and sent it home do Gestapo. So nothing could have helped, even though some officers and most high-ranked ones changed their names. That didn’t help. A name says nothing, a photo is a photo. So they knew precisely who was who. I know for myself. My father was interrogated, they visited him for about five times. They always asked him: ‚Where is your son?‘ Father replied: ‚I don’t know, you know yourselves that he is probably working in Germany.‘ When they called him up the fifth time, they told him: ‚No, no, your son is in the army in Africa.‘ So they knew it precisely.“

„We were young guys when I got there and aviation, that was something to us. I was pretty good at flying, I wasn’t scared and had everything. It was such, I would say, stress for me, needing to quit flying. Because there’s always such good friendship in aviation. Well, I couldn’t have even gotten close to the airport. They went to monitor me. There used to be such a electric column, this doubled one. I remember that at a certain time someone would always stand behind it and listen. My mother-in-law had a hearing loss and listened to Radio Free Europe. She would always turn it on so loud that the whole street could hear it. They had a cottage near to Budweis and a friend of mine had a cottage just above me, we knew each other. Once he showed up and told me: ‚Don’t be angry at me but they call me up every morning to the police and I need to tell them what you are up to and who was here to visit you. I have to describe to them this residence of yours here.‘ So they surveyed us badly, hideously.“