Colonel Stanislav Mikula

"We got along with the Australians just great. They were friendly soldiers indeed, we would even wear their hats on our heads. There was one rhyme written by one of the soldiers about Australians.´ Privat Kudla put the australian hat on and was pretending he is an Australian. His legs are twisted, he´s throwing the bomb and sings to himself yupee, yupee, yeah´Regarding the Indians, we were not exactely fighting with them. They were good soldiers. And friendly too. They always carried sacred pets with them. The cherished the goats and sheeps as a lucky charm. Relationships with the Poles - I used to be the link between our troops - specially when I started to sing Polska nezginieva...(sings in polish) we were one hand. I´ve received the polish cross of fighting acts labled with Tobruk. In Poland I received the medal for the Poland defense. Regarding the Bedouin, their observation knowledes were very valuable for us and we were treating them like that. for example, in the desert they knew in advance when the hot south wind (chamsin) was coming. As soon as they knew it, they bulit the tents, to be safe from it. And the sand drift always passed around them. They also taught us how to bake the bread on flat hot stones. So their relationship toward us was pure friendship. But it was a different story with the Egyptians. There was a lot of collaborators among them, because Egypt, they had a dirty publicity from Germany. The Egypt was a separate territory, but it got caught by the british intentions. So the Egyptians felt about the British, as far as I was concerned... We used to drink the arabic drink ´arash´with them and that made them talk a lot . Of course, they knew a few english words, and we learnt some from them too. And there was this relationship to Allah. When they sang ´Allah akbar Allah´ we learnt that too. It made them feel real good. Some of the words like e.g. yes=aiwa, no= la. Interesting was that when you said no, you had noddle your head like you´d say yes. Regarding th Germans- and I´m not speaking about the Sudeten Germans, but about the imperial german soldiers, so they fought more fair than the Italians. And if the Germans were loosing, there were some complaints against the Italians for incorrect behavior. But uf they got captured, you wouldn´t hear a bad word."

"We were on the egypt-libyan border where we tought we will be fighting. But there was a front in fact a short time ago. The mine fields were ruined, blockings were damaged. We started to reparing them and waited for the Rommel African troop attack. Of course, when we heard the gun rumble few days later we prepared for defense. But in a meantime, we received a message, that there is a Nazi break-through near the place El Kapuco. We were supposed to be going there, but in the last second another order came and we turned around and ran over the Suez canal to Syria and to Libanon. The britsh troop was sent to El Kapuco instead of us. We were complaining about it because we wanted to fight there, but our Lt-Col Mr. Klapalek said:´It is an order! We will turn around now and go to Syria and Libanon and with those who refused to obbey this I will deal lateron.´He sure did what he said, but we couldn´t be more appreciative. If only for one reason, that the british troops tought that the Czechslovak troops will be fighting by their side, but we weren´t. Many british soldiers were killed there including their commander."

" Those were long distance flights. They were flying ver the sea and sometimes an accident happend, for an example when the pilots drop the precaution, they suffered the consequences. But we made it to Norweigan fiord and there we could hear in our headphones: ´Three ME on 9 o´clock the sunny side, Three ME on 9 o´clock the sunny side.´ And they have attacked us. We couldn´s see them well, but they saw us clearly. So I didn´t feel like I was in the air during this attack. I saw the plane right above me, I saw him evaluating something, so I pulled myself up into cupola. There were two point five mashine guns. We were able to deffend ourselfs not from three, but even from five or seven fighters. Right on the left side were two mashine guns, another four at the front, another two at the bottom and extra board weapons, which were used only during an attack. So you can say it was an armed hedgehog. My position was with those point five mashine guns and as I was fireing one of the guns got jammed. In fact the feed belt got stuck. I didn´t even notice at first. I was shooting from the other mashine gun and was fixing the jammed one at the same time. And you wouldn´t even notice that the snout was overheated. I managed to replace it, but I found out only after it was already over. My legs were shaking, I was being terrified, the sweat was pouring down by back, but there was nothing to be afraid of anymore. We got hit, but we made it safely back and that was the most important. Sometimes it all was a lucky coincidece. One of these coincidences was, when I got into my friend´s Mr. Martin Dornak crew. And the commander told me he won´t do anything about this. No orders to leave anywhere. I didn´t get on that bombing plane, and they never came back. And he is here in this book, he and all his crew, that I was supposed to be flying with. If we would have gotten shot down or hit, I would be able to recognize that I was on the plane and that I´m death. You loose everything. I guess that´s the self-preservation, maybe some bravery... But the fear, after everything was over..."

"Concerning Poland, during the defensive position there were german division fleets on both right and left sides heading to Ukraine. And if they only knew who we are, they could have close that position on us and we wouldn´t have any chance to back off. Only to be taken captive. And then following the German law it would mean the execution or being under death sentence. But by a lucky coincidence the Soviet troops were approaching forward to us and we managed to escape under their protection. There was the moment of decision. I was only recruit by that time, everything was so confusing to me. After everything was over, our commander and the headquarter had to figured out, what we´ll do next. We could either back off to Romania or to Soviet Union. But the Red Army was already proceeding forward and that´s how we got under their protection. Our journey continued to Soviet Union. There we have capitulated and guarded by the soviet soldiers we continued to a place named Kamenec Podhorsky. We got a place to sleep there in local barracks and we were questionig subsequenty how we got to Soviet Union. So from the beginning they treated us very friendly. They would call this attitude a benevolent internment because there was a contract between Soviet Union and Nazi Germany about not attacking each other. And so we were in benevolent internment. After some while there was some limited activity for us and if we wanted some time off we needed a permit for that. And besides that - it wasn´t obligatory- they offered us to work in the first class agronomy... Well, they simply asked us to help them. but some people for some reason, maybe for being naive or for anti soviet behavior, were criticizing e.g. :´Who you want to defend yourself from if you don´t even have a watch?´ And they would explain: ´We are producing watches and we have plenty of those, but we don´t have time for watches now, because we have to get ready for the Soviet Union defence.´ Comparing to our republic - our level of living was much higher- but we tried to understand the situation here. Everything was done for defence and devotion of these people was enormous."