Hradec Kralove, East Bohemia, Oct 21 (CTK) – Daniel Shapira, a living legend of the Israeli Air Force, returned to Hradec Kralove, where he and other Israeli pilots were trained in the former Czechoslovakia for war in 1948, after 67 years Wednesday.
In 1948, Shapira flew right from the local airfield on the British Spitfire to Israel where he joined the struggle for national independence.
Shapira, now 90, laid a flower at a commemorative plaque, saluted and remembered the other pilots.
“At the time of our training, the landing ground was nothing but a field without any equipment, no runway. As the fields were everywhere in Czechoslovakia, we could not often find the place to land,” he told CTK.
As he recalled, the pilots remembered various points such as a river or sand-pits around the airfield that served for their orientation.
Shapiro said the trained pilots were the first pilots of the Israeli Air Force.
“We say that starting with Hradec Kralove, the Israeli Air Force could grow,” said Shapira, accompanied by his wife and two sons during the trip.
There was also Hugo Marom, born as Hugo Maisel in 1928 in Brno.
Marom was one of the children saved by Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish children by helping them leave Czechoslovakia before the beginning of World War Two.
After the war, Marom underwent the pilot training in Olomouc, north Moravia, and in 1949, he joined the fight for Israeli independence.
Both pilots are in the delegation of Israeli President Reuven Rivlin now on a visit to the Czech Republic.
In Hradec Kralove, the pilots also visited the Sion High School.
“We cooperate with the embassy of Israel,” the director of the Christian Centre Sion, Denis Doksansky, said.
The secret pilot training in 1948 included some future senior officers of the Israeli Air Force such as General Mordechai Hod, who commanded it in the Six Day War, and Colonel Haim Izaiah Shwartzman, later commander of the Israeli air academy.
After Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, it was attacked by the neighbouring Arab countries. The former Czechoslovakia offered military help to Israel and trained Israeli pilots in a number of its airfields in 1948.
Czechoslovakia also delivered arms to the nascent nation.
