{"id":3527,"date":"2010-09-05T22:37:46","date_gmt":"2010-09-05T21:37:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=3527"},"modified":"2010-10-17T12:07:12","modified_gmt":"2010-10-17T11:07:12","slug":"spitfires-hurricanes-and-czechs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=3527","title":{"rendered":"Spitfires, Hurricanes and Czechs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I was younger, I used to attend a couple of air displays each year in pursuance of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/FAQ.html#Aircraft\">my lifelong interest in aviation<\/a>. But it&#8217;s been six years since I went to a display &#8211; until today.<\/p>\n<p>My wife Vee and I spent the day at the I<a href=\"http:\/\/duxford.iwm.org.uk\/\">mperial War Museum Duxford<\/a> in Cambridgeshire, partly to link up with some of her friends from the Czech Republic and partly to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Battle_of_Britain\"> Battle of Britain<\/a>. Vee&#8217;s friends &#8211; Zdenek Sadecky and Josef Vochyan\u00a0 &#8211; are from the Jihlava area of the Czech Republic and are members of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.czechspitfireclub.cz\/?sekce1=aktuality_en\">Czech Spitfire Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Zdenek hosted a visit to Jhilava by Vee and her twin sister for a series of events to mark the 50th anniversary of their father&#8217;s death and, in a week&#8217;s time, they will be back there to attend events marking the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.<\/p>\n<p>Vee and I have a particular personal interest in Second World War aviation because her Czech father<a href=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk.html\"> Karel Kuttelwascher<\/a> flew with the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain in 1940 and on night intruder operations in 1942 when he shot down 15 German bombers in three months. I researched and wrote his biography which was published in 1985.<\/p>\n<p>Among the many stalls at Duxford was one listing the names and displaying the photographs of the 88 Czechoslovak pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain including Vee&#8217;s father. Then the flying display by the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/bbmf\/\"> Battle of Britain Memorial Flight<\/a> featured a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raf.mod.uk\/bbmf\/theaircraft\/hurricanepz865.cfm\">Hawker Hurrciane IIC<\/a> painted in the colours of Kuttelwascher&#8217;s wartime aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>Flying Spitfires and (even more so) Hurricanes are scarce so long after the war, but today&#8217;s air display at Duxford included an exciting flypast by four Hurricanes and a thrilling flypast by no less than 16 Spitfires. The sight and sound of these fighters was simply wonderful and a fitting remembrance to all the RAF pilots who defended Britain and prevented invasion in 1940.<\/p>\n<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/Spitfires.jpg\" border=\"3\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"270\" \/><br \/>\n<span>16 Spitfires as photographed by Josef Vochyan<\/span><\/center><br \/>\n<span>Footnote: You can see some film by JV of the flypast <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/JoeVochy#p\/u\">here<\/a>.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I was younger, I used to attend a couple of air displays each year in pursuance of my lifelong interest in aviation. But it&#8217;s been six years since I went to a display &#8211; until today. My wife Vee and I spent the day at the Imperial War Museum Duxford in Cambridgeshire, partly to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3527"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3537,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3527\/revisions\/3537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}