Operation: Escort

Date: 18th September 1944 (Monday)

Unit: No. 312 Squadron (CZ) (motto: Non Multi Sed Multa - 'Not many, but much')

Type: Spitfire IX

Serial: MK682

Code: DU-C

Base: RAF North Weald

Location: Strijen, Netherlands

Pilot: Fl/Sgt. Antonín Ocelka 787772 RAFVR Age 31. Injured PoW

We are indebted to Tom Dolezal of the Free Czechoslovak Air Force for his detailed research

REASON FOR LOSS:

On the 06th April 1943 whilst serving with 57 Operational Training Unit suffered an engine failure flying Spitfire IIb P8671. Flying out of RAF Eshott, Northumberland he force-landed below the high water mark on the Goswick Sands bombing range in Northumberland. The Czechoslovakian pilot was uninjured but the aircraft was struck off charge on the 28th April. (A Camborne-Redruth presentation Spitfire)

Twelve Spitfires from the squadron took off at 13:05 hrs to escort Dakotas,1200 tugs and 1200 gliders

The airborne operation was planned and undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. It was the largest airborne operation of the war up to that point.

Flying as Yellow 3 under Sq/Ldr. Jaroslav Hlado with Fl/Lt. Jiří Mikulecky as Yellow 2 and Sgt. Jindřich Zâreckŷ as Yellow 4.

Whether described as 6/10 cloud from 3 - 5000 ft, some haze with visibility between 3-5 miles.

The trip was uneventful. On the way out some Dakotas were fired at so yellow section went down to attack gun positions at Willemstad. The section then flew easterly along the Holland Diep and attacked another gun position at Moerdijk during this attack flak fire hit Spitfire MK682.

Fl/Sgt. Ocelka called on the R/T that his oil pressure had dropped to zero and that he was going to make a forced landing. He was last seen flying north towards the Dordrecht area.

Yellow 1, flown by Sq/Ldr. Hlado was also hit and the aircraft suffered a large hole under the left rudder pedal and suffered 7 cuts to his left leg. His aircraft NH148 (1) also had a hole in the port radiator and another in the port cowling at the rear of the starboard radiator. However he managed to return to base with the other two of yellow station at 15:31 hrs. Red and Blue sections were not involved in the action and landed at the base at 16:51 hrs.

Fl/Sgt. Ocelka had suffered cuts to his head received hospital treatment and then made PoW for the remainder of the war.

After the war and his release he joined the Czechoslovak Air Force, he graduated from the School for Flying Instructors and participated in the training of a new generation of pilots. Sadly he was killed on the 01st July 1949 in the wreckage of a C-3B aircraft UB-1 that crashed in the Třemošnice Pardubice Region. All 3 other crew survived the crash. During flight the weather conditions worsened and the pilot in command decided to reduce his altitude in an attempt to maintain a visual contact with the ground when the aircraft hit trees and crashed in a dense wooded area.

(1) NH148 was later lost on the 01st February 1945 whilst with 313 squadron. The pilot, 24 year old Fl/Lt. John Anthony Hurst Pinny M.C 129145 RAFVR was killed during a crashed landing after flak damage at Eersel, west of Eindhoven.

Burial details:

W/O. Antonín Ocelka. No details where he is buried. Born on the 27th May 1913 in Lipník nad Bečvou, Czechoslovakia. trained as a machine mechanic and entered basic military service in 1935 with Artillery Regiment 152 in Olomouc. In October 1937 he was accepted as a long-serving non-commissioned officer and in the summer of 1939 he went to the foreign resistance.

Arrived in France from Poland in August and served in the Foreign Legion for less than two months before becoming a member of the 1st Artillery Regiment of the restored Czechoslovak Army. He did not have time to participate in the battles for France in the spring of 1940, and on the 24th June he went to Gibraltar on the coal ship 'Northmoor'. From there he continued on the steamer 'Viceroy of India' to the English port of Plymouth, where he arrived on the 07th July.

He signed up as a volunteer for the air force and on the 21st September 1940, he started training as a mechanic-dragon-flyer. On the 24th April 1941 he was posted to 311 squadron where he worked on maintenance and technical inspections of Vickers Wellington bombers. In the summer of 1941, he was selected for pilot training, which he underwent from April 1942 to May 1943, when, in the rank of Sergeant he became a member of 312 Czechoslovak fighter squadron.

Researched and dedicated to the relatives of this pilot with thanks to the National Archive, Kew, AIR-27-1694-17/18, Free Czechoslovak Air Force, Idnes Magazine.

Research from Tom Dolezal:

Antonín Ocelka was born 27 May 1913, at Lipník nad Bečvou, a small town near Přerov in the Olomouc Region of Czechoslovakia.

After attending elementary schools in Hlinsk and Lipník nad Bečvou, Antonín then studied mechanical engineering at a secondary technical school. On graduation, he commenced his compulsory military conscription on 1 October 1935, and sent to the 152 Artillery Regiment at Olomouc, where he also graduated from its NCO school, reaching the rank of sergeant.

After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, they quickly disbanded the Czechoslovak military with all personnel being sent home. His first attempt to escape covertly over the border to Poland failed, but his second attempt was successful and he reported for duty at the Czechoslovak Consulate, Krakow on 9 July. After temporary billeting at the Kastelholm on 1 August.

French law did not permit foreign military units on its territory in peacetime. So the Czechoslovaks, as a condition of their travel to France, were required to join the French Foreign Legion on a five year contract, with the condition that should war be declared they would be released from their Legion contract and allowed to join French military units. On 2 August, Antonín was at the Legion’s recruitment Centre at Palace Ballard, Paris at the rank of Private. He was then transferred to the Legion’s 1st Regiment training centre at Siddi-bel-Abbes, Algeria.

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and two days later France and Great Britain declared war on Germany. Thus Antonín and his fellow Czechoslovaks were released from their Legion’s contract and returned to mainland France to join Czechoslovak units. On 26 September, at the rank of Sergeant, he was posted to the 12th Company of the 1st Infantry Regiment. On 16 December he was transferred to the replacement battery and on 15 January 1940 to the 3rd Section of the 8th Artillery Battery. After the French capitulation, his unit was evacuated from Sète, on the French Mediterranean coast to Gibraltar aboard the Northmoor. At Gibraltar, they boarded the Viceroy of India which sailed in a convoy to England, arriving at Plymouth on 7 July.

After security vetting, on 1 August the Czechoslovaks were initially transferred to the Czechoslovak retrenchment camp at Cholmondeley. After acceptance into the RAF VR, at the rank of AC2, he was transferred to the Czechoslovak Depot at RAF Cosford on 17 August. On 21 September transferred to No 6 School of Technical Training for training as an aircraft fitter. On 8 February 1941 he was promoted to the rank of AC1 and completed his training as a Fitter IIA and posted to 311 (Czechoslovak) Squadron deployed at East Wretham. That June he volunteered for pilot training. He was accepted and on 21 July was transferred to No. 1 ACRC (Air Crew Reception Centre) at London’s Regent's Park. His next transfer was on 20 September to No. 4 ITW (Initial Training Wing) at Paignton, for a aviation theory course. Antonín graduated from the course and on 4 April 1942, was transferred to No. 3 EFTS at Shellingford for elementary pilot training at, then on 13 May to No. 22 EFTS at Cambridge.

From 19 August , he attended further pilot training attending Course 41 at the Service Flying Training School at RAF Cranwell. Completing that course and promoted to the rank of Sgt on 2 February 1943, he was transferred, on 2 March, to 57 Operational Training Unit at Eshott. He successfully completed that course and, on 5 April, posted to 312 (Czechoslovak) Fighter Squadron.

That year, between 29 October and 13 November he completed a further an aerial gunnery course in No. 3 Gunnery Course at No. 1487 (Fighter) Gunnery Flight at Fairwood Common.

Whilst flying Spitfire HF.Mk.IXC ML148 (DU-A) on 7 July 1944, he had an engine failure and had to make an emergency landing at RAF Friston. Antonín was unhurt in the crash in which his aircraft was damaged, and he was commended for the skilled landing.

On 17 September 1944, the Allies launched the largest airborne operation of WW2 – Operation Market Garden - General Montgomery’s daring plan to spearhead a roadway through Holland, over several bridges which needed to be captured, to Arnhem and over the bridge there into the Ruhr region of Germany.

Czechoslovak escapees went by train to Gydnia, on the Polish Baltic coast. From there they boarded Bronowice Małe, with other, a 921 tonnage Swedish coastal-cruising ship, and sailed to France, arriving at Calais 310 and 312, Czechoslovak fighter squadrons, under the command of W/Cdr Tomáš Vybíral DFC participated in this Operation. Their task was to protect the two thousand Allied airplanes and gliders from enemy fighters and destroy anti-aircraft defence ground installations in the designated area.

On 18 September, 312 Sqn were providing fighter escort to Dakota’s dropping further troops and supplies for this Operation. It was to be the last flight of his operational tour and to go on leave. However he did not return from that flight and it was only that December, that news of his capture was received back in the UK.

It was Antonín Ocelka's last flight before the end of his operational tour and he was on vacation. But F/Sgt Ocelka did not return from escorting the Dakota over the Netherlands on 18/09/1944, he was listed as missing and it was not until the beginning of December that news of his capture came. On that flight, his Spitfire HF.Mk.IXc, MK682 DU-C, was hit by flak. He managed to make an emergency landing in the marshes near the town of Strijen, about 10 km southwest of Dordrecht, but he was seriously injured in the face. He was found by two Dutch farmers, who provisionally treated him and took him by car to the village doctor. The injury was very serious and required professional care. Concerned for the pilot's eyesight, the local Mayor, after consulting with two Dutch policemen, decided to take him to a German military hospital, which meant capture.

Antonín thus became the last Czechoslovak member of the RAF who was captured on the Western Front. He spent the rest of the war in German prison camps until he was liberated on 26 April 1945 by the American 10th Armoured Division. After returning from captivity to the UK he was at No. 106 PRC [Personnel Reception Centre] at RAF Cosford prior to transfer to the Czechoslovak Depot, also at Cosford. On 18 July he was transferred to No 50 Group [Pool] for a flying refresher course at 28 SFTS and ground training. Antonín returned to Czechoslovakia on 18 August 1945.

In Czechoslovakia, he returned to 312 Squadron, now deployed at Prague-Ruzyně airfield and later to Planá airfield near České Budějovice. He subsequently posted, at the rank of štábní kapitán [S/Ldr] worked at the Aviation Academy there as a flying instructor and Deputy Commander of the pilots school. Later he was posted to Olomouc as a flying instructor where they were covertly training Israeli pilots to fly the Spitfires that the Czechoslovak Air Force had now sold to Israel.

His last flight was on 1 July 1949, when he was piloting a twin-engined Aero C-3B [Siebel Si 204D] which crashed in the Železné hory [Iron Mountains] near Lhůta east of Čáslav airbase. štábní kapitán Antonín Ocelka is buried in the family grave in Hlinsk near Lipník nad Bečvou.

The names of the brothers Josef and Antonín Ocelk are commemorated on a plaque at their birthplace and in various other locations in the Czech Republic. In 2018, one of the streets in Brno, has been named Bratří Ocelků [Ocelka brothers]

Medals:

British:

Good Conduct Badge Czechoslovak:

Válečný kříž 1939,

Za chrabrost před nepřítelem Za zásluhy I. st.

Other sources as quoted below:

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