Red Sky at Night

A Czech pilot's incredible experiences as a Legionnaire, a saboteur…and a prisoner.


JO CAPKA was a Captain in the Czechoslovak Air Force who escaped to Poland following the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Determined to continue the fight, he joined the French Foreign Legion. Relief came with the declaration of war and secondment to the French Air Force, but when France was overrun, Jo fled to the South of France where at Bordeaux he joined a group of Polish Airman on a ship bound for England.


He then joined the RAF and was posted to the newly formed 311 (Czech) Bomber Squadron. He flew 56 bombing missions in Wellingtons and was awarded the DFM. Severely injured over Normandy in June 1944, he was treated by the pioneering plastic surgeon Sir Archibald McIndoe.


After the war, he returned to Czechoslovakia with his wife, a former WAAF, to run a flying school, but following the communist coup in 1948 was arrested as a British spy and charged with High Treason. He spent 7.5 years in prison, 14 months in solitary confinement, and was only released after the death of Stalin. He returned to England 1957.