Operation Out Distance
Out Distance was the code name of a covert operation of the Czechoslovak Resistance against the Nazi occupation organized by the Czechoslovak Army in Exile , which was to be carried out in the area of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (part of occupied Czechoslovakia ) during World War II . It was the seventh in a series of agent operations by the Ministry of Defense of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London and the first to be sabotaged.
Operation group
The three-person operations group consisted of
- the leader Oberleutnant Adolf Opálka (born January 4, 1915 in Rešice , † June 18, 1942 in Prague ; code name Adolf Král ),
- his deputy, NCO Karel Čurda (born October 10, 1911 near Třeboň (southern Czech Republic); † April 29, 1947 in Prague ; code name Karel Vrbas )
- and the corporal Ivan Kolařík (born March 22, 1920 in Valašské Meziříčí , † April 1, 1942 in Vizovice near Zlín ; code name Jan Krátký ).
Adolf Opálka
Karel Čurda
Ivan Kolařík
prehistory
In 1938, in a skilful combination of violence and politics with official toleration by the Western powers, the National Socialists annexed the Sudetenland in the Munich Agreement , then marched into the rest of the Czech Republic and had the so-called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia there with a collaborating, anti-Bolshevik government under Emil Hácha and Slovakia was separated under a pro-German puppet government. An official declaration of war by the officially incumbent Czech and Slovak governments against the Allies was to be feared. On site, Reinhard Heydrich, as Reich Protector, ensured intensive monitoring and persecution of the Czech resistance as well as an intensive expansion of the armaments production that was important for the Wehrmacht, far away from the Allied combat flight units. In 1941 the President of the Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London, Edvard Beneš, found himself in the difficult position of maintaining the claims to the independence and independence of Czechoslovakia. With the entry of the United States into the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the decisive turn of the war was expected in 1942. Beneš issued slogans to persevere and was convinced that he would be able to support the local resistance decisively with agents and material that were parachuted in secret actions were. He considered it particularly important to shut down the Škoda works in Pilsen , which produced a third of the armaments for the Wehrmacht and above all tanks and cannons for the Russian campaign . Škoda was the second largest production facility for armaments after Krupp in Essen. In view of the high goals and partial underestimation of the brutal approach of the opposing side, the government-in-exile accepted high losses in the parachute operations.
occasion
On March 15, Benes was able to convince the British government of the need to bomb the Škoda plants. The Steel Operations Group was renamed Out Distance and trained how and where the radio direction finder was to be installed, with the help of which the British bombers were to be guided to their destination. The device known as the Rebecca set (operation name Eureka ) was developed by the Royal Air Force for use by agents. It sent a signal that could guide an aircraft to its destination from a distance of 25 miles. Disguised as a cookie jar and transported in a suitcase, it could be set up and put into operation by one person within a minute. After consulting Arthur Harris (called "Bomber-Harris"), the British Aviation Department agreed to the bombing of the Skoda factory in collaboration with Out Distance under the operation name "Canonbury".
assignment
The group was supposed to carry out a sabotage attack on the gas works in Prague-Michle and to hand over a replacement radio of the type Mark III with a coding key to the operation group Silver A.
Then the navigation of British bombers to the Škoda works in Pilsen was to be supported from the ground with the help of the radio direction finder "Eureka (Rebecca)".
Jump
On the eve of March 28, 1942 from 20:00 a British raised Halifax - bomber of the Royal Air Force on the secret Royal Air Force station Temps Ford in the English county of Bedfordshire and came after eleven and a half hours of night flight around 7:30 am the next morning. In addition to the Polish crew and the Out Distance Operations Group, members of the Zinc Operations Group as well as explosives, radio equipment, encryption codes and other items of equipment were on board at departure . In the last minute the group was equipped with a radio direction finder transmitter "Eureka (Rebecca)" for the planned air raids on the Škoda plants.
Due to a change of plan and a navigation error by the flight crew, the parachutists from Operation Out Distance missed their planned landing target at Kopidlno in the north of the Czech Republic near the city of Jičín and instead landed 130 km south of the village of Ořechov near the city of Telč in the south of the Czech Republic at around 2 a.m. During the difficult parachute landing on snowy terrain in the dark and in unexpected surroundings, the head of Operation Adolf Opálka seriously injured his leg (one source speaks of a broken leg), so that he had to rely on assistance to move. The group had to give up a significant amount of their material because they could not find the dropped cargo parachute.
Termination and consequences
Adolf Opálka decided under the considerably worsened conditions to bury the radio direction finder and to disband the group, i. H. everyone should get by on their own for now. He went to his close aunt Marie Opálková, who looked after and cared for his injured leg. For this she was killed on October 24, 1942 in Mauthausen concentration camp .
Ivan Kolařík made his way east to his parents' home in Valašské Meziříčí in Moravian Wallachia . Now Kolařík had also lost his wallet when he jumped with identification documents made out in the false name Jan Krátký and the photo and address of his fiancée Hrušáková. All of this fell into the hands of the Gestapo shortly afterwards , and they immediately pursued them. She issued a public arrest warrant with photos. In a hopeless situation, Kolárik tried to protect his family from reprisals by killing himself with poison on the way to the town of Vizovice near Zlín in April 1942 . His sacrifice was in vain, however. On 30 May 1942, both his own family and that of his bride Hrušáková were unceremoniously executed in Brno on the charge that Ivan Kolařík had obtained a real passport and food cards.
Adolf Opálka and Karel Čurda met in Prague in April 1942. They took part in the nocturnal attempt by the Silver-A team to control Allied warplanes from the ground during the bombing of an armaments factory in Pilsen. However, the efforts failed. After returning to Prague, Opálka was appointed commander of parachute agents in the Protectorate.
Opálka joined Operation Anthropoid , which was preparing the assassination of the Deputy Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich . The assassination attempt succeeded, but later, through Čurda, the Gestapo received information that enabled them to find the hiding place of the assassins in the Church of St. Cyril and Methodius . In fierce fighting over the church, Opálka and other agents perished or died by suicide before they could be caught by the overwhelming force of 800 security forces.
Karel Čurda went to Valašské Meziříčí to find out how Ivan Kolařík had fared. After the war he was captured and hanged in Pankrác prison on April 29, 1947 for treason .
literature
- Callum McDonald: The Killing of Reinhard Heydrich: The SS "Butcher of Prague". Da Capo Press, 1998, ISBN 0-306-80860-9 , p. 202. (English)
Web links
- Out distance; Airdrops during WW II 1939 - 1945 Article on the website of the Valka publishing house for Czech literature with military reference