British aircraft

QUICK LINKS

ANTONIN KAREL PADEVIT
(30.3.1918 Duchcov - 17.4.1983 London)

1) Introduction

2) Russia

3) Africa

4) England

England, Czechoslovakia and back

Now begins the last part. I have no idea when my dad went to England. The reason I started looking on the internet was to try and find paperwork of these Czech men and see how they moved around Africa to England. Somebody must know!! Please translate those last photos I sent :)

I do know father and some other men were sent to the Bahamas for training and will send you photos of that. He was camped at Glamorganshire in Wales with the 311 squadron. On the other side of this camp was another camp. From this other camp he met my mother :) She was a "flight mechanic airframer" They married in 1943 and had a daughter named Jana. But she died at age 3 weeks. Father was away at this time. Mother tells me of the terrible air-raids and always running for the underground shelter. She still covers her ears when she hears sudden too loud noises. Mother is now 81.

Because my parents didn't speak each other language, they didn't communicate very good. So mother never knew what dad had been doing whenever he had a chance to come home.

When the war was over Dad went back to Czech. and then sent for my mother and my brother ( born in 1945). Once again my father would be in a resistance but this time against the Russians. He would become an underground leader and help people to escape out of Czech. Mother tells me of the "NKVD" coming to the house and offering my father a big new home if he would become communist. But he refused. The NKVD were watching all the time and they knew he had been in the RAF. Finally my mother and brother left by train back to England. My father had to escape across country on foot with a few others.

He told me a story.... at 1 isolated place near a checkpoint, a couple of russian guards and a german shepard dog. Father and these few people with him were hiding in the field but close enough to hear the guards talking. One guard told the other to let the dog loose, but he wouldn't because he knew the dog would be killed. Father had already taken his shirt off and wrapped it around his hand and arm, if the dog attacked he would kill it. One other story of this time, he told me about a place they had to cross that was swamps, bogs. The only way to get across was to lay down and roll.

So he finds himself back in England and then I am born :) He continues to help get people out of Czech. but I don't know how. He could never go back even when his mother was dying. We then moved to Canada in 1957 as dads aunt lived here, Jiri this part you don't write about LOL We moved here to get away from a woman my father was seeing in England. This woman started to write letters to aunts address and my mother found them. So my parents divorced in 1961 and father disappeared from my life until 1982.

It was very strange to get a phone call from father after 21 years, as you can imagine. He came for a 3 week visit, that photo of him and me Jiri, thats my first time seeing him. He died the following spring, alone.

So Jiri, that ends the story, I've probably forgotten some things but you have most of it. I hope you find it interesting and I will include last of photos with this email. Before I go I must tell you....Life was very hard as a child with father, you have no idea, but I forgive him because to live war as he did and survive from beginning to end is unbelievable.

LOIZA

Hello Jiri, At this late hour I am going to finish my fathers story as best as I can :) But first about Loiza. I don't know anything about him personally. He moved to Canada shortly after we did in 1957. He married a french woman and had no children. I tell you I loved him very much and was sad we didn't see him as much after my parents divorced. He died of an asthma attack while in his 50's and is buried in Ville St Laurent Montreal. I am sending you a picture of Loiza and my father. He is on the left with binoculars. We used to go hunting and I was only 10 when I took this photo. Thats why the camera looks upward towards them because I'm a child. Even though the war was over they loved their guns and hunting and fishing. That could be Loiza in that list.