Prague, May 10 (CTK) – Czech war veteran Jaroslav Hofrichter, who was a shooter aboard bomber aircraft serving in the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War Two, died at the age of 95 in a Prague hospital on Monday, Jiri Caletka, from the Defence Ministry press section, told CTK yesterday.
“Hofrichter was a hero who did not hesitate to risk his life among the RAF in the fight for the restoration of our national freedom,” Defence Minister Martin Stropnicky said.
At the age of 18 in 1938, Hofrichter took part in a pilot training. After the Czech lands were occupied by the Nazi Germany, he joined the Czechoslovak army abroad in the British Palestine in 1940, to which he got via Hungary and Yugoslavia. When he moved to Britain, he joined the RAF’s 311th Bomber Squadron whose members were Czechs and Slovaks only.
After the war he worked as an aircraft maintenance technician at Prague-Kbely airport.
In 1949, following the Czechoslovak communist coup, he was arrested, interrogated and dismissed from the military. Until his retirement in 1975, he had a job of an adjuster in Prague.
After the regime’s fall, Hofrichter was promoted to the rank of colonel. He received a number of Czechoslovak, Czech and allied decorations. In 2014, he obtained the Cross of Merit of the Minister of Defence.
