Battle of Britain: Josef Frantisek, DFM & Bar 303 Squadron

Discussion in 'War Grave Photographs' started by CL1, Sep 16, 2010.

  1. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Battle of Britain London Monument - Sgt. J FRANTISEK

    The Airmen's Stories - Sgt. J Frantisek


    No 303 Kosciusko Polish Squadron achieved great fame and the status of the highest scoring squadron in the Battle of Britain: one of its pilots, Sergeant Josef Frantisek (who was in fact a Czech) being the highest scoring individual in the Battle of Britain with 17 ‘kills’ in just 27 days.

    Frantisek was a remarkable pilot who flew with a passion that few could match: within the Czech air force, from his earliest days he had been well-known for his exceptional flying and his lack of discipline. Following the seizure of Czechoslovakia in 1938 Frantisek escaped to Poland and became an honorary Pole. He seemed to have nerves of steel when in combat. The Northolt Station Commander, Group Captain S F Vincent, once had to reprimand Frantisek after he had ignored a Messerschmitt on his tail. Frantisek replied: “But he could not fire at me; I was too close on the tail of a bomber.”

    Frantisek’s method was to break formation, to proceed on solitary missions to score his ‘kills’, hunting as if by instinct. Once, after pursuing a fleeing German bomber, flight commander Flight Lieutenant Witold Urbanowicz had ordered Frantisek never to break formation again without permission. Two days later Frantisek disobeyed this order, endangering lives and undermining discipline in the squadron. Something had to be done. Squadron Leader Ronald Kellett and Urbanowicz came to a compromise: Frantisek would become a ‘guest’ of the squadron: he was therefore free to do what he was best at. The following day he shot down three more German aircraft.

    Unfortunately Frantisek was to be killed in a flying accident on 8 October 1940, and lies buried in Northwood Cemetery.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Interestingly neither DFM's are mentioned in Ian Tavender's two volumes that I can see. I suspect a typo or post war?
     
  3. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    thanks A
    found this re his awards (12oclockhigh)

    Československý válečný kříž (25.11.1940)
    Virtuti Militari 5th Class (18.9.1940)
    three times Krzyz Waleczny (21.9.1939, 18.9.1940, 1.2.1941)
    Croix de Guerre (unconfirmed)
    DFM and bar (11.9.1940, 4.10.1940)
    The 1939-1945 Star with Battle of Britain Clasp

    Viewing Page 5791 of Issue 34958

    VHÚ Praha
     
  4. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    He gets lots of mentions in ATB's BOB. I'll do some more digging later when the moaning stops ;)
     
  5. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    thanks A
     
  6. Drew5233

    Drew5233 #FuturePilot 1940 Obsessive

    Thursday, 8th August 1940.

    Hurricane V7245. Landed undercarriage up following training flight. Sergeant J. Frantisek unhurt. Aircraft damaged but repairable.

    Thursday, 5th September 1940.

    Hurricane R4175. Returned to base damaged following action against Bf 109's over Rochford 3.15 pm. Sergeant J Frantisek unhurt. Aircraft repairable.

    Friday, 6th September 1940.

    Hurricane R4175. Returned to base damaged following combat with Bf 109's over west Kent 9.25 am. Sergeant J Frantisek unhurt. Aircraft repairable.

    Monday, 9th September 1940.

    Hurricane P3975. Shot down in action with Bf 109's over Beachy Head forced-landed near Cambridgeshire Farm, Falmer 6.00 pm. Sergeant J Frantisek unhurt. Aircraft RF-U damaged but repairable.

    Tuesday, 8th October 1940.

    Hurricane R4175. Crashed at Cuddington Way. Ewell, Surrey during routine patrol 9.40 am. Cause unknown. Sergeant J. Frantisek killed. Aircraft a write-off.

    From ATB's The Battle of Britain.
     
  7. sol

    sol Very Senior Member

    CL1 likes this.
  8. hawker.1966

    hawker.1966 Senior Member

    Can anyone confirm whether Josef Frantisek had shot down Erich Braun on the 6/9/40 as stated in the book 303 (Polish Squadron) Battle of Britain Diary. By Richard King. Thanks.
     
  9. hawker.1966

    hawker.1966 Senior Member

    Hello Can anyone help me to confirm whether Jose Frantisek 303 sq had shot down Erich Braun flying BF 109 WN (2762) from 5 Jg 27 on the 6/9/40 (Tudeley Farm Tonbridge,) as in the book 303 (Polish) Squadron by Richard King it confirms this on page 346, a little confusing as some threads state that 601 Flt P.B.Robinson had claimed Luftwaffe Pilot Brauns Aircraft. Any help would be appreciated......
     
  10. erding

    erding Member

  11. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    The site below confirms only that he claimed a Messerschmitt, but nothing to identify the plane or pilot.

    On the 5th, he destroyed both a Bf 109 and a Ju 88; next day, he bagged another Messerschmitt;

    Czechoslovak airmen in the wartime Royal Air Force

    Regards
    Tom
     
  12. erding

    erding Member

    Hello Can anyone help me to confirm whether Jose Frantisek 303 sq had shot down Erich Braun flying BF 109 WN (2762) from 5 Jg 27 on the 6/9/40 (Tudeley Farm Tonbridge,) as in the book 303 (Polish) Squadron by Richard King it confirms this on page 346, a little confusing as some threads state that 601 Flt P.B.Robinson had claimed Luftwaffe Pilot Brauns Aircraft. Any help would be appreciated......

    Have just responded to your early post in another thread:

    http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/war-grave-photographs/29011-battle-britain-josef-frantisek-dfm-bar-303-squadron.html
     
  13. hawker.1966

    hawker.1966 Senior Member

    Trying all avenues as no one as yet can confirm.
     
  14. Peter Cornwell

    Peter Cornwell Junior Member

    Who did what to whom is a challenging area of research and particularly so over southern England on such a ‘busy’ day as 6 September 1940. However, detailed analysis of all RAF combat claims and Lw losses on the day does indicate with a high degree of certainty that Fw Erich BRAUN of 5./JG27 fell to ‘Weapon Yellow 1’ F/Lt P.B. ROBINSON of No.601 Squadron who claimed a 109 destroyed ‘near Mayfield’ (where the initial engagement commenced) the pilot having baled out. BRAUN vacated his 109 over Tonbridge it falling at Bank Farm, Tudely, at 9.20 a.m. - the only 109 to do so at that time and in that general area. ‘Apany Yellow 3’ P/O M. FERIC of No.303 Squadron meanwhile claimed a 109 ‘south of Farnborough’ (shared with several other RAF aircraft) which corresponds with the arrival (by parachute) of Oberlt Heinrich WALLER of 3./JG52 whose abandoned aircraft crashed at Foxbury Farm, Stone Street, near Sevenoaks around 9.20 a.m.
     
    CL1 likes this.
  15. hawker.1966

    hawker.1966 Senior Member

    Thanks Peter for your reply,
    There are also reports that 601 Squadron were over Mayfield around 9.20 AM on the 6/9/40, but some reports are that Pilot F.W. Braun was hit and made for home, but if he was hit by 601 squadron he would of had to make his way back inland towards Tonbridge.
    303 Squadron were in combat over Sevenoaks at around the same time, 303 Squadrons Sgt Karubins made a claim for a He 111, but was a Ju88A which crashed at Tanyards farm Tonbridge, so shows 303 Squadron and Frantisek were in the area at the time of combat.
    So possibly Frantisek could of struck F.W. Brauns 109 over Sevenoaks with Pilot Braun then making for home as white smoke was spotted from his engine,Frantisek had to make for home himself as his Hurricane had sustained a lot of damage
    Pilot Braun never made it home and so baled out over Tonbridge with his aircraft crashing at Banks farm Tonbridge. There are also findings that there was a Hurricane on the tail of Brauns aircraft after being shot already by another Hurricane possibly (Frantisek?) this is what possibly made Braun bale out as he was originally going to try and make for France and safety.
    Could this of been the Hurricane of 601 squadron Pilot Robinson? Possibly he may of thought he also had shot the aircraft down.
    At the end of the day i guess it doesn't really matter who shot him down as the RAF were a team, and every Kill counted at such a crucial time in the Battle and in our history .But this battle has always intrigued me, any other thoughts on this battle on the 6/9/40 would be much appreciated,
    Cheers
     
  16. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Buried Northwood Cemetery,Middlesex

    Sgt Joseph Frantisek a Czech, he fled to Poland when his country was over run and joined the Polish Air Force, then when Poland fell, he went to France (via North Africa) and joined the Armee de l'Air, and received the Croix de Guerre for an air-to-air victory. He then went to England when France fell, joined the RAF, and was a founding member of No 303 (Polish) Squadron. In the space of a month, he shot down 17 aircraft, 9 of which were Bf 109's. He was awarded the D.F.M. but otherwise received no official recognition for his exploits. Sgt J.Frantisek was killed when his Hurricane I (R4175) crashed on the 8th of October 1940, the cause was unknown.
    Frantisek had absolutely no concept of discipline or teamwork. He would fly in formation with the squadron until the enemy was sighted, then would go his own way. His exasperated British Squadron Leader finally decided enough was enough; for all his results, such behaviour couldn't be tolerated. He offered to arrange for Frantisek to transfer to a Czech squadron, but Frantisek preferred to stay and fight alongside his Polish friends. He was too good to be grounded, and all pilots were valuable, so a compromise was made. Frantisek was replaced in the Squadron formation, but allotted a "spare" aircraft so he could fly as a "guest" of the Squadron as and when - and how - he saw fit. Thus freed to fight his own private war, he would still accompany the squadron on intercepts sometimes, but at other times he would take off after them to fly a lone patrol over Kent, in the area through which he knew the German aircraft being intercepted would fly on their way back to base.
    Fa-pilots

    Battle of Britain London Monument - Sgt. J FRANTISEK
    JOSEF FRANTISEK
     

    Attached Files:

  17. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

  18. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Last edited: Sep 15, 2018
  19. dbf

    dbf Moderatrix MOD

    The Battle of Britain's Czech hero
    image.png
    Members of 303 (Polish) Squadron in September 1940 - Frantisek stands by the door of the hut

    Winston Churchill described the Battle of Britain pilots as "these splendid men… who will have the glory of saving their native land". But they weren't all British. A new film, Hurricane, tells the story of the Polish pilots of 303 Squadron - and highlights the brilliance of an often-overlooked Czech flying ace, Josef Frantisek.

    He was "remarkable - some thought a little crazy", wrote the historians Lynne Olson and Stanley Cloud. A Czech "who flew with a fury none of the others could match".

    Josef Frantisek has been credited with shooting down 17 enemy aircraft in one month at the height of the Battle of Britain - September 1940 - as Hitler sought to achieve the air superiority he needed to invade the UK.

    The Imperial War Museum calls Frantisek the "top scorer" of the Battle of Britain, and he is generally considered to be one of the top scorers of the entire war, despite his death in its very early stages.

    Beyond the statistics, however, Frantisek remains an elusive figure.

    "His aplomb in the sky is documented, of course, but not much else," Hurricane's director, David Blair, tells me.

    But Blair says he became fascinated by Frantisek - a "lone wolf" pilot who kept breaking away from the squadron to chase enemy planes on his own - and worked hard to discover more about him.

    "I like his freedom and wildness, his romantic attitude," says Czech actor Krystof Hadek, who plays Frantisek in the film. "He didn't have discipline - but he was the best."

    image.png
    Pilots of 303 Squadron in the new film, Hurricane, including Krystof Hadek (as Frantisek) at far left

    So how did he end up in Northolt, west London, flying with a squadron of Poles?

    Frantisek was born in 1914 in a village that became part of Czechoslovakia after the collapse of the Habsburg empire. He was a boisterous child, driving cars from the age of 12. But after training in the Czechoslovak air force he had to watch in huge frustration as that country's military was ordered not to resist Nazi invasion in 1939.

    Driven by what his mother called a "deadly hatred" of the Nazis he escaped across the border to Poland and started flying for the Polish air force but witnessed defeat later that year against overwhelming German power. Stories of Frantisek flying low in primitive planes to drop hand grenades on German units hint at his seemingly reckless courage against daunting odds.

    He fled Poland after its defeat and eventually made his way to France where he managed to fly in combat for exiled Polish and other units. Then, after the fall of France in June 1940, he headed for Britain, where he joined the RAF and the new Polish 303 Squadron.

    image.png
    Members of 303 Squadron in October 1940, with one of their Hurricane aircraft

    Frantisek chose to fly with the Poles because he admired their fighting spirit, but his Czech origins reinforced his status as something of an outsider.

    Another pilot in the squadron remembered Frantisek as tall, well-built but "sometimes a bit absent-minded, as if shrouded in a strange sadness".

    With their previous combat experience and burning desire to avenge what Nazi invaders were doing to their countries 303 Squadron's pilots longed to begin active RAF service. But their Canadian and British commanding officers were wary of the pilots' lack of English language skills, experience of radio communication and tight-formation flying.

    It was a situation guaranteed to frustrate Frantisek in particular - constantly challenging and exasperating authority throughout his career. But Frantisek's formidable flying skill was what counted when 303 Squadron was finally given permission to enter combat, at a time when the RAF, facing a growing Luftwaffe onslaught, was desperately short of trained pilots.

    Claims of enemy "kills" are a much-disputed area - researchers have found that Allied and German statistics do not match - but Frantisek's achievements certainly gave him one of the highest personal scores of any Battle of Britain pilot in Fighter Command.

    image.png
    Josef Frantisek, "shrouded in a strange sadness"

    Why was he so successful? Peter Devitt from the RAF Museum in London points to his willingness to fly close to the enemy before opening fire.

    His courage, says Devitt, like that of the Polish pilots around him, may have come from a sense of having "nothing to lose" given what had happened to his home country. But Devitt also points out that 303 Squadron lost fewer pilots during the Battle of Britain than most RAF units.

    Frantisek submitted his own laconic reports of his successes. On one action against a vastly superior German force he wrote of "swarms of Messerschmitt 109s diving to attack us" after which he "played hide and seek with them in the clouds", nearly collided with a German bomber and then shot down two enemy planes in a few minutes before he was hit. But north-east of Brighton he "found a cabbage field and made an excellent landing".
    What marked Frantisek out was his habit of breaking away from strict squadron formation to chase enemy planes on his own, often pursuing stragglers back across the Channel towards France.
    The Poles flew and fought as a team, and some of his comrades resented what they called "Frantisek's method". RAF and Polish officers in the squadron initially criticised his lack of discipline, arguing that it endangered everyone's safety. There was also a fear that younger pilots would seek to emulate him.
    But as his successes grew, there came about what Devitt calls a "remarkable compromise". Frantisek was given permission to take off with 303 Squadron as a kind of "guest" who could head off on his own. "The Czech ace was permitted to fight what was in effect a private war against the Germans," Devitt says.
    The squadron's impressive record did not go unnoticed. "Had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry," wrote Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, head of RAF Fighter Command, "I hesitate to say that the outcome of the Battle (of Britain) would have been the same."
    King George VI visited 303's Northolt base near London, and the Polish and Czech airmen were feted in the media.

    image.png
    Members of 310 (Czechoslovak) Squadron at Duxford in September 1940

    But within weeks there was a final, characteristically mysterious twist in the Frantisek story. The pilot who had survived so many hours of hazardous combat was killed in on 8 October 1940 after he broke away from his squadron and then apparently crash-landed in a field in Surrey. His aircraft flipped over and he was killed instantly.

    Rumours quickly circulated that suggested a death more befitting a romantic hero - that he had perhaps been performing low level acrobatics showing off to a girlfriend. But the reality is likely to have been more mundane - lack of fuel, exhaustion perhaps, a final, fatal misjudgement.

    Frantisek's life reminds us that the Battle of Britain pilots, symbols of extraordinary courage, faced enormous levels of physical and mental stress. It seems clear that he was plagued by anxiety and inner demons. One contemporary account of 303 Squadron by a Polish writer, said of Frantisek: "There was something truly moving, worthy of the deepest compassion, in the way this young daredevil, who took off against the enemy with the greatest of dash… was afraid of the Earth when he returned to the safety of his base."

    Shortly after Frantisek's death Hitler acknowledged that air superiority over the RAF had not been established, and the planned invasion of Britain was postponed indefinitely. And once the Battle of Britain was won the memory of pilots like Frantisek faded swiftly - as did the memory of the many from other nations, including Canada, New Zealand, and Caribbean states who had contributed hugely towards the RAF's "finest hour".

    image.png
    By 1943, 303 Squadron was flying Spitfires

    After the war, the Polish pilots felt their country had been betrayed to Soviet communism. And they were not included in victory celebrations in Britain, nor in war films celebrating RAF heroism. Other Polish contributions to the war effort - such as vital work in the cracking of the German Enigma code - went similarly unacknowledged.

    Meanwhile Polish and Czech ex RAF pilots who returned to their own countries often suffered terribly at the hands of new communist rulers who regarded them as imperialist agents tainted by their Western links. "They were treated as spies, it was so unfair," says Czech actor Krystof Hadek. Only since the end of communist rule has their memory been honoured.

    Frantisek's memory survived in Britain among a few who discovered what he had achieved. In 2011 the Wolf Brewery in Norfolk brought out a Lone Wolf beer in his honour.

    Others have researched recently where exactly he died - now the site of a nature reserve near Ewell in Surrey - and want to create a memorial for him there.

    "Not just his short but brilliant series of aerial victories, but also his unique and untamed nature make him unforgettable," writes the Czech historian Jiri Rajlich,

    Frantisek is not the central character of the new film, Hurricane, but director David Blair says he "didn't want him just making up the numbers".

    "I wanted to work on him 'growing' on the audience (and the Poles) and making the sense of loss all the more palpable by the end."


    Poles and Czechoslovaks in the Battle of Britain
    • According to the Imperial War Museum, 145 Polish airmen fought in the Battle of Britain, 79 in various RAF squadrons, 32 in No. 302 (Polish) Fighter Squadron and 34 in No. 303 (Polish) Fighter Squadron
    • There were also two Czechoslovak fighter squadrons, 310 Squadron and 312 Squadron, both based at Duxford in Cambridgeshire for the duration of the Battle of Britain


    Josef František - Wikipedia


    several threads now merged
     
  20. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    updated headstone photos

    upload_2021-3-8_18-15-8.png
    upload_2021-3-8_18-15-23.png
     
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