„NOTHING AND NOBODY WILL STOP US“

(A note in the diary of Sgt Mjr Jan Kubiš, who completed the SOE course in Scotland in 1941, and became a participant in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich)

In I think it was about June 1942 I looked at the morning newspaper and there was a story that Heydrich, the so-called „Protector“ of Czechoslovakia who had in fact been just sending about two thousand people a month to their deaths in concentration camps, had been assasinated. And that morning a chap called Captain Hesketh-Pritchard, who I knew, came up to me and said, „You´ve seen the paper this morning? Those are the chaps you trained“.
(Colonel (retd.), then Lieutenant, Ernst Van Maurik, SOE instructor of Czechoslovak trainees)

Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by German armies, many officers and NCOs, reservists, privates and civilians, which were called to service during the mobilisation in 1938, decided to leave the occupied motherland and fight against Nazism abroad. Most of them joined the French army. Following the defeat of France many Czechoslovak soldiers evacuated from French ports to Great Britain, and were organised into the 1st Czechoslovak Independent Brigade, at first at Cholmondeley Park, and then at Leamington Spa. This is where begins the history of
Czechoslovak paratroopers

The training of Czechoslovak volunteers

Recruitment of volunteers for „Special Operations“ began at Leamington Spa in the spring of 1941. For a short time theraefter the Czechoslovak volunteers kept arriving individually at secret Special Training Schools (STS) of the SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE (SOE) in Scotland, but as from July 1941, they came in groups of 18-20. Groups were billeted in requisitioned houses near the port of Arisaig: groups numbered 1-7 at Garramor (STS 25a), and Camusdarrach (STS 25b), and from July 1942 at Traigh House (STS 25c, groups 8-15). Based on available information on training which was terminated May 1943, the number of Czechoslovak trainees in Scotland reached more than three hundred, whilst the total number of trainees at all SOE STSs, in Scotland and in England, appears to be more than five hundred.*)

Following the paramilitary training in Scotland (physical training, field craft, orienteering, topography, sharp shooting, close contact fighting, explosives handling, wireless operation, subversive actions), those volunteers which were evaluated as suitable for clandestine operations were given parachute training at Ringway near Manchester, and finally special agent instruction in southern England.

Lists of names, which are under a continuous revision and are, therefore, not final, are given in the detailed section of this website. Out of more than three hundred [3,5,7] trainees, more that one hundred*) were enlisted into 48 parachute groups (whether dropped or cancelled at the last minute), and less than a half of them*) survived the end of the war. Three groups died in aicraft which were shot down or crashed in Germany or in Italy (IRIDIUM, BRONZE, SILICA), many trainees died in action within the Czechoslovak Independent Armoured Brigade whilst recapturing Dunkerque, within the Czechoslovak Army in Soviet Union liberating Slovakia, fighting among partisans during the Slovak National Uprising, and in other frontline actions after the invasion of France and Sicily.

The numbers of agents parachuted in 1941-43 into occupied Czechoslovakia is given as 31*) in 13 parachute drops (chronologically) BENJAMIN, PERCENTAGE, ANTHROPOID, SILVER A, SILVER B, ZINC, OUT DISTANCE, BIVOUAC, BIOSCOPE, STEEL, INTRANSITIVE, TIN and ANTIMONY. The drops CHROME and SHALE were only equipment drops. The remaining from the total of 48 planned drops (see the list below) occurred in 1944-45, even if some (9) were cancelled at the very end of war.

*) We are continuously checking with archives the numbers and personal details. Data on numbers and names of trainees, those who finished their training or did not, those who waited for their deployment and those who lost their lives in action, where and when, sometimes differ, whatever their fate, depending on the source or author. We are striving for an account as accurate as possible, namely as far as those names with few details are concerned. Any help in our effort is very welcome and appreciated.