"Once it was very close. I wanted to fly up the additional fuel tank. Thank God that we were high enough and I managed to restart the engine. My engine stopped...I let go off the fuel tank, I turned the propeller and started the engine. Our group was already far away so I had to hurry up and catch up with them. I was glad I made it after all."
"Our commander has been shot down twice. Once above the sea - he must have jumped out and ended up in the water. There was a color which colored large area in the water and it was glowing orange a little. When they pulled him out he looked like an orange. The second time he was shot down was just before the invasion. We were cleaning up the terrain of the machine guns and other small guns. They hit the cooler of his plane and he must have landed. He landed, set the Spitfire on fire and ran away. He waited until the front had gone so he could be on his own side."
"I used to have very good boss at the place I worked as a painter. He allowed me to attend the training. We were flying from 4am and then at night again. Depending on when my turn was I could leave the work and go flying. My boss was so nice he let me work there and at the same time I could attend the training."
"Because this was already the last train going to Sarny place moreover it was only the engine with one car the driver made me a hiding place on the coal and I traveled on the coal. On the way we saw a bombing plane that flew quite low and it threw bombs on the train. But since the plane was too low, the bombs didn’t explode. They were jumping around us like piglets so we were praying they won’t crush into some brick or something else that would make them explode. Luckily nothing like that happened and we made it to Sarny."
"The Russians were not familiar with all the novelties of the civilization yet. All of these little cheats etc. For an example when the guard led our soldier to the prison and ended up in the prison himself instead. We were training them, the guards, all kinds of things. Our boys found the way out of the camp by getting into one of the loopholes where they found a rope hanging down. Everyone could climb down four meters and step on the sidewalk. The next morning the last person going back in must have pulled the rope up again so it would be hanging down. Well, we used to do all kinds of tricks, I can’t even describe all that."
Retired Colonel Josef Prokopec was born on February 7th, 1919 in the village of Stradoun by the town of Vysoké Mýto. After finishing grammar school, he learned to be a painter and worked as a painter in Pilsen. While going to work, he underwent flight training which he finished in October of 1938. In March 1939, he was assigned to the Hradec Králové town army post but after the German occupation of Czechoslovakia he was dismissed from the Army. In July, he went to Poland. Here he spent a short period of time in an Army camp before he was transported to the Soviet Union, where the Czechoslovak foreign troop was being established. On his way to the East, Josef Prokopec went through several difficulties. After spending time with the Czechoslovakian soldiers at the camp in Suzdal town, he was sent to the Mid-East and from here to Great Britain, where he underwent additional flight training in July of 1941. One part of the training took place in Canada. After he successfully finished the flight training Prokopec was assigned to the 310th Czechoslovak pursuit wing of the RAF. His first operation flight was on March 15th, 1944. Before the war ended he had more than 167 hours in the air. He remained in the Army after the war. He underwent instructor training and as a flying instructor he participated in the top secret training of the Israeli pilots in 1948. After that, he was unfortunately discharged from the Army and was forced to work in a glass factory. Since his retirement, he has lived in Pilsen.
