Brookwood Cemetery - Everlasting Love

 5^th October 1945.   The Second World War is over.  Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) was celebrated 8^th May, followed by Victory over Japan Day (VJ Day) celebrated on 2^nd September.

Foreign service personnel who were still in the UK, were being repatriated back to their home counties and their families. 

Version of  Consolidated Liberator GR.VI

So, 5^th October 1945 a Consolidated Liberator GR.VI, (Flight KG867) was about to take off from RAF Blackbushe, Hampshire to Ruzyně Airport, Prague, Czechoslovakia a journey of 665 miles.  On board were 23 people – 5 crew, 17 official passengers and 1 stowaway.  Three of the crew were Pilot Officer Jaroslav Kudláček, 25-year-old from Chrudim, eastern Bohemia; co-pilot, Warrant Officer Antonín Brož, 31-year-old from  Hradec Králové, northern Bohemia and flight engineer Flight Sergeant Zdeněk Sedlák, 33-year-old from Prague.

The Consolidated Liberator GR.VI, was a four-engined B-24 Liberator having been used as a long-range maritime patrol aircraft and a heavy bomber. It had seen service with 311 Squadron and flown under RAF Coastal Command since June 1943. 

June 1945, 311 Squadron had been transferred to RAF Transport Command and GR.VI Liberators had been converted to military transport aircraft.  Each f the aircraft had a temporary wooden floor, covering the bomb bay doors, the cargo and passenger’s doors were inserted on the side of the fuselage.  Passengers themselves were transported on wooden benches. 

Jaroslav Kudláček

Pilot Officer Jaroslav Kudláček, who had married British girl.  Their first son was born October 1941, they were looking forward to his 4^th birthday.  Mrs Kudláček had given birth to their second son 10 days previously.  Jaroslav Kudláček had returned from Royal Hospital, Wolverhampton.

The flight had been scheduled on the 4^th, three times an attempt was made to take off, but in the end, it had to be aborted until the 5^th due to problems with one of the engines.

On the 5^th, three Liberators were to take off from Blackbushe.  Flight KG867 with took off 12:43 or 14:20,  the aircraft made a normal circuit of the airfield and turned towards Prague.

Elvethem Hall, Hartley Witney 

Three minutes into the flight a fire broke out on the aircraft’s main wing and losing height.  Jaroslav Kudláček tried to turn back to airfield, clipping a hedge, causing the port engine to hit the ground of a field of Elvethem Hall estate, before doing a cartwheel, disintegrated and bursting into flames.  All those on board perished.

The 17 official passengers included Marina Paulinyová, 46-year-old, Vice-Chairman of the Czechosolvak Red Cross based in London.  5 children also died, the youngest being 18 months old.

Zdeněk Sedlák

However, another body was found in the crash site, so badly burnt, that investigators couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman.  At first the body’s identity remained a mystery, LACW Sedláková, the wide of Flight Sergeant Sedlák, was reported missing after the plane had taken off and she failed return back to her flat in London.

Edita Sedláková 

Sedláková had been born Edita Hermannová, a Czechoslovak Jew who reached the UK as a Winton refugee in 1939. Her father had already died at that time and her brother Kurt had entered UK independently as a refugee a few months earlier in 1939. The Germans had murdered their mother, Hedvika, at Auschwitz in October 1944. After schooling in England Edita enlisted in the WAAF and was posted to 311 Squadron, where she and Sedlák met. They were married in May 1945. Sedláková was described as "a high-spirited girl" who was "deeply in love with her husband". About a fortnight before the crash, Sedláková had secured her discharge from the RAF so that she and Sedlák could return to their homeland together. She was last seen at Blackbushe in the vicinity of luggage that was to be loaded onto the aircraft. Either by herself or with the help of others she had boarded KG867 unauthorised. Sedláková was the only WAAF fatality in the six-year history of 311 Squadron

Following the accident, the Czechoslovak Government announced on the 6^th that it terminated repetition of its nationals from the UK by air transport.

Edita Sedláková Memorial Plaque 

Zdeněk Sedlák Grave

On the 11^th October, 18 victims were buried at Brookwood Cemetery, and the five crew members were buried in the Czechoslovak section Brookwood Military Cemetery.  13 of the passengers, including stowaway Edita Sedláková were buried in a common grave.  November 2015, a small plaque commemorating Sedláková’s RAF service was added in the front of the monument.

Her name was added on her husband headstone.