Strana 51
EP785, P/O Ladislav Světlík, No. 312 Squadron, RAF Churchstanton, Somerset,
United Kingdom, January-April 1943
AD380, F/O Alois Hochmal, No. 313 Squadron, RAF Hornchurch, Devon, United Kingdom,
October 1941-April 1942
Pilsen native Ladislav Světlík was born on
March 23, 1917. He took advantage of the 1000
new pilots for the country campaign and learned
to fly. Between 1936 and 1937 he completed
military training in Prostějov and then served
as a fighter pilot. After the German occupation,
he went to France via Poland, where he joined
the Foreign Legion. After reassignment to the
Air Force, he was retrained at Chartres on the
Curtiss Hawk H-75 and scored four confirmed
and three probable kills in combat against
the German Luftwaffe. After the fall of France,
he moved to the UK. Here he was assigned to No.
312 (Czechoslovak) Squadron. Despite the amount
of combat missions he completed, he scored only
one more kill when on May 23, 1944, in his new
Spitfire Mk.IXc, he shot down an Fw 190 flown by
German ace Lt. Georg Kiefner. After completing
his second combat tour in July 1944, he was
ferrying Vickers Wellingtons and at the very end
of the war he served with No. 147 Squadron as
a transport pilot. He returned to Czechoslovakia in
August 1945 and served with the Army Transport
Group until 1946. He then joined Czechoslovakian
Airlines. After February 1948, he became one
of the pilots who carried out a coordinated
emigration with the use of three transport
aircraft. He returned to the UK and rejoined the
Royal Air Force. He died on July 27, 2008 in New
Zealand. He was promoted in memoriam to the
rank of Colonel in 1991. An interesting feature of
Spitfire Mk.Vb EP785, which Ladislav Světlík flew
regularly in the spring of 1943, is the depiction of
the No. 312 Squadron emblem on the tank cover.
The emblem is not known to have been drawn on
any other Mk.Vb Spitfire serving with the unit.
Not every pilot who fought in World War II can
boast the title of fighter ace, participation in
exceptional actions, a significant number of
flying hours or high honors. A large number of
them achieved, for example, only a third of the
aerial victory, or flew their entire war career
without recording any combat. And it was with
the enormous contribution of hundreds of these
unassuming heroes and patriots who did not
accept the occupation of their homeland, that
Czechoslovakia was liberated during World War II.
The aircraft of No. 313 (Czechoslovak) Squadron
date from the first half of 1942, when the unit
was part of the Hornchurch Wing, famous for its
Walt Disney cartoon characters. The author of
these drawings was Sgt. Karel Pavlík, a native
of Pilsen, who used his original profession as
a letter painter to decorate individual Spitfires
with drawings under the windshield, as
requested by the pilots. The drawing of Robber
the kitten was painted by him on Spitfire AD380
RY
-
R. An interesting feature of this Spitfire’s
livery are the code letters RY
-
R. The first letter
R was in Sky color and the following letters Y
-
R
in Sky Blue. Also, the stripe in front of the tail
surfaces was in Sky Blue. At the top of this was
the s/n AD386, with the original Sky color shining
through underneath. The aircraft of serial number
AD386 never served with No. 313 Squadron,
it was probably a misspelling during a previous
camouflage repair. The actual serial number of
this Spitfire was AD380 and the aircraft served
with No. 313 Squadron from October 28, 1941,
to April 24, 1942 and was most often flown by
F/O A. Hochmal, F/Sgt V. Foglar and Sgt O. Kresta.
KITS 10/2024
INFO Eduard
51
October 2024