Prague/Chrudim, East Bohemia, May 30 (CTK) – Czech and British troops marked on Tuesday the 75th anniversary of Operation Anthropoid that aimed to kill high Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich with their parachute jump from 3,000 metres above the Chrudim airfield, the British Embassy in Prague said on Tuesday.
Czechoslovak paratroopers who killed Heydrich trained for the operation in British military facilities in Scotland. In 1942, they were dropped above the Nazi-occupied Czech territory, they ambushed Heydrich in Prague and went into hiding in the city, but the Gestapo revealed them and they died in the shooting.
British soldiers Christopher Prior and Glenn Hobbs and members of the Czech military’s 43rd airborne battalion stationed in Chrudim jumped together. As a symbol of the alliance between the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom, they unfolded the British and Czech flags during the jump.
British Ambassador Jan Thompson said she appreciated the cooperation of British and Czech troops deployed in missions together.
Same as 75 years ago, British and Czech paratroopers keep risking their lives to provide security in Europe, she said.
The Czech airborne battalion served together with British forces in the Afghan provinces of Badakshan and Logar, the Macedonian peacekeeping operation Essential Harvest and the SFOR and IFOR contingents in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 2010, the battalion cooperated with British military instructors stationed in Vyskov, south Moravia, within the preparation for deployment in foreign missions.
Lieutenant Colonel Duncan Mann, commanding officer of the British parachute regiment (2 PARA), also visited Chrudim to talk about further British-Czech parachute cooperation.
